The Ultimate Smartphone Projector: A DIY Guide

That's what I want to build here today and it looks quite simple but still needs a few tweaks so let's get started with that first. The main idea is to take your phone and project an image onto a wall which will then be magnified by some sort of lens. So the first thing you need to do is take out your phone's battery so it doesn't run out of power while we're working on this um now i'm going to attach a small piece of wood or cardstock under the camera and glue it in place as shown here to prevent any dust from entering and also because it will help keep things looking sharp. Now let's talk about how it works so basically what you do is put your phone on top of a flat surface and shine some light down from above which bounces off the mirror and out through the hole we made for the lens which at this point can now be added to complete the project as it will result in a brighter image, so if you're choosing your lens it's worth going with one that's bigger rather than smaller.

A 300 millimeter lens is used here because it happens to be the same as in most magnifying glasses and there is another thing you should take into account and that is its focal length, so this means that if you want a bigger screen you need to go with a lower focal length value like say 200 millimeters versus 300 millimeters but it will result in a dimmer screen because the light is being spread further, so take your choice um it's a bit of trade-off and a balance depending on what you want. But don't go too big otherwise it's just going to be too dim to see even in a dark room.

So I'm going to go with a 300 millimeter lens because that would work out nicely for me but you can choose whatever works best for you, so by now the light from the phone is free to travel down bounce off the mirror and out through the lens which at this point will be glued in place when positioned on top of it. As you can see the light from the phone is also free to travel out of the sides here which would make the projected image quite washed out as some of this light will leak out and land on the image and it just wouldn't look good.

So we need to block these sides and prevent any light leakage, so I've thought that we could do something quite creative and mimic this old camera now as you can see it's got a sort of concertina around the lens which folds on itself and can expand as required. So let's make one using paper like so.

To start with you'll need to print off some templates for the bellows, these have been included in the description, cut them out and then fold them into the zigzag line between your fingers like that. This makes it able to fold into a sort of concertina and this has given us one of the corners, so make another section by printing out another template and folding it over itself like that, which will form the other corner. And then you'll need to stick these two corners together as well.

So we now have a basic bellows but it's white which isn't as good at blocking light so we need to get some paint and make it pitch black on both sides like this. This should now fit quite nicely around our projector and be stuck in place with some double-sided tape, it also needs to be attached at the top and bottom as well.

Once you've done all that the ultimate smartphone projector is now complete and it can be hung onto the wall, what do you reckon? I think that looks pretty good so once you're playing a film of your choosing you can put the phone on top of the bellows and adjust it up or down until the image becomes sharp on the opposite wall.

It does of course need to be pitch black when you do this and the phone's screen should be at maximum brightness but the image quality is surprisingly decent and of course thanks to the mirror it's not flipped anymore which makes it much more usable if you have a Bluetooth gamepad you can even play games, and because the phone is just lying on top it's easy to pick it up again if you get a call.

Other things you can do with this projector include replacing the phone with a piece of tracing paper which basically inverts the whole system allowing you to see a projected image of reality, bit like a camera, and you can even have fun with some stencil projections by shining a light through a cutout which will then appear on the wall pretty good fun.

