Converting discharge lamp to multi-LED for video projector (maybe)

Bad news for the Jeremiahs and Thomases. I have a converted HD video projector , as far as I've gone so far. Hacked the control system so the original lamp supply is disabled and the control is fooled into believing the missing discharge lamp is lit. Jury rigged at the moment so the fans not in the right place so running

This arrangement has much more latitude as to precise alignment in front of the light pipe than the parabolic original. I assume because no direct axial light was going down the pipe with original, instead a tight focus at the pipe entrance with a high angle of incidence for the majority of the incident light. In the process of getting 12 more 4000K, this time, 1.2W LEDs and 8 deg lenses plus some directional blue if I need them. Also sorting out a compact power supply, converting a laptop or similar SMPS

Some pics of the 19cell concentrator compound lens and LEDs

I guess I would have to say that I am at least a little impressed. Really, if you can do this with units that have reliable light engines that'd be gr eat. At tis point I wonder if using LEDs instead of the old lamps, that eve n tripanel LCDs would last a bunch longer. If you think about it, most of t he time the polarizing filters fail early, and certainly UV and heat are do ing it. LEDs of any sort should be lower in those undesriable output wavele ngths.

Then we got tis ohter issue. Friend of moine was elling me of these asskick ing high brightness LED flashlights. They were a coulple hundred bucks ! Wh at are you paying for thesae LEDs ? Just out of curiouslty if for no other reason. If it costs $200 to make the thing work with LEDs, it is obviously worth it if the lifespan and the advantages for the light engine longevity stand true.

If you think the process is commercially viable maybe you should lkook into marketing kits for high end projos. Like the Barcos I just finally sold, s ome places charge $500 for the lamps and there are two each. You only burn both of them when you want 3,500 lumens, any other time save them. It's in the menu.

Fact is, with the advent of flat TVs, projos of any kind are of a bit more limited desire commercially. The only thing that'll make this marketable is to put out the retrofits for high end projos that project pictures larger than a commercially viable direct view LCD or plasma.

It is hard to get detailed saervice info on things like Barcos, they want c aptive service just like anyone else almost. You - or someone - has to figu re out how to fake out the ballast. Then in the case of some, you need the remote - to put in a (fake) serial number for the new lamp when the set ref uses to run it anymore - to protect you from lamp explosions of course. Les s lawsuits and more money makes it every time.

And then of course you are putting your name on the thing. Moreover most of these ballasts run directly off the mains, so if that's your power suply t hen whatever your equivalent of the US' Underwriter's Laboratories is for s afety, you will have to comply with all that.

It could just be a one Man operation and you charge what you charge. A thou sand, well some would pay it if it lasts. Whatever units you do, then marke t the kit, for quite a profitable sum of course. As time goes by, others wi ll reverse engineer your product and replace it, but if they do not do the original reverse engineering you did, it might be advantageous for them to just buy the premade kit. You make the thing for the lamp(s), the power sul lpy and just make it connect like the original as much as possible and writ e the instructions.

In the US, if someone really did have a good light engine and the innards a re relatively clean, and the ballast is bad, and they like the set....... T he same is probably true there. they might just pay if they know all the ad vantages. I'll write that for 2 %. If you can do it I think I could sell it .

S*it, next year I am going to go around and replace the motor run capacitor s on people's air conditioners for money. I will sell them the idea by the fact that it will save them money and we happen to know firsthand. The year before the AC f***ed up it was pulling so much power it was ridiculous, an d then it quit. With the new cap in there, 90 outside ? Let's set it at 70. HAHAHAHA.

Things like this are GREEN ! The keep s*it out of the landfills, keep money in the country and I would imagine either save energy or go brighter. One of the other.

Think about it.

snipped for brevity, as I agree with all there. This 1080 projector was 7 GBP at a radio rally because the replacement lamp cost 450 GBP, the ink-jet printer business again. The logical way of making a 19cell cluster is to mould the compound lens in one. The geometry is not complicated I think, just the moulding technique and optically clear epoxy . The recessed lens part of each lens looks like the dome of a clear 5mm LED and that is set in a non-tapered cylinder that collects the light, perhaps via total internal reflection off the quasi-spherical rear outer surface. If good geometry/moulding then perhaps no need to individually focus each LED. The main problem is converting the projector, finding the opto-isolators and defeating their normal control function

On 29/10/2013 09:31, N_Cook wrote: On 29/10/2013 09:31, N_Cook wrote: > Some pics of the 19cell concentrator compound lens and LEDs >

Erratum, third attempt, bloody thunderbird/e-s/win7

Some pics of the 19cell concentrator compound lens and LEDs

final run of the Mark1 the original colour bar chart, sort of chrominance on left of white stripe and luminance to the right

projected

Not really bright enough so I know what the mark2 version will be. The problem is getting the light focused into the 4x6.5 mm tiny aperature of the light tunnel. Those hexagonal lenses are too large, so by the time you have 19 the off-axis angle to the light tunnel is getting too great. Will visit a bead shop and try to find mirror glass beads with about 5mm core that will accept sliced and polished domes off any old water clear LEDs as lenses set in the mirror tubes and mounted over the 1.2W LEDs, and individually align to the aperature via an intitially tiny amount of hotmelt string to the LED rear and then a matrix of lacing cord and epoxy attached to the 20mm fuse clips added as heatsink to the rear of each LED. Need as much unobstructed air flow through those vanes as possible.