CONTEST: Tell us your worst install mistake ever and enter to win an Epson projector! - Page 2

I love these stories guys! I mean I don't like your misfortune but its reminding me of when I built our rec room in our basement when I was about 14...I wired the entire thing since Ive always been electrical savvy! Ill have to post my mistakes tomorrow since Im ready for bed but lets just say Ive blown a good amount of breakers (Even had to have an ENTIRE breaker box replaced after it blew up and destroyed everything plugged in our house except our computers and TVs since they were all on industrial surge protectors my dad has insisted on since he gets them from his electrician (he runs a large warehouse). Regardless of who wins Id love to see this stay up and for everyone to keep posting. Alright Im off to bed, may my wishes include a not so fried AVR I just moved and rewired and beautiful sounds

Doing a install for a very wealthy client in Woodsburgh NY on Long Island, I happen to be friends with the client so be aware that my comfort level was very relaxed compared to a regular install.


The install was for a room in the basement containing a klipsch synergy / quintet speaker system and pioneer elite receiver / plasma and gaming systems.

Spent a while running wires and mounting speakers, adjusted audio and video, and making sure we had a setup they can be proud of.

Sometime around 2am while setting up the xbox I was also setting up the Internet connections and updating firmware, I ended up falling asleep on the recliner. I get woken up at 9am by my phone and realize I left the main screen running all night and burnt a x box games logo / main screen right into a 6000 plasma.

Not only did I have to explain my way out of it, I had to drag that monster back out of the "estate" and swap it out. I think the house staff had the last laugh.

Were still friends but I do get a fair amount of wanna play xbox requests from them, I also now quit at quitting time...

Well it all started over 10 years ago when I got a sony crt 1292..................
Oh yes...................a rainy and dark night in sydney with me trying to find a warehouse on the city outskirts where a second-hand dealer supposedly had a 1292 for sale....
I had brought my van and entered this rather dark industrial estate.
I couldn't find the right building and suddenly felt rather stange as I wondered if a security guard may think I was a questionable person in a van up to no good !!!
After about 20 minutes i finally located the right building and entered a cold and miserable warehouse.

What am I doing here ??
Anyway - there he was with a 1292. The picture looked ok to me when he turned it on and I was suitably impressed.
I had dragged my long-suffering brother on this particular adventure and it was a case of "another of Matthew's little escapades" . Then we had the job of loading the horror into the van.

I thouhght I might actually bust a couple of things getting that monster into the back of the van.
It has statrted raining and we had a long drive back into the city where we were staying for the weekend.

I really should have stopped then - and cut my losses...............

Then I get the thing home. put it on a table.
Turn it on - why hadn't I realised how much noise it made when I was in the warehouse ???

It sounded like an aircraft had just arrived in my lounge !! :-)


But never fear I said - AVS FORUM is HERE !!!!!

Oh yes armed with 35,897 posts on crt's and the Sony 1292 I was ready and able to attack the unit in front of me.

Only where to start ???

Well the manual I reasoned was as a good a start as any. So I read the manual a few times and began wokring out some basics.

Like if I try putting 120kg up on my ceiling I would probably tear the entire roof off the house whilst happily sitting through "the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly"

So it was a table-top install for me - ok now what ??

Well how about all those rings around the back of the lenses that can be rotated ?? They seem a good next step.......hmm..........let's try that............
ok so how do I actually unscrew the holding nuts...........hmm......

a tool to get in there..............ok got one.......well almost.........actually it fits............if by using it I remove about 4 layers of finger skin whilst rotating the tool.

Great !!

So now I have undone all the holding nuts and my index and second fingers have plasters on with growing red blood splashes underneath.............great.....ouch !!!

Ok so next is actually rotating these rings to the right spot on each gun .

That's based on distance and height and angle to the screen

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cool

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how hard can it be ??

Well actually not easy at all for me - I had to de-ciper the manual first to reveal the magic settings for each gun - it was like the Da Vinci Code bits ---
only it was me and the dog - and no lovely french actress...........
not being all that bright - (as you have no doubt gathered by now) it took me ages to work that out.....
. And then when I think I've got it right.........oh yes doing up the nuts again moves the rings and I cut my fingers again.............

Then I have to undo them and try again...............

more bandages...........gloves don't help.............

buy new tool............................better....................

rings still move when tightening ................13 attempts later just about right..............


ok - now I can try the electronic stuff -

---

completely lost there for a while..............

Ohh yes and the noise !!!!!!!

Well the rush box sounded a great idea only I'm, not on the ceiling --- so maybe a box on the floor.

sounds a great idea !!



good

---

so down the hardware shop 6 sheets of MDF, paint, screws -- ALL SORTED !!!

Bear in mind I haven't actually watched anything yet and it's been about 6 weeks so far.............

SO the weekend is booked - I have tools all over the lounge and the whole place is like a bomb site.