So I hope you've enjoyed this video it's been again a blast to make. Don't forget to subscribe and like and all that good stuff but other than that I'm Matt, you've been watching DIY Perks and I hope I see you next time goodbye for now.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey everyone i'm matt and in this video i'm going to be showing you how to make a projector for your smartphone so you can watch film's big screen on the wall now as you can see it looks very vintage and its design solves several usability issues that plague most other smartphone projectors out there now before we get building this i'll just show you how to make a simple version just to explain the concept so the simplest way to make a smartphone projector is to take a shoebox and cut a hole in the front for a magnifying glass to fit into now we can add a little support for the phone and here i've got a little piece of cardboard that's bent upwards for it to be rested against this can just simply be slotted inside and as you can see it can slide forwards and backwards now to mount the phone to this i've just stuck some tape loops to it so it's just a case of sticking it on like so now you can take it into a pitch black room and point the magnifying glass towards a wall and move the phone forwards or backwards until the image becomes sharp but one thing you've probably noticed is that it's upside down and that's because the magnifying glass inverts the image a partial way around this is to lock the phone's rotation but doing this still leaves it flipped horizontally meaning that text is completely unreadable and you can't do things like play games with a gamepad or anything so while this is a very simple project i think we can take it one step further and make the ultimate smartphone projector let's see what we can do so to make the main body of the projector we need to get a piece of craft cardboard and mark it down the middle using a pen now equal distance from this middle line we can mark two outer sections these can then be divided horizontally into thirds and will later form the back of the projector the bottom and the front so at this point we can take the lens that we're going to use which i'll be explaining more about later and place it in the middle of the front third marking around it with a pen with that done we can now cut out some right angle triangles branching out from the horizontal lines so before we fold this up to make the main unit of the projector we need to cut out the hole for the lens if you're using scissors start in the center and spiral outwards until you reach the outer rim and can cut along it alternatively you could also use a craft knife which does generally give a neater finish whilst we're at it we might as well cut a little triangle on the back third and this is for optionally mounting it onto the wall if you wish so with that all done it's time to fold it up and to make this easier to do we can use some scissors or the craft knife to score very lightly along all of the lines except the one going through the middle these score lines might only have a very shallow depth but it means that when we use the side of the table to make the folds it does a very clean job of it the side tabs too can be folded inwards and to keep them in place we can glue on some pieces of cardboard now to make mine doubly strong i used some tape along the edges and because i was feeling quite creative i followed this up with some old wrapping paper to give it a bit of a vintage look now all projectors need some kind of focusing system to ensure a sharp image and to make one for hours what we need are some dowels these are just plant sticks and also some straws now this might seem a bit of a puzzle at first but it will start to make sense as the design comes together so the first thing to do is make some holes in the bottom of the projector unit for the dowels to fit into just one on each corner so we'll just put one in like so see as you can see there it's a little a little bit stiff and that's perfect so what we need to do now is glue the straws into the corners and to do this i'm going to use a glue gun now if you don't have a glue gun don't worry just use what you have at hand and even some strong tape would work once all four straws are in place the excess can be chopped off now the dowels can be threaded through and as you can see the straws are supporting them so that they stay upright so now what we need is a small mirror now this one's made out of glass so i've put some tape around the edges just to make it a bit safer for fingers and this can simply be slotted into the projector and glued in place at a 45 degree angle an easy way of making sure that this is done accurately is by looking at one of the straws and making sure its reflection is perpendicular and with that done we now need to make a platform for the phone this can just be a rectangular piece of cardboard with a hole cut out in the middle for the phone's screen to be seen through it needs to have a hole in each corner so that it can slot onto the dowels and then be glued in place when positioned on top the light shines down from the phone bounces off the mirror and out through the hole we made for the lens which at this point can now be added now when you're choosing your lens it's worth going with one that's bigger rather than smaller as it will result in a brighter image now i've got a bi-convex lens which means that it's curved on both sides which is exactly the same type of lens found in most magnifying glasses but there is another thing you should take into account and that is its focal length so this is a 300 millimeter lens which happens to be the same as in this magnifying glass so you know i could use either of these and it would result in exactly the same image and if you want a bigger screen you need to go with a lower focal length value so say 200 millimeters versus 300 millimeters but it will result in a dimmer screen because the light is being spread further so take your choice um it's a bit of trade-off and a balance depending on what you want but don't go too big otherwise it's just going to be too dim to see even in a dark room so i'm going to go with a 300 millimeter lens and it fits quite nicely in the hole without any glue as it's