The "I Want it Done" Build Thread - Page 2

I've thought about making a box, but decided against it for a few reasons, the biggest one being that even the thinnest of plywood would result in the projector height lowering by 1/2", and I need all the room I can get.


This is an excellent thought... After thinking some more, I am going to attach a big washer and nut right under the 2x4 block to better secure at the top; then add a washer and nut above the projector mount as well as below it to clamp as you describe. So total of 3 washers and nuts on each screw. The top nut clamps to the block and the bottom 2 clamp the projector. Thanks for the suggestion!
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Don't mind at all, thanks for your input - it is much appreciated!

Goals:

Install Power outlet for Subwoofer behind screen wall - delayed 1 week
Install Power outlet for Media Rack - delayed 1 week
Assemble shelves that will serve as Media Rack - COMPLETE
Install projector mount and test - COMPLETE
Power outlet for Projector - delayed 1 week
Run HDMI for projector - COMPLETE
Run wiring for speakers - COMPLETE
Paint Drop Ceiling Rails - delayed 1 week
Paint In-Ceiling Speaker trim - delayed 1 week

Made some good progress, but I decided to hold off on the remaining electrical until I can get some new circuits ran. I will be running one to the equipment room and one to the projector. Also delayed the painting - I decided against spray painting the drop ceiling rails due to potential mess, so need to get a can of black paint.

Photos...

Projector is up!


Mount extension... it is a little flimsy but I think it's going to work fine. Note the rope wire safety I put on since I got scared a bolt would snap if someone bumped the projector.



Wiring feed for the riser lights


Temporary Equipment Rack. Phase II of this build will incorporate a much nicer rack that will also open into the HT room. This will work fine for now though.

After taking down the remaining drop ceiling tiles and watching a few movies, the sound level leaking upstairs is significantly higher and has exceeded the WAF. I now have gone back and re-thought ceiling insulation, and decided to stuff R-30 in the floor joists. Home Depot has unfaced R-30 for $9.97 and I bought enough to cover the job. Really a great price.

Goals for this weekend...

- Get insulation up
- Paint drop ceiling rails
- Run two 20 amp circuits - one for subwoofers one for equipment rack - DONE
- Run power service to the projector - DONE
- Install new outlet behind screen wall for Subwoofers
- Paint In Ceiling speaker trim (4 of them) - DONE
- Mount In Ceiling speakers and complete wiring

Good solid weekend of work last week:

- Get insulation up - DONE
- Paint drop ceiling rails - DONE
- Run two 20 amp circuits - one for subwoofers one for equipment rack - DONE
- Run power service to the projector - DONE
- Install new outlet behind screen wall for Subwoofers - DONE
- Paint In Ceiling speaker trim (4 of them) - DONE
- Mount In Ceiling speakers and complete wiring - DONE

This one photo shows several of the major elements of progress... speakers in ceiling, with insulation, painted rails...



This weekend the goal is to get the screen wall built. Will be copying from this post from BIGmouthinDC (thanks!).

Also, my Ceilume Stratford ceiling tiles are on the way from ISC Supply and should be here Monday. It will be cool to see the finished ceiling look with those - I'm expecting 1 hr of work to put them up but will seem like a HUGE step forward!

Did not finish the Screen Wall as planned. I had alot more success watching stuff... Apollo 13, part of Saving Private Ryan, and the Buckeye game; all were great on the big screen.

What I did get done...

- Finalized measurements for screen wall
- Bought lumber - finger joined pine from HD
- Started ceiling prep
- Finalized on Screen Size and ordered screen - Elite ezFrame 100" with acoustic pro material

Amazingly, the screen I ordered from Amazon Saturday morning 9am is supposed to arrive Monday with Amazon Prime 2 day shipping - wow! Ceiling tiles from Ceilume should arrive Monday too, so this coming week and weekend should show alot of progress with the ceiling getting completely done and the screen wall going up.


I am taking a 4 day weekend this coming week due to our local festival - the Circleville Pumpkin Show, so I should get some work in around that.