There is MDF bits and cables everywhere but I am finally fininshed by the time I have to go back to work.

and everything is great - Sound is almost gone - projector is totally encased in MDF

I should've been employed on the Pyramids !!!

So happy after my efforts (still no working projector mind you) I settle down to a relaxing read of a few more AVSFORUM posts about 1292's !!!!!


CRAP !!!! the hush box needs an exhaust !!!!!!

I quickly turn off the sony - and open up the box ---Phew !! no harm done - -only on for a few minutes in the box !!!! What a complete twit I forgot that bit !!

Oh yes and what about this great big "thing" on a table right in the middle of the room because of the screen and distances and what not

---

so only 2 seated people can see the screen in the lounge now !!!

Well that prompted another rethink.................

So a few weeks later I have recieved the new replacement quieter fans for my 1292 from some weird place - thanks AVS FORUMS - I am now dealing with more strange merchants of obscure items only available online to the oweners of crazy equipment like CRT's.

Does not sound too much quieter to me after fitting these - another weekend lost - no viewing !!

But I now know all about 1292 fans ---- which I know will be useful in the future.............

I have also devised a cunning plan to place a large old wooden fish tank stand behind the projector and put a couch on top of it. - nearly broke my back getting this together again !! Took all weekend - no viewing .....

Then found some extendable piping - great - so I place and stick 2 pipes on top on the CRT's exhaust fans and place the outlets into the base of the fish tank box (still with me here? ) At the ends of these pipes I have 2 more fans sucking the exhaust air from the projector !!!! Does not matter if you can't follow that - just consider - it was another weekend of buying and building stuff - no movies !!

Brillant - well at least I thought so............

So another weekend passes ( this is about 6 months into the whole thing now................)

more tools and mess and swearing and pipes and fans and electrics......................

Oh yes and why not build (since I was at it) an entire box for the 1292 around it that was removalable to link into the couch as well !!!!!

Brillant !!! so a few weeks after that the O'Sullivan hush box is operational.

Still haven't got my 1292 cailbrated properly..........too scared to touch the crt tubes................

Also - funny looking blob on the screen as well.......right in the middle.................

Then I get hold of Graham Johnstone in Melbourne. "I am a calibration God" says he !!!
"That's great" says I
"Come and play I produce DVD's as a sideline" says I
Well we conclude - let's record the work on my 1292 unit and create a CRT calibration DVD
"done" says us
It was a joy - Graham was great (and so was I- hahaha) - until that is the blob turns out to be a bung green tube on my unit !!
Anyway the unit was calibrated to within an inch of it's life !!!!
We did the DVD (the one on Curt Palme's website)
G sent me a replacement green tube - excellent !!!

I am now offically a CRT guru - I replaced the Green tube !!!!

Oh yes.

And now I calibrate the unit - until that is the power supply goes bung !!!!! ooops..............

Never fear - AVS FORUMS is here - and the guys at AVScience came to the rescue with a complete 1292 carcass minus the guns.

more weeks of no movies........


1292 arrives....

Fantastic - I am able to swap out the power supply and wooooohooo - a working projector.

Now - I can calibrate away to my heart's content

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great many happy hours calibrating away....

Then the blue tube stops..............................
I check the error..........................hmm.................................
neck boards ( I think.............)

But that's ok

---

I have the neck borads from the 1292 projector carcass AVS sent - again - another crisis averted...............

Being the 1292 star now I have no hesitiation in pulling everything apart (yet again ) and spending the weekend installing the new ( well replacement ) neckboards on the blue gun..............

And it works --- whooohooo !!! only a calibration away from heaven..............

Calibation time.
Only this time I have to attack the neck alignment on my own !!!
rubber gloves...................nervous fingers...............screw driver (holds breath..........)
undo the projector and then calibrate the neck of the crt tubes while the unit is "ON" fans howling away
..... and all those volts.................. I have visions of me as toast next to the 1292............................:-((((

But - as a 1292 guru - it is no sweat and all goes according to plan !!!!
change underwear.............................
All done all put back together and calibrated.

lovely picture all happy - everybody impressed (including yours truely)
Great crt picture - fantastic - exactly why we do all this stuff ...........right ??????

So why do all the end credits look completely crap ?????

AARGH - and yes now I need to read posts 43,365 through to post 45,211 which talk about the tricky issue of streaking ( no - this is not people with no clothes running across sporting fields - ) read - CRAPPY END CREDITS USING THIS CRT !!!! :-)

This is a "known issue" - so after 2 years I am now quickly turning off films before the credits roll to avoid the "STREAKIES" ...................crap !!!

crap................

I love the picture during the film ..... and then crap..................

But (I hear you say ) was there not a fix for this ---- well (dear readers -) YES !! (but not just then.... you see....)

