Zero-Bezel Mirror Box for Eyefinity/Surround

Greetings fellow widescreen gamers! I wanted to share a little project I've been working on over the holidays. It is something I’ve been thinking about for the past several months but only recently had the time to build.

The concept is pretty simple: build a box that utilizes a half-silvered mirror to create a zero-bezel multi-monitor widescreen effect. I didn’t invent this concept, it was used in several 80’s arcade games such as Darius, Ninja Warriors, and Tecmo Bowl. (I’ve built many MAME cabinets over the years, so this is where I got the idea- small plug for the BYOAC forum.

I acquired a few used LCDs from a local business closing down, so I’ve only been doing the multi-monitor thing since October. In general they are good monitors (HP 2065), but it has been quite tedious to match the color/contrast/brightness due to their age. In any case, the bezels were buggin’ and so this project was born.

The Build

This is a just a proof of concept, and there are many things I would do differently that I’ll write about later. These are the prototype elevation views I drew up in AutoCAD. The approx. dimensions are 54” x 20” x 20” WxHxD. (The large X’s on the elevation views are the monitor locations.)

Two monitors are mounted vertical on the right and left side. One monitor is mounted horizontal on the bottom. The half-mirror glass is set at a 45 degree angle in the box between the vertical and horizontal monitors. (The diagonal line in the side view in the middle of the box in the glass.)

So how does it work? The image from the vertical mounted monitors passes through the half-mirror and the image from the horizontal mounted monitor reflects off the 45 degree angle half-mirror to create the ‘seamless’, bezel –free, continuous image. (The function is similar to how a teleprompter or stereoscopic display works.)

Next it was time to cut some wood. All of the panels fit on one standard 4x8 sheet of wood, in this case 5/8” particle board. The next step was to cover the panels in black. I used a roll of vinyl laminate from Parts Express. Finally the box started to come together…

I initially tried used some straight rails on the back to hold up the two vertical monitors. This turned out to be a bad idea… too wobbly. So I switched to L-channel rails.