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RS-MaxxMudd Experiments - Page 2

post #31 of 143
8/25/06 at 6:17am
Tiddler and I chatted a little last night on AIM and he's really kicking butt and we're all benefitting and getting to learn from his work.

I noticed that the text was a little blurry, almost an out of focus look, BUT as Tiddler pointed out this is only one coat so it's hard to really judge right now. The main thing we were all interested in is seeing it in stages like this.

What is going to be real interesting is that window... we're all thinking (hoping?) that the image from the back will look somewhat like that of rear projected screen but most likely not as clear and vibrant. If after all applicable coats have been applied there is no image on the reverse side, or the image is too faint to really make out any images or details that will tell volumes. Unfortunately it won't tell us everything... If there is very little perceivable image or light, to me it stands to reason the light getting through won't be strong enough once reflected by a mirror to effectively make it back to the viewing side or even 'illuminate' the paint from behind. If we see this, the same test really should be done but with a sprayer. Even then it will be questionable until Tiddler is at the same spraying level as the pros.

Great work Tiddler!
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post #32 of 143
8/25/06 at 6:24am
A lot to digest here... I'm just going to comment on the maxxmudd-on-mirror pics for now.

There's a definite improvement in gain here, though a lot less than can be achieved with a flat clear (such as the frost spray, one would assume.)

Another thing, I'm looking at this from a dodgy laptop monitor, but can you confirm the presence of a halo or bloom effect on the mirror panel? It seems to be there, especially on the GERMANIA text, but I'm not on my trusty CRT Again, this should go hand-in-hand with the gain improvement on the thick mirrors you're using. The frost should be even worse in this regard, as it lets a greater % of the light through.
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post #33 of 143
8/25/06 at 8:03am
Tiddler,

Thanks for posting those updated pics. Since I , for one am looking mostly at a Gray<>White comparison those shots tell the story very well.

Here's my opinion. BTW, I'm sure that your UPW/primer mix is fairly close to straight UPW so the primer IMO, is probably somewhat irrelevant. In any case, it's close enough that it will give a good "matte white" comparison.

Looking at the flat white next to the RSMM, I can see little difference in the flesh tones. (maybe slight, but not far enough off to say either way). What I did notice was the improvement in the blacks and the flat white seemed to wash out compared to the RSMM.

I may have to look into the the RSMM low lumen for my tastes.

I know these comparisons are reasonaly accurate relative to themselves, but I'm curious as to the performance if you recalibrate to the white and then show the test panels. That may take too much time on your part Tiddler and I was really throwing that out as a "what if" so don't think that I'm trying to discount your work as it has been very enlightening.

Thanks tiddler,
Rob
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post #34 of 143
8/25/06 at 9:10am
Thread Starter 
With regard to calibration it is a valid concern and a hard one to address. If I calibrate for a particular screen sample it will of course perform well and possible appear to outperform a sample that is in fact superior.

My projector is an Optoma HD72, ceiling mounted, 14.25' from the screen. I did have a look at the DVE calibration DVD on the EluneVision 1.4 Gain White retractible screen the samples are hanging from. Out of the box the HD72 seemed pretty close to start with.

To avoid exhaustive calibration setups (OK I'm lazy) I decided to reset the projector to factory settings. The degamma is set to "Film" (I'll have to check this tonight to be sure). For ambient light shots I set the mode to "Bright" and for darkened room shots I usually remember to set the mode to "Cinema".

As you mentioned these photos are only useful as comparisons within a single photo. Comparison across photos is not valid. I would venture to say that any of the sample done up in a full screen and calibrated would perform better than what they do in any of these comparison setups.
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post #35 of 143
8/25/06 at 9:18am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by CoveX View Post

Another thing, I'm looking at this from a dodgy laptop monitor, but can you confirm the presence of a halo or bloom effect on the mirror panel? It seems to be there, especially on the GERMANIA text, ...

There does seem to be some blooming. keep in mind this is only one coat of RS-MaxxMudd on the mirror. The improvement over the RSMM/Wht panel seems to be pretty small to me. Another coat is probably going to make them equal. I was expecting something more dramatic from the mirrors, not good just glaringly different. That has me somewhat puzzled. Three to four coats must completely kill any effect the mirror is having.
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post #36 of 143
8/25/06 at 10:44am
Thread Starter 
Originally I was going to paint the mirror tiles with 3 coats (minimum recommended for RS-MaxxMudd) and then 1 or 2 more coats on two tiles then 1 or 2 more coats on the last tile. So there would be a progressively thicker paint layer on the three tiles. Now that I have seen just one coat I can't imagine putting that much paint on now.