The only thing then was - u guessed it

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AVS FORUM

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>>

3,567 posts on AVS following one person slaving on 1292's in his lab trying to fix it.
35 people supoprted him every step of the painful journey hoping for a miracle and 28 people abusing him for not getting it right !!!!!
Meanwhile - I still got crappy end credits...........................praying for a miracle...........

(Please all - I refer only to the Mike Parker 1292 saga for amusement purposes of this post/thread)

So I watch and wait and wait and watch - and still turn off before the credits start.........

I actaully got to the point where I really missed not watching the credits............................................... :-(

And then with all hope lost - another 1292 streaking fix was rumoured "yeah sure !!!!! " I thought .

But "NO " it was real !!!

AND there was a card for HDMI 1.3 "oh my God I am not the only crazy person" I thought
Here once again I can communicate with some weird merchants/ fans/ research crazy people (like me) working in strange dark lounges and labs (while thier mum or wife puts up with it all....) and buy solutions for my monster.
I got the streaking fix bits - PURE JOY AND EXCITEMENT

ooppps

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tricky install

---

there's a suprise !!!

and dug out my trusty old soldering iron....................
It requires replacement of bits (computer chips) on the neck boards of each crt gun.

I can do this. I tell myself......I'm an expert -remember ???

Once again a weekend of devotion to the beast.

I got nervous - the soldering iron would not stay still in my wavering hand long enough to get the bits hot on the PC board - crap !!!!
steady down - deep breath remember those yoga classes

---

rest the iron on something.......
no - not on the chair - that will put a hole in the arm of the chair --- ooopps --- too late................crap....
****.............................****..........

Ok - no solder sucker - how am I going to get the bits of solder off the board without a solder sucker to remove the solder??? crap.............

Quick - go buy a solder sucker..............ok got that.............
left the solder iron on........great............another burn mark - this time in the work bench

---

lucky the whole place didn't go up................crap..............

Right now replace the parts.
ok...................old bits out .........new bits in.................bend the legs of the little new componants ( don't break the legs off the new bits) ................ok in............replace the neck boards.............


ok.........what happened to the colours and the calibration now???...............colours??

No problem - re-calibrate !!!

find chair arm covers online...............install before mum see's the brown hole on the chair.....

ok....good work...........


next weekend

So I start the calibration thing all over again - hmmm..................seems I've moved the projector a bit as well.
Weekend gone just about ready by the time I go back to work..............great.....

Few months later.......

new HDMI card - install no HDMI handshake - crap
2 weekends with Lumagen handshake issues and AVSFORUM posts 90,567 to 91,452

working.....and calibrated.............

So the score:
Total CRT used pleasure time - about 3,500 hours of movies in about 10 years I reckon.

Total calibration and support pain time - about 2,000 hours in 10 years I reckon.

MaybeI'll get a DLP next time................or a TV..................and a girlfriend........less pain...............


Matthew O'Sullivan
Still owner of a Sony 1292 CRT projector but looking for a better life.............................
(I am a only an engineer so my memory of times, places, and events in this story may be slightly inaccurate....)

still have the scars though.................

.....chair needs recovering.................dogs like the lounge and watching movies - see pic below - Newfoundland watching movie...................

.....anybody want a fairly large rather noisy projector......cheap to good home...................



Edited by webmst - 6/15/12 at 3:01pm

I bought bose...... The end.

My worst mistake...hmmm, depends on your POV:

One could argue that I was happy in my ignorant bliss of not having a Home Theater or projector, just a 52" LCD in the "family room" with a 5.1 system for my SACDs and DVD-As.

Then someone mentioned that a big screen and projector might be something to install in the "bonus room" that was serving as my music (guitars, drums, etc) room. Lightbulb! Yes, I could put a big screen here...and mount the PJ here...and put in a couple rows of couches, no wait, proper theater seats...hmm, yeah, that might work! (In the end, I reversed the original configuration I had in mind.)

So now I have three rows of tiered seating (seats 9), two PJs, two Epik Empires, five full-size speakers, a 135" 2.35 screen (with curtains to make it 4:3 if needed), and countless BDs/HD-DVDs to watch. All in the same room that houses my rock'n'roll music stuff (which is no small footprint). Yet it isn't too cramped - not as spacious as the beautiful HT rooms I see here, but it suffices.

If I hadn't got the HT bug, I could have bought myself a fleet of Paul Reed Smith Custom 24s with 10-tops, plus a Bad Cat Amp or two with the money I've spent.

But I have no regrets, and the extended family/friends get a lot more enjoyment out of the HT room than they would have from a collection of expensive guitars mounted on the wall.