quite stiff but you might want to use a little bit of glue um just to hold it in place right so by now it's probably covered in fingerprints so give it a quick wipe just to make it crystal clear and with that we are almost finished but there is one last thing to do before it's complete now as you can see the light from the phone is free to travel down bounce off the mirror and out through the lens but it's also free to travel out of the sides here and that would make the projected image quite washed out as some of this light will leak out and land on the image and it just wouldn't look good so we need to block these sides and prevent any light leakage and to do this i've thought that we could do something quite creative and mimic this old camera now as you can see it's got a sort of concertina around the lens which folds on itself and can expand as required so let's mimic this and make a set of bellows now this is made out of paper and it's actually quite simple i've included some templates for you to print off in the description and once you have done so you can cut off one of these sections and fold the zigzag line between your fingers like so this makes it able to fold into a sort of concertina and this has given us one of the corners so to make the section in between the corners we can print off another template which i've also included in the description and fold it over itself like so sort of like making a fan this can then be stuck to one of the corners and you can use this method to gradually build up your full bellows but this is white which isn't as good at blocking light so we need to get some paint and make it pitch black on both sides and with that done you should have something that looks like this now this can then be fitted around the projector and stuck in place with some double-sided tape and it also needs to be attached at the top and bottom as well so with that the ultimate smartphone projector is now complete and it can be hung onto the wall what do you reckon i think that looks pretty good so once you're playing a film of your choosing you can put the phone on top of the bellows and adjust it up or down until the image becomes sharp on the opposite wall it does of course need to be pitch black when you do this and the phone's screen should be at maximum brightness but the image quality is surprisingly decent and of course thanks to the mirror it's not flipped anymore which makes it much more usable if you have a bluetooth gamepad you can even play games and of course because the phone is just lying on top it's easy to pick it up again if you get a call other things you can do with it include replacing the phone with a piece of tracing paper which basically inverts the whole system allowing you to see a projected image of reality a bit like a camera this is yet another perk of this design as you wouldn't be able to have this kind of fun with the shoebox variety you can even have fun with some stencil projections by shining a light through a cutout which will then appear on the wall pretty good fun so i hope you've enjoyed this video it's been again a blast to make don't forget to subscribe and like and all that good stuff but other than that i'm matt you've been watching diy perks and i hope i see you next time goodbye for now youhey everyone i'm matt and in this video i'm going to be showing you how to make a projector for your smartphone so you can watch film's big screen on the wall now as you can see it looks very vintage and its design solves several usability issues that plague most other smartphone projectors out there now before we get building this i'll just show you how to make a simple version just to explain the concept so the simplest way to make a smartphone projector is to take a shoebox and cut a hole in the front for a magnifying glass to fit into now we can add a little support for the phone and here i've got a little piece of cardboard that's bent upwards for it to be rested against this can just simply be slotted inside and as you can see it can slide forwards and backwards now to mount the phone to this i've just stuck some tape loops to it so it's just a case of sticking it on like so now you can take it into a pitch black room and point the magnifying glass towards a wall and move the phone forwards or backwards until the image becomes sharp but one thing you've probably noticed is that it's upside down and that's because the magnifying glass inverts the image a partial way around this is to lock the phone's rotation but doing this still leaves it flipped horizontally meaning that text is completely unreadable and you can't do things like play games with a gamepad or anything so while this is a very simple project i think we can take it one step further and make the ultimate smartphone projector let's see what we can do so to make the main body of the projector we need to get a piece of craft cardboard and mark it down the middle using a pen now equal distance from this middle line we can mark two outer sections these can then be divided horizontally into thirds and will later form the back of the projector the bottom and the front so at this point we can take the lens that we're going to use which i'll be explaining more about later and place it in the middle of the front third marking around it with a pen with that done we can now cut out some right angle triangles branching out from the horizontal lines so before we fold this up to make the main unit of the projector we need to cut out the hole for the lens if you're using scissors start in the center and spiral outwards until you reach the outer rim and can cut along it alternatively you could also use a craft knife which does generally give a neater finish whilst we're at it we might as well cut a little triangle on the back third and this is for optionally mounting it onto the wall if you wish so with that all done it's time to fold it up and to make this easier to do we can use some scissors or the craft knife to score very lightly along all of the lines except the one going through the middle these score lines might only have a very shallow depth but it means that when we use the side of the table to make the folds it does a very clean job of it the side tabs too can be folded inwards and to keep them in place we