So now I'm thinking 1, 2, 3 coats on the bottom, middle, and top tiles. Does that make sense to you folks? Bud, Highside, pb, ... ?

Tonight I will try to rig up something to hold the window in a location that will allow me to photograph the front and back sides. I put a coat of RSMM on the window last night. I will photograph both side before each successive coat.

As you may have noticed from the screen shots I have figured out how to scale the image so that it fits nicely across three sample panels. I think I should pick a couple of the more straight forward mix panels to use with the RS-MaxxMudd/White panel to watch some movies this weekend.

My long term goal is to formulate a mix that is self-priming, fairly easy to apply, and gives reasonably good ambient light performance. What started all this for me was the notion of painting my roll-up EluneVision white screen. It is just fine at night with all the lights out and the HD72 in cinema mode, but for playing adventure games or watching movies with some ambient light it washes out and then I feel like I wasted a lot of money on this stuff when there is perfectly good 53" Hitachi RPTV sitting there. Although the TV is ok with the PC it does not provide enough resolution or clarity for adventure gaming (a lot of fairly fine text).

My inclination at the moment is to start with the RS-MaxxMudd formula, replace the UPW with a larger amount of CIL Any Where white primer. The primer is not as loaded with white pigment as the UPW and I don't think it is quite as flat either. I could probably double the quantity of white primer and still get about the same shade of gray. My experiences so far have taught me that anymore than a bit of sheen will cause problems. My fear of too much sheen makes me lean toward using the Behr "FLAT" clear polyurethane instead of the Minwax Satin Poly.

By watching a couple of movies with the RS-MaxxMudd/White panel in between a couple of my demonstration panels I hope to get a feel for the performance I might get with a modified RSMM mix. The two panels I think I will try are the (2:2:1:1) Wispy Gray (primer) + Polycrylic + Delta Pearl + Delta Silver Metallic and the (1:1:1:1) White primer + Polycrylic + Delta Pearl + Delta Silver Metallic.

So I should be done with some of the general experimenting soon and then I will turn my attention to painting the roll-up screen. It will be getting cooler now and we can keep the windows open when I paint the screen. It will need to stay rolled down for at least a week after the final coat. That means I will have to set it up in the rec-rroom. I also need to get at both sides so I can put matching coats of paint on the back. This will hopefully prevent excessive curling and/or waves.

Once the screen is painted there are some experiments to be performed to develop an add on device to remove waves from roll-up screens. Then I need to mount the screen inside the living room ceiling. That's going to be interesting because almost all the wiring for the house goes across that area. Then there's the routing of the cable under the living room floor and relocating some of my equipment so the remotes work when the screen is down. Oh ya I almost forgot I need to get a better blind for the window and the back door window. It just never ends! Who's idea was it to start all this anyway!
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post #37 of 143
8/25/06 at 5:16pm
Thread Starter 
First coat of paint was applied to the window last evening.

Front Photo



Rear Photo



Second coat of paint was applied to the window about 24 hours before these photos.


Front Photo



Rear Photo




The third coat is now on and has dried for about 12 hours.


Front Photo



Rear Photo



Second Surface Reflector



Second Surface Reflector - 1



Second Surface Reflector - 2



Second Surface Reflector - 3



Well folks I don't see anything. Again I will point out that this is rolled paint. It is recommended that the paint be sprayed as the comercial Black Flame / Light Fusion screens will be.

All I can honestly conclude from this is ou can't make a Light Fusion work with a roller paint job.
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post #38 of 143
8/25/06 at 6:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by tiddler View Post

There does seem to be some blooming. keep in mind this is only one coat of RS-MaxxMudd on the mirror. The improvement over the RSMM/Wht panel seems to be pretty small to me. Another coat is probably going to make them equal. I was expecting something more dramatic from the mirrors, not good just glaringly different. That has me somewhat puzzled. Three to four coats must completely kill any effect the mirror is having.

Quote:


A mirror, under a translucent topcoat of BF or whatever mix, will lower off axis gain and performance because it is very reflective and silver. Does this make sense or am I missing something??

