Dodgy Installs R US

Well today was the day designated to Valvien's projector install. Tom and I headed down to Valvien's new place on Sunday afternoon to hook up (and mount) his new Acer-PD113P. Our biggest problem was finding somewhere to mount the unit. The throw ratio of the projector was made perfectly for the distance between the two beams holding up the roof. Which was a double bonus because we didn't have to fabricate anything to hold the screen on the wall. In the end the only fabrication that was required was a platform to sit the projector itself on.

After a quick trip to Bunnings for a few brackets, some MDF, screws and bolts we were on our way. Tom was a genious with the handsaw cutting a perfectly square shelf for the mount and with the idea to use the laminations in the beam to mount the screen perfectly level. The projector isn't quite so pretty... due to the projection angle from the roof it's currently sitting upside down resting on some pegs so it doesn't rest on the powerbutton. The cabling is also less than perfect.

Acer projector from Big-W - $1000
Hanging the cables over the light fittings on the roof (because they're too
short) - priceless

The highly technical halogen cable guide

The projector and platform

The photos aren't the best quality but the poor RAZR doesn't take the best pictures in low light conditions.

But it's a work in progress... and it's up there, working and almost perfectly square. All in all it took about 5 hours to measure, design, fabricate and install. Would definately be worth investigating a projector mount though if you didn't want to have the trouble of making your own platform and having to align the projector on that.

Oh another thing to note on the Acer-PD113P, the digital keystone correction doesn't work if it's displaying the ACER logo white screen, as we discover after 10 mins of trying to fix the image and getting no results, only to turn on the source and voila keystone!

And the finished product