Cyclone Cinema Build - Page 14

I guess great minds think alike

I need to do a good cleanup of the theater room (and get the miter saw out of there), but after it is clean, I can put together and install my screen that arrived yesterday! I would love to start making fabric panels for around the screen, but it would probably be best to wait until carpet is installed.

Instead I will probably get the screen installed, then formulate a game plan for my fabric panels, and maybe think about a manual masking system.

So I was planning on waiting to carry down my speakers until the carpet was installed, but I got anxious and recruited a friend.

Here is a picture of the speakers sitting behind the stage


It turns out I made a good decision. I hooked up all the speakers to do a quick test of all my cabling. I played a few songs to make sure everything was working. It turns out that the sound out of the front right speaker was barely audible. I directly connected a speaker in the AV room to check the output (just to rule out any wiring problems) and it still wasnt outputting amplified sound. I did a microprocessor reset on Saturday night and it fixed the problem. Fast forward to Sunday afternoon, I was downstairs working on a few things and started up the receiver to play some radio...front right speaker didnt work again. I tried the microprocessor reset, but it didnt fix the problem this time. I tried to do some more troubleshooting, but couldnt figure anything out. I ended up calling Electronics Expo - they sent me a RMA#, so I will be shipping my unit to them and they will be sending me a different unit. They were great to work with.

Enough of my electronics problems, on to more progress.

I hung my 4 surround/rear speakers.






I am trying to decide if it is safe to leave all my speakers in the room when they come in to do carpet installation. I assume the installation crew would be careful, but maybe I had better be safe than sorry. What have others done in this situation?

After the speakers were installed I moved on to the screen.

Here is a picture showing the screen frame put together, laying on top of my XD fabric (at an angle to eliminate any possibilty of moire).


The next step was to trim the fabric and cut slots in the fabric to go around the screws. I think if you order a frame with a screen this part is completed for you. Since I bought my screen material separately I was on my own. I put some temporary staples into the material and stretched it tight. After it was stapled tight, I marked all the screw heads that I would need to cut around. In the picture below you can see my corner marks. I added the lines to make sure I cut the tabs the correct direction.


Here is a picture with the tabs cut


And here is the screen with the fabric stretched. In the bottom left side you can see the only wrinkle I needed to work out.




Mounted bracket installed on my goalpost


And finally a shot showing the screen hanging.


Here is a shot with all the lights off except the screen wash lights. For some reason, when I first started researching for my theater - this shot always looked so cool. I am finally able to post my own!


In some of the pictures you can see drywall mud. I had to patch up a bunch of small dents & dings from swinging trim and columns around. The ceiling and walls will get a final coat of paint after the carpet is installed (in case they are careless during the installation).

GWCR,

I am pretty happy with the screen frame, and would do it again if I had to make the choice. I could have done with the 1 month wait, but other than that, it worked very well.

Really, by the time I sourced all the materials (wood, velvet, aluminum and hardware) it was going to be a wash cost wise. It goes together really easily, the tensioning system worked well (at least it did with the centerstage XD).

The only reason I hesitated was because I was unsure of the construction techniques they used. After I saw another guy from the forum use it with good results, I decided to take the plunge. If you need/want dimensions or construction details, just let me know.

In other news, I shipped off my 4311 this morning. Hopefully a new one shows up quickly. No word on carpet or counter installation.

I would be pretty demoralized if it was not. I am anxious to get this thing wrapped up and have some free time just to enjoy it.

I am going camping this weekend, but did a little bit of work tonight. I have two RCA cables routed to the space behind the screen wall in case I wanted two subwoofers. I have decided I want the opportunity to place a sub at the rear of the room.

Here is picture of the back wall, on top of the riser. Hopefully I can place this sub on the insulated riser (no sand) without having any problems. Maybe the sub wont even stay there, but I want to keep my options open.


Here is the second sub I have available. It was from my pre-speaker building days. It is an Acoustec B-100...might be good enough to supplement my THT.


And finally here is an interesting picture I thought I would post. It is the two pieces of drywall I cut out. I pulled the pieces apart, there is still a lot of "tack" to the green glue, even after being installed a year.

Fun fact. The green glue picture above (previous page) made me wonder how long I have had drywall complete. I looked back in my thread and I finished hanging everything one year ago today!

At the time I thought I was in the clear....almost done...riiiiiiight! One year later and the basement STILL isn't complete. I think I have been slacking.

Edited by brausch - 7/10/12 at 1:20pm

Well, my wife and I did some relaxing this weekend, but managed to work in the basement on Memorial Day.

Not much picture-worthy work, but it all needed to be done. Here is a list of what we managed to finish up.

-finished the bullnose returns on the stairwell
-painted the final storage room door
-installed handles on all the cabinets
-installed and painted trim around the AV rack
-installed my extra input plate in the theater room (I have an HDMI, RGB, RCA-5 and cat 6 connection on the right wall near the stage. This is in case someone brings over a device like a Wii or something - keeps me from having to mess around in the AV room).
-I took down my surround speakers so my wife could put a final coat of paint on the ceilings and walls (which she completed).
-finally installed escutcheon plates around my supplies/drain in my bathroom
-converted my cabinet to a sink base in the open area (bought/installed the wrong cabinet - had to remove the top drawer and glue the front to the face frame)


Overall it was a pretty productive Monday. Now I am just waiting on a phone call to schedule my carpet and countertop installs. The carpet is due in this week and the countertops are supposed to be fabricated by this week. Hopefully I get two calls soon so we can keep this train rolling. I am excited to build fabric frames for around the screen and get the theater calibrated.

And here are a couple of pictures just to keep this post from being all words.