So not really a mistake. Just that one little sentence from someone. She probably considers it a mistake, though...she's now my ex-wife.



shinksma

found a great deal for panasonic pt on ebay snagged it ,when it arrived it was a panasonic microwave

Now that is funny..its almost as funny when Im running around trying to find my glasses and realize I have them on

My worst mistake was when I was just getting into home theatre, and I scraped up my last pennies and dollars to buy 'Monster Cable Speaker Wires', because I believed somehow they would make my speakers magically sound better....Now that I think about it, the money I spent on those wires (back then at least 125 a piece) could have bought me a nice amp . 20 years later much older and wiser.

before i bought a proper home cinema, i had a set of creative surround sound speakers attached to my pc sound card. After moving house, i set everything up, but was getting no sound out of the rear speakers. I tried disconnecting and reconnecting, cleaning contacts, reseating the sound card, you name it. I also tried wiring the front speakers into the rear speaker ports and then those speakers wouldn't work which had me worried about the sound card. I got more and more frustrated as i went on, reinstalling sound drivers, trying all sorts of Windows related fixes and was about to go as far as reinstalling Windows to make sure it wasn't a software issue, when i remembered that the speakers had a volume control attachment with a balance dial on it, and realised that it had been turned all the way to the left, which meant the balance was 100% front / 0% back.

My one & only install shorted everything out and I even had smoke.
I called a professional the next day.

I was programming a Crestron system back in early 2000 for a very high-end customer that had purchased a full automation system, 32 zones of distributed audio, 16 unique distributed video zones, a high-end dedicated theater, Lutron Homeworks interactive, etc. During this time I was training one of my existing employees who had a programming background in advance of his official Crestron training course in a few weeks time. I will call him "Joe" to protect the innocent....

So over the course of the next 5 days of programming, testing and verification I had shown Joe many of the custom possibilities that a Crestron automation system could provide, such as having the lights ramping from 5% to 32% at dusk over the course of 15 minutes, playing a specified song ripped to the media server at a set time every morning (to function as an alarm clock), raise the temperature to a certain level in the master suite by the time you get up and on and on. To illustrate this, I programmed what I would call a "crazy" macro to illustrate these time-based possibilities. I kept changing the master time in the Crestron system so we could "pretend" that it was 7:00AM when the sequence was activated. I had temporarily named this macro as the "wake up" macro, which came to be my undoing.

As most large house builds go, they almost always run over on time and budget. What I did not know and was never communicated to me by the GC (since "stereo guys" were not on his normal contractor call list) was that the family HAD to move into their house by the original move-in date. I found out later that they thought they could stay in their own sold home and simply pay a couple of weeks rent to the new owners, but they had already paid 8 weeks of rent and the new owners of their home refused another extension and forced them to move out without delay. So unbeknownst to me there was a big push to get all the things finished that were necessary to get the Certificate of Occupancy and move the family in - two weeks ahead of schedule. Considering that AV equipment is not necessary to a CO, we never got a call to push and finalize our work. So during a week that we were at another install, the GC got the CO and the family moved in, complete with furniture and filled the garage with boxes.

I will have you know that our company, as our policy, NEVER left any touch panels or keypads in the house until the house was considered fully secure and lockable because everything was just so expensive in those days - around $3000 - $7000 per touch panel, depending on the size of the display. So one quiet Wednesday morning around 3:30AM my cell phone kept ringing again and again and again. I can't remember how many times it rang, but it must have taken quite a few full ring cycles for me to wake up from a dead sleep and answer the phone since it was out in the kitchen and not at my bedside table. When I finally made it to my phone and answered I could hardly here the person at the other end of the line over the Metallica blasting in the background. After the caller stepped outside I realized it was my customer and he was actually in the house way ahead of schedule. My heart sank.

Unfortunately, neither myself or my new programming protege corrected the "crazy" wake up macro we had programmed the week prior to what the customer really wanted. And since the time on the Crestron master clock was set incorrectly, 7AM wakeup instead happened at about 3:15AM their time. All the lights came on, the thermostat was jacked up to 85 degree heating mode (since ambient in the house was 82 degrees because it was summer and all the doors to the house were open), and most regrettably, it blasted Metallica's "Sad But True" on a continuous loop for the programmed 30 minutes throughout the whole-house in-ceiling speakers at ear-blistering levels - even the outside speakers!! The homeowner manually turned out the lights and reduced the HVAC, but had absolutely no way of shutting off the blasting heavy metal music since all the control panels were not on site.

Needless to say, but I logged in to the Crestron system remotely as fast as possible and shut down the system all while apologizing profusely every 10 seconds. It wasn't until later that day I learned why the homeowner was in the house ahead of schedule and why the GC hadn't called us in to finish during the big push to get the CO. The homeowner said I could come to the house as early as 7AM, so I was the first one at the job site at 7AM with Dunkin Donuts and coffee in-hand as a peace offering. The whole family rightfully grumbled a little bit at first about the distraction. But after I explained how we mistakenly ended up with the unwelcome wake up call, tensions eased and it became a running joke that they really got a kick out of. Even when we were finishing up the entire project and it came time to pay the final invoice, he joked that he wanted to make sure to pay off my bill for fear of having heavy metal wake up calls until paid!!!

