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Budget CRT therater build thread
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winny




Joined: 09 Oct 2013
Posts: 403
Location: Sweden

TV/Projector: BD808s, BG1209/2


PostLink    Posted: Sun May 06, 2018 2:03 pm    Post subject: Budget CRT therater build thread Reply with quote


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Thought I would share my project. Have been away for a few years and the forum here seems to have died down to to 4K so better show that CRT isn't dead yet.

It all started when my best friend and colleague of sorts changed to a bigger warehouse and a part of the upper floor which isn't easily accessible for work and storage became available. Plenty of height and no "sensitive" parts we could not drill or mount things to. A good spot. Next up was "stuff". Being in the sound and light industry, we though we can put all the stuff which is not road-worthy, too heavy, obsolete or just very seldom used there and make sure it could be easily removed if there are four giggs at the same time or similar.


Projector hardware:
As for projector, I had two old 808s, my black BD808s with every option but orbiting in it and a white BG808s with failed EHT and quad but otherwise in good nick. Paid $60 each for them. Also plenty of spare parts from various sources, HD fury, port 3 DVI adapter, upgraded neckboards, modified port 5 board, LiMo board and so on. Nothing really high end.

We thought about what our goal and ambition were beforehand since we have a lot of projects which we have put much time and money into which where a great learning process and fun way to hang out but as we grew older, available time is much less so we need to make sure the projects runs along smoother and have more value to us once "finished". Also, my previous CRT endeavors has too much money sunk into them (by my economic standards) so the expectations has been too high. This time around, we aim for low budget.

First off we took out the laser distance measurement thing and found the center of the room and checked we would have clearance for the projector. Tried out a few different screens and placed a sofa as far back as we could and tested 4:3 and 16:9 images. We settled on a 2.35 m wide screen. Plan was to hang it by 50 mm pipes using clamps so it too could be removed quickly if there was a need for several presentations at the same time at different customer locations, but it's screwed in place for the moment.

Set the 4:3 picture on the tube face to give reasonable margin to the edges and backed the projector until reasonable overlap to the screen and rose the back of it to center the image.


Some old shelves where destined for the scrapyard but I cut one of them down to fit the projector and one shelf for amplifiers, scaler, HTPC and LaserDisc player. Not really a thought though construction, but it does the job.




Sound:
Next step was sound and boy do we have a lot of old projects from when money was tight but time, energy and ambition was high back in our 20s. My old dual JBL 2226 15" cinema subwoofers has seen several parties in the past but they are not meant for the road since they are form an old cinema installation. On top we have our old LEM 12" horns with whopping 400 W RCF drivers, some plastic CD horn and piezo tweeters. Not what you would call HiFi and they have a very distinct "horn" sound in the midrange. They are however available an play as loud as you would ever need. Let's see if they will be replaced in the future.


I have been saving an JBL DSC 260 three-way DSP based crossover for a long time now and the day finally came. Glorious rubber debounced buttons and a manual written by engineers to scare off the end user! I'm a big fan of parametric EQ on the output channels on crossovers and time-alignment which we made full use of to "de-horn" the sound of the midrange as much as possible. My friend has the best absolute pitch I've ever seen except for some savant kid on TV and it's truly amazing to see him at work with the EQ.



Theather:

By this time, you could say we had a cinema going but it was time to break out the secret weapon which even rich cool inner-city kids girlfriends won't allow them to buy despite the latest 4K laser-pumped projector, wall to wall black carpets, thick black molton on the walls and black fabric for the ceiling! Carpet was the easiest part although it did warp a bit which we pushed under the sofa. It sucks shoe prints worst than an episode of CSI, so the cinema is a shoe-free zone.



We ran steel cables across the ceiling an hung the black molton from it. Some pipework required a bit of tricks and custom cut pieces but they are properly wrapped in now.

For the ceiling, I borrowed a sewing machine and folded in plastic cable/rope. Not sure about the English term for them, but they are hanging from the steel cables but orthogonality and we didn't cover the florescent fixtures so it's still possible to light up the place and do work. The cloth is a bit too shiny although it does dampen out light more than the white ceiling. We tried heaver cloth but we would need to make fixture points for it. Good enough for now.




