The Cinemar Home Theater Construction Thread - Page 88

Just an update for others that are considering this 10 port USB hub.

I haven't been able to charge my Harmony and PS3 remote using it. It does work for the 3D glasses though.

I guess I may need something with a little more power?

I woke up at 5am to the pleasant sound of our sump pump alarm going off.

Turns out that a piece of hardened spray foam had fallen into the sump tank and lodged it's way underneath the float so it couldn't go all the way to the top and turn on the main sump.

I have the alarm set to go off when the first sump fails...which was a good thing. I immediately mannually tripped the 2nd backup sump - but that wasn't pumping water out either. I had just layed down some black plastic flexible sump hose and layed it on the ground outside extending it past the house...but apparently it was clogged or frozen. Which is odd since that sump never runs.

My plan was to route some PVC underground next year to hide the pipe, but it would be a bigger pain if it's frozen underground rather than above. What's the recommended approach? I need to route it about 30 feet away from the house.

The 2nd sump outlet sits about 2' above the ground. So one theory is just to use a stiff PVC pipe and keep it angled to prevent any sitting water. But this would keep it above ground and kind of an eye sore.

All in all, I was happy to have avoided potentially flooding the theater.

Hey Wes,

Yeah - I've been in similar situations. I think in our sunken part of the theater before we even started on it, we had about 6" of water in there. So I know it will flood and that's why I'm taking so many measures to prevent it again now that the theater is done.

Thanks for the information and especially the photo. I like your idea of not completely closing the connection and having the blow-out option with the T.

How deep did you go with your 4" that's sitting below the ground? Is that a 4" Elbow right at the top of the dirt?

I'll have to do some testing, but I would think if I put a 45 degree elbow right there that the force of the sump pump pushing it out so fast may end up spraying a lot of it back up. But I'm not positive on that one.

I may just come up with a temporary solution for now....just letting the water on the back up sump push out and remove any extra attachments that can freeze. That's better than having the backup sump plugged up.
Then when summer rolls around tackle the 30' of trenching out a 4" pipe.

I'd definitely look into at least an inexpensive battery alarm. For the few bucks they could really save you in an extreme case.
Here's the one's I bought and placed around the house:
http://www.smarthome.com/71631/Smarthome-MT400-Water-Leak-Detection-Alarm/p.aspx

Ideally it would be just a bit smaller. I found it just a wee bit big to be completely hidden behind our toilets.

For the sump pit, I'm using these Sump Pump Alarm Bobbers:
http://www.absoluteautomation.com/sump-pump-alarm-high-water-switch/

These are then wired back into my Elk Security panel.

I have one that sits at the level of when the main sump pump is triggered. This one is strictly used as a counter for my own purposes. Since you don't always hear the sump running, I just wanted to calculate how often it does. So the Elk then triggers a Macro in MLserver to add 1 each time it gets triggered. I reset the counter at Midnight each day, and then store the total for that day in another variable. From any touch screen I can see where the counter is at.

I then have another one tied to just above the main sump pump...so as soon as it rises above...meaning the main sump didn't trigger or isn't working, it will sound the alarm. I just added this week for it also to send me an email through MLServer. So if I'm out and about, I can take necessary steps to get back or have someone check it out for me.

There's also one of these Sump Pump Alarm Bobbers in my ejection pit for the sewer. That would be an even worse problem when that pump fails!


These pumps do fail or just the switch fails on them. I think I've gone through two already in 10 years. Better safe than sorry.

Thanks for posting Tim. Another great example.

Thanks jchasen.

It's to tell, but do those cone shaped PVC's that you have pictured allow the water to flow out of the vents in case it did freeze?

Thanks Wes.

That's good to know. I'll probably adopt something very similar to yours. I may add a cover that can freely slide up and down the 1 1/2" PVC to cover the 4". That way I can avoid the screen and still have an overflow option.

I picked up the Darbee Darblet DVP 5000 a couple weeks ago. I wanted to play around with it a bit before giving some thoughts on it.

I must say, it does a great job of adding sharpness to the projected image on my Panasonic AE8000U that I hadn't seen before. You can see this especially with things like hair, the strands become much more visible and defined.

It also appears to affect the contrast of images. This is especially true with the animated movies out there. They really seem to pop now. The ability to dial it in is also nice.

The only downside I've really seen is that you want to play around with it before each movie to see which settings work the best.

I'm definitely keeping the Darbee Darblet and making it a permanent link in the chain.

Just curious if anyone else around here is using a Darbee Darblet and what their impressions were.

I was going to post some screenshots, but the DarbeeVision website does a much better job and has lots of images that you can see how it affects the images.

I also watched Polar Express in 3D with my daughter. I finally got around to getting my PS3 hooked up into the D-Box too. So we were able to experience 3D plus the motion platform. It really brought us into the movie. The only thing we were missing was smellavision.
Edited by mcascio - 1/21/13 at 12:04pm

Looks like a nice clean solution as well. I'll have to see if Menard's stocks them.

That's pretty cool. Put it in some surround white plastic and sell it for $10.

You might put another aspirin on the top of the close pin...you'll need that one after the stress of all the water you'll find lingering around.

roknrol,

Good to hear I'm not alone around here on the Darblet front. I haven't really seen too many build threads bringing it up after the fact.

Like you, I think GAME is where I've defaulted it to at as high as 70%. But then if it's too much grain, I'll go down to HiDef mode. I was lucky with getting mine going right out of the gate.
Pop mode at higher levels seems to cast a shadow or halo around figures and objects.

I've switched off after a couple weeks of having it and you're right, you do notice it's absence.

Hi Bryan,

You bet.
Nope - no problems on my end. I think some people may have had problems when using shorter 6" HDMI cables...but that's probably cable brand dependent too. I think I'm using all 24 AWG monoprice cables. I think the shortest is a foot or so.

Hi Ron.

Thanks.
Here are some measurements:
Front Row: 8'6" from Front of Seat to screen
Back Row: 14'7" from Front of Seat to screen
Projector: 16'2" from Lens to Screen
Screen: 136" Wide 2.35
VIEWING DISTANCE TO BOTTOM OF SCREEN FROM CENTER FRONT ROW
* SEAT INCLINED: 10' 5 1/2"
* SEAT DECLINED: 11' 2"

I'll add the above measurements to my first post.

I believe I posted a diagram with the column spacing so I'll have to check through the thread.