EEVblog 1546 - INSANE $30k 4K Panoramic DLP Projector TEARDOWN

[@gregmancari4271]

I love this video so much. I run a planetarium and we have 8 of these projectors in our planetarium dome and have been certified for maintenance on these things for a long time. They are such amazing workhorse projectors that last a VERY long time. The over-engineering on these make them last for almost a decade of use if properly maintained. The only big issue is getting the lamps these days about $1000 for a pair. The biggest pain in the butt when servicing these things is doing the Low Frequency Maintenance kits where you have to replace all the fans INCLUDING the system fan underneath the lamp housings. Also it is a company called CyViz (pronounced Sy Vis) that basically slapped their name on the Projection Design bodies. The lens is worth more than the projector body! Fun fact, this company sold to Barco (a huge professional projector manufacturer) and after Barco basically trashed the company, the original founders left and formed a new projector company called Norxe AS that make projectors with a similar build quality.

[@gregmancari4271]

Also the body is all magnesium too which is amazing for heat dissipation .

[@TheFanOrTheMask]

Planet - Arium -:) good old South Park

[@pappaflammyboi5799]

@@gregmancari4271 Aluminum is better for heat dissipation than Magnesium. Copper is even better, but silver is the best metal, unless you go to diamond, but that would just be ridiculous.

[@gregmancari4271]

@@pappaflammyboi5799 for sure it is, which is why the heatsinks on the DLP chip are aluminum, but magnesium weighs about 33% less than aluminum which is helpful when trying to hold one of these upside down on a ladder 15 feet in the air above your head while another guy is trying to bolt it in place :)

[@Lucien86]

All that metal is for super rigidity in the optical bench. I think magnesium alloys can be extremely rigid. For ultimate rigidity I think that --fused silica-- silicon carbide is about the best - used in things that make this projector look cheap.. :D Like the in the Gaia satellite, which is where I heard about it..

[@flymypg]

Story time! Seeing those arc lamps in this projector stirred a fond memory. In the 1990s I worked for an industrial camera company on a model that would run at up to 100,000 fps. When we had the Alpha build strewn all over a test bench, we realized we had to bring whatever we wanted to image to it: It was far from portable! Shooting at 100,000 fps requires tons of light, and our initial attempts used studio floodlamps, which quickly heated the lab beyond the tolerance of the exposed system boards, even after adding fans. Someone had the bright idea to image a light source, so we pulled the video projector from our conference room ceiling and exposed its HID lamp. The video was beyond gorgeous, showing the arc writhing between the electrodes, with each end wandering on the electrode surface. Truly mesmerizing. We rushed to post the video to our website, mainly as a snub to our competitors in the high-speed digital video market. Within 48 hours, high-level Japanese executives from Epson (the projector maker) and Panasonic (the bulb maker) were on-site! At the time, powerful LED light sources weren't yet a thing, and the projector industry was stuck at 640x480 because HID lamp arc wander caused shimmering pixels at higher resolutions. These companies had been using film to capture the arc wander, which took overnight to process, meaning they could only do a single experiment per day. They begged to gain access to one of our first Beta units, and paid cash up-front for the opportunity. Story #2! I subsequently worked at an aircraft instrument company that specialized in making digital instruments that could be installed in the holes for conventional mechanical-electrical "steam gauge" instruments, avoiding the need to replace the entire instrument panel to install a "glass cockpit" system (easily $250K for even a small plane). Given the lack of small (3"-5") LCD displays with both adequate resolution and intensity, the system used a rear-projection system. Which, you guessed it, used an HID lamp for its high-intensity light source. To get the desired brightness and resolution, we needed to use separate R, G and B mini-LCDs, each fed by splitting and filtering the light from the HID lamp. Which wasn't very efficient at the photon level, meaning we needed a honking powerful HID bulb. But the result was simply amazing, as the rear projection allowed us to use a bezel far thinner than a flat display would have poermittited, yielding capabilities never before seen in a standard 3" aircraft instrument display. The system (the SN3500) took the market by storm and was an instant success. But it was very power hungry, and when we tried to include 5 minutes of backup power into the instrument, there was no way to get enough storage: For multiple reasons, we couldn't use lithium batteries or disposables, and there wasn't enough room for the amount of supercaps needed. This forced us to switch to using the then-new red, green and blue surface-emitting LEDs, which triggered a complete redesign of the projection system. When we got it working, we installed the light source and projector into our housing that was stuffed with as many supercaps as it could hold, fingers-crossed in the hope we could reach our 5-minute backup power duration goal. At maximum brightness, it lasted over 20 minutes! Meaning we could remove 75% of the supercaps and still meet our backup power goals. Unfortunately, those LEDs cost about 1000x the cost of the old HID bulbs, meaning we had to take our instruments up-market, forcing us not to rest on our laurels. We chose to sell the updated version of the original instrument at a loss to preserve market share (making the backup power capability an expensive option), while pushing innovation in new instrument functionalities (e.g., TAWS) and larger sizes. It was really cool to have been present at both the struggling end of the HID projection lamp era and the dawn of the high-power LED lamp era.

[@chakflying1]

I have never seen these systems in real life, very curious what is the front glass of the SN3500 made of? Is it just a black painted glass and the light is so bright it can shine through?

[@ICanDoThatToo2]

Any chance you can get one of those units to one of our favorite youtubers? That would be amazing to see.

[@Cyba_IT]

Great read Bob. Sounds like you've had a very interesting career! Could I ask what you studied initially to be involved in these sorts of projects?