By this time, it became very black and pausing and getting up for more popcorn or similar required a flashlight. I've seen several cinemas with colored lights on the screen before the show starts. We were a bit low on space to hang them from so we made a 45x45 mm wooden beam (what's the English term?) with PAR16 in various colors, painted everything black and connected it via remote control.



Got a black IKEA LACK table. Cheapest there is. And black. Win-win.


Mobile phone camera image of how it looked. The black levels is a problem. Dark gray dissapears as black and convergence is a problem.




We watched several movies in this configuration, but I was never really happy with the convergence. When I had an entire day off, I installed Decibels old 120 MHz neckboards which he sold me several years ago, reset everything to mid position and adjusted the analog red and blue V and H shift and H size (is there an V size?) and made reference markers outside of the screen to help me level everything. Paid more attention to the electronic astigmatism and got a much sharper image.



I spent some time displaying a gradient for each tube and tuned the gain and offset to the best I could. No external CMS, just what's available to me. Dark gray didn't get the gamma boost it needs, but better.




Budget:
There where many loose purchases thoughout the years, but I'm in about $500 in CRT parts, paid $600 for the speakers, cables and cloth were $150, molton was about $300 but those are just borrowed for the project, carpet was free. I would estimate just under $2000 in so far.


Result:
Images to come, but we where blown away with the black level. When something faded to black, you lost perception of the room. A bit unreal at first Smile
As bright as you would ever need it considering the pitch black environmen.
Front fan is just a few dm form your ear. I will try to make a shroud for it. It's too open at the moment in order to the IR eye reception.
Unless there is too much black-white contrast in the same image, it's FREAKIN' CINEMA IMAGE QUALITY. It has a "softness" to it which you just don't get with digital.
Corner focus could be better.
Ghosting due to AC.

Future plans:
Move the image down. It would be a compromise with white screen even above the 4:3 image, but it's a slightly too high to be comfortable at the moment. It would also mean a more on-axis projection so a bit less geometry should be needed.

Less noise. We put a small mixer in series since the consumer level output is wayyy to low for the crossover and the downside of that old piece of gold is very limited range on both inputs and outputs. We need to investigate how much noise is coming from that thing since it's fixed point to my knowledge and we had to compromise the input gains on the amplifiers.

Joust mod with better lenses perhaps. A bit steep but tempting.

Rebuild for LC. A lot of work but the ghosting in for example Stranger things when El is in the Upside down is very noticeable.


I will edit and update with more details later on.



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Projector on shelf. Still level.
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Amplifier and crossover
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First test :-)
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Setting image width
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More carpet
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Carpet
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Adjusting height
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Salvaging parts form the BG808s to the BD808s. A motherboard transfer made it an effective BG.
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Peak into the theather
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Custom shelf
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_________________
Melifluonze wrote:
Digital is easy. This is torture, but far more interesting...


Last edited by winny on Mon May 07, 2018 7:37 am; edited 14 times in total
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Curt Palme
CRT Tech



Joined: 08 Mar 2006
Posts: 24296
Location: Langley, BC

TV/Projector: All of them!


PostLink    Posted: Sun May 06, 2018 2:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Just FYI on the speakers:

1) I'd get rid of the piezo tweeters, and use a dome tweeter.
2) I use EAW speaker cabinets, two double 15s per side, and the LCR are 12" with a horn. Can't remember the model. I found with the automatic setup in both the Onkyp and the Pioneer receivers that I've used, they do the eq perfectly, and my fronts and overall theater are very natural sounding.

