Darin Creason's Weblog

There are many different ways to mount a projector. I decided to mount mine to the ceiling so that it would be out of the way. I looked into the projector mount kits that are sold at projector retail sites. There are many, many to choose from. The first thing to check out is the plate that screws to your projector. They make some that are static (made specially to fit a project model) and some that are flexible (they have spider arms that adjust to any angle and reach) to fit almost any projector. The next thing you need to decide is how far the projector will extend from the base. In my case I needed the projector to drop down about 10" from the ceiling because the image would otherwise be blocked by the basement ducting. These extensions are also available but are really quite pricey considering what they are. In fact, the pipe they use is the same that you can buy at Home Depot for plumbing. It's just 1 1/2" NPT (National Pipe Thread, the kind we use in America) metal pipe. I bought my 6" piece at Home Depot for about $3. I also found a floor flange that I could bolt to the ceiling and screw the pipe into. That just left me with the plate that attaches to the projector. The plate comes with an attachment that has a female connector to connect to the pipe hanging from the ceiling. I bought this part online at Mounts and More for $149.50. I wanted to buy this part instead of making it myself so that I was sure that it would fit my projector and because it comes with a very nice ball-in-socket design for precision adjustments. You'd be surprised how much the image moves on a wall 16' away when you move the project 1" on axis. (In fact, the answer is that it moves 32".) It also comes with an easy way to detach the projector so that I can remove it for cleaning or using it elsewhere.

I bought a can of black paint and painted both the flange and the threaded pipe that I bought from Home Depot. Then I mounted the flange to the ceiling using 2 1/2" machine bolts. I pre-drilled the holes in a ceiling joist for two of the bolts and used expansion anchors on the other two since they were in drywall only. I weight about 150lbs and was able to hang from it. I then screwed the threaded piece from the project mount part to the pipe. I attached the projector mount to the projector using the supplied screws and then finally attached the projector to the ceiling mount. Using an Allen wrench supplied with the mount plate I tightened down the screws that lock the project in place and was ready to go.

The next thing was to wire the video cables and electrical outlet right next to the mount so that I wouldn't have to run exposed cables. I'll talk about making your own component video cables in an upcoming blog.

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Posted at 4/19/2004 04:39:00 PM |