[@aaronbrandenburg2441]

Had a bit of experience with hid type lamps when I used to work stage crew. Broforce pops used this type of lamp definitely older than what's in these projectors for sure and Ashley of course as a Time bit more reasonable price as well. Later on the lamps got so expensive I cannot remember how much they got up to we had to start charging lamp hours for use of the follow spots because of the expense of the Lambs and budget-wise. In case if you're wondering about incidences with lamps on stage crew oh yeah we had plenty. Everything from accidentally dropping a dead halogen bulb! Well truly dead afterwards obviously sometimes from Great Heights! Really satisfying pop. If you've ever been a performance or even sometimes on live TV such as news programs heard a loud explosion sometimes someone just about having a heart attack in the process chances are what we call a a bulb pop occurred. Sometimes when the halogen lamp pills for whatever reason even sometimes not naturally for the usual reasons AKA burnout. These bulbs will explode! Also with the expensive the Xenon Arc lamps with the follow spots anytime they were Works be moved the lamps were removed because of the expense and the fragility of some as well! This was protocol and standard procedure on stage for this every single time! You would not believe how many different times we had halogens fail early because of someone not taking proper precautions... Regarding proper handling of the halogen bulbs! In regards to fingerprints on them and yes very aware you could remove this with proper cleaning! Surprisingly At first they were not aware of this do I was working on stage! Also the old overhead lights that had like a stained-glass type of thing which also integrated heic system diffusers. We tried to get this original ones working however our system would not have been up to even running them. 500 w incandescent Mogul base bulbs! Don't remember how many bulbs were in each but potentially multiple kilowatts of light in one fixture yikes that's what you call an incandescent fixture! By the way even at school we were responsible for all maintenance essentially the school did not own the auditorium literally I was the stage crew electrician at times I had the experience needed to do things could have one calling someone in if at all feasible! Still unfortunately we did not have the what we called the big hookups four major power. Very dangerous but essentially connecting the straight into the panel what if what almost looks like half a pair of jumper cables yeah like they used to do years ago for well not exactly approve nowadays temporary power for construction and more. Essentially there was a panel cover that was removed that had exposed busbars. Insulated from chassis that were there for this purpose yikes that's what you call absolutely hideously dangerous. Don't know how many amps can't remember but it was a lot. Although one time and lightning strike night before Show Must Go On basically use jumper cables to get the stage lights working biggest performance ever we've been the laughingstock of not just to school but the entire State and then be more if the show had not gone on risk we're willing to take essentially MacGyver save the day myself that is😊

[@soniclab-cnc]

Big heatsink is for when no pixels are lit... the DLP will redirect the light onto a very black surface and the light is just burned off as heat.

[@ErnestMC]

Disgustingly inefficient 😢

[@soniclab-cnc]

@@ErnestMC the same amount of energy is needed for an LCD projector. Only an LCD must use polarized light and unused pixels are just shifted out of phase when unlit. The same bulb is used for either system.

[@tbob2224]

@@soniclab-cnc Yeah, this is actually a good thing for DLP. Without this you'd get a washed out image. A lot of newer DLP projectors have cut so many corners that they are only getting around 500:1 contrast even on higher end units because of the poorly designed light engine. Compare that with a unit like this which gets something like 8000:1 or even an older well designed projector which could easily hit 2000-3000:1 for a budget unit.

[@ThePentosin]

I wonder how much contrast improvement one would get if one where to paint the entire inside with vantablack or similar.

[@soniclab-cnc]

@@ThePentosin I don't think making the heat sink blacker would make a difference. Not much light is reflected back. They use angled light traps that are engineered to deflect the excess light away. DLP pixel refresh time is really quite fast +/- 10 uS. The MEMS mirror bounces light either through the lens or on to the heat sink. Using a quality screen for DLP is how you get better contrast.

[@ircubic]

I'm a software engineer at Barco Norway (formerly projectiondesign) and it's fun to see a product from a company I work at torn down. I haven't personally worked on the F35, my work has been on Barco's newer products, but that projector has been so well regarded it's been in production up until 2019, having been first released in 2009, and have been hard to replace with newer products.

[@UserName-q4i5d]

That's nice to hear. The DAD1000 chips die on your formatter boards and I repaired about 80 light engines now wit the same issue (lines on screen). Thanks for nobody in your company even acknowledging the issue or bothering to publish a service bulletin. The cinema chain projectionists narrowed the problem down to the DMD driver cards in the Barco DP2K light engines (prism that creates the image), specifically the most common failure occurring in the GREEN channel cars (BLUE/GREEN board) probably due to thermal management design issues. Barco would not send replacements for these cards (there are 3 in each machine) instead they wanted the entire prism assembly sent to Belgium for 7000$ per projector. Being a software engineer in the cinema chain, I took on the problem nobody else in the company could solve and narrowed down the issue with the board to the DAD1000 chips, replacing these ASICS fixes the issue with the lines on screen, they cost 5$ on eBay. Owning a Barco is a scam, I bet the NEC engineers would just post out in an envelope the formatter cards and that would be the end.

[@oakbeck]

Investor relations for TI here. Nice tear down. As others have said. DLP is very much alive and well at TI. Continues to be a nice business for the company with these being used in cinema, consumer projection, pico projection and automotive (Heads up displays and headlamps) to name a few applications. TI also builds the device in house as well.

[@EEVblog]

Nice!

[@GodmanchesterGoblin]

Ex TIer here (UK based). Pretty much came here to say something similar. I still love Larry Hornbeck's invention.

[@mikeiver]

DLP is the very best choice for projectors, period. There is no tech that is capable of throwing this much light at a screen as efficiently and with comparable contrast ratios. Further more, triple DLP units eliminate color wheels and are capable of incredible frame rates with no rainbow effects perceived. Noting comes close, TI has the market cornered until the patent runs our.

[@ircubic]

Barco Norway employee here (formerly projectiondesign, the creators of that projector), can confirm that DLP is still very much alive. :D

[@cameramaker]

Michael, I wonder why there are no good DLPs for home cinema use nowadays - with the XPR the contrast ratio is so poor that I had to return immediately a new device and reverted to a 720p model from a decade back. Instead of making the technology properly, we are fed with shortcuts and fakery in every part of the system - and unless we test it ourselves and figure out how cr*p the products are, we are absolutely not able to know anything from the written specs. Like - one would expect less rainbow effect from a 3LED system, that they could actually flash more than once in a frame.. but they do not for some unknown reason. The contrast of the system is claimed to 2M, but that is not in one frame.. so the image pumps.. and so on.. I can be here for a week. Please bring back the good old tech, so that you can say its a pro. Currently it is not.. and it hurts me.. and your brand.

