Hi all,
Bought my first projector over the weekend. Due to my current status of renting a home rather being an owner I could not go the normal route of installing a roll down/fixed projection screen and therefore decided to build my own one and see whether there are cost savings to be had over commercially available projection screens.
I found a nice size 36x60" canvas in a arts & crafts shop which gives me an effective 69" projection space which is a little bit less than I would like, but fits perfectly into the space I have reserved for it. Next we went to a fabric shop where I tried picking out two types of fabric. One colour was dark gray colour and second was a light gray which does have some reflective capability (see in the first photo it almost looks kind of silverish). We did some tests at home and the dark fabric ended up being to dark for the projector, but the light fabric seemed to work perfectly and provided great contrast. We ended up fastening the fabric over the canvas frame first in a horizontal direction and then the verticals using a heavy duty stapler. The fabric get stretched quite nicely and there are very few creases in the fabric.
The end product:
Projection screen mounted, room not darkened
Screen with darkened room
Total cost of projection screen:
Canvas frame: R385
Fabric: R70/m (Bought two meters) (darker fabric was more expensive, but had to write that cost off as well due to the material not being suitable)
Total cost: R525
The quote I got for a Grandview projection screen was around R2500, so I consider this a nice saving until I buy a property again and can set up a dedicated theater room with a larger projection screen.
Bought my first projector over the weekend. Due to my current status of renting a home rather being an owner I could not go the normal route of installing a roll down/fixed projection screen and therefore decided to build my own one and see whether there are cost savings to be had over commercially available projection screens.
I found a nice size 36x60" canvas in a arts & crafts shop which gives me an effective 69" projection space which is a little bit less than I would like, but fits perfectly into the space I have reserved for it. Next we went to a fabric shop where I tried picking out two types of fabric. One colour was dark gray colour and second was a light gray which does have some reflective capability (see in the first photo it almost looks kind of silverish). We did some tests at home and the dark fabric ended up being to dark for the projector, but the light fabric seemed to work perfectly and provided great contrast. We ended up fastening the fabric over the canvas frame first in a horizontal direction and then the verticals using a heavy duty stapler. The fabric get stretched quite nicely and there are very few creases in the fabric.
The end product:
Projection screen mounted, room not darkened
Screen with darkened room
Total cost of projection screen:
Canvas frame: R385
Fabric: R70/m (Bought two meters) (darker fabric was more expensive, but had to write that cost off as well due to the material not being suitable)
Total cost: R525
The quote I got for a Grandview projection screen was around R2500, so I consider this a nice saving until I buy a property again and can set up a dedicated theater room with a larger projection screen.
