How to Make a DIY Projector From a Phone and Box! Build a Smartphone Projector With a Shoebox How to Build a Projector Out of Cardboard (with Pictures)
So I've had this kind of crazy idea for a while but hear me out I love sleeping I love my bed--as anyone should, we spend like a third of our lives in one But what if we could spend our whole lives in bed. See I've been concocting a sort of self-contained "Loafer's Utopia" built entirely around a bed frame. We'd start out with a nice jumbo sized bed with a big soft mattress and give it a big canopy frame. Let's add a good selection of pillows--we want choices. Then at the foot of the bed...BaM! A full-blown movie screen. We'll put the projector at the headboard, some surround sound speakers, and we can put some cabinets here to hold a selection of comfy pajamas. I bet we could fit an enclosed 3D printer in there as well Then on the left wall here we can add some amenities like one of those showers with a toilet inside and over here we'll have a small kitchen space with a little mini
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Above us a full climbing wall so you can crawl around like a spider and get all the exercise you need That's basically all I need and we've still got a whole extra wall What would you put on it? I'm open to suggestions. Anyways that's my Loafer's Utopia and while it's a pretty big and probably insane undertaking I finally have the opportunity to start following my dreams thanks to XGIMI. They're an award-winning projector company and they have a whole fleet of fantastic projectors for a whole variety of situations and setups They wanted to work with me and I shared my idea of this grand vision of a movie theater in my bed and somehow they were down and they offered to send me their Halo portable projector This thing is awesome It's a remarkably capable
projector that puts out bright and crisp projections in 1080p. It's super compact runs on Android TV with Chromecast and it can last for 2-4 hours on battery power alone. XGIMI even teamed up with the legendary audio company Harman Kardon to include two powerful 5 watt speakers all within this tiny 3.5 pound package. That makes it perfect for impromptu situations like an outdoor movie night. But we're not going outside today I want to watch movies from the comfort of this bed. So today we're going to build a nice big screen at the foot of my bed mount a projector back here and bam, home bed movie theater I'm so excited let's do it We've got a projector that's fantastic that's already a big part of the equation for having a bed movie theater but we're still missing another part of the equation and that's the screen. So let's talk about that part first because since this is a prototype I was trying to do things really on the cheap here I want it to work really well but I'm also trying to keep the price down so I started out by sourcing this super cheap stretchy screen from Amazon and it was like 17 bucks. This thing is pretty awesome because
it's elastic so you can pretty much stretch it out and get rid of all the wrinkles and then you can just curl it up into a ball and store it when you need to and for this version of my movie screen bed I want it to be really quick to build up and take apart because it is gonna shrink the room down a bunch to have a big movie screen here So my thinking was that I could just put a pole on either side of the foot of the bed and just stretch this screen across and at first I thought I'd use PVC or something like that but in the end the cheaper option ended up being lumber. I went with these six foot long 1x2's that only cost a couple of bucks each I did get lucky and found the only two straight pieces in the store so all i had to do was give them a light sanding to avoid any splinters I'm using a sanding sponge here which makes it a bit easier to apply even pressure and not take off too much material. Next I started measuring the foot of my bed frame I measured every dimension I could because my plan was to 3D print some
kind of fixture that connects the wooden beams to the bed without any additional hardware and that requires some precise work to get right I started sketching out some ideas for the mount and quickly realized that 3D printing something strong enough to keep the wood upright against the tension of the screen was going to take a lot of time and materia--two things I was trying to avoid here--so I reconsidered my approach and decided to just bolt the wood straight to the bed frame Nice and simple. I used this box to get a good consistent height for the beam which I lined up flush to the edge of the bed frame and clamped into place Dremel sent me this really cool laser measuring tool that came in handy I used it to measure the distance between the beams down to an eighth of an inch and by measuring at different points I was able to ensure that the beams were in fact parallel It also helped me figure out the width of my screen since I have access to Natalie's sewing expertise we decided to trim the screen to width and bring in the edge so I can still make use of the grommets for mounting this sheer and stretchy fabric is really tricky to deal with so I used this large ruler to try and get a straight edge Then I put down some masking tape to keep it from shifting. That makes it much easier for me to trim the fabric and then I'll repeat the process to trim the side with the edge as well. Next I'll line up the new edges and hold things in place with pins to leave for Natalie to stitch together Meanwhile, it was time to finish
mounting our wood beams I got these three inch bolts that are perfect for this job so with everything still clamped in place. I just went ahead and started drilling I was a little worried about the bed frame being robust enough since it's made of particle board but with the washers there to spread the force I was able to tighten the bolt and get a really snug fit We'll have two bolts per beam to make sure they stay upright I'll start with a pilot hole using a small drill bit and that helps guide the larger drill and makes it easier to get a clean result I also go in and out with several passes to help clear the wood chips which is also good practice Another tight bolt and this thing is stiff enough to shake the whole bed That's good and since I saved so much time
