Designing new light, projector mount, and camera for table

Ghosst · Dec 24, 2019

iusedtoberich said:
I don't know, and I won't be near it again until after the holidays. They probably have the information on their website, its www.projectionprobilliards.com

The raspberry is what gets delivered, pre-loaded with the software. It auto-starts in the pool program, so you never have to touch the OS if you don't want to. They don't sell the software separately to the best of my knowledge.

I was hoping that if I ever bought one I could just get the card since I have half a dozen Pi's sitting around. They're fantastic little machines you can make useful tools out of. I just run out of gas after work and never seem to get the ideas off of the drawing board.

fastone371 · Dec 24, 2019

iusedtoberich said:
To Fastone, I went out to my home room, Drexeline Billiards in Philly last night and took this picture for you. Its the GC light over GC4 tables. I measured the height using my cue stick, and the light's grate is about 50"-52" above the slate. FYI I can't imagine it any lower, do you hit your head on yours?

View attachment 537619

I think my light is 38" above table, I will have to check that measurement. Im 6'1" and dont hit my head on the light. Thank you much for getting all of those figures for me, Merry Christmas!!!

iusedtoberich · Dec 25, 2019

I've been playing around with the SLR camera during my days off. Its a whole different world from the iPhone, ha ha. My last "camera" was probably in 2004, a point and shoot Canon. Then came the iPhone a few years later, and I never looked back. Now, this SLR is a big learning curve, but the pictures do seem way better than what the iPhone (7) can do. Just random pictures around the house.

iusedtoberich · Jan 1, 2020

I got back home this AM and made a lot of progress.

Camera: The camera will work great. It shows the whole table, and then some. I stood on the table and held it over my head. First picture is the widest view when the camera is about 3" or 4" from the ceiling, second is zoomed in some. Ignore the lighting, focus, camera strap, etc. I will make a mount on the ceiling for it later. I wanted to verify it would work without bad distortion, and to my untrained eye, it does.

iusedtoberich · Jan 1, 2020

Lights:

The surface mount kit came in. Its powder coated aluminum. The quality looks very good.

I'm leaving the space in the middle about 11" for the camera body to fit. You can see the channel (which is the same length as the LED), will go to the middle of the end rails.

This is the cross section. The light slides on the bottom track. The top space is perfect to fit the transformer.

I have to run some wires in the ceiling so I can slide the LED's all the way towards each other, and not have the wire dangling down. I'll work on that soon.

pab · Jan 1, 2020

Ya know, if you can play even half as good as your creative genius is, we're all in a lot of trouble.

This is a great thread. Very impressive.

iusedtoberich · Jan 1, 2020

Here is the nameplate of the light. I would probably go 5000K instead of 6000K if I had to buy it again today. You can buy qty 2 similar to these with free shipping on Amazon for about $140, I just looked it up.

I also notice the ones on Amazon made to work with a dimmer have a 0-10V dimmer input. Mine don't have that. If you think you may want to ever dim the lights, get the 0-10V type. They will work with a dimmer wall switch for LED's. This one won't.

iusedtoberich · Jan 4, 2020

pab said:
Ya know, if you can play even half as good as your creative genius is, we're all in a lot of trouble.

This is a great thread. Very impressive.

Ha ha, thank you, and I wish

iusedtoberich · Jan 4, 2020

I made great progress yesterday on the lights. I did all of the wiring.

There used to be a fan here when I moved into the apartment 7 years ago. It was hard wired. I replaced the fan with this box, and had a receptacle in it, to power the Brunswick light. I'm going to put a receptical back in here to power the camera and projector, but I also want it to feed the lights. Also, because it was originally a fan, there are two switches on the wall controlling it (one for the lights, one for the blades spinning). So I will wire one switch to control the outlet, and the other switch to control the lights.

Had to do some drilling and fishing and pushing and pulling. First LED.

Second LED.

iusedtoberich · Jan 4, 2020

This is the main junction box. It has 2 hots coming in (one from each wall switch), 1 neutral, 1 ground. Lots of connections to make to do what I want...

First light and junction box. You can see the transformer sitting on top of the LED panel. I may screw it to the ceiling, or just leave it like this.

Second light with its junction box.

