Customising a cheap disco light with complete new circuitry.
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- Опубликовано: 11 май 2018
- Inspired by a friend's image of sunlight streaming through a simple stained glass window in an Indian church, I decided to get a cheap LED moonlight from eBay and modify it to achieve a similar effect. A static pattern of coloured patches of light projected down onto a floor (or wall).
The design involved stripping out all the original circuitry in the disco light and replacing it with a single panel that combines the new LED array and the full power supply. It literally just needs two mains connections attached. I used a full 8x8 grid of LEDs to test the focussed area.
Future thoughts might be an actual window shape and maybe a version with diffused self colour changing LEDs. The diffused LEDs will be a fraction of the intensity of the focussed LEDs, but will still be visible in a dark room as an array of soft colour changing circles. Focussed colour changing LEDs may not work due to the non-central positioning of the three chips. Flashing type LEDs can't be used in a series array like this.
If you enjoy these videos you can help support the channel with a dollar for coffee, cookies and random gadgets for disassembly at:-
www.bigclive.com/coffee.htm
This also keeps the channel independent of RUclips's advertising algorithms allowing it to be a bit more dangerous and naughty. 
Наука
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Slowly we learn about Clive's clubbing history....
Saved as a favorite of brilliant stream of thought Psychedelic light development!
Outstanding work again! It’s so good to hear the history, technology, ever-creeping race to the lowest cost, etc. You’re one of very few people who can do all this.
Dip switch information from instruction leaflet is as follows:
Mode No1: "Single projecton controlled by sound 9 is on rest is off"
Mode No2: "Single projection automatically run 1-10 off"
Mode No3: "Speed Control 8-1 on"
Fun little light for the money, thanks for the vid Clive.
Marc.
I'd love to see the clear colour changing LEDs in action, just morphing splatters of light
Me too, although the purely red and blue looked pretty spiffy already.
I would love to buy a mod kit for this projector actually. Maybe with the LEDs arranged in a circle ?
You could make an awesome message scroller like that
Excellent result! I particularly like the clear visibility of the LED chips within each package. I'll also join the clamour for replacement of the single-colour LEDs with random RGB - that would be pretty excellent!
LOL! When I've seen those chips on the led-board, the first IC which came to mind was a 7400 series 595! Which I'd commonly use for drivers (X and Y). Seems others also agree the 595 is a very usable IC.
I enjoy watching you create almost as much as I like doing it myself.
Thank you for doing what you do, seriously, i'd never have sparked (haha) as big of an interest in electronics if it werent for your channel. I think after high school, id like to study, and go into it as a trade. Seems like an amazing thing to do, and really fun if you find interest in focusing on all parts of a system at once. Love the videos man, keep up the awesome work.
Wow, nice project
Thanks for sharing 😀👍
I had a led moonflower that was such, it hat a panel of 5mm leds at the exact point where the tungsten lamp would be and a parabolic dish with clear mirror pieces. It had a great effect.
Oooh, a clever solution to the focus problem.
One which production engineers would look at and say "We're gonna cut the manufacturing cost by ditching that expensive mirror."
Clive I've honestly learned more from you than any school, keep up great vids Mate.
I have a different style of those lights around. They have basically the same arrangement as you're first light (the one with the tungsten bulb) but an LED array next to the lens pointing towards the back. At the back is a mirror like you described it. Makes a very great effect.
2:26 "This cable's F***- tangled here".
The beer almost snuck outta yer mouth, mate :-)
Does anyone else want to see Clive with his self-imposed RUclips personality filter removed?
Nice one Clive!
Cool project. Would look the biz with them self colour changing leds.
That's Mondays video.
Waiting with considerable interest Clive!
Opps. Look forward to it. Ive got a shed load of these lights old and new and have been hacking/updating. Main to stop them going in the bin. No one seems to want them any more with the invention of moving heads and leds etc.. thank for a cool video tho.
Very good video Clive
Agree, more build. I'm seriously tempted to pick one of these up if possible from the States and copy. Would like to get more details on final circuit.
5:00 This is essentially a backwards reflecting telescope - in a telescope the light source is the distant stars, and the parabolic reflector focuses it on another (flat) mirror which reflects the light to an eyepiece or camera. The secondary mirror ought to block some of the light but, as Clive says, it is "out of focus" on the image and merely serves to reduce the light coming in without actually forming a visible obstruction.
Wow! Fantastic
YAY! RUclips time: My favorite time of the day!
I remember buying a moonflower from Maplin back at the end of the 90's for a disco tech me and my school materan. It cost about £65 and was only white.
I cracked it open and painted the individual mirror segments with either blue/yellow/red or green paint to make a multicolour effect.
Good times :o)
The big 250W ones were actually pretty good. Especially if fitted with a much slower mirrorball motor rotating continuously.