mounting with bolts instead of printing something I figured I could quickly paint these beams black to match the rest of the bed frame The paint was going on all thin and weird and that's when I realized I accidentally grabbed an oil-based paint Noxious, sticky, and slow to dry. So I only had time to do one coat and I had to leave them outside to dry for a day instead of a few hours but in the end they turned out okay By now Natalie had finished sewing the edges of the screen together and it was my turn to remove the tape It was quite tricky to get all that tape off but absolutely worth it for the clean stitch With the tape off Nat was able to go back over that stitch with a more robust double stitch to make sure it could handle the stretching it'll undergo. Here's the result it came out super nice Finally it's time to install our screen and see how it looks so I remounted the painted beams
they go up really quick and easy. So I'm happy about that and then I've got these bad boys: some extra long thumbtacks. That we can hook the grommets to My plan was to stick these tacks on the back of the beam so the screen can wrap around and stay taut. I wasn't getting quite enough stretch this way so I just moved the tack around one more corner and that was enough to do the trick So I stuck a tack in each corner as well as two more halfway up each beam and with that we have ourselves a bonafide movie screen. Now let's see what went into setting up our projector I wanted to mount this on the headboard so our theater is entirely contained within this bed Now the power cables stick out the back here and I'd rather have the projector farther back so I'm just gonna pull the bed off the wall a bit I like the idea of it being flush with the board like this so I'll measure the headboard for reference and as for the XGIMI Halo, it's got some subtle curves so for something like this I like to use my flatbed scanner I'll scan this flat top profile and then I can bring that image into Adobe Illustrator and get this really accurate outline of its shape to
scale Now I can take that outline and bring it into Fusion 360 to help me build my mount I came up with this fairly simple design with the intention of making it very easy to 3D print. It happens to look like the number four but it's really just designed to hold the projector in place and transfer its weight into the side of the headboard and of course it prints without supports Alright it's printing time I'm printing this on my new Sovol SV01 Pro and I'm using Fillamentum's UFO Blue Metallic CPE filament. CPE is a pretty tricky material to print but it can produce some really nice strong parts. The print was looking really good halfway through but when I came back to the finished print I noticed some real big cracks right through the middle I guess a warmer enclosure would have really helped here and maybe a higher nozzle temperature too Well it's certainly still worth testing The fit on the
headboard is really snug and it seems super sturdy the projector also just barely fits but I soon realized that the Halo projects its image at a slight upward angle Oops... Well that gives me the perfect opportunity to upgrade my design for this version I tilted the projector down 10 degrees to make sure it hits my screen where I want it I also made the walls thinner because this time I'll be printing with super strong carbon fiber nylon filament Again the XGIMI Halo is rather lightweight so I don't need an insanely beefy stand and with the CF Nylon I can print with really low infill which will save me time and filament This is the QIDI brand CF Nylon filament and I'm printing it on their QIDI X-CF Pro 3D printer which is pretty much designed specifically for this material. The X-CF Pro is a fully enclosed 3D printer It's got an all metal hot end, a hardened nozzle, and even a filament dry box and I've gotta
say this print came out looking pristine. I mean, I know it's a simple print but wow It sure is satisfying I made some slight adjustments to the measurements so thankfully this version fits on the bed perfectly. I also made the top looser so it doesn't risk damaging the projector. But most importantly the picture fits perfectly on my screen. You can see the Halo using its awesome auto-focus feature that automatically calibrates it to fit the frame and stay in focus It's super handy So it's official my bed is now a movie theater and right off the bat I'm gonna call this project an absolute success. The video looks great the sound is fantastic. The projector is quiet so having it right by our heads isn't a bother and it's quite bright. If I close the curtains I can get a nice
bright image any time of day. Alright I don't know what else to say this thing is awesome It's truly like having my own personal movie theater in my bed and I love it. As for this XGIMI Halo projector here. Well, I've only had it for a couple of days but I'm already super impressed with the image and sound quality coming out of this little tiny portable device It's a pretty awesome piece of technology and it's Prime Day so if you check out the link in the video description you can get it on sale right now. If you have a vision like mine I'm pretty sure you'll jump on that. Still this is only the beginning of my grand vision for the all-in-one dream bed. So make sure you're subscribed if you want to see what comes of it and if you have any comments or suggestions leave them below. Most importantly make sure you get plenty of rest and as always stay inspired
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