If you're happy with things now though, then leave it. If you don't have a surround receiver, I am going to sell off my high end Pioneer 7.1 receiver soon. It's now a 'preceiver' as the power amps were shot and removed, but the DSP and preamp outs work fine. Original remote included. Will post in the buy/sell in the next month.
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winny




Joined: 09 Oct 2013
Posts: 403
Location: Sweden

TV/Projector: BD808s, BG1209/2


PostLink    Posted: Sun May 06, 2018 2:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

More images. Seems to be a limit per post


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Sewing
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Ceiling install
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Lights in action
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Colored lights on the screen, installation
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Laserdisc collection and sofa
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Speakers
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_________________
Melifluonze wrote:
Digital is easy. This is torture, but far more interesting...
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AnalogRocks
Forum Moderator



Joined: 08 Mar 2006
Posts: 26690
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

TV/Projector: Sony 1252Q, AMPRO 4000G


PostLink    Posted: Sun May 06, 2018 3:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I like the fact you put the projector and cart on the ceiling. Did you do that just so you could watch Stranger Things and make the upside down right side up? Laughing


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 Description:
The upside down
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winny




Joined: 09 Oct 2013
Posts: 403
Location: Sweden

TV/Projector: BD808s, BG1209/2


PostLink    Posted: Sun May 06, 2018 3:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

AnalogRocks wrote:
I like the fact you put the projector and cart on the ceiling. Did you do that just so you could watch Stranger Things and make the upside down right side up? Laughing


I need to find a better way to organize and upload the pictures. The JPEG rotation bit isn’t handed properly and I loose track of them in the upload process.

In the meantime, I raise you this if you haven’t seen it already:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6fB_n7PAfbQ

_________________
Melifluonze wrote:
Digital is easy. This is torture, but far more interesting...
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winny




Joined: 09 Oct 2013
Posts: 403
Location: Sweden

TV/Projector: BD808s, BG1209/2


PostLink    Posted: Sun May 06, 2018 4:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Even more images


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Finished product
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Ceiling cloth install
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Gradient
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Stranger things, after calibration
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After re-calibration
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Mandatory shot
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IKEA LACK table
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120 MHz neckboards
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_________________
Melifluonze wrote:
Digital is easy. This is torture, but far more interesting...


Last edited by winny on Sun May 06, 2018 4:36 pm; edited 2 times in total
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AnalogRocks
Forum Moderator



Joined: 08 Mar 2006
Posts: 26690
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

TV/Projector: Sony 1252Q, AMPRO 4000G


PostLink    Posted: Sun May 06, 2018 4:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Haha Nice! The limits on the images are 1024x768, 10 per post.
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kal
Forum Administrator



Joined: 06 Mar 2006
Posts: 17850
Location: Ottawa, Canada

TV/Projector: JVC DLA-NZ7


PostLink    Posted: Sun May 06, 2018 10:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nice! Thanks for sharing!

The pic limits are actually much higher than that - there’s actually no resolution limit, just a file size limit. Beyond 1280 wide (iirc) you’ll see a link instead of the pic being shown direct.

Kal

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My basement/HT/bar/brewery build 2.0
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AnalogRocks
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Joined: 08 Mar 2006
Posts: 26690
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

TV/Projector: Sony 1252Q, AMPRO 4000G


PostLink    Posted: Mon May 07, 2018 4:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

kal wrote:
Nice! Thanks for sharing!

The pic limits are actually much higher than that - there’s actually no resolution limit, just a file size limit. Beyond 1280 wide (iirc) you’ll see a link instead of the pic being shown direct.

Kal


Hmmm I sit corrected. Never did get anything larger than 1024 to upload

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winny




Joined: 09 Oct 2013
Posts: 403
Location: Sweden

TV/Projector: BD808s, BG1209/2


PostLink    Posted: Mon May 07, 2018 7:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

What would be a cost effecive next step? Joust mod in better lenses? Ditch the port 3 DVI adapter in favor of my modded port 5 board (I should take a picture of it) and get a better analog source and a thick short VGA cable? HDMI card? Change from 720p to 1080i? Color filtering?
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Melifluonze wrote:
Digital is easy. This is torture, but far more interesting...
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AnalogRocks
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Joined: 08 Mar 2006
Posts: 26690
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

TV/Projector: Sony 1252Q, AMPRO 4000G


PostLink    Posted: Tue May 08, 2018 1:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Tube mask made out of black card to reduce halos and reflections. Color filtering, maybe with Rosco filters and 1080i
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winny




Joined: 09 Oct 2013
Posts: 403
Location: Sweden

TV/Projector: BD808s, BG1209/2


PostLink    Posted: Tue May 08, 2018 6:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

AnalogRocks wrote:
Tube mask made out of black card to reduce halos and reflections.