As a follow-up, my customer was a true gentleman and referred a lot of other business my direction. I always had a bit of a wry smile and had to explain the story to his referrals if they ever came in and said to ask me about "wake up" activities through the automation system!! "Sad But True" indeed . . . .
Edited by TMcG - 6/15/12 at 10:26am

Possibly the worst thing I did with my theater build was to talk about it a lot and invite people from work over to watch some ball games and such. This has resulted in 5 years of complete and utter torture at work. the principles of my company immediately decided that I was a great home AV guy and I have been "called upon" many times now to travel to their house and set up or troubleshoot their personal AV setups (not really *asking* for a favor but expecting it). the worst being that they decided that they wanted 2 conference rooms and wanted me to design them like my set up. One of them being a conference center that they rent out to people on occasion. I begged them to hire a conf room professional but they didn't want to spend the money. So I bought a decent little Onkyo, got projectors mounted and small front speakers installed in front at both sides. They later wanted things like HD cable added and PC's for presentations. Very basic set up, you turn the projector on, click one or two labeled buttons on the Onkyo for TV or PC sound. Nope.. complete and utter torture. Complaints for YEARS that its to complicated. Finding wires pulled out all the time because they couldn't click the proper labeled button on the Onkyo so deciding for themselves to try to rearrange cables. TORTURE!!!! They put admin staff in charge of helping people do the simple things like turning the equipment on and after years of them doing such, they still couldn't figure it out and refused to. They ignored my suggestions to buy better projectors due to room conditions, made me buy cheaper projectors. In fact, in the conf center they refused to buy a white screen and are still to this day projecting it to a glossy white board (along with 5 years of complaints that it looks bad). Of course, this was all my fault and turned back on me over and over and over again. We had to make detailed help books to explain how to power on the equipment, continually replace wires because they were to short, along with countless explanations that I cant add another 50 foot VGA cable so someone could connect across the room since the cable was already 25+ foot in the wall and you cant push analog VGA signals that far. They replaced the equipment furniture several times with new ones that had absolutely no different benefit. Demands that we somehow get the equipment locked up so no one can touch it (how do they turn it on?), systems where someone can just press one button and turn it all on perfectly how they want it. At one point we got them to contact an actual Conf room vendor to come in and quote up a real professional setup... denied due to cost. Continuous... never ending complaining. Yet to this day, I can walk into either one, click 3 buttons and have it all up and running perfectly.

Several years ago when the first 1080p projectors had come out I decided to get the Optoma HD80 and I paid about $2500-$2600 for it. After receiving it I was ready to ceiling mount it and had a friend who stated he had ceiling mounted his projector and he had wanted to help. So, I got some beer and pizza and my friend was coming over and he asked if he could bring his golden retriever dog as he had to pick her up from the vet as it would be a 45 minute round trip if he had to take her home first. I said sure bring your dog. Well, when he and "THE DOG" got there they came down to the basement where the projector was sitting on a couch unboxed and it is where we were going to be ceiling mounting the projector and I asked him if he wanted to go upstairs and drink some beer first or hang the projector....he said drink beer and eat pizza first. I asked him if he wanted to bring "THE DOG" and he said no she will just lay on the concrete part of the floor as she is still drowsy from vet. So, we went upstairs and stayed too long drinking beer and eating pizza. When we came back downstairs "THE DOG" had chewed the projector into several pieces and it was completely destroyed. I was so astonished and disgusted and my friend just stood there with his mouth opened. Luckily he was a long time friend and we worked out an agreement to replace the projector and we are still friends to this day.......but "THE DOG" has never been allowed over to my place again. To this day I still can't believe that "THE DOG" ate my projector.

Mike

Fortunately my one installation experience was based upon good information I received from this site and from other credible sources. .

I suppose if I had to pick one mistake it was in how I hung the projector. Since I have it in the room behind me and projecting through a rectangular port in plexiglass, I figured i didn't need to pop for a professional type mount.
I ended up using parts from an old small satellite dish I found somewhere. I attached a rectangular piece of plywood to the projector, with three rubber spacers to space the wood away from the projector housing. Good so far. The dish mount was such that it could be turned and twisted every which way, so I figured I had it made.

After attaching the bracket to the ceiling, and cutting the pipe to length, and then attaching it to the plywood triangle with wing nuts, It all went so well that I really thought I was some kind of inventor.

Well even small vibrations (like small earthquakes - twice a year average) and trucks going by will cause the picture to twist and go off the screen. Really annoying. So I ain't a big inventive genius after all.

^ Ohhhh, you must mean the DEAD dog.