This is what Me said in an earlier post on the BF Explained thread. Looks like you just verified what Me was thinking. Another 2 or 3 coats and Me agree; you will lose the gain and whatever, I didn't see any in your pictures, fusion effects.

And by the way, excellent work tiddler! Me like your idea about doing the 1, 2 3 coat thing on the mirror. Me will also continue my work with the mirrors, as soon as Me get some.
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post #39 of 143
8/25/06 at 8:46pm
Hey tiddler, just an idea, if you have enough paint left I am sure I am not the only ont that would like to see a RS-Maxxx and RS-Maxxx LL.
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post #40 of 143
8/26/06 at 8:34am
Thread Starter 
Here is a crude test of the brightness uniformity that can be expected across the screen

The other two panels are Flat Gray + Poly + pearl + Delta Silver Metallic.

RS-MaxxMudd/White is centered:



RS-MaxxMudd/White is centered, other panels swapped sides:



RS-MaxxMudd/White is far right side (still bright):



The left panel position is the sweet spot for a reflective screen. The right panel position is the worst angle for an angular reflective screen. The two flat gray mix panels are both bright in the left spot and dull in the right spot. The RS-MaxxMudd/White held it's brightness much better. I conclude from this that for a person sitting to the side the RS-MaxxMudd/White screen would have a more uniform gain across it's width.
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post #41 of 143
8/26/06 at 5:05pm
Thinking here still. nice work!!!
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post #42 of 143
8/26/06 at 5:49pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by bud16415 View Post

Thinking here still. nice work!!!

Agreed, and the window shots tell more than anything I have seen on any thread in here. In a way you'd think the originators of this method would have undertaken tests like these to prove their theory. Yes it is a lot of extra and hard work, but when someone says they have a break through concept and technique, I think people want some proof and data and not just a 'sound byte'.

I'm not slamming anyone, I think it's just a shame it had to fall on Tiddler to come up with data and test results for someone else that probably should have done it. I'm thinking when this mix and technique were discovered they could see it was doing something different, but maybe didn't really know or understand why other than it just does seem to work.

I have a feeling though that if Tiddler painted that window with a light coat of any paint we would see an image on the back, maybe not as bright or clear (then again maybe it would look just the same too), but I bet there still would be an image. Unless of course the paint was totally opaque... For the sake of being the Devil's advocate here, I'll throw out on the table that perhaps it's the concept at work here and not any particular special ingredient... Once the window gets the full recommended number of coats of paint we will see a more complete test of what actually is happening, but I do think these step by step photos are very interesting.

I think all of Tiddler's work puts him in the hall of fame status in the AVS DIY community
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post #43 of 143
8/26/06 at 11:19pm
Thread Starter 
Here are some photos of the frosted mirror tiles after the initial 2, 4, 6 coatings of the three tiles.

Initial Coating, On Axis



Initial Coating, Side Seat



Initial Coating, Off Axs Right



Initial Coating, Off Axis Left



It was obvious that the coating was too transparent so over the coarse of the day I just kept applying the spray frosting until the can was empty. Here are the results


Full Coating, On Axis



Full Coating, Side Seat



Full Coating, Off Axis



Conclusions:

This shows that there is some merit in this approach but the coating must defuse the light better. The S-I-L-V-E-R coating over a mirror that CMRA has developed employs duster coats f a paint mix. That probably difuses the light enough to produce a workable DIY Screen

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post #44 of 143
8/26/06 at 11:21pm
Thread Starter 
I have also updated the Window Experiments , so check out the effects of the second coat of RS-MaxxMudd over glass.
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post #45 of 143
8/26/06 at 11:27pm
Do those pictures look like it does in person? Something just doesn't look right with some of them...
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post #46 of 143
8/26/06 at 11:40pm
Thread Starter 
Which ones?
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post #47 of 143
8/27/06 at 9:00am
Holy GAIN Batman

The frosting pictures take the cake. I haven't seen a clearer depiction of the LF concept and the gain / viewing cone interaction. The two go together hand in hand and the frosting points that out very clearly. I believe the gain can still be attributed sheen but in the case of LF the sheen is behind the paint not on top.