Fitted between the tube face and lens?

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Melifluonze wrote:
Digital is easy. This is torture, but far more interesting...
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AnalogRocks
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Joined: 08 Mar 2006
Posts: 26690
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

TV/Projector: Sony 1252Q, AMPRO 4000G


PostLink    Posted: Tue May 08, 2018 12:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

winny wrote:
AnalogRocks wrote:
Tube mask made out of black card to reduce halos and reflections.


Fitted between the tube face and lens?


Ooops, yes I should have added that.

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winny




Joined: 09 Oct 2013
Posts: 403
Location: Sweden

TV/Projector: BD808s, BG1209/2


PostLink    Posted: Tue May 08, 2018 12:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

AnalogRocks wrote:
Ooops, yes I should have added that.


Interesting! Any old thread with useful information about this? Just project full image and cut a mask to just fit?

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Melifluonze wrote:
Digital is easy. This is torture, but far more interesting...
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HaydnG90




Joined: 22 May 2006
Posts: 1335



PostLink    Posted: Tue May 08, 2018 3:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

AnalogRocks wrote:
Rosco filtersi


Wow that brings back memories of my BG808S days. Yes that did make the orangy reds more red but not without some compromise wrt to focus. For me it was a worthwhile mod to improve red.
NEC HD144 lenses were another step up. Not only improving focus but pulling the the pj away from the sweet spot in a floor mount setup.
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winny




Joined: 09 Oct 2013
Posts: 403
Location: Sweden

TV/Projector: BD808s, BG1209/2


PostLink    Posted: Tue May 08, 2018 7:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

HaydnG90 wrote:

NEC HD144 lenses were another step up. Not only improving focus but pulling the the pj away from the sweet spot in a floor mount setup.


Due to different focal length?

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Melifluonze wrote:
Digital is easy. This is torture, but far more interesting...
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HaydnG90




Joined: 22 May 2006
Posts: 1335



PostLink    Posted: Tue May 08, 2018 9:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

winny wrote:
HaydnG90 wrote:

NEC HD144 lenses were another step up. Not only improving focus but pulling the the pj away from the sweet spot in a floor mount setup.


Due to different focal length?


Precisely
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AnalogRocks
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Joined: 08 Mar 2006
Posts: 26690
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

TV/Projector: Sony 1252Q, AMPRO 4000G


PostLink    Posted: Wed May 09, 2018 12:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

winny wrote:
AnalogRocks wrote:
Ooops, yes I should have added that.


Interesting! Any old thread with useful information about this? Just project full image and cut a mask to just fit?


Yep and on the SONY's you can mask off the AKB line.

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winny




Joined: 09 Oct 2013
Posts: 403
Location: Sweden

TV/Projector: BD808s, BG1209/2


PostLink    Posted: Wed May 09, 2018 6:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

HaydnG90 wrote:
winny wrote:
Due to different focal length?


Precisely


Oh! We have the projector stand screwed to the floor and the back curtain close up to the lenses with holes cut out for them so different focal length is undesirable. Sad


AnalogRocks wrote:
Yep and on the SONY's you can mask off the AKB line.

As in Sony tubes? I have Panasonics in mine. Or as in an equivalent Sony projector?

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Melifluonze wrote:
Digital is easy. This is torture, but far more interesting...
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modelaratrod




Joined: 26 Jul 2011
Posts: 168
Location: Denver, CO.


PostLink    Posted: Wed May 09, 2018 11:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Awesome, keep the crt alive!!!
Maybe some Joust adapters and hd145's ?
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