I am having a problem with the rosco screen on my vertical mt setup. I’ve put a great deal of effort into tensioning the rosco tight, but at the middle of my screen there is still a slight amount of looseness (open space between the rosco and acrylic sheet). I am thinking that no matter how much i tension the screen, I will still end up with a small gap which causes a ripple effect when touched. Currently, the rosco is held in place by aluminum U channels that run along the top and bottom of the acrylic. The rosco wraps over the acrylic, then the acrylic fits into the U channel, causing the weight of the acrylic (36” x 54” sheet) to hold it down.
I am considering using some kind of spray adhesive that dries clear and I was wondering if anyone else has used any such product.
ya i had the same problem, I uesd a whole new sheet of acrylic to keep it flat, the trick is to cut the sheet down so that it fits in the area of the exposed acrylic, as tonot crete an air gap due to the U rails. buy the sheet pre cut, cutting acrylic takes’ freakin forever
basicallyyou make a sandwhich with two acrylic sheets and the rosco inbetween. I guess you have the rosco behind the acrylic that you are going to touch when you are using the panel. if you are using the rosco with silicon compliant surface, then you are out of luck with the “way of the sandwhich"(rotflol )
I would not try adhesive, that’s what i thought I should do, however more than likely you will destroy your panel or create “dark spots” in your projected image.
If you want to go adhesive try either krazy glue or hot glue, hot glue does not set off IR in FTIR setup, I don’t know about krazy glue setting off IR, but a problem if you mess up
My prototype doesn’t use FTIR, it’s a DI setup. I’ve tried the acrylic rosco acrylic sandwich before but it didn’t work with DI. I was thinking an even coat of a spray adhesive, something that dries clear. I have some extra rosco and acrylic… I’ll do some testing tonight and post the results here and on my blog.
I tried some 3M Photo Mount Spray adhesive that I found at a craft store. It worked well and held the rosco test piece perfectly in place. The image looked good, except I noticed some patches where I noticed a slight bit of the adhesive showing through. I think with a more even application this spray stuff would actually do great. In reality though, getting such an even spray might be difficult.
Next stop, I guess I’ll try some sort of silicon rubber to adhere the rosco to the surface.
I’m think i’m going to try a thin layer of sorta clear 40 to adhere the rosco to my acrylic. Has anyone tried this before? I know it will dry clear with no problems but I am wondering about the strength of the bond and wether it will hold up on a vertical screen. I have a DI setup, so i’m not interested in the silicone rubber as a compliant surface, just as a clear adhesive.
I don’t think sorta clear would be your best bet. Plus, sorta clear really isn’t something that is nice to the touch and it’ll be hard to get it completely smooth. Nighthawk used an “Polymer coating” to create a bond between paper, and acrylic. This may be a better answer. I don’t think the sorta clear 40 is for what you’re looking to do.
Thanks cerupcat,
I’ll look into Polymer coating as an option. Just to reiterate though, I’m talking about having the silicone rubber between the rosco and acrylic… so the user would be touching the rosco.
I also tried using the 3m stuff to glue down the projection surface. And if you don´t get it even, it will show on the projection.. I guess the trick is to use
a lot of spray glue, get both sides soaked and the quickly glue them together. Also don´t try to use the Spray glue that you can remove again, go for the
permanant stuff, its more clear, in my experience…
On my FTIR Setup I used sorta clear and it does make the rosco stick nicely.... but that was FTIR…
How are you using rosco on DI? I tried it, and couldn´t make it work at all.... I didn´t get enough
IR Light through the rosco…
Hey Tim,
I’ve got the rosco working as a top layer over the acrylic. Using the rosco, the blobs are very faint but my software can still pick them out fine. I use a lot of light on my screen… I think that’s key to using rosco with DI. Anyways, I’m going to try more tests with spray glue on some spare pieces of acrylic. If that doesn’t work, then I’ll try the sorta clear.
something else I forgot to tell you…
When you are using spray glue on acrylic, and the edges are polished (eg shiny) then using
spray glue could cause the edges to crack a bit. Happend to me, and I really didn´t know where the
cracks came from. I then talked to my acrylic dealer, and he explained that, when you polish the edges
of the acrylic, the sheet is under some tension. When you then use spray glue, it gets worse, so after some
time the edges start to crack… just to let you know.. You really don´t need polished edges for Di anyway,
I just used a sheet from my FTIR setup…
Alright Nuigroupies,
I came up with a solution that seems to work quite well. Naturally, it was the most simplistic solution The secret adhesive is… dun dun dun… Elmer’s glue. That’s right… the white stuff we got all over our hands and clothes in grade-school.
I diluted some white glue with hot water so it was thin enough to be brushed onto the acrylic. The trick is to work with the rosco as if you are applying some window film. Apply a liberal amount of glue to the acrylic and then lay down the rosco starting from one end (try to minimize air pockets). Next, wet the surface (you don’t have to do this… but just to be nice to the rosco you should) and squeegee the air pockets out. I let mine dry for a few hours and it left me with a perfectly flat rosco/acrylic combo. Projecting onto it, there is no visible pattern or texture like I had with various brands of spray glue.
If this experience has taught me anything… it is to always try the low-tech solution first
ej mike, cool that you got to figure it out and share it with us.
there are also self adhesive projection screens out there, but this is also a way
looking forward to the pics
1 part Elmer’s glue
1 part liquid dish soap
10 parts warm water
The soap appears to prevent the glue from hardening completely and makes it easier to slide things around.
I have had problems with bubbles forming along the edges of the glass (I am adhering to Ikea Bilstra glass desktops), but the glue sets so slowly with the glue in it, it is no problem to squeegee them out.
I think that we may cut down on the % of soap in future batches, but this has worked for us to day.
)