As for the painted window if I had to guess it looks like each coat of the mix roughly cuts the passed light in half. ½ ¼ 1/8 1/16 etc
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post #48 of 143
8/27/06 at 10:07am
Wow... those on-axis mirror pics remind me of watching a SilverStar, and I *really* like the SilverStar. It does look like a bit more paint density is needed to get the best results -- that would take the on-axis brightness down a bit but brighten up the off-axis results.
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post #49 of 143
8/27/06 at 10:29am
Good work tiddler .

Are you able to post some fine detailed shots or some higher resolution patterns on the mirror?



You are showing that if the film over the mirror is thin enough it will show some straight on viewing gain over a FLAT white ROLLED paint (which is actually less than a 1 gain) and have poor off axis gain . That has been common knowledge for a long time. There is only one person disagreeing with that simple physics lesson.

When you finally put enough coats to get rid of the ghosting and blurriness of the thinner film coats on the mirror you end up having a screen with no on axis gain and you are down to a 1 gain screen .

Bruce
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post #50 of 143
8/27/06 at 11:57am
Thread Starter 
In these final three shots I am comparing the White Base with three coats to the Black Base with 4 coats.










The two look pretty much identical to me. In room light the black one is slightly darker but it does not seem to make much difference with an image projected on them.
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post #51 of 143
8/27/06 at 12:22pm
Tiddler did you do any direct comparisons of the two Mud panels when they had the same amount of coats over the base coats ?

Did you do any comparisons of the two panels when they only had two coats on them ?

Bruce
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post #52 of 143
8/27/06 at 12:38pm
Thread Starter 
Here are some more mirror shots. The top tile has 3 coats, the middle has 2, and the bottom has 1 coat.

Room Light



Camera Flash



Camera Flash Closeup 1 Coat Tile
[IMG]Camera Flash Closeup 1 Coat Tile[/IMG]


Camera Flash Closeup 2 Coat Tile



Camera Flash Closeup 3 Coat Tile



Camera Flash Closeup RS-MaxxMudd / Whiteboard



Projected White Light




Color Bars 1 Coat Tile



Color Bars 2 Coat Tile



Color Bars 3 Coat Tile



Observations:


Conclusions:
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post #53 of 143
8/27/06 at 12:44pm
Thread Starter 
And now for some white text on a black background:

Text



Text 1 Coat Tile



Text Closeup 1 Coat Tile



Text 2 Coat Tile



Text Closeup 2 Coat Tile



Text 3 Coat Tile



Text Closeup 3 Coat Tile




Observations:


Conclusions:
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post #54 of 143
8/27/06 at 12:49pm
I see some color bleeding on the second coated mirror that I don't see on the third coated mirror. Going back to the window experiments, could this be that the third coat has basically removed the mirror from the equation... i.e. no image is reflected back through the paint anymore?

The text images show a lot too. The mirror with one coat has the most distortion, but least amount of screen door effect, but there is still SDE present none the less. This supports what I was thinking, and I know Tiddler thinks this too from our late night chats, and that is that the paint and mirror diffuse the light and it fills the pixal gaps (somewhat). This is interesting and tricky at the same time because basically it's slighly defocusing the image. It sounds like a moot discussion though because as we see when additional layers of paint are applied this effect drops way off to the point in the third coating I really can't see it happening at all anymore.

Tiddler is right and this may only work if sprayed, but he did prove rolling is out of the question, and I don't think anyone on here doubts Tiddler's rolling technique and abilities. This pretty much takes LF out of the realm of most DIYers.
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post #55 of 143
8/27/06 at 2:29pm
Since I am not a physicist, is the slight defocusing due to the refractive properties of the mirror? As you build up the paint layer, I guess the paint becomes more opaque thus, rendering the mirror effect and refractive properties of the mirror moot? In any case, rolling is out of the question. If one were to spray, you would still have to build up layers of paint to a certain finite thickness. For the DIY, quality control would be difficult, at best, to get repeatable thicknesses.

In any case, I really don't see the fusion effect. I see a very high gain effect from the frosted coating which makes off axis viewing impossible. Tiddler, can you see any "fusion" in person? This is not to incite or put tiddler on the spot, I am just asking because I want to know. If you don't want to answer, I respect that. If there is some merit in this fusion thing, I'd be the first one to go out and get myself a mirror.
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post #56 of 143
8/27/06 at 4:48pm
Thread Starter 
The frosted coating on the mirror was pure light fusion. Without the mirror there would have been no mage at all. I do think there is some merit to it but RS-MaxxMudd is not the ideal coating. On the other hand if the paint or surface did a good job of reflecting and diffusing the light in the first place then what benefit is there to the light going through and back out.

