A couple weeks ago I metioned the idea of video graffiti, and the expense of video projectors, to Sauceruney. He sent me this link: build your own LCD projector. They link to a guy who claims to have built a 8,255 lumen projector for under $200. Sounds too good to be true.

I’ve been poking around looking for rental information for projectors and plasma screens but haven’t come up with much… everyone wants me to call them to get a quote. I did find one place with some numbers online but lost the link. It would run about $800 to rent a 5,000 lumen projector for a day through them. And I think a 2,000 lumen was about $200… so building one seems like the way to go.

After seeing Steve Safarik‘s Laser Space Wars at Dorkbot last week, I realized that shooting for perfect video quality might be too much at this point. Although Safarik’s laser stuff is also quite expensive (the mirrors for his project cost $2000), I realized that other light experiments could produce interesting results. Particularly interesting about Safarik’s work is that it’s interactive (it’s just an arcade game, but interesting none the less). See also: LaserMAME (link currently down) and More Laser game anyone?