James
Edited by mastermaybe - 6/15/12 at 12:41pm

Biggest mistake: At the age of 15, borrowed a good chunk of money and buying a brand new 1989 Hi-End $1000 Hitachi VCR and only buying 2 movies .....then Laserdisc came to haunt me, causing thousands of dollars in LD's . This was right around the same time I bought a $400 'pull-out' Sony cassette deck for my car and only buying 2 cassettes....then bought a sony discman with the tape adapter ....3rd biggest mistake was seeing my first 'SharpVision' home projector at Incredible Universe around '96; that has cost me over $30,000 in projectors since '97 (took a $7,000 loan for the first projector and screen)......And I'm just 'a lowly construction worker'
Edited by KBMAN - 6/15/12 at 2:42pm

Lol.....that day both me and my friend....especially me ....did want to kill that dog. My friend still has "THE DOG" and we joke about it all the time.

Mike

Bought a new TV stand, put it together, mounted the TV, went to install the AVR and realized the damn thing wouldn't fit! Had to remove the feet from the AVR to get it to fit in the stand, and it still pokes out the front a bit, but it works!

With some help I was installing a new Fixed mount screen in the Home theater room of a house I had wired for cable, satellite, phone, Internet, and sound. The center channel speaker just rested on a metal edge of it's bracket, and in the process of lifting the screen up high enough to slip over it's mounting brackets the center speaker was bumped off of it's bracket and came crashing down and scratched the screen in the process. I wasn't the person who lifted the screen too high, but I accepted the blame for the resulting ruined screen. I was a paid professional installer and failed to remember the old adage 'The unforeseen does not exist'. I should have removed the center speaker before we lifted the screen. I offered to help pay for a new screen but my boss wouldn't accept my offer. I hated making a mistake that was that expensive.

I know people who have "gotten rid of" there dog for less. :O
NEVER let anyone know your "pretty good with computers" LOL. I have nightmare stories about this type of stuff and would go on and on but this amazing Oatmeal comic describes all the pain for anyone who's is "pretty good with computers" and has to deal with idiots: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/computers
Things like:
-Explaining why my side surround speakers and rear speakers are at exactly 100º and 135º to my mom who is completely unwilling to learn.
-Explaining why your CDMA2000 only cellphone on Verizon will not work in Europe.
-Explaining why if you buy a high end piece of electronics equipment then decide to not listen how to use it you can't try and take it back.
-Explaining how things work then having people completely ignore you and find out the hard way why not to do something and still not excepting my "I told you so!".

Are precisely why I don't do anything tech related for people without them being fully informed I cannot read their mind, do not give a **** what they "like" when it is going up against what makes sense, and not to micromanage me if you don't know anything about the topic.

Well, I was installing my home theater system in a closet - so that I could be the first one I knew that had the coolest home theater around. Spent LOTS of money on new and at the time 'top end' A/V gear. Got an Infrared remote pickup and repeater to put next to the TV in the living room. Everything else was going into a hall closet that had decent ventilation. Wiring and all the hard work went well. Went to put the audio gear rack into the narrow end of the closet where the wiring was - I had forgotten to measure the width of the cabinet I bought and it wouldn't fit into the closet like I wanted it to... Couldn't leave it in the middle of the clost because it was in the way of everything else.

So - With my woodworking skills at 'beginner' I built myself a quick stand out of melamine covered particle board (the white plastic like covered wood shelves). Nice stand, just big enough to fit. Figured I could find a nicer one later, that this would do for now.

All was great... Everything fit into this narrow yet tall cabinet with small wheels under it... The brand new Yamaha DSP-A1 reciever (Darn expensive thing). With a brand new high end Denon DVD player, a tuner, etc. etc. etc. Wired it up.

Until I tried to move the home made cabinet with the equipment in it.

It was very top heavy.

And the little casters didn't move well on the carpet.

I was very carefully moving it a little at a time so that it wouldn't fall over...

Until it was getting close to being in. About two foot more towards the back of the closet and then a foot back...

When it started to fall over...

Of course, the heavy DSP-A1 A/V receiver was on top.

I couldn't stop it from falling towards the back closet wall.

When the carnage was over, the corner of the reciever had punched an 8 inch hole in the drywall when it hit.

And the wonderful and very descriptive flourescent display on the reciever looked like someone was intemittently flashing cartoon swear words on and off on it: $*&@ !) #&)A #C0!.... (The display never worked again.)

Fortunately no one else was home when I did this... And after spending that much money on a reciever with a completely destroyed display and a crushed corner, I quickly shoved everything back into the homemade cabinet, checked that it worked and closed the closet doors. Not wanting to admit that I had just done that (hey - what the family doesn't know won't embarass me, right?)

It took the wife 6 months to realize that I had nearly destroyed the very expensive receiver in my haste to 'make a cool home theater'. When she did, she made me remodel the kitchen to make up for it. I've learned alot about how to design and build things properly.....
Edited by bobstr - 6/17/12 at 8:56am

When I first wired up my receiver I popped in a concert DVD to test it. It played fine, except at the end of the song the receiver turned off. I turned it back on and again it sounded great, then at the end of the next song, the receiver turned off, that's weird. This happened again and I started to get suspicious. I checked all the connections and found one strand of wire from the right surround speakers hadn't gone though the hole in the post, it was shorting out to the other terminal.