Neat, now if they were the colour-changing LEDs, it'd look even cooler... :D
That video goes up on Monday, but with diffused LEDs to see how bright they looked.
Very much looking forward to a video with color changing LEDs... hopefully eventually one with a combination of undiffused color changers and normal LEDs.
Brilliant design and video!
I assume any multicolored LED will splash the different colors as seperate circles overlapping. I guess that could look cool if you were going for that.
I'd be tempted to do something with the LED board and all the shift register chips. Easy enough to drive with any microcontroller.
Cool project. I would like to see some or all of the leds clear color changing with perhaps a very light diffusion plastic over the leds to minimize the focus problem you mentioned of seeing the individual color elements of the leds.
All it needs is a lump of heatshrink tubing, diameter enough to slide in place over that entire Mains fuse holder to cover the live tags thus protecting anyone who needs to work on it powered on.
As Clive was yanking out the guts of the "light" I was for a few moments wondering where he was going with this, and did he drink too much earlier... Would there be anything of the original "light" left?
But the end result was great. Although maybe a well thought out pattern would be even better...
Be nice to see more colours ....a few green and white led's mixed in
OMG freedom fries! Good ole Dubbyah.
Now make a PWM based dimmer with that pot! I made a dimmer with a microcontroller. It's overkill but its a really convenient way to get a high speed clock and I needed some programability anyway. Although making an Attiny into a high speed PWM messes up all the timers and many of the functions so you have to read into the specs carefully when coding.
It would have been neat to use the flashing and/or color changing RGB LEDs in this application! They would have been amazing!
That's monday's video. With diffused RGB LEDs.
Do put the tri colour changing LED's ... It would look psychedelic...
Wow, thanks for the tip on the fuse holder, I have one to replace and I never thought of that!
To my defense, neither did they, same as your light, fused on the neutral side... *sigh*
Charles Thatisall
I sometimes wonder if the Chinese manufacturers specifically employ colour blind people to wire the mains cables!
I just can't get over how funny your vid on the fanny flambeux was. Subbed after coming across that so thanks Clive!
You have a PO box there I can send a goodie box to when I can? You've been great entertainment.
@16:18 a missed opportunity to say 'here's one I made earlier"! 8-)
I would of hacked in an arduino to control the serial to the 595 converters on the original led board, that way you could program them to do whatever you wanted.
No, you would HAVE had. "Would of had" is complete and utter bullshit that is only ever medically excused after application of a lobotomy. A bodged one.
Someone mentions swastikas and a grammar nazi turns up.
Bwahahahaha
Wow. How long did you have to work on that joke before you thought you finally found an application for it? Did you have your tard wrangler come up with that?
"Get my electronic doodle on"
-big Clive 2018
Have you seen the current issue of Nuts and Volts magazine? There's an interesting project in there where the user who submitted it (Victor Chaney) created a sound-affected laser light projector. It casts a swirling nebula of light that dynamically changes according to sounds. Very interesting. He appears to have a YT channel as well.
So basically, you wanted a case and a lens! Nice effect though. Thanks as ever, Clive.
Cheapest way to get a case and task-optimised lens.
Almost looks like a game of Connect 4.
Hey Clive , another great video mate. I was wondering how this would look if you put strips of RGB+W on a plastic panel inside with one of those blue-tooth addressable controllers in there to make the light patterns change. I have one of them back lighting my polished CNC acrylic water res in my PC the effect looks cool I think and you can just change the pattern with an app on your smart phone. Cheers!
Cool. Projection ‘connect 4’
Awesome vid u should do a time lapse where u slot the leds in and solder them. Be great to watch.
Monday's video shows a full PCB processing for this in a different style. But still skips the soldering of most of the 64 LEDs.
bigclivedotcom bigclivedotcom2 channel, with full unedited builds for those that want the longer videos?
love the content as always..it's hard to get in to this hobby.. trying to get people to answer questions about a power supply on eevblog...pfff ahh well that's life starting out in a new hobby as a 41yr old guy ahaha..
Just brainstorming ways to be a cheapskate, coz that's always fun:
The lens is probably the most expensive part. So a cheaper option may be 2 curved mirrors, instead of the lens. Operating like a reflecting telescope.
Mirrors are cheap, in a pinch you can slap a reflective sticker onto anything curved (eg: inside of a plastic blister-pack), or to get convex you can trap/inject air behind a flat sticker.
You could also get clear plastic, support it from the edges, get it quite hot and let it melt & droop a bit. You might only need a very slight curve for your mirror.
The PCB will block some light as it reflects back; So using SMD LEDs to will mean the smaller PCB won't block as much (also no holes to drill yay).
Or it might be interesting to wire the through-hole LEDs in *dead-bug* style, so the mirror can reflect the light straight back *through* the clear LEDs, without a circuit board blocking the light. Not sure i've ever seen that before.