[@McTroyd]

Commercial AV engineer here. I don't normally like to talk about work on public forums, but thought Dave and a few others would appreciate the story. My employer installed six of these at Oak Ridge National Laboratory for a 3D visualization lab. We made a rear-projection video wall three projectors across, and each third used two projectors for 3D (through glass polarization filters). I think they cost about US$35K each back then (in 2011), to include first two lamps (edit: but NOT the lens assembly, which I think was another $10-$15k each). The wall resolution was something like 6500x1600, allowing 15% overlap to blend the projectors together at the edges. (Bear in mind, this was 3D, so that was 6500x1600 for one "eye," so double that in pixels to render.) Required one HELL of a machine to actually drive the 3D display... Being 2011, we had four nVidia Quadros running in SLI to push all those pixels. I understand that room was chiefly used to review models generated by the Titan supercomputer two floors down. (They are now running Summit and Frontier; the latter I understand is currently in the Top 10 fastest list right now.) The models were largely centered around so-called "light water" nuclear reactors for power production. I also heard from the end user that the room was used by the US Dept of Energy to analyze the data from the Fukushima nuclear disaster, and provide feedback to Japan on what actions to take to isolate the reactors and clean the mess up. It also didn't hurt the nerd cred to say I had a valid badge at ORNL back then. Nobody had to know all I was doing was maintaining these projectors (and the associated AV system). 😁 Amazing machines, though I'm substantially less impressed by the WB2560 Multiple Image Processing System we paired them to... Bloody SD cards. Thanks for the teardown. 👍

[@DonnyHooterHoot]

LOL!

[@bradwalker1259]

DLP is still very much alive. It's a business unit inside TI. TI makes the micromirror display chips, as well as analog and digital support chips. The vast majority of cinemas use DLP-based projectors. The DMD in your projector is in a hermetic welded ceramic package that TI calls a Type-A package. It's actually an LGA - the plastic interposer comes off.

[@mcconkeyb]

Back in 2013 I was working for a company that designed consumer projectors that used TI's DLP's and spent 2 weeks at the design center in Texas. It's quite the place, with their multiple Oscar awards in the display case near the entrance. It been a big money maker for TI, and they protect this technology with unprecedented vigor. That is why you can't get a datasheet on these devices without a business deal in place. Just as I was leaving that company the switch from hot lamps to slightly cooler lasers was taking place. I have to assume that most DLP projectors today are all laser based (or maybe high output COB LED's) as anything you can do to lower the thermal load inside the projector makes the design, maintenance and total life of the projector better.

[@jfwfreo]

@@mcconkeyb The movie theater I go to makes a big deal about how their projector is a "Barco Laser Projector" and is somehow the top of the line.

[@giovanni4151]

Is it because they last more than lcd and have better contrast? I remember to hear that sony left the business of cinema projector because insisted on lcd tech instead of buying DLP licensed products, this resulting in premature failure of the lcd filters due to uv intense radiation. Can someone confirm?

[@mikeselectricstuff]

Lamps in kit like this are usually high pressure mercury or xenon discharge.

[@Farm_fab]

One that I had was a mercury vapor model, and the bulb was dieing. Had I known, I could have substituted a white led bead, and enjoyed it long.

[@proluxelectronics7419]

Everything's better with LASER's

[@erroltheterrible]

The vertical pcb on the lamp ballast is a standard Osram P-VIP balast controller for high pressure mercury lamps, and looks identical to the 240W driver in my PRM-45A projector. Though, if I recall correctly, then that driver can go to 300W. Even the bulb looks like a P-VIP 240/0.8 lamp, but I assume they all look the same.

[@Ciliaris1]

It is an Phillips UHP 300W lamp with driver. Uses 23-27KV or so to ignite. We used the same lamp in a 250W configuration in Projectiondesigns F1 platform.(Back in 2002-2003) Super powerfull, not bad in the IR compared to Zenon lamps, and a way longer life time. The 250W lamp was improved to the F3 Platform with 300W. Foal with the F3 was to doubble the lightoutput to get into the professional marked. There 2 lamps where nessesary due to the light output demand if professional custommers. The F3 is a large projector, but compared to Christies similar unit, it's about 1/4 size and with 2000 hour lifetime on lamp compared to 500-750 hour Zenon lamp with Christies unit. :) If my memory servers me right, i think this was the first unit to use 2 x UHP lamps in 1 chip DLP (Only 1 DLP chip with colorwheels instead of using 3 DLP chips). The goal was to increase the li8ght output and to doubble the runtime . The projector supports standby status on a lamp, so if one goes out, the spare ignites and you are up and running whitin seconds. The lightguide to connect those 2 laps are an inhouse supersimple design thing. 1 pease of glass takes care of both collecting and alining both lamps without the need of adjustments, and no problem with thermal expantion. It's simple and elegant and easy. It replaced mirrors with adjustments and so, pluss mirrors would have burned up as time goes. Those 2(3) guys that designed the optical system for Projectiondesign F3 are insanly bright and professional, and i was lucky to have teh pleassure to work with them back in the early 2000 :) But belive it or not, they came up with another design for a 3-chip DLP projector next, and the optcal system of that one is a whole level up from this again. 2 of them are still doing this in a firm called Norxe and i guess they are not stopping making super high end and compact projection systems for many years to come :) Take a look @ Projectiondesign F1. It impressed Texas instruments so much back in the days, that Projectiondesign was on the Ti's DLP development teams phonelist back in the start of 2000. :) It was insane, compared to the competition. Same quality, but only 1/8th of the size. Only 3Kiloes with native 1280x1024 resolution) :)

[@dimitrovalex]

Hi Dave, I work in Full Flight Simulators training center in Europe and we have those projectors fitted on simulators visual systems. They are branded as Barco, model FL35 with LED source of light (originally Projection Design from Norway, now Barco). We currently have 3 simulators fitted with this model, each visual system is a set of 3 projectors to cover 180 by 40 degrees field of view, for total number of 9 projectors. Our projectors are over 30k hours now 😅

[@thehighwayman78]

Wow! My dream! You get to test fly the sims? 😊

[@rkan2]

Level D?

[@jamesinc87]

Those projectors have spent a lot of time in the simulator, they must be rated to fly just about anything by now

[@ThePentosin]

wow 30k. I bought a used FL32, and it only have 1935hours on the leds.

[@bradwalker1259]

The prism is called a TIR prism (TIR = total internal reflection). It has a small air gap between the two halves. It discriminates between the incoming and outgoing light on the DMD (Digital Micromirror Device). When the mirrors flip, it changes the angle of the light and the air gap acts as a "switch" so only the "on" mirror's light goes to the projection lens.