can glue on some pieces of cardboard now to make mine doubly strong i used some tape along the edges and because i was feeling quite creative i followed this up with some old wrapping paper to give it a bit of a vintage look now all projectors need some kind of focusing system to ensure a sharp image and to make one for hours what we need are some dowels these are just plant sticks and also some straws now this might seem a bit of a puzzle at first but it will start to make sense as the design comes together so the first thing to do is make some holes in the bottom of the projector unit for the dowels to fit into just one on each corner so we'll just put one in like so see as you can see there it's a little a little bit stiff and that's perfect so what we need to do now is glue the straws into the corners and to do this i'm going to use a glue gun now if you don't have a glue gun don't worry just use what you have at hand and even some strong tape would work once all four straws are in place the excess can be chopped off now the dowels can be threaded through and as you can see the straws are supporting them so that they stay upright so now what we need is a small mirror now this one's made out of glass so i've put some tape around the edges just to make it a bit safer for fingers and this can simply be slotted into the projector and glued in place at a 45 degree angle an easy way of making sure that this is done accurately is by looking at one of the straws and making sure its reflection is perpendicular and with that done we now need to make a platform for the phone this can just be a rectangular piece of cardboard with a hole cut out in the middle for the phone's screen to be seen through it needs to have a hole in each corner so that it can slot onto the dowels and then be glued in place when positioned on top the light shines down from the phone bounces off the mirror and out through the hole we made for the lens which at this point can now be added now when you're choosing your lens it's worth going with one that's bigger rather than smaller as it will result in a brighter image now i've got a bi-convex lens which means that it's curved on both sides which is exactly the same type of lens found in most magnifying glasses but there is another thing you should take into account and that is its focal length so this is a 300 millimeter lens which happens to be the same as in this magnifying glass so you know i could use either of these and it would result in exactly the same image and if you want a bigger screen you need to go with a lower focal length value so say 200 millimeters versus 300 millimeters but it will result in a dimmer screen because the light is being spread further so take your choice um it's a bit of trade-off and a balance depending on what you want but don't go too big otherwise it's just going to be too dim to see even in a dark room so i'm going to go with a 300 millimeter lens and it fits quite nicely in the hole without any glue as it's quite stiff but you might want to use a little bit of glue um just to hold it in place right so by now it's probably covered in fingerprints so give it a quick wipe just to make it crystal clear and with that we are almost finished but there is one last thing to do before it's complete now as you can see the light from the phone is free to travel down bounce off the mirror and out through the lens but it's also free to travel out of the sides here and that would make the projected image quite washed out as some of this light will leak out and land on the image and it just wouldn't look good so we need to block these sides and prevent any light leakage and to do this i've thought that we could do something quite creative and mimic this old camera now as you can see it's got a sort of concertina around the lens which folds on itself and can expand as required so let's mimic this and make a set of bellows now this is made out of paper and it's actually quite simple i've included some templates for you to print off in the description and once you have done so you can cut off one of these sections and fold the zigzag line between your fingers like so this makes it able to fold into a sort of concertina and this has given us one of the corners so to make the section in between the corners we can print off another template which i've also included in the description and fold it over itself like so sort of like making a fan this can then be stuck to one of the corners and you can use this method to gradually build up your full bellows but this is white which isn't as good at blocking light so we need to get some paint and make it pitch black on both sides and with that done you should have something that looks like this now this can then be fitted around the projector and stuck in place with some double-sided tape and it also needs to be attached at the top and bottom as well so with that the ultimate smartphone projector is now complete and it can be hung onto the wall what do you reckon i think that looks pretty good so once you're playing a film of your choosing you can put the phone on top of the bellows and adjust it up or down until the image becomes sharp on the opposite wall it does of course need to be pitch black when you do this and the phone's screen should be at maximum brightness but the image quality is surprisingly decent and of course thanks to the mirror it's not flipped anymore which makes it much more usable if you have a bluetooth gamepad you can even play games and of course because the phone is just lying on top it's easy to pick it up again if you get a call other things you can do with it include replacing the phone with a piece of tracing paper which basically inverts the whole system allowing you to see a projected image of reality a bit like a camera this is yet another perk of this design as you wouldn't be able to have this kind of fun with the shoebox variety you can even have fun with some stencil projections by shining a light through a cutout which will then appear on the wall pretty good fun so i hope you've enjoyed this video it's been again a blast to make don't forget to subscribe and like and all that good stuff but other than that i'm matt you've been watching diy perks and i hope i see you next time goodbye for now you\n"