On a version with an internal spinning mirror: you could glue mylar onto the entire inside surface of the device housing, to reflect any errant beams of light into a kaleidoscope effect (rather than that light being wasted).
Anyone got more? :D
Are you going to upload the board pattern on your site? I'd love to build one of these with the slow changing colour LEDs.
Could you remove the lens and use it between the leds and the foam of the PCB holder to create a parabola for the leds to follow?
If you spaced the leds out a bit more, you’d have enough room to angle them toward to focal point.
Clive with a few pints in him... yup... the channel just got better...
Love your vocabulary, "irksome" what an unusual word. How many people would use it these days.
Multitudes ;)
Could you fit enough WS2812b ‘s in there to good effect, even potentially for a little animated emoji projector?
Nice project. The stained glass hex pattern on the photo was lovely, and I'm trying to figure out how one could get that from modding your build. I'm assuming hex separators between the LEDs and tweak the pattern to hex rather than square grid, but you'd need some diffuse film in front of the LEDs right? Would that still work? Would it need the capacitor to be tweaked to make it brighter?
You might have to defocus the LED position and put a printed mask in front of them. Quite complicated for aligning them.
I think the easiest way to do hexagonal cells would be to use triangular LEDs - six of those grouped tightly together make a hexagon. They seem to be a bit harder to obtain these days but they're still around (eg. Kingbright L-323 series).
Rev2 board could have the corner leads spaced out a little bit more and then you could aim/bend them more to the middle for aiming.
I wonder if moving the PCB in or out on it's adjuster would make any difference to the outer LEDs ? But raising the outer LEDs off the mount albeit a few mm's would do the trick as you stated.
Hmmm, the PCB jig with foam is very professional. But not so good unless you take care to stand the components off the board in some way. Some components may have shaped legs that do that for you, otherwise you need some sort of temporary spacer (folded card works).
For those who don't know this stuff... If you don't stand the components off then there are several reliability issues.
1) Moisture traps under the component can cause corrosion problems.
2) Moisture traps under the components can cause leakage currents, especially on multi-layer boards where tracks go under components.
3) Moisture traps under the components can lead to growth of biofilms, which can cause high leakage currents.
4) When you solder the joint the lead expands from temperature. When the solder cools to a solid it's still hot and so is the lead, so when the solder is cold the lead contracts and is under tension. That can cause stress fractures in the packaging around the lead, resulting in moisture ingress and possibly eventual failure.
5) Standing the component off gives better airflow around the component, so it runs cooler, so it has a longer life.
The downside of spacing components off the board is that pressure on the component (such as from rough handling during maintenance) or vibration can cause the copper pad to lift off the board. Which is why, for high reliability, you use two-sided boards with through-plated holes even if *all* the tracks are on the underside. The solder wicks up the TPH resulting in a fillet a bit like a mis-shapen cotton reel that cannot move in any direction.
And then, of course, you conformally coat the board. With nail varnish. Not because it's needed, but so you can get high from the acetone.
bdf2718
Surely such concerns would only tend to be an issue in climates with a relatively high ambient humidity.
+Pete Allum
It's a disco light. Use it in a disco with people getting hot and sweaty and exhaling lots of moisture, then they go home on a cold winter night, you'll get condensation.
Those are all reliability concerns, particularly the lead stress from joint cooling and the airflow. Which is why many components come with pre-formed leads. Which is why ICs have shoulders on their legs (a bit of an anatomical mix-up there) so you can't insert the body hard down on the board. Axial-lead components (resistors and some types of electrolytic cap) need extra measures to ensure they stand off, as do TO-5 can transistors without preformed leads.
If it's something you're making to use once or twice then lose in a cupboard full of junk reliability doesn't matter. OTOH, if you've bought an expensive soldering jig with foam pad then you're probably a bit of a perfectionist. :)
Cleaning with --- oh lets say Xylene -- helps (better than the acetone - I think..foggily)
+bdf2718 - Clive's Velleman circuit board support/holder definitely caught my eye. I have another type holder for production use that actually wasn't used much and was going to be thrown out that I saved. It had to have been quite expensive. A very useful tool to have, but like you indicated it is a problem with components off the board surface without forming the leads first. There are manufacturers of spacers that dissolve in washing process but probably don't have a practical value in home shop electronics. Just mentioning them so folks know about them.
+Rich Wojehowski
For tubular, axial lead components, fold some card (traditionally from a cigarette packet) to form the stand-off. Nylon spacers are available for TO-5 can transistors.
This is perhaps a little over the top for home use, but if you're going to do something you might as well do it right. :)
I actually liked the effect when you projected it onto the desk, where the light from the LEDs was merging together so you had red patches, blue patches and magenta patches--think there's any way that could be done for the long-distance projection as well? Some sort of diffusing plastic in front of the LED array, maybe?
They should use a aluminium pcb with a bunch of 3x3mm 1w leds for maximum dazzle effect.
17:20 what