[@bradwalker1259]

Fun fact: the input data rate for the DMD in this projector is 51.2 gigabits per second.

[@mikeselectricstuff]

Sounds reasonable, as the mirrors are only or or off, so they have to use binary code modulation to get greyscaling,

[@EEVblog]

Datasheet says 61Gbps

[@bradwalker1259]

@@EEVblog That's for the more expensive "X" version, which wasn't available when this projector was designed. Also, the "X" version can't handle as much light, as the LVDS receivers run hot at 480 MHz.

[@piotrts]

The huge heatsink is needed to dissipate the light energy when you display black. The complex prism assembly is used to divert the light from the "black" pixels back to the internal heatsink.

[@kevinhevans]

Dude this is one of my favorite eevblog videos. Loved seeing the intricate engineering in this.

[@redsquirrelftw]

DLP has always fascinated me, the fact that they can manufacture something mechanical at such a micro scale is mind blowing.

[@thewhitefalcon8539]

wait until you learn about microchips!

[@redsquirrelftw]

@@thewhitefalcon8539 Microships are actually easier, relatively speaking.

[@HyperMario64]

​@@redsquirrelftw My intuition is that both processes must be similar, the DLP one obviously more complex having the requirement of being not being solid state. There must be some similarity between the ICs metal layers and these micro mechanical layers. I would guess each layer can have this spacer material that can somehow get removed when the chip is all stacked up, and at some point a reflective coating can be applied & polished on top. The few companies that sell the machines that produce these must make good money. If anyone know who they are I would be very interested.

[@swp466]

The springs on the lens mount are for boresight alignment. This allows you to achieve perfect focus across the entire screen if the projector and screen axis are slightly off (projector not perfectly perpendicular to the screen). They force the lens mount away from the projector body, and turning the screws pulls one axis of the lens (X, Y or diagonal) in or lets it out. The screws should not be fully tightened. They should be about half the spring engagement as a starting point. This adjustment is different than the lens shift -- it "tilts" the lens in relation to the light path. The black painted portion inside the DLP housing is called the "light dump". DMD chips work by shifting microscopic mirrors. "on" pixels are reflected to the prism/light path and "off" pixels are reflected into the light dump.

[@EEVblog]

Yep, I should have thought of that. That's exactly what it's doing.

[@FrankGennari]

Is that why there are heat sink fins on that casing, to absorb the heat from the light dump?

[@swp466]

@@FrankGennari By the time the light hits the DMD chip, there isn't much heat energy left. The solid aluminum finned casting that makes up the housing has to deal with tons of heat just from the light source, so that's why it's finned.

[@steveforslund8466]

@swp466 do the springs also help with thermal growth / shifting?

[@swp466]

@@steveforslund8466 No. There is some thermal transfer into the lens (not so much the lens mount), so you always need to run the projector for about 30 minutes for the temperature to stabilize before you focus. If you focus cold, it will be out of focus in a half hour. That's due to the lens body expanding. Once it's stabilized though, focus remains pretty solid.

[@MrPointedHelix]

DLP has always fascinated me. For a typical 1080p 60hz signal you have two million tiny mirrors moving precisely to generate the right light intensity, not just 60, but 180 times a second to get each color projected.

[@dand8282]

It's 256 times that rate actually; 180/s would only allow 8 colors (R/G/B/C/M/Y/K/W) at 60fps, so each color channel is 8-bit "PWM'd".

[@bobroberts8500]

Holy fᥩᥴk...

[@UserName-q4i5d]

The technology is shot. TI maked chips that die like the DAD1000 ASIC so in a middle of an important movie premiere you se a huge purple bar across the screen. There's constant shimmering on screen, I thought someone kicked the cinema projector but then I realized they achieve 4k by shimmering a 2k mirror and relying on your persistence of vision to see it.

[@Gloworm17]

It's a beauty! I love how Dave saw the 11k used price tag later! About the original price... I have a feeling this is one of those "If you have to ask the price, you can't afford it."

[@EEVblog]

Someone on Patreon told me about $30k new.

[@kellymoses8566]

It didn't have the lens so was worth FAR less than $11k.

[@gblargg]

And then he finds the lens a few weeks later. D'oh!

[@gblargg]

@@Okurka. I think those finds are real. Unless you mean the 5 Keysight or whatever scopes in the dumpster. Or the gold bars.

[@swp466]

30:40 Some of the lenses out in the wild can get VERY expensive. Where I work, we have several installations that utilize custom lenses that have a price tag of around $95k each.

[@EEVblog]

Wow. But not entirely surprised.

[@JakePulliam]

The mirrors on thr edge aren't projected onto the screen. Theyre called the pond of mirrors. The are disabled (or rather, only allowed to turn off). The reason some are broght and some are dark is because they arent powered so tilt at different angles.

[@tschuuuls486]

I mean 2560×1536 in 2004 with HDMI in is pretty insane for a projector. The first HDMI device released was a Panasonic DVD player in late 2003. Ironically the projector supported a higher resolution than the max of HDMI 1.0 which maxed out at 1080p. But 11k hours runtime and this low level of dust on the inside is also pretty good.

[@spencerhodges2424]

It's from 2011, not 2004. It said so in the video.

[@quantumleap359]

I remember reading about the tech behind TI's micromirror arrays. I was completely floored by the unbelievable complexity! I'd like to know what the yield of these devices are. At 3.6K bucks each, I suppose it might not be very good. Anyway, fascinating teardown!

[@cameramaker]

The 29:54 incident light pointer from the 45 degree angle is the highlight of the *OLDER* dlp tech. The mirrors actually flip along the diagonal, thus requiring the light being fed onto the chip from that odd angle. There was some development to address this PITA aspect of the DLP so more modern parts have the mirrors as diamond shaped, flipping along the vertical axis - making possible to construct the light path in one horizontal plane - you know that by seeing how thin the new projectors are.

[@sandy1653]

One of my customers used to use a trio of similar projectors to run the video wall in their power dispatch center. A couple years ago they were upgraded to monster laser based ones from NEC that are rated for 24x7 operation with a 20k hour lifetime on the lasers. Which is nice because they're right awkward to get to.