The system was fine as long as nothing played out of the right surround channel, the DVD I was playing was DTS 5.1 mixed so that surround channels were silent during the songs. At the end of the song, they turned up the crowd noise on the surround channels, the short then overloaded the receiver and it turned itself off. The receiver was fine and everything worked fine for many years after I found the wire.

Another install, not actually home theatre though was when I installed Wi-Fi at my Mother-In-Laws place. It was working when we left it, but then Mom started to complain that it wasn't working when we talked to her on the phone. She was 400 miles away (SF to LA), so I had to debug it over the phone. The problem was whenever I tried to debug it worked perfectly. So some time later when we went to visit Mom I checked the system out. The access point was plugged into a switched socket.

Whenever I tried to debug the system, I'd ask Mom to go look at the access point and tell me what the lights were doing. Mom would go upstairs to the bedroom (where the access point was), turn on the light and examine the access point. Of course turning on the light made everything work. After we hung up, she'd turn the bedroom light off and of course the access point stopped working. I can't remember if it was me who plugged it into that socket, or if it was Mom who moved the equipment after we left.

Thought I could unbox and lift my brand new 59inch Sammy D6500 onto my tv stand by myself. Almost got it... ended up face flat on the floor though. Had a good laugh than spent the the following week moping:rolleyes:

c'mon.. I'm still optimistic! It will get there...

This is the only story i have as this is my first install of home theater.
When i started i had a few issues, limited budget, limited room and a wife.
I spent about a month researching projectors and finally decided on an acer k330 because this is still new in Aus i took a chance and orded it from the US.
Since i have never owned a projector before i was not sure what to expect, lets just say i am happy with the purchase.

We have been renovating some rooms in the house and the only one i am able to use is a small bed room 3.6m x 2.7m or about 12x9 to keep it simple.
I have tested this projector in the room several times on the wall and found the max screen size i could get was about 110" this sounds fantastic, so i did all my measurements and found a screen on ebay that i was happy with at a price i could afford.
I think i have just about worn out my tape measure for the amount i have used it to compare different screen sizes at different aspect ratios.
Well my screen arrived today, now the measurements on ebay were 2.44m wide for the screen, so i figured that i could fit the top section nicely between the walls right?

WRONG can you believe this thing is 2.71m in width, that is about 4" to wide to fit in the room, i am just gutted i can tell you, i have told the wife i will need to make to holes on in the dry wall to fit the screen in the room, it is a good thing the viewing part of the screen that rolls up and down is 2.6m so i have room for it between the walls.

I don't know what my 'worst mistake' was, but my most expensive mistake was becoming a member of AVS.
I'll explain. A bit over 10 years ago, I was in blissful ignorance about home theater and happy with a TV. Then I stumbled upon AVS and discovered that a revolution in the home viewing experience was under way. By my great 'luck', the Hugh's / JVC G1000 was being discontinued, and being dumped on the market, for I believe $2500. I bought one. Then I needed to construct an HTPC to play DVDs. I projected on a white wall. I remember the first attempt at calibration being a software tool called Dilard, as I was a beta tester. I was totally bitten by the bug. Ironically, when I needed to move, my biggest criteria for a new house was "a place for a dedicated theater".

Now, more than a decade later, I have a dedicated home theater. I have a real screen, light control, a much better projector, a real 7.x set-up, massive sub-woofers. Frankly, I've spent more money than I can imagine, and no end is in sight. Damn you AVS.

My biggest mistake was actually believing that a HTIB could sound anywhere as good as something pieced together.

whaaaaa

Took delivery of my new Denon AVR-2313ci last Friday. In the weeks leading up to that, I had been gathering parts to install a pair of outdoor speakers to mount under the soffit out on my deck, to be connected to the receiver as Zone 2. In addition to the speakers themselves (Polk Atrium 4's), I bought wire, outlet boxes, banana plugs, banana-plug wall plates, and glow-in-the-dark fiberglass flexible fish rod.

I started by drilling and cutting one of the holes in the soffit for the right channel outlet box, and then running the wire through and into the attic with the fish rod. So far so good -- I crawled into the attic and pulled the wire up the rest of the way, leaving the other ends coiled up near the top of the living room wall, to be finished later. Then back out to the deck, where I drill and cut the other hole. Here I'm closer to the adjacent side of the house, and the roof pitch makes it quite a bit more difficult to pass the fish rod through into the attic. So I get out my drill and make a hole through what I thought was a roof rafter. The drill goes through no problem, and I pass the fish rod through. I hear a funny scraping sound as I do this, but I just think that the metal end of the fish rod is touching the underside of the roof.

