A project in the works is this Projector lens camera. We started collecting parts of it based on this video I stumbled across one day and I knew I just had to try it!
The first piece to acquire was the Episcope projector lens. It took a little bit of ebay scouring but I finally found a few lenses that would work.
I designed a holder for the lens in Fusion 360 and printed it out on the 3D printer
The 3D printed dimensions did not match the CAD dimensions, this can be due to calibration issues, filament shrinkage, slicer compensaton
I found this article useful in helping troubleshoot some of my issues.
https://all3dp.com/2/3d-printer-dimensional-accuracy/
Next the t-slot aluminum supports, L brackets, screws, bearings, threaded and non threaded rods, and misc hardware. The hardest piece to find was a suitable fresnel lens.
I ended up ordering a 450mm (focal distance) 230x230mm (lens dimension) pair (need one to focus the light from the lens and one to focus that image back onto the projection sheet) they seems to work ok. Not sure how much of a difference a larger lens with the same focal length would have made. As you can see from Matt’s video those lenses are probably around 400mm.
Since Matt hasn’t uploaded the project files yet. I started teaching myself Fusion 360 and modeled my own pieces.
The first few were sized incorrectly so it took a few prints to get it dialed in. These are a little too snug but hold well so I stuck with this design. It is supposed to hold the two fresnel lenses and the acrylic sandwich with the diffusion paper.
My current idea is to try a piece of frosted acrylic instead of a sandwich to see if I can’t get a slightly better light transmission and reduced costs.
Here for the test I am using a piece of packing foam as the projection surface.