[@nikkismith8750]

Dave, you've made me break my no.1 rule for watching YT: never click on any video that has "INSANE" in the title :P

[@swp466]

35:50 -- DLP is very much alive and well. There currently is not a superior technology. 3DLP is better than single DLP in that it uses a dedicated chip for each color instead of one chip with a color wheel (these suck at high motion rate video, like live sports).

[@button-puncher]

That and the color wheel "rainbow effect" is the worst. Former AV tech here... I don't care how fast they spin the color wheel, it gives me a headache EVERY time. 3LCD or 3DLP is the way to go.

[@rkan2]

Yeah, single DLP is very meh compared to 3x any projection technology. Too bad the 3DLP is much more expensive than 3LCD.

[@F0NIX]

I have worked a lot with this brand of projectors. Its was a Norwegian brand Projectiondesign that have been bought up by Barco. Projectiondesign was big in the marked for custom tailored projectors. They had a bit "weird" thing where they did not had any completed projectors in stock, but they had all the different parts for standard projectors. When you ordered a projector you put in what features and specs you wanted from a list and then they quickly put together from the parts they had and was also very quick to make special parts. This type of projectors was used a lot in huge screens in the oil industries to show a large high resolution picture by either edgeblending several projector together (having pictures side by side with some overlapping) or/and stacking several to get more lights. This type of projectors was also used a lot in cinemas for showing the comersials before the old type film projectors was fully digital and used projectors. Those X-port bays was for having different types of input cards or processor cards for using with 3D images. They was very smart projectors and was very easy to stack together and/or use in a edgeblending application, even mapping the image to a curved surface was done easy in the projector. Some of the technologies that Projectiondesign was inventing is still in use of the high end Barco projectors today. Cyviz was one of the lines of projectors used in edgeblending systems.

[@radarmusen]

Looks like the led projectors from Barco there are used in Full flight simulators didn’t know they had bought the tech from Norway.

[@UserName-q4i5d]

It's a similar thing to a Barco DP2K cinema projector but with only 1 DMD and formatter card instead of 3.

[@flemmingfrandsen9756]

The lens flapping mount that you noticed around 16:00 that mounts the lens assembly on springs is properly called scheimpflug, it's used to allow setting the left-right / top-bottom focus, it's needed when you want proper focus and still want a little flexibility in the relative placement of the screen and projector.

[@KeritechElectronics]

Whooooooa. Nice piece of kit. Absolutely friggin' magnificent. I'd totally see it in a NASA mission control room. Not a chance you'd find one in your dumpster, haha! Thing of beauty, joy for ever. If you didn't have a chance at true Norwegian black electronics, then you've gotta do a teardown of one of those lovely Tandberg tape recorders or other devices, they were and probably still are made in Norway and they're absolutely friggin' splendid in their design and build quality. Mold complexity 2*pi+9j, more complex than most complex numbers, haha!

[@bobert4522]

That DLP9000 I was able to pull the data sheet off Digi-Key. Looks like just that array would have been 1/3 the final price. Also pretty sure TI has the entire market cornered on the “DLP” technology. Don’t think anyone else makes them.

[@BlackWolf42-]

I've torn down DLP TVs found at the recycler and they boggled my mind with the optics trains and color wheels and don't forget that DLP chip itself. It's damn near magic to me. I think the complexity is what draws me to them. I go for the dichroic glass doohickies. Fascinating tech.

[@francisvaughan7460]

This is actually a mid-range projector. The likes of Christie (nee Electrohome) and Barco make stuff that makes this look cheap and tame. Even JVC in their vis-sim business have some very nice higher end stuff (which also makes its way into high end home theatre.) Plus Sony professional stuff. It isn;t hard to spend six figures, and the first digit isn't a 1. This projector supports Infitec stereo - which is a rather strange system that uses narrow bandpass optical filters to spit the light into six bands, with matching glasses where each eye gets three of the bands - and so you can split the projected light into left and right and retain colour. The colour rendering is not exactly fabulous, and needs pre-processing of the video to try to correct for the weird shifts. That alone used to take a FPGA to effect. Some of the filters you will see are to reject infra-red and UV. DLP chips have less than 100% coverage, and a big problem is the energy from light passing past the edges of the mirrors. Everything you do to reduce this helps. Heat and UV wreck everything eventually, so rejecting both early is important. Thus far TI are the only manufactures of DLP. Although the base patents are long since expired, the IP involved in fabrication is probably tightly held. DLP is very much alive. It is the only technology that can handle higher powers. So all your professional digital cinema projectors are DLP based. As are all the lower priced domestic projectors, and what are called Laser TVs for domestic use. LCoS (Still used by Sony and JVC) and LCD (Epson and many others) is around, but an't handle high power, and Sony have had lots of problems with it, to the point tat they exited the commercial cinema market. DLP remains dominant. TI are spruiking really cheap DLP projectors for use in everything - like a tiny projector built into the bottom of a car door that projects useful information onto the gourd when you get out. DLP has intrinsic issues with contrast, so there are limits to how good it can get. But its power handling still wins out if you want silly bright.

[@piratetv1]

Exactly. Just being a single chip with color wheels shows it's a mid range machine

[@UserName-q4i5d]

The difference between this machine and a cinema projector is that a Barco DP2K has one DMD mirror per colour (RGB) while cheaper projectors have only one DMD and use a color wheel. I bet one could literally use the formatters from these machines as spares as they have the same LVDS inputs, just an apater card would be needed.

[@frogz]

seeing dave play with the color wheel makes me feel justified in having done as such while tearing down an epson projector, they use magnesium alot in projectors, fun stuff and alot of good parts :D

[@thomasmaughan4798]

The spring loaded bayonet mount for the lens (probably) allows for adjusting the infinite focus also adjusting collimation of the lens to make sure it is aligned in the same direction as the light beam.

[@tristangates2797]

At a project last year I saw the tear-down of a Christie 4K40-RGB for repair and it was insane. I've never seen a commercial product quite like it. Hopefully one day something similar will show up for a tear down.

[@UserName-q4i5d]

The Christie and Barco have very similar circuit boards because they are copies of the TI reference design or something. We need to send him a Barco Series 1.