Why yes, I believe those are Cole Haan, but I will have to ask the Mods to move your question to the High Style thread.

Oh, and I used www.floorplanner.com for the layout. Pretty easy to use, much eaiser than SketchUp or anything else I tried.

David, you're right, didn't expect alot of focus on apparel!

Received the Elite ezFrame AcousticPro1080 Series Screen today... they sure did get the name right, it is pretty darn easy. I had the whole thing together and on a temp mount on the wall in about 2 hrs. Spent about 30 mins trying out Transformers BRD and Monday Football (720p), and very happy with the picture. The only thing I noticed about the screen that I didn't like was that there is a reflection off the center support bar, which is behind the black backing but still reflected through. That will be a very simple fix with a can of spray paint and about 30 seconds (yes, after I take it out of the screen).

I am questioning my selection of the 100" screen... Seems like I'm giving up alot of real estate, but the 106" is discontinued and the 110" seems like that would have surpassed WAF and maybe my own. The advantage of the 100" is that I'm looking at a good 30" of clearance from the floor, which will be a huge help to row 2's viewing capability. I think I may push both rows up a foot or so to make the screen sufficiently huge. Will make final call on this as soon as screen wall is built and the screen is up on that.

I also got my ceiling tiles from Ceilume today, but one of the boxes was literally falling apart and the tiles were damaged. I kept the other box but sent the bad one back. Hopefully I can get those re-shipped soon so I can get the ceiling wrapped up.

The pink fluffy I stuffed in the ceiling is smelling HORRIBLE. Seems to be getting worse not better - I researched this a little and seems like others have had this problem. It's been up a week but it is not dissipating, little worrisome. Not sure the thin ceiling tiles will help contain this much. Any ideas welcome.

Now that I have the screen, I feel more comfortable finalizing the design measurements for my screen wall so I can be sure that it fits perfectly where I want it. I don't trust the measurements on something like this till I get it in hand. I have the lumber so probably get that step done this week no problem. Then on to the riser!





Painted rails need touched up, otherwise I like how they are turning out

Struggling with my new screen... After watching a full movie (Top Gun DVD) Wednesday night with no issues, I all of a sudden started to notice the weave in the material on bright scenes. This did not start until after I hung the screen on the false wall I got built Thursday (pics to come). I am not happy about the pattern showing up all of a sudden. I don't know how I didn't notice this previously when the screen was just temporarily mounted on the wall (behind the new false wall). I moved my seats back an equivalent amount to account for viewing distance changes, so that should not be the problem.

Any chance I could have installed the screen material with the back side facing out? They looked the same and the directions didn't specify which side was which. Any other thoughts to help this?

Did you have any recourse with Elite or did you just eat the cost of the screen? The $700 I just shelled out is making me a little sick to my stomach.

I just emailed Elite from the support link to see what they can do. This development is very discouraging...

Thanks guys... Here are some shots... The 3rd one that is close up shows the pattern is closer than the viewing distance but shows what I see from both my front and back row viewing distances.














I think my first avenue will be to pursue a swap of the AT screen with one of the other fabrics that pair up with the ezFrame. I can live with relocating my speakers as an alternative to the poor picture.

Second avenue may be the AccuScreen - at $250 that wouldn't be too bad, although I am kicking myself for not going there first!

Will keep everyone posted.

UPDATE:

Heard back from Elite today less than 12 hours after filling out the online contact form. The rep mentioned that my problem was a moire effect and that they would be happy to replace the material. They directed me to the RMA link where I had to input the Serial Number and attach a proof of purchase and a picture of the problem. I completed that so hopefully I can get new material soon. If that doesn't fix the problem and it truly is something inherent in the AcousticPro screen, I will ask them for one of the other screen material types.

Heard back from Elite they are shipping me a new screen with the newest version of fabric that supposedly doesn't have the problem. Cross your fingers folks.

So far very impressed with Elite's service - if the new screen solves it will be very happy.