The whole thing. That's my shadow

Because there was originally a fan here with a wide base, I will need a bigger plate. To come later. The two blue tapes still on the ceiling have drawing with marker the centerline of the projector, and the centerline of the table (for camera mounting), respectively.

iusedtoberich · Jan 4, 2020

Here is how the camera will go. I messed up slightly and forgot the camera's LCD would be swung open as shown while in use. That makes the whole camera wider. It will be off-center now by about 1/2 or 3/4 inch, but should still be fine. I realized that as soon as I held the camera between the mounted lights. I'm not moving the lights though, it will be good enough.

Screen Shot 2020-01-04 at 6.16.43 PM.jpg

This is a still of a video taken with me holding the camera against the ceiling with my hand. It looks promising.

iusedtoberich · Jan 4, 2020

Here is what I came up with to mount the camera. The plastic part is how I have my current video camera mounted, and works very well. Its $12 on Amazon.

iusedtoberich · Jan 4, 2020

Here is the making of the camera bracket.

This was a bracket I already had. The hole is to hold the camera where I want it.

If you ever drill in metal, always drill a smaller pilot hole, and then your final size. Life will be much easier

Drills cut very poorly close to their center, which is called the web. By drilling a pilot hole, the larger drill does not need to cut anything using its web, and it will cut like butter.

Cutting it so it looks prettier on the ceiling.

iusedtoberich · Jan 4, 2020

I'm going to paint the metal pieces for both the camera mount and the projector mount flat white, to match the ceiling. I debated on this, because I know if I need to make any adjustments the paint might get scratched. However, I think I'm very close in where I want everything mounted, and any adjustments will probably be less than one inch at this point.

Deburring all edges. This will help the paint stick. It doesn't stick well to very sharp corners.

Scuffing all of the surfaces with a fine scotch brite pad. For mechanical paint adhesion.

Cleaning everything with mineral spirits.

Improvised paint booth.

Super light first mist coat of primer.

All of these steps I took to give the paint the best chance of sticking well, and not flaking off if I have to make any sliding adjustments to the system after installation.

iusedtoberich · Jan 4, 2020

I just finished the painting. 30 seconds of spraying, then 20 min of waiting for it to dry. Repeat. ha ha. I'll mount them tomorrow or even Monday to let things cure better.

iusedtoberich · Jan 5, 2020

Camera and projector both mounted with final design mounts. Next step is to do the power wires, and signal wires.

Camera closeup.

Projector closeup. BTW the projector model number is ViewSonic PS501W and link is: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07B7MKC22/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 incase anyone wants to do the same.

Table is still full of crap until I do the wire routing and cable tunnels. I never cover the table in-between uses, but the cover has been indispensable the many times over the years I fooled around with things on the ceiling.

iusedtoberich · Jan 8, 2020

I'm almost done the installation. In the mean time, I have some quick video samples. I think they are amazing! Less than 60 sec each for my short attention span

They are 1080P, make sure you pick that option on youtube, and check out full screen for best result. No sound due to copyright music playing.

This one is with the DSLR on a tripod, at a low angle (and skewed). Lens is a 24mm prime lens. I really, really, really like this angle (not the skew part, the low part). I really like how big the balls are. The angles are different though, on one super thin cut shot in real life, the angle made it look easy (not shown in this clip). I'll have to experiment more with this.
https://youtu.be/-CkbO2fkRsI

Here is the overhead angle. This is with a 10-18mm wide angle zoom lens set at 10mm (widest). I can zoom this one in tighter, and will experiment later. The lines on the table look straight! A great sign. They should be straighter still if I zoom in slightly.
https://youtu.be/UEy6_WNImB4

Slickstick9 · Jan 8, 2020

Really enjoyed this thread.:thumbup:

jrctherake · Jan 9, 2020

Iusetoberich, you have done a great job.

I thought I was done with my table/room....but, you are forcing me to rethink things.

Again, great job and congratulations on getting to the finish line with your project. I can see where it would be a huge asset to anyone's game/room.

Jeff

iusedtoberich · Jan 19, 2020

The physical install is all finished. Some fine tuning with the software to control the cameras, but it works well enough for now.

I screwed the transformers to the ceiling for a better job.

Ran the wires inside a plastic cable hider.

The black wire is power, the white wire is HDMI to record directly to my computer's hard drive (this did not end up working, I'll discuss it later). (all the wire ties I replaced later with same colored off-white ones).

I stuck the raspberry and the power strips on the back of the projector with double sided tape. (all the wire ties I replaced later with same colored off-white ones).

From the front view, the projector looks very clean, which was my goal. All the wires are hidden on its back side.

Designing new light, projector mount, and camera for table

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