projector - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: grifftech
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 17, 2016, 04:20:45 pm
content: anyone know of a cheap (under $30 US) projector hdmi input, color

author: Fraser
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 17, 2016, 09:45:53 pm
content: The discharge lamp in a conventional projector costs around £200 so even a used one will be out of your budget if the lamp is at EOL. Toy projectors that use a simple 20W halogen lamp are pretty rubbish unless used in total darkness.LED projectors are pretty rubbish at the cheap end of the market. I bought some NOS HP companion LED projectors that claim 100 ANSI Lumens and I would not go lower than that. No HDMI capability though.Your best chance is to buy a used projector that still has decent lamp hours left on it. Once the lamp fails you will likely be faced with rebuilding the lamp or binning the projector.Wide screen HDMI projectors hold their value. You might find a faulty one for $30 but they are challenging to repair as faults can be in the lamp, lamp ballast, PSU or degradation in the filters.Good luck though. I used to buy one model of Panasonic portable projector as I had the service manual and I would repair them or use BER units to repair others. I used to pay around £20 each formthem on eBay. I have at least 7 in storage in case Imfind a use for themNo HDMI port though as that is on later models.Fraser

author: edavid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 17, 2016, 10:20:49 pm
content: In that price range you'll have to buy an older VGA projector and an HDMI to VGA adapter.For example, I recently got a nice Epson 745 1024x768 LCD projector for $29, and an HDMI to VGA adapter for $2.

author: Bicurico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 17, 2016, 10:25:03 pm
content: You probably mean this:http://www.ebay.com/itm/Portable-Mini-LCD-LED-HD-1080P-Projector-Multimedia-w-AV-VGA-SD-USB-HDMI-LOT-/232057269175Beware: this is utter crap!The input is 1080P, but the output has a native resolution of amazing 320 x 240 pixels!!!It features LED's capable of producing a brightnessof whopping 48 Lumens. This will allow in real world a projection of 20" in a pitch black room.Apparently this device features a fan, which is proud of making people aware of its existence.Did I mention this is crap?Regards,Vitor

author: Psi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 18, 2016, 07:53:13 am
content: For that price you would be better finding a bright lcd and a large fresnel lens.Would probably be better than one of those cheap led projectors

author: sleemanj
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 18, 2016, 08:14:03 am
content: That sort of money is pointless bottom of the barrel expenditure you will just be dissapointed, or buy an old pre-LED thing with blown bulb and have to spend a fortune replacing it.For a hundred bucks you can get something like an EC77, I have one which I paid about $80 for on Aliexpress last year, it works just fine, the fan is very loud but I always use headphones anyway.Of course, it doesn't have the light output to work during daylight, but at night it will throw a pretty decent image, only 800x480 native resolution but that's more than enough for me watching movies.The only thing (apart form the fan) I don't like about it is the built in subtitle handling is useless, too small, no background, so it's unusable, so I hard code subtitles, oh and sometimes it doesn't like some torrented file's audio tracks, reencoding sorts that out.I see there is a new EC77+ version with some Aliexpress sellers which seems to have the same specs, but an Android based operating system and I THINK built in Wifi, but that's not entirely clear.

author: edavid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 18, 2016, 04:23:38 pm
content: Quote from: sleemanj on November 18, 2016, 08:14:03 amThis is not true in the US, there are many used LCD and DLP projectors available with good low-hours lamps.It's usually cheaper to buy a spare projector than a spare bulb.

author: grifftech
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 29, 2016, 07:24:24 pm
content: Quote from: Bicurico on November 17, 2016, 10:25:03 pmgood enough