[@keleighshepherd345]

I'm a medical linac service electrical engineer for a radiotherapy dept in a hospital in the UK, and this has been designed with the FSE in mind, likely heavily consulted! Minimise downtime by making it repair and maintenance friendly with little quality of life tweaks like the holes in mouldings for a screwdriver to a screw, rather than faffing with a right angle jobby I used to be a live event tech before that, and a lot of the professional light, sound, power distro, and rigging is designed with rapid service in mind - if only medical device companies cared about the engineers and techs in the field! One manufacturer has lead shielding around the beam limiting device (the bit what steers and shapes the x-ray photon/electron beam), to access many of the inner workings. This lead shielding comes off IN ONE ORDER ONLY, and lo behold any fool who didn't take note of block position, order, and alignment, because it isn't until one gets further to the end of reassembly that things become apparently fubar'd! So off everything comes and try again🤦‍♀️ And the CMM is... euphemistic in its disassembly/reassembly wording... "remove the lead shielding", "reassemble the lead shielding"...

[@welchianachi7707]

Just for you to know, those whole metal housing inside this projector is made from magnesium alloy. You could make shavings of it and then just for fun burn it. Once I have a great time while burning this type of alloy... but be carefful cause it might be last thing you see in your life.

[@DadofScience]

Huge thanks to Morton and Dave for this show and tell. That is end game hardware. Wonderful to see.

[@fortheregm1249]

Would have been nice to see a minimal attempt to fix this beaut. I feel bad seeing it go to trash.

[@reinholdu9909]

*Stunning* _high End_ Optics,Electronics even Mechanics ... _flashed_ best EEV teardown *ever* ❤😊

[@dinkc64]

Wow, one of my favorite eev teardowns in a while - absolutely stunning!!

[@gr4eme1975]

Dave I finally retired my Planar triple DLP projector (one chip for each of the RGB) a few months ago having not used it for a few years. I can also remember going to Meridian Audio on a job interview and being given a tour of the facility where i was shown the calibration room for their DLP projector. It consisted of a Blacked out room with the production unit on test and a astronomy grade camera which was used to check alignment of the optics, this would have been in the early 2000's and the camera was like £100k but impressive to see the level they were going to for the optical alignment.

[@PsalmFourteenOne]

*DLP's, as bulky as they may have been in TV's, sure are a marvel in their own right* The idea that tiny mirrors are moving on hinges at that high speed is nuts. I had a Mitsubishi with a DLP chip that started failing with stuck mirrors. Would leave white dots in those pixels. Surprisingly there was an extended warranty and just had to pay for the AUTHORIZED tech to come out and do it. Was cheaper than me fixing it myself. TV was several years old at the time. I literally gave the TV away still working after we had all switched to flat panel tvs. Another DLP I had was an old Samsung. The color wheel motor "failed". I would take it apart. Clean the shaft and bearings. Oil it and re assembly it. Did that for like 2 to 3 years before replacing the actual color wheel motor. Then i gave that TV away.

[@deadmanwalking6342]

Scandinavian quality build. Dont scratch those expensive mirrors, they can be used in your optical uCurrent version.

[@TarisRedwing]

An amazing bit of hand assembled technology for sure. The nano DLP mirrors always amaze me.

[@borisdg]

Amazing tech and fantastic video Dave. Thank you!

[@stevec00ps]

With those wires into heatsink at 28:05 - is that a peltier cooler?

[@bradwalker1259]

It's not unusual for older high-end DLP projectors to use a Peltier cooler. I've seen them on both 1-chip and 3-chip projectors. Most high-end projectors today (rental and staging or cinema) use water cooling. Some of the 'big-rigs' with laser sources actually need an external chiller to cool the liquid and the lasers.

[@EEVblog]

Nicely spotted. Looks like it, but I can't get it off.

[@bartvuijk5645]

The springs on the lensmount are there so you can adjust the sheimpflug. Its an optical adjustment to get the projection sharp when off axsis setup.

[@BGTech1]

29:18 Both of those bga chips are the same thing.. Each one handles 50 percent of the pixels, and both are managed by the FPGA. The bottom one reqires a heatsink because its not directly by the airflow from the fan.

[@hgbugalou]

I love seeing high end electronics being taken apart. This one was great.

[@davel759]

The springs are for adjustment of the lens alignment, that's why they're in a triangle configuration. Amazing piece of kit. Would love to have worked on it, must have been awesome to develop it.

[@3ffrige]

Wow that kit was a very generous donation to your channel!

[@HomelabExtreme]

The lamps and lamp drivers deserve a video of their own.

[@Rienck]

Not often that you have that level of amazement! Awesome!

[@nathnich]

I was in my last year of school in 2004 at University of Texas at Arlington for EE. I was taking a MEMS class and the professor had a person from TI come in to talk about the DLP chip and pass a sample chip aroud. It was so amazing at the time. DLP chips still have uses in SLA 3d printing. Top of the line DLP movie projectors used 3 DLP chips for each of the colors eliminating the color wheel and rainbowing issues.

[@MrPointedHelix]

That black area may be the light dump. From what I understand DLP mirrors split the light between the lens and the dump since different intensities are needed for each pixel.

[@mortenleikvoll2330]

The mirrors can take 3 positions. Rest stage (flat), and plus minus ~13deg (iirc). In the on state, the TIR prism throws the light out to the lens. In the off state, the prism make sure the lights get reflected back inside the first prism. If you follow that angle, you will see where the dump area is. But in general, you want to avoid any stray light reflecting, so you want it black.

[@MrTimeDigger]

I am amazed with the engineering used in that beauty...

[@mlann2333]

Great teardown, no expense spared in that design

[@chrisridesbicycles]

Wow! I can‘t believe this is from 2004. It was toppest of top notch back in the day fir sure. I don‘t think I had seen a HDMI port in person in 2004.

[@TheEsseboy]

No, it was released in 2009

[@Gamez4eveR]

now all we need is a full $150k barco/christie cinema projector teardown

[@UserName-q4i5d]

yes, let's send him a Barco light engine with a horizontal line on screen

[@dtvdave1]

About a decade ago we used a very similar unit to provide rear projection of video for local television news programming.

[@FrankGennari]

I brought a smaller/cheaper/newer DLP projector to my daughter's school take-it-apart night a few years ago. It worked, but I thought the kids would enjoy taking it apart. It was quite similar to this one with many of the same parts, including an identical looking sensor. The biggest difference was that it had an LED lamp. Unfortunately, the kids got a bit too aggressive trying to get it apart and broke the glass color wheel and mirrors, but I saved the sensor. I also put it under a (cheap) microscope. This video is great because it helps me understand how these projectors work.

