I've been living with a CRT projector for a few months now, and I can say that the picture produced by one of these babies is phenomenal. But you don't get there without some pain....
CRT projectors are made of three cathode ray picture tubes, like those in regular TV's but with really long "necks", and a different color phosphor on each tube. The light from these high intensity CRT's is focused on the screen by large lenses. The combined weight of the CRT's, lenses, power supplies, and electronics plus the frame required to hold all of this together really adds up. My unit weighs 165lbs, some weigh less and some a lot more (Sony G90's weigh 235!)
The pain comes in getting one of these beasts into the house, into position and on the ceiling. Then the fun begins getting each of the colors all lined up on the screen.
This is the LARGE HEAVY (way over 200 lbs) crate that the projector shipped in. The inside was lined with polystyrene foam. Everything was undamaged and ready to go.
Click on photos for a larger view.
View of the projector mount. The top struts are 12 gauge deep channel "Power Strut", three feet long, lag bolted to the floor joists in eight places (overkill I know, but my family sits under this thing). The bottom struts are hung from cone nuts with 3/8" threaded rod and are painted flat black.
The Barco beginning its ascent. This method really went smooth, it only took about 20 minutes to get the projector in place. The chain is 2/0, rated for 528 lbs, each chain is really only carrying 40-80 lbs. The chains are hung from 3/8" eye bolts attached to the top rails with cone nuts and 3/8" nuts with washers to anchor them.
The projector is up and connected into the mount with washers and 3/8" lock nuts. All the rods are tightened and locked into place to make the mount rigid.
Yea! It powers up, now to get it set up, focused and converged so we can watch some movies!
How do you get something like that on the ceiling (and why would you want to)?
CRT projectors are really designed for ceiling mount, on the floor they can get bumped, and the optimum position for the projector is usually the same as the optimal seating location, so something has to move.
CRT manufacturer's make ceiling mount kits as do some third party manufacturers, but they cost anywhere from $300 to $1400 just for a mount, so I decided to design and build my own. The mount is built from "Power Strut" and was inspired by posts like this on AVS Forum.
The projector was lifted into place with four chains hung from rings mounted to the top channel. I had a friend help me to raise each corner by 6" - 8" at a time, pull up the chain and bolt it through the ring, then on to the next corner. Kept working each corner in turn until the projector was close enough to the ceiling to bolt it to the mount.
