Photos are forthcoming.

*DISCLAIMER*
If you try this you do so at your own risk. If you burn down your house, kill your cat, accidentally gas yourself, it's your fault. The author has no responsibility. By following these instructions you have taken this on yourself. You have no legal foot to stand on to approach me if you fuck yourself up
*/DISCLAIMER*


Now that thats out of the way its on to our story.

A few months ago I wanted to set up a projection system after getting highly jealous of B's set up. Here is my story.

I purchased an old DLP Projector a few years ago for kicks. It was untested, old, and was literally sold off the back of a truck. Given this truck was at a show but still. I figured what the hell, it was only $60 so I figured what did I have to lose.

Well, myself and B promptly took it to the shop we used for everything and tried to get it to run. Plugged it in and turned it on, we were rewarded with an out of focus upside down setting screen. That lasted maybe 2 seconds. Then it went out.

We hit it from every angle we could think of. Since we got a picture we went with the assumption that the bulb was fine. Good news since I didn't want to blow $300 or so on a bulb to find out that wasn't the problem. We then thought it may be a bad thermal sensor, bad door sensor, bad fans, and after either bypassing and testing and then reconnecting everything we could to find the fault we finally said screw it and put it away for another weekend. We even tried to disconnect the ballast entirely but at that point the projector wouldn't respond or do anything. I gave up.

Well that happened to be over 2 years ago and it followed me from a condo to my new apartment. Every so often I would tinker with it and slowly I came to realize that thought the bulb was good the ballast was not. It was basically striking and dying. So I decided to see if there were schematics available on the ballast or even the whole projector. I found nothing. After getting annoyed I stumbled onto the projection forum at diyaudio.com someone had figured out how to trick the projector into thinking the ballast was still connected so he could use an alternate light source. I had wanted to do the same thing but I put the whole thing on the back burner since I couldn't find schematics and didn't feel like running down every wire in the beast.

The solution was so simple I wanted to kick myself. All I needed to do was bridge 2 leads on a connector to fool the projector. Too easy.

So these are the steps in more or less the order I did them.

The Projector bulb light engine retrofit.

1. Open the bulb door and remove the bulb.
2. Remove the fan mounted over the bulb assembly. Disconnect all the wires going to the ballast. Remove all the screws holding the ballast in and remove it. You may have to cut a few wires just be careful and make sure it doesn't got to something not related to the ballast. Cuz then you would have screwed your self and the project is over.
3. Flip over the projector. Remove the screws on the bottom that secure the top of the projector.
4. Turn it over slowly and lift the top off slowly. The control panel is attached via a ribbon cable so with the cover lifted reach under and disconnect the connector on the cover and then you can set this aside.
5. Locate the 8 conductor cable that comes out the right side of the main power supply. Disconnect it. Remember its orientation, as you will need to select and jumper 2 pins. I used a small stripped piece of wire and simply jammed it into the 2 holes on the connector to short those pins. I then secured the wire in place with a small piece of Electrical tape.
6. I then looked at the power switch and power connector. The connector is directly connected to the switch then the power from the switch goes into the power supply.
7. I took a old extension cord and hacked the ends off it so I had some heavy duty wire. I then started to fashion a new cable that plugs into the original power connector and switch and has leads that goes into the original wires and runs 120 switched to the new lamp assembly.
8. The original bulb connected to the original ballast by way of a set of contacts that joined up when it was inserted and locked into place. Well after removing the ballast I replaced the connector on the Projector side and connected those with the wires from the harness I had fashioned in step 7.
9. That being completed, I turned my attention to the bulb assembly. The assembly consisted of a large metal sled, a bulb mounted to the frame,  a connector and not much else. I disconnected the bulb from the sled by removing the wire that secured it in place. I then cut the wires from the connector near the bulb and crimped butt connectors on. Then nosing around in my junk box I found a piece of aluminum I had bent into a U shape for another project. I then took the light engine from an old overhead projector and attached the socket to the aluminum channel using machine screws. Then after drilling a few more holes I mounted the aluminum bracket and socket assembly to the sled. Amazingly enough the bulb was at nearly the perfect height and was placed to push light out the exact same spot as the original.  I then took the wires from the rest of the light engine and trimmed them down a bit before crimping them to the wires from the connector still residing on the sled.
10. Looking at it all I realized I was more or less finished. I reinserted the bulb sled with the new bulb and lighting circuitry into the projector, reassembled the whole thing and then went looking for a video source to plug into it for testing.

Testing the PJ.

I plugged in a small flash card player and ran power and AV lines to the projector. I stuck in a card and turned on the player. Crossing my fingers I turned on the projector. Fans started spinning, the light from the new halogen bulb came from the vent nice and brightly and lo and behold I had a image projected on my kitchen wall. I messed with the focus and it got crystal clear. I waited a bit, and the light held. I started a video and smiled hugely as it started playing on my kitchen wall.

IT was alive and kicking. After a few minutes, I started smelling a burning plastic smell. I turned it off and sniffed it. Apparently the extension cord couldn't take the heat of the bulb. I turned it back on and let it burn off. After a little while the smell stopped and it was all good. I'll have to open it back up again at some point and replace the cable with something better suited for the heat. But in the mean while whatever was burning stopped and there is no smell anymore and it's all good.

The Screen.

1. I did a bit of research on screens and they are prohibitively expensive, especially when you take into account the PJ is probably 10 years old. So I read a bit online and most of the DIY solutions involve ordering plastics, stretching fabric over a frame, or painting a wall. I didn't like any of those solutions. So it was off to home depot. I purchased a 48 inch width room darkening roller blind and mounting hardware.
2. I mounted the blind to the ceiling in front of my 46 inch HD TV after finding the center of the room and the ceiling.
3. Now I needed to mount the projector. I had purchased a heavy duty swing arm usually used for TV's a few years back to mount an overhead projector on. That was my first projection project. Well having found the center of the room, at the opposite end was a window. I mounted the swing arm on the side of the window so the projector would sit in the middle of the window.
4. With the PJ mounted, and the screen mounted it was time to wire everything up. This was when I discovered that I didn't have a cable nearly long enough to run the video signal. So it was off to the store again, this time Radio Shack. I picked up a 30 foot RCA Audio cable. I used the audio cable to run the video signal to the projector form the receiver.

Starting it for the first time and calibration.

With everything mounted and in place I put a DVD in the xbox360 and turned on the projector. I found out that since it was meant to sit on a desktop and focus on the wall, the height it was mounted at was an issue. Most of the projection was on the ceiling! SO I started grabbing boxes to level up the back of it then I had to zoom it all the way in because the image was huge and didn't even think of fitting on the screen. Once it was zoomed in nosing through the menu system allowed me to correct the keystoning due to the angle of projection.

Then I settled in and watched my first movie on the new system.

Total Cost.
(Statute of limitation say if you've owned it at least 2 years the cost cannot be figured into the price.)

1. PJ - Free
2. Overhead Projector (lighting engine) - Free
3. Bolts for swing arm - $3
4. Room Darkening shade 40" - $45
5. AV Cable - $15
6. Connectors - Free
7. Extension cord - Free
Total = $63

Actual Total Cost for All Components
(Statute of limitations be damned)

1. PJ - $60
2. Overhead Projector (lighting engine) - $30 (ebay)
3. Bolts for swing arm - $3
4. Room Darkening shade 40" - $45
5. AV Cable - $15
6. Connectors - $5 ??
7. Extension cord - $ 4??
Total = $162