Mistake #1
As it turns out, the ceiling in my dining room (adjacent to the deck) is a few inches higher than the soffit, and the hole I just drilled wasn't through a rafter -- it was through the dining room wall. That scraping sound was the fish rod against the textured plaster on the ceiling. So now I have a 5/8" hole conveniently going clear through the wall, and the fish rod is going from outside the house right into the dining room. There's a nice pile of plaster dust on the floor. Whoops!

So I laugh it off, pull the fish rod back through, plug the hole, and patch it up with some plaster. I'll have to admit what happened to my wife when she gets home later (this got me a thwack on the head, Gibbs-style for any NCIS fans present) and we can paint over it in a couple days when the plaster has fully cured.

Moving on, I found a better way to route the cable (not through the dining room wall this time) and got that speaker wire run into the attic and over to the living room wall. Yay! Now it's time for the hardest part -- locating the correct section of wall through which to pass the wires, and then actually passing them. I decided that since I was already doing plaster work, the easiest way was to drill a small hole in the ceiling from the living room, right near the wall, push the fish rod up through that hole, and then crawl up into the attic to locate it. So that's what I did, except I couldn't find the fish rod up in the attic. I clearly hadn't drilled far enough. So I went back down to the living room and used an 18"-long spade bit (the same one I used to drill through the dining room wall) to drill farther. About 6" in, I encountered another surface to drill through, just like I expected. I kept going, and eventually got to a point where the drill chuck was flush with the ceiling, and the entire 18" bit had a clear path into the attic. I pulled the drill out.

Mistake #2
When I pulled the drill out, I saw sunlight. I had drilled through the roof. OH CRAP. I'm REALLY not looking forward to telling my wife about this one!

The hole in the roof ended up being incredibly useful. I ran a 10' length of fish rod up through the hole in the ceiling, leaving one end on the living room floor. I went outside and confirmed that a foot or so was coming through the roof. Then I went up on the roof with my drill and my trusty 18" spade bit (really good track record with this so far, wouldn't you say?). I pulled the fish rod through to the roof and set it aside, and then put the drill down through the hole I had just made, but putting it at an angle so as to make a hole into the wall cavity rather than into the living room itself. The drill went through cleanly, but given my past results I was a bit nervous. I pulled the drill out and ran the fish rod down into the hole. It went all the way in pretty easily, leaving a foot or so sticking out of the hole in the roof.

I went around to the side of the house to check for a gaping hole in the siding. There was none! What a relief! Now it's time to go in to the living room and cut the outlet hole in the wall, where I'll hopefully find my fish rod. I make a starter hole with the drill (1" spade bit this time to make room for the sawzall blade), and then open it up to match the size of my three-gang outlet box. Then I reach inside and feel around, what do you know -- my fish rod is there! Hooray! I wrestle with it a little and get it coming out of the hole and into the living room, then go outside and look to see how much of it is still sticking through the roof. Just a few inches, perfect. Back into the living room, I pull the fish rod down that much plus two inches, with the plan being that the end should be sticking up in the attic, easy to find and tape the ends of the wire to it. Then I head up into the attic and find exactly what I was hoping for. I cram myself into the tiny space between the ceiling joists and the low-pitch roof, scraping the back of my head on the roofing nails, and struggle to tape the wires to the fish rod. I get that done after a few minutes of fighting with it and trying not to breathe in too much fiberglass insulation, and then head back down to the living room. I expect this to be my last trip into the attic, so I collect my light, my tape, etc. on the way out.

Back into the living room, I pull the fish rod down. There's more drag than before -- a good sign. I keep pulling, and eventually I have two 12/2 speaker wires coming out of the wall and into my hand. At this point I let out a cheer loud enough to scare my dog.

From there it's a simple matter of mounting the outlet box, putting banana plugs on the ends of the wires, connecting them to the outlet plate, and creating a couple short patches to run from the outlet plate to the binding posts on the receiver. Four steps left: mount the speakers, plug in, test, and then get up on the roof and patch that hole, because there's a thunderstorm in the immediate forecast. I plugged the hole in the roof with a short piece of dowel rod of the same diameter as the drill bit, and sealed it off with silicone. Once the silicone has had time to cure, I'll slather over it with some roofing tar. That'll be good enough to hold for a couple of years until I need a new roof.

In the meantime, having music on the deck is the best thing ever, and totally worth a couple of holes in the house.

---

Unfortunately, everything's all patched up already and I just found out about this contest, so I have only after-pictures. I'll get them online and add them to this post soon.

My worst mistake involves anything I've done without consulting AVS first. It's crazy to think how ill informed the masses are when it comes to all aspects pertaining to home theater. From construction & design to purchasing items such as cables and many of the mass marketed consumer products, all of the mistakes I have made were due to lack of experience and education.

Forums such as AVS provide access to the tools, resources and (in my case) individual experiences of those who have been in your shoes and don't want you to make the same mistakes they had to make.