Black Widow Ultra 16:9 thin bezel screen build

[StevenG]

Hi guy's,

It's been a while since i've been active on the forums since i've moved home and the missus was insistent I wasn't allowed a projector in this house. I've worn her down by giving an ultimatum of either spending ££££ on a bigger LCD 65"+ or getting a projector which worked out at less than half the costs.

I bought a relatively cheap Optoma HD141x which would give me an 87" image at the throw distance I have. I didn't want to go any bigger as I'm projecting onto a chimney breast wall and didn't want to have to have an electric roll down screen which would hang over the edges of the wall.

I'd been wanting to do a thin bezel and seen so thought I'd bite the bullet and make a start.

I've ordered all the stuff for the screen, I went for Grey Steel 2 as i found 1 would be way too dark for a living room environment.

Yesterday I started to install the projector. I wanted this to be as neat as possible, I decided to run a flex spur from the downstairs ring main, Luckily I had the house re-wired and know where all the cables are, Pulled up a full length of floor board and added a junction box and ran my cable off of that.

I also ran 2x CAT6 for my HDMI and IR to my media cupboard, If you want more info on that you can see my house build log in the sig.

Power and Networking being ran.

Skip a lot of time ahead and I'd installed this into the ceiling downstairs and wired up.

Projector In place

45cm drop from ceiling to projector giving me a 55cm drop from the ceiling to my image on the projected wall.

*Temp image onto a sheet as I'm still waiting on the paint and tape arriving to make the screen.

*The wall behind the sheet had a cut out for my old tv, some of the image in the middle appears darker because of this.
I'd sold my TV so this had to be done to get some tv viewing in.

I've got 3mm di-bond panel to be sprayed onto when the paint arrives, This will be attached to a wooden frame with ultra strong tesa double sided tape. I plan on spraying the screen with GS2 and AAA. I'm going to have a 10mm border with deep black tape.

All of that should be done in the next few days assuming all the items arrive in the post.

 

[StevenG]

I started the frame and managed to get the dibond stuck on and hung in place.

Squaring up the frame and levelling up

Stuck the dibond to the frame using tesa double sided tape. I was a bit dubious as to the strength of the tape

Test image, got to be painted and get the edge tape on.

I should hopefully have time to get the screen painted tomorrow and let it cure before applying the edge tape.

 

[StevenG]

Is there a guide or something that explains the paint material to use etc?

There is extensive thread's on AVForums and AVS forums about paint mixes. The only issue with those on AVS as its an american website is that they use paints that aren't available in the UK readily.

There are a few around that you can use but i've went for the Dulux Grey Steel 2 and Auto-Air Aluminum Base Fine to give it a neutral tone and add a bit of reflective-ness to improve white's.

 

[StevenG]

So i'm in the middle of painting and thought i'd upload some pics while each coat dries out.

Make shift paint booth in place.

Paint Mixing

You can just see the tiny aluminium sparkle in the paint here.

First mist coat. thin multiple layers is the way to go im told.

More pics to follow as things progress.

 

[StevenG]

This is at about 5 coats coverage still a few more to go to get it even.

Wagner W550 doing better than i thought to be honest with you guys.

 

[StevenG]

Finished Article

Black and white contrast image

Dark screen in the light (10x 6w LED's in this room)

All lights out on the same image

Video of a colour demo playing whilst i turn lights on and off. I have LED's hence the flicker at the end of the clip.

 

[StevenG]

After the screen had cured over night I added an 8mm border using Deepblack tape, I used 2" tape cut in half and wrapped it round the sides and back. to make the sides look a bit neater than bare dibond sheet.

Not the brightest day but I have 10 x 6W LED's on and both sets of blinds open, French doors at the bottom end and a 2.2m window at the other end.

 

[StevenG]

Very nice

I'm really tempted by a projector for my new flat as my living room is long but fairly narrow (5m+ by 3m+) and due to the layout viewing a TV will be across the length of the room.

Problem is how to get power to the ceiling when it's a flat and has 3m+ ceilings :/. HDMI is fine as I can use wireless. Any ideas lol?

It's not the best solution but running the power up the wall is going to be the easiest solution. try using some D-Line trunking.

Really smart

How easy was it to set up the IR receiver presumably your media server is not in the same room?

Im using Octava HDCAT-IR which runs HDMI and IR over 2x CAT cables.

Very nice! If I ever have the space this is what I'd hope to achieve! Not bad contrast considering the background light levels either. I bet it's awesome at night! This has also made me realise that it's compulsory to run lots of Cat6 around our extension!

CAT6 everywhere would be my recommendation. I didn't run any at the point of the build because I didn't think i'd be going this route but it's definitely working putting it everywhere.