[@opcode114]

Man, that’s awesome. Reminds me of Feynman’s talk about data on pinheads.

[@aeloolindowy]

Not only are DLP stuff and lenses very expensive, but in this case also Infitec's color wheels. Each has 6 very narrow filters for different wavelengths, that together enable 3D projection with passive glasses. The glasses have corresponding 3+3 filters for left + right eye. I don't know what the stripes on color segments are for... possibly they help with equalizing brightness at the center and at the edges?

[@rkan2]

Doesn't matter what projection technology or imaging (the reverse). Optics are very expensive.

[@mortenleikvoll2330]

The colorwheel is normal, but optimized for high brightness (often meaning duller colors). This projector works in 2d as well. The infitec filter is the motorized mystery part at 26:40..

[@faxcorp]

Big heatsink must be for the lamp. Im rocking a DLP projector myself, I love to imagine all the microscopic mirrors flipping and stuff spinning inside, all perfectly aligned

[@mrsaizo0000]

I think the springs are for adjustments. When you have the lens on, you could perhaps adjust it a bit..

[@minigpracing3068]

I can't comment on if it is overbuilt, but it's certainly built like the 3 tube broadcast cameras I used to maintain back in 1990's.

[@pauldeboer]

The 3 springs in the lens coupling plate are there to adjust the lens position.

[@bradwalker1259]

It's specifically to adjust the lens boresight, i.e. making the lens' optical axis perpendicular to the DMD chip.

[@SeanBZA]

Yes, there to allow you to fine adjust the front lens so the light path is directly through the centre of the lens, to minimise and distortion from you approaching the edges of the lens unit where the chromatic aberration of the system would have resulted in image colour smearing. Adjusted at factory with the wet locking compound for best result, then left to finish curing, and the springs holding it in position.

[@ctechbob]

DLP has always been my favorite projection technology. Just seems like they're able to scale it to whatever you want to use it for. Want something small that attaches to a phone? Or something with insane output power like some of the big Christie units. One technology does them both. Still amazing to me. And to think, the original intent was a printer.

[@AtOddsAlways]

Watching your tear-down was beyond fascinating. But listening to your narration suggested me putting a gun to my head.

[@cgourin]

This thing would be so good to make a DIY advanced flight simulator cockpit setup. Might have been integrated in pro simulators with hydraulics motion explaining redundancy and the heavy design for a type of device that would hate to be tossed around.

[@GodmanchesterGoblin]

This is an impressive piece of engineering. I am pretty sure those motors and reduction gear trains would be used for adjusting offset and angle of the lens assembly to aid focus and manage keystone correction in any direction (where the screen is not perpendicular to the axis of projection). Low-end projectors manage keystone in software, but at the expense of image quality. Doing it purely via the optics ensures that a pixel on the DMD chip is still a unique pixel at the screen. As for the heatsinking - remember that the lamp source is on continually, and the DMD mirrors are bi-stable - they reflect light through the lens to the screen or away from it (using various forms of PWM for degrees of brightness of each colour component as the wheel rotates). If directing the light away from the lens, then the light is reflected onto a pure-black absorber and that converts all of the light energy for that pixel in that instant in to heat. So for a fully off display, all of the light energy from the lamp goes straight to heat. The heatsinking for the DMD chip deals with the heat from the light that is not reflected to the screen or the absorber which is mainly that which lands in the small gaps between the mirrors. TI spent a lot of time in developing DLP technology to maximise the ratio of mirror to non-mirror area since this reduces heat in the DMD device and also improves contrast ratio.

[@UserName-q4i5d]

Cinema projectors like the Barco DP2K don't have optical key-stoning adjustment at all! In a cinema they don't correct for keystoning at all, they just mask off the light that spills over the edged of the fabric (essentially cropping the image). One would think a more expensive machine would have optical keystoning adjustment with a mirror or something but it is not the case at all.

[@RandyNLA]

What a gorgeous teardown! Thanks for sharing this wonderfully engineered product! My main entertainment display is a Sony VPL-VW365ES 4K projector. Not DLP but I love it. In regard to your question why they'd have such an elaborate gear system for the lens shift, that it'd probably only be used once for initial setup, and I wanted to say that I'm constantly adjusting the zoom & lens shift of my projector (at least once every other day) depending on the resolution & aspect ratio of the tv show or movie I'm watching. If a video has the black bars on top/bottom (say, 2.35:1), like most movies use, I can zoom it in and go from 8' wide (where I keep it for 16:9) to about 10' wide. I then shift the lens up so the top edge touches the wall/ceiling edge of my wall. After watching, I shift/zoom back to the normal 16:9 aspect ratio of my streaming devices' main menus (TV, Roku, FireTV, 4kBlu-ray disc, PS5). I have less vert wall space available than horz, hence the zooming in/out. If I left the 16:9 fully zoomed in, it'd take up at about 5' or 6' vert and there's only 4' avail.

[@BrAiNeeBug]

The dark Portion in the bottom of the casing is generaly a light trap to change light into heat on a specific spot.

[@Petertronic]

The motorized fine X and Y adjustments may be needed to keep the image precisely aligned in a multi-image projector setup, so not necessarily used just once at installation

[@JATmatic]

I do job once a week job at electronics recycling place and I have teared down multiple projectors. The TFT/LCD projectors have "X-Cube" piece of optics in them and I have few those as ornaments because they split light into RGB. :D Most expensive projector I have teared down was ~2500€ and I was shocked, since the projectors usually have only a bad lamp. The DMD chips probably have good % of gold in them also.

[@PowerScissor]

On a projector I owned long ago, the springs were so you could adjust the angle of the lens. When you loosen one side, it doesn't just flop around, but gives slight tweak on the lens alignment & springs keep everything held in place. No idea if it was the same for this one, but that's how mine worked.

[@EEVblog]

Yep, that's what it does here too, I should have thought of that.

[@button-puncher]

Considering the weight of the lens, I'd guess that it also serves as some impact resistance, if the unit is dropped. Less likely to snap the lens mount.