Here is a picture of my rack with the trim added and painted


And here are two pictures I took after I pulled my surround speakers off the wall. I didn't frame my walls symmetrical (which I would do my next time) and did not pay as much attention to surround speaker wire rough in location as I should have. I did however install a layer of plywood under the second layer of drywall to mount the speaker plate (score one for me). This meant that I had flexibility when locating my speaker mount...I did not account for the wire penetration. I ended up needing to drill holes in my speaker plates in order to mount my speakers in the correct locations. In the two picture you can see the holes for the speaker wire are in different locations (all it took was some careful measuring and it all worked out).

I need a four gang decora wall plate in black for my theater room. I have a white one painted flat black, but it doesnt match the switches. Does anyone know where I can get one for a decent price?

I am also looking for the standard black single decora wall plate (a few of the places only carry the 3/8" oversized plates).

Any help is appreciated.

Also, it sounds like I am still a couple weeks out on carpet and countertops. I am starting to run out of odds and ends to finish up. I will be installing my new AC this weekend though, so that should keep me busy for the weekend.

Vanice, that would work, and I did see that the other day. I was hoping to find something that didnt cost $15. I bought another 4 gang white plate last night and painted it semigloss black this time. It matches quite a bit better, but leaves me wondering if I should have went gloss (and makes me wonder if it will last). I may have to just bite the bullet and spend the money sonner or later.



Todd, congratulations on making it all the way through - and thanks for the compliments!

I got a suprise phone call late yesterday and carpet is scheduled to be installed Tuesday morning. That should really allow me to focus on finishing up the theater room.

Well, I didnt get much (any) work done on the theater this weekend, but I did stay busy installing a new condensing unit, line sent and evaporator coil.

Even though its not theater related, I snapped a few pictures

Here is the old condensing unit and a coil pulled out


The old unit was R22, the new unit is R410A. No big deal, but the outdoor unit was quite a bit larger than the old unit. I ended up needing to install a 3'x3' pad and remove the existing 2'x2' pad. When I started leveling the pad, I ran across a sprinkler head that needed to be moved


Another fun snag with the 410A was the indoor coil. The old unit had a smaller A-coil, whereas the new unit required an N-coil to provide sufficient surface area.


So, because the coil was bigger, the old plenum around the coil wasnt large enough so we needed to build a new one. This is what took the longest to do - it turned out very nice though.


Outdoor unit installed (you can see my mini split condensing unit in the background)


Lineset all connected and insulated to the indoor coil.


So, the only theater related work I did this weekend was for the mini-split. I installed it about a year ago, but never had anyone come out to pull a vacuum and start up the system. While we were working on my main AC, we took some time to pressure test and start up the minisplit. I am VERY HAPPY to say there were no leaks in my work. This is especially important, as the connection from the line set to the indoor unit was in the theater room wall....I would have needed to cut into the wall to fix any leak. The only problem I encountered with the mini split was the low ambient controller (for cooling in the winter time). When I started up the unit for the first time, the indoor unit would run, but not the condensing unit. I ened up bypassing the low ambient controller and everything works great. It really puts out some COLD air. Hopefully my HVAC post has not bored my two readers

In other news, my replacement 4311 is due in tomorrow afternoon. I should also have some very exciting pictures of the next couple of days....stay tuned!

Craig,

After I get Audyssey run, I will let you know what I think. I have heard some really good things about XT32, which is the feature that helped me decide to go with the 4311.

This update really deserves better pictures, but for now my phone pics will have to do.

The quartz countertops are in!

Basement main counter


Basement alcove counter


Upstairs vanity top


We needed 35 SF of countertop in order to receive the discounted rate, we were are 28 for the basement...I had to throw in the upstairs top to push us up to the 35 SF number. It all turned out really nice. I will install the sinks tomorrow while the carpet gets installed.

Carpet was installed yesterday. I also moved one of my leather couches down to the theater room until I decide to spring for new theater seating. I am on the road today, but should be able to post some pictures later this afternoon.

Pictures....

Tack strip installed. He actually just nailed it to the concrete - suprised me that it actually worked.




Here is the pad installed. Right or wrong, I got the premium pad.


And here is the carpet installed.






I looked at a lot of patterned carpet, I really like the look, but never found one that seemed right. Overall, I like the carpet - but the stage kind of reminds me of the van from dumb & dumber...maybe it will grow on me, but I keep wondering if an all black stage would have looked better.

I also got the surround speakers reisntalled and the sconce covers installed. I will need to work on getting a good picture of my sconces - I really like how they turned out.

My replacement 4311 also arrived yesterday afternoon, so that is now installed. I will build some fabric frames tonight and/or tomorrow night to finish off the screenwall.

It looks like the theater is going to be usable just in time for me to be too busy to use it. The next four weekends are all filled up and I will be at weddings or helping other people on their own houses (remodeling my brothers bathroom and installing a forced air system in my buddies house).

Thanks Craig. I didnt realize you had the same carpet (I have looked at so many other theaters that its hard to keep track). Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right?!? And RT doesn't show up this far west usually so I was on my own....although I looked at so many samples of carpet, maybe he should have been involved.

Up next...fabric frames for around the screen. They are built, they just need to be test fit then painted and wrapped with fabric.

My brother was in town last night, so I gave him a quick demo. I think this could be nice when all is said and done!

Thanks Jon! We wanted something with some darker colors to go with the dark columns, but my wife didnt want to go super dark. I think we reached a great compromise.

A little more progress to report.

Here are the frames I built for around the screen.


After I was happy with the dry fit, I took them to the garage and painted the front face. Then covered them with my black GOM.

Here they are installed


In the picture above, you can actually see my theater seating (AKA my old leather couch).

My brother doesnt close on his house until Monday, so I can work on the theater this weekend.

On the to do list:
-level projector, set lens shift, etc
-run audyssey
-watch a movie!