5000 Lumen LED Projector? Naw, How About A Whopping 1 Candela?

1 candle projector

One of our readers recently found a ASK Proxima C170 (also sold as the InFocus LP600) in the waste bin, thrown away because it stopped working — He snatched it up and decided to try tinkering with it. A visual inspection quickly found the problem, a 100uF cap had blown!

He replaced the capacitor and got the projector to turn on again without much difficulty. Not wanting to pay a few hundred dollars for a bulb he’s ordered a 5000lm 50W LED array from China to give it new life as an LED projector, because as it turns out it’s a fairly simple hack to trick the projector into thinking it has an official lamp in it. It’s just a matter of shorting a few leads on some of the photo-couplers!

In fact, once this hack is done, you can use any kind of light source you want! So just for kicks he decided to try using a tea light candle. It actually managed to project an image on the wall thanks to the optics of the projector! Functional? Not really, but it’s a cool way to prove a successful hack towards an even cooler end project though!

For other fun projector hacks, check out this roundup we did a few years ago.

[Thanks thefamoushat!]

23 thoughts on “5000 Lumen LED Projector? Naw, How About A Whopping 1 Candela?

  1. Don’t know which LED array you’re using but it’s hard to get projectors to work well with multiple LED’s. They require a very close to point light source in order for the optics to collimate the light. That’s why arc lamps are preferred for projectors.

    1. Was preferred, it’s the outdated tech now. All the good projectors use Infrared, red and blue lasers and use two conversion crystals to convert the infrared to green.

      1. Is this actually true? please show me one, last LED/Laser project I took apart was a huge red LED, and a huge array of blue lasers (think Toorcamp) in which some of them were redirected to a pinwheel of a crystal that converted the blue into green.

        1. Are there frequency modifying crystals to convert blue to green? Was that what you were implying?

          My incomplete understanding is this:
          The IR to green (~808 nm to ~532 nm) is well known and easy to accomplish in part because it is an increase in wavelength. However, to go down in wavelength (say, 475 nm to 532 nm) as you suggest is much harder to do. Am I mistaken?

          Obviously your exploration is more valid than my speculation but you’ve made me curious.

      1. I would like have a sun following collector condensed and sent thru prism for pure intense colour. Used indoors in the dark, excepting the tunable light for colour light therapy.

      2. I’m thinking a glass fibre tube + prism + projector bulb = daylight projector. The light from the sun would be added with the light from the projectorbulb constantly bumping it above the ambient light level.

        1. The LCD in the projector only lets around 10% of the light through. DLP is better, but still only 20-30% (mostly due to the color wheel only letting through on color at once)

  2. Does anyone have any links to LED converted normal projectors that produce acceptable results? i have tried with two DLP projectors and a 30W COB LED module(no-name crap from china) result was almost useable in a pitch black room. Tempted to try again with a 100W module but not sure if itll be enough or if i should cough up for a good module like a bridgelux or phlatlight?

    1. I tried with 100W modeule (80W drive as after that it seemed to be mostly increase heat). It was bit low on output with just curtains pulled, but might work in darkened room.
      With actual lamp the output was bright as the projector output was rated for 1600 Lumens, 170W lamp.
      Main issue is focusing the light, I had scrap optic to improve/focus but they wouldnt fit in as the input board was placed behind the lamp module, so I just used the bare led with heatsink.
      720p LCD projector so not DLP, the more efficent on light.

    2. It is so weird to me how a lamp that will blind you when aimed at a wall in a projector is suddenly a paltry useless thing.

      But I guess you made the point already, it’s probably about the optics, because seriously you should be able to get a picture up there with 30W LED surely.

  3. In the old days when a film got caught in a projector it would melt and catch on fire (maybe) form the heat, now with this projector we can have all the fun and excitement of projectors bursting into flame again, very retro.

  4. Until LEDs get a lot brighter, there’s no way you’re going to replace an arc lamp and project an image…at least not without scrapping much of the optics. That said, there’s no reason to spend hundreds on a projection lamp. Most can be second-sourced for less than $75 these days. You just have to look. Some are bare lamps that you retrofit into the original carrier, but the entire module is available for not much more.

  5. Checking eBay, the lamp for the InFocus LP 600 is available as a bare lamp for $34…free shipping. It’s good for 2000 hours at full brightness (2000 lumens), and probably 3000 in eco-mode (1500 lumens). The projector has a native resolution of 1024×768, 730p or 1080i. It will accept 1280×1024 inputs. That’s plenty bright in a normally-lit room. In a slightly darkened room with a real projection screen, it should be a decent home-theater projector. The one I have is slightly brighter, and does a pretty good job outdoors on an 8′ piece of spandex for backyard movies.

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