[@bevis71]

12:26 It's a rotating circle, outside spins faster then inside. That's a short story. ;)

[@davidsantiagoalonso]

oh wow... the mechanical engineering team did some serious work. they didn't have to save money or cut corners on this design. im sure they learnt that lesson early on... that temp sensor is a perfect example. keep it off the main board... as long term temp differences will cause serious problems with mean time to failure projections. loved seeing an expensive piece of kit being used for a teardown. the last 10mins were amazing to get to see. just imagine what micro mirror technology will be like in a few more generations (if required).

[@UserName-q4i5d]

That's an exception. Barco is doing all it can to starve out the part availability for the older models that are built like a brick outhouse. The old projectors have machined light tunnel assemblies (the long tube that holds a quartz rod for making an even white image and lens) while the newer models have some kind of cast shell made out of brittle pot metal (Series 2 and beyond).

[@Elyon113]

@12:35 is for the rolling shutter effect because circles are dumb and hard

[@MoreCharactersThanNeeded]

Are those lens shift gears greased with... Molybdenum disulfide grease? Wow...

[@jessicav2031]

Wow, that DLP chip is REAL holo! Very pretty! Almost a shame having it out in the air like that where it is probably getting damaged just existing.

[@button-puncher]

The DLP is a sealed unit. As long as you don't scratch the front glass, it'll be OK. Techs used to have them on their benches as souvenirs. The rainbow effect (that Dave showed) was so cool. What is frustrating is taking a projector apart and getting a big fleck of dust on a mirror, and only finding out when you fire the unit back up (when it's all back together).

[@scabbynack]

The bit of the inside that is painted black is where the DLP chip reflects light that isn't being used in the projected image. It's gotta go somewhere!

[@nikkismith8750]

Brings a new meaning to "hot swap". Does it come with an oven glove to swap out a lamp that has failed in the middle of a presentation? Or do you sacrifice the poor intern's hand?

[@button-puncher]

I'd guess with that blower, it was cool enough to touch within 30 seconds of shutting the bad lamp down.

[@Jonas_Keunecke]

Yes, I think you'd see a very stressed out person with oven gloves run into the room every now and then :P

[@mreducto2]

IIRC you can test for magnesium in the alloy by putting some vinegar on it. Fizzing means it's magnesium.

[@kevincozens6837]

Dave, did you think about putting it back together again once you found out the price for it? Are we in for a future repair video for it? The fault with it wasn't mentioned. Might be hard to determine the fault with no lens.

[@Xuzyy]

In my work place we have many of these, great product, also the latest FL40. In Europe these are Barco branded, we use them to project on a mylard on board full flight aircraft simulators, for pilots training.

[@Mr.Unacceptable]

I'd love to get hold of the lenses mirrors and filters from this unit. I'm collecting lenses and mirrors for making a light table.

[@rkan2]

8:00 - quite similiar to any home theater projector with motorized zoom/focus/lens shift. The Epsons are not that expensive (3000-5000$)

[@joegee2815]

In the early home theater days DLP was the high end solution and there were expensive consumer offerings. I had a friend who was putting together a home theater projection system and the biggest issue was the amount of heat generated by the bulbs. If the projector was in the same room as the viewers the noise could be significant so sound enclosures were sometimes used. My friend finally settled on an LCD projector but insisted that he was going to upgrade one day. Seems like the patent may be expired soon as this was all back in the late 1990s.

[@BHSAHFAD]

please try and hook up some voltage to those DLP pins and see if you can get those mirrors to turn under the microscope

[@youdontknowme5969]

We played around with and disassembled a failing Sony Videoscope in my 12th grade high school electronics class near the end of the school year. It was nuts.

[@taphaeltube]

Projection Design has the market for high end panoramic & edge blended stuff. I did a job a while back installing a bunch of them edge-blended on a 270° 10m diameter curved screen for a ship simulator. We did 3 simulator rooms. They flew out to train me on repairing them for ongoing service to the client (before I left the company 🤭). Anyway, yes "the ducks guts" one might say. *edit: yes different lens options, not only for different throw lengths, but also for different screen shapes (flat plane, single curve, spherical, etc.).

[@FaZuQ]

36:46 curious, how difficult is the production of this design?

[@micahnightwolf]

I do wonder what that weird rotating filter at 26:40 is supposed to do. The projector is 3D-capable. Would that have anything to do with it? Or is it perhaps a means of adjusting the brightness?

[@ChristianPinnock-u5c]

It's a colour wheel it's located between the light source and the micro mirror

[@liquidmandotcom]

Given the task at hand this projector is not really over engineered, the essential problem is one of vibration. On the projection side a pixel is just a few microns across, on screen side it's anywhere from 2 to 5 inches. Vibration needs to be contained. Not only that, but it's a stereoscopic projector meaning among the dichroics is horizontal and vertical polarization. There may also be a shutter mechanism in there for left and right eye separate as well. If you can't tell, I spent many years in this industry.

[@tiavor]

I think the curved streak on the filter disk segments is damage from usage. looks like it's going out from a slit between the filter segments, the form is due to air turbulence and what it is can only be speculated. either it's residue from something or it's damage to the filter surface.

[@TomLeg]

I'm thinking the arcs on the colour wheel segments are a shutter to create a blank region .... but they are in the middle of the colour, so not a matter of colour separation. ???

[@christopherleubner6633]

Wow the US surplus store American Science and Surplus had the color wheels and prism bits from these in 2014.

[@juhaeske]

DLP chips are in use when printing on photographic paper in fast printing machines, in this case, 20k prints/hour. Only smaller rectangle portion of chip in use. In case of failing single chip mirror on DLP chip, chip can be reorientated and adjusted accordinly. Never have need evenfor that during >10 years of operation ~8h/day. Projected image line sort of scans into constantly moving paper. Light amount fades away with each pixel line to make uniform image while paper advance is constanly monitored via exposure roller shaft. Dust is periodically removed from protective surfaces but it is not big deal. Light source LED unit ( originally 250W? halogen lamp with filter wheel, 10k prints/h) has quite faint leds compared to wall projector use. LED unit has been once replaced due to old gen blue led fading. These fastPrint 20 printers are manufactured by Imaging Solution placed in Switzerland. Laser w/single mirror printing is used in many smaller photographic paper minilabs.

[@michaelmiller641]

Amazing! How do thet manage to make those tiny tilting mirrors!