The RS-MaxxMudd does seem to be the optimal mix of UPW + Poly + Metallics. If the addition of the RGB metallics further deepens the blacks without sacrificing the whites it may be the best you can do with off-the-shelf ingredients from Home Depot and an art store. Once you get into spraying and the use of interference powders i think there are further possibilities of improving ambient light performance as well as controlling color balance. But to me that is the bleeding edge of DIY Painted screens.
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post #57 of 143
8/27/06 at 5:07pm
Thanks tiddler. I think you convinced me enough to at least go out and get a small mirror to play with. My own experiments with a second surface reflector and the CGIII mix on top of it did not look as good as my current screen. I will try a real mirror and see if that is any better.
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post #58 of 143
8/27/06 at 5:56pm
Thread Starter 
benven,

Since you are already using a high quality metallic powder in your mix maybe the mirror is already in there. There are two way to further experiment with mirror IMHO.

One is with the use of sprayed paint mixtures such as yours. The other is a film or fabric overlay. That Chrome laminate they found on the laminate thread looks very appealing for a mirror surface.

It's out of my league now!

I will be watching other's work and results with interest though.
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post #59 of 143
8/27/06 at 7:02pm
So if I have decided to paint my screen RS-MaxxMud, which formula was best?

UPW+Poly+Delta Pearl+Silver Metallic or

Whispy Gray+Poly+Delta Pearl+Silver Metallic?

Also, and I may have overlooked this, but did dropping the gold from the formula make a difference?

DD
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post #60 of 143
8/28/06 at 4:35am
Tiddler

Truly a great job.

I put forward a lot of test concepts concerning LF and you latched on to all of them and executed them both a very professional manor and also a timely manor.

You also took the concept I had for doing A,B,C sampling and put it into the mainstream thought process here now for others to follow.

And you were the first if not one of the first to correlate the off angle screen shot with the A,B,C sampling and then using the same samples a on axis shot.

These easy to do methods I hope all here pick up on and become the main stay of screen shots.

Now about what I learned and think I learned from all your hard work and the combinations of the few ingredients that we have easily on hand for DIY screen paints.
The painted on glass shots show us that paint or at least paint blended with poly is not a totally opaque film and does not totally reflect its light and color from the outer most skin. It rather reflects some of its light from the surface and some goes into the layer of paint to varied depths contacts pigments and then reverses direction. It comes back to us as the color it was projected at and also the color its been altered to by its interaction with the pigment
Its been shown that roughly half the light passes thru the mix tested when one thin coat of paint is applied and its logical to assume in the case of LF that the returning light will diminish by another half returning thru.
Each coat we add thereafter diminish the light going thru by half again and half returning.
So for 4 coats it would be roughly half, quarter 1/8 1/16 then total halved to 1/32 add to that the losses in the lastly reflective surface and its easy to see why there was no evidence of any LF going on in the multi coat samples.
But on the other hand I warn those tempted to say LF is busted to only look at the frosted pictures and its clear LF works.

I have contended pretty much from my beginnings here that LF along with other screen designs that make a image brighter are doing so by increasing gain somehow and with gain there is loss of viewing cone. And I'll save my thought on ambient light rejection for later along with my overstated views on what the gray does.

But the frosted pictures point out the extremes of LF gain and viewing cone IMO.

Now that we know the light is traveling into the paint mix to some depth ( and many will say well I have always known that) and you are right I just don't think we had as clear of idea how far into and how the depth into the paint makes it impossible for the light to return back.
So can we assume this stuff we add to the paint mix that is reflective is kind of a mini LF taking place within the paint? Can we also assume the randomness of its orientation is causing a type of optical texture to an otherwise flat surface? Can we assume that when darkening the base color to get the gray properties we desire we then have to get the reflective pigments closer to the surface? And maybe more of it?

There are still many unanswered questions about all this but I'm really glad to see all the light bulbs coming on around here. I hope the efforts continues to go in this positive direction.

Great job Tiddler and everyone that tossed ideas and encouragement his way. I have never dug deep enough into the archives here to see where all these ideas were born and who had them. The pearls and metallic and poly mixes along with all the gray research. But I see the best of all these ideas coming together, along with who knows what new ones that haven't been tried yet.
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