Thanks, here is a similar view of my screen (used the camera lens cover for reference). Still waiting on the new material, been a week almost - time to follow back up.

Also, the replacement shipment of ceiling tiles came in - damaged AGAIN! Every single one of them had creases where the box looked crushed.

All of this defective/damaged stuff is getting old.

I bought through Amazon and no problems so far with the claim, they (Elite) sent me an email stating it was shipped but I haven't received it yet.

New screen material arrived today - great news right? Wrong, terrible news - it looks worse. The weave was definitely different and looked much tighter and uniform, so I was hopeful, but when I got it up there were a bunch of almost veritical lines clearly visible in almost all shades of light except black. If the quality of the picture before was 6 out of 10, it's 2 out of 10 now. Is there any way this could be due to the rolling of the fabric for shipping and something that will stretch out? If not, I'll be asking for another material that is not AT and a refund of the price difference.

Heard back from Elite, nice guy who was very apologetic. They offered me the CineWhite material, which is nice, however he would not agree to refund the cost difference, which was $259 from Amazon.

Hopefully the CineWhite will look good, and my speaker set up won't be too compromised.

Also received the 2nd replacement shipment of the ceiling tiles - these were undamaged, finally! Will finish the ceiling installation this weekend.

It's been a slow month with the screen material and ceiling tile struggles. I did receive the CineWhite material from Elite, which is far better than the AcousticPro, however in bright scenes there is some noticeable sparkling - I don't know a better way to describe it, but it's like little dots that seem to be reflecting too much light. I'm wondering if my Epson 8700ub mounted at about 14 feet is too close? I bought the Disney WOW calibration Bluray thinking maybe that would help me, but haven't had time to do much with it. Playing with the brightness and contrast settings on the projector hasn't helped. After watching a few football games and movies, I decided I can live with it, but overall I am dissapointed that I paid $700 for an AT screen, had to do 2 exchanges of material and go through all that pain, and now I have a screen that isn't AT and I'm still not 100% happy with. It will work, but leaves a bad taste.

I also finally got a shipment of ceiling tiles that wasn't damaged, and got those up, and all of the can light & speaker trim. I am happy with the look, I just need to touch up some spots on the rails where the paint got nicked up during installation.

And the biggest news of all is that the Riser is BUILT! I hit up my Dad the day after Thanksgiving to borrow his truck to get lumber, and he oh so kindly decided to work with me all day, which was HUGE. I could have done it but it would have taken probably 3 days but with him it took about 8 hours. The electrical is roughed in and needs finished, but that's easy to finish up with spare time here & there.

The riser was built with 2x10s and 3/4 plywood, assembled with screws with roofing felt underneath. Stuffed with 2 layers of R-13 and wired up with 4 electrical outlets for the power recliners and 2 step lights.

2nd row viewing distance is 15.5 feet; riser height is 10". It gives just enough clearance for sightlines over my Palliser Pacifico chairs. I read your build thread and I didn't see a ceiling height discussed, but I have a major height issue (6' 9" ceiling). That means the bottom of the screen is lower which means the 2nd row sightline is a pain in the a$$. I planned extensively for the sightlines - I would HIGHLY recommend you get your seats and build up something temporary to test the 2nd row sightlines. I stacked wood 2x4 blocks and put one of the chairs on top until I got it high enough to see over the front to my liking.

Hopefully you got a quality screen - if I steered you a different direction than I'm glad I saved someone else the pain I felt.

Good luck, looks like you're well on your way!

Mostly using the theater lately versus building it!

I did accomplish building stands for the front and center speakers that will sit behind the screen wall. I have been spending time playing with the audio... I lined the walls with OC703 1"; and the back of the screen wall with 2". I also put up some poly batting above the OC on the walls. My goal is to dry run with the acoustics before I permanently install acoustic treatments. I spent today downloading and running the Room EQ Wizard software to try and find out how the room is performing sound wise. I'm not really able to understand what the graph means, but here it is. Does anyone have any feedback on this?