A Real DIY Slide Projector

So a few days ago we featured a photoshop tutorial that shows how to blend an image onto a black and white portrait.

The reason we initially shared this tutorial is because it showed a quick and dirty way to kinda make a projected slide on person effect. (Not that you can’t do it for real).

We got the following REAL projector tutorial courtesy of the awesome folks at Lomography, Instructables and Inventor Derte84. It uses an IKEA lamp rather than a strobe, so you’ll have to adjust exposure. (sadly, the Isbrytare is end-of-lined, but it is still available in used stores and sometimes on eBay).

In this tutorial Derte84 will show you how to build a lo-fi projector to display your photo slides on a huge wall. The lo-fi aspect is crucial to lineup to the lomography way. The fact that the project is also cheap is a plus! Sadly, the IKEA lamp I’m using (isbrytare) is out of stock and no more produced. You have to found in used or hope that IKEA will start again producing this beautiful lamp. Its cost was about 40$.

Step 1 – Needed Materials

In order to build your own lomo projector you’ll need:

Isbrytare lamp from Ikea (ikea.com, no more in production.. find it on ebay)
plans to build the adapter (downloadable in the next step)
something to cut wood if you are planning to build it by yourself OR an account on an online laser-cut service (i use http://www.vectorealism.com)
vinilic glue

Step 2 – Cut the wood for the slide holder

In order to build you slide holder download the two files attached to this step.

P1_PORTASLIDE3mm.svg, P1_PORTASLIDE5mm.svg

Now you have to choose how to proceed:

you can give the file to an online laser-cut services like ponoko and let them to made the work for you. They will precisely cut the pieces and send them to your home. I suggest you to use 1/8 inches wood (mine is actually 3 millimeters)
you can print the files on paper and glue the paper on thin wood as a guide for your cutting lines

If you choose the former, I suggest you to choose ponoko.com simply because files are already formatted for that site.

If you choose the latter you maybe need some more info:

A file with SVG extension has a particular format named VECTORIAL that allows you to describe an image with mathematical formulas. In other words, you can zoom the image as you wont without loosing quality. If you do not know how to open these file just download the open-source, multi-platform and free software http://inkscape.org/

Step 3 – Assemble the slide holder

Since we are using wood to assemble the holder we need vinilic glue

Step 1: glue part A to part B. Be careful to not exceed with the glue and to align the center hole of the two pieces

Step 2: turn the obtained piece and glue part C. Be careful to align the central hole and the side holes. (the order of the wood layers should be A – B – C)