How is it only after recently setting my projector up I'm now jealous of someone else's!

Damn you OP!

Sorry about this. I had no plans on doing this till I seen it done on another forum

Interesting, when i did this this my base paint was salmon shade from a mix station and the gray came from the Aluminum Base after mixing.

The Aluminium base makeup has been changed and now doesn't tint the paint so you need to use a neutral grey paint to start and the aluminium just adds the reflective property needed to get the brightness.

 

[StevenG]

Not bad contrast considering the background light levels either. I bet it's awesome at night!

Night Time shot to show the contrast.

 

[StevenG]

Looks good. What was cost of screen materials?

Aluminium composite sheet 36
Dulux paint 16
aluminium paint 15
border tape 12
double sided tape 4
wood frame 20

 

[StevenG]

Impressive!

I'm thinking of going down this route for our new house!

How would you rate the nighttime/daytime IQ?

Nighttime is amazing! Don't miss the LED TV at all, even with 3D viewing its more than bright enough and Really Vivid Colours!
Daytime as you can see from the pics its not as vivid but for general tv viewing it does fine. If i want to watch a movie or something I just close the blinds (blackout)

 

[StevenG]

Where did you get the dibond from? I got a projector recently and this looks like the route I want to take with regards to a screen as it looks great.

Got mine from Amari Plastics as they had a branch local to me (opposite my work) went for the non branded panel as it was cheaper but still an aluminium composite sheet so all good.

Just make sure you get matt white finish.

 

[StevenG]

Very nice setup.
Is there anything you would do differently? What are the viewing angles like?

Viewing angles are amazing no difference from sitting angled at all.

I'd make it bigger and get a short throw projector but other than that I wouldn't have done anything different.

love the thin bezel I *might* have went for the darker shade Grey Steel 1 but that's hard to judge without having a sample of it as that does restrict day time viewing a bit more as it dim's the image a bit more.

 

[StevenG]

How much zoom is there on your projector? Like if i put it a set distance away from a wall im planning on projecting onto is there much room for making the image bigger or smaller?

Another question is what have you got in the way of remote control receiver for your xbmc? Looks as if you wouldnt be able to point a remote at the screen to use it.

1.1x which is next to nothing really. makes a difference of about 8" diagonal difference at 2.8m projected distance.

I have a remote over cat attached to the projector at the rear of the room which goes to my media cupboard.

 

[StevenG]

Great screen mate,

Where did you get the border tape from?

Projector Screen Material (PSM) it's a newcastle based company and sell on ebay. DeepBlack is the name of the tape. Very non-reflective!

Here is a recent image of the TopGear special

 

[StevenG]

Thanks mate

Do you get any glare on the walls and ceiling?

I don't get glare but because of the thin bezel i have a border of light on the wall from the over projection so for anyone wanting to do something similar i would suggest not going for the thin bezel.

There is a little illumination on the ceiling due to the lens but nothing major.

 

[StevenG]

Here is the light cast onto the ceiling. its the lighter part of the image on the right.

Here is the over projection on the wall behind the screen, you can see where the image ends, then the border tape (8mm) and then the wall behind the screen illuminated for another 10mm or so all the way round the screen.

I would probably say 20-25mm would solve this issue but I like the look of the thin bezel when watched through the day you cannot see this only in a completely dark room.

 

[StevenG]

Have you got a pic with nothing being projected? Looks great!

 

[StevenG]

Thanks for the pics mate. Helped a lot.

Going to order some of the aluminium composite board this week. Just ordered the AAA. Will also grab the sprayer from amazon

One thing though the tesa double sided tape. Which one should I go for? The 50mm one is around £35. Planning a 120" screen with 5cm border all the way around.

Is there also a optimum size timber I should use to support it? I.e have enough timber to leave 10cm gap all the way around at the back?

How many coats of paint you reckon is needed?

I went for mirror tape its only 8mm wide i think but its the foam type so has some give if the frame isn't completely flat.

Mine has about a 6cm gap around the back, 10cm might be better, I'd recommend painting the side of the frame as it is visible from the side's which i didn't do but wish i had.

I used 18mm x 75mm planed smooth stuff from b&q. In all honesty it doesnt need to be anything major as the sheet holds it own really its just to allow you to mount the screen more than support the aluminium.

I used about 8 coats of fine spray to get an even coverage and it dries quite quickly between coats if you do it fine enough

 

[StevenG]

Thanks mate.

You reckon 1ltr dulux steel steel grey 2 and 2x 120ml AAA is enough to spray a sheet 160cm x 276cm a few times over?

I used 480ml with 120ml AAA to do 194 x 109 added 15% water to spray and i ended up using 370ml to do my 7-8 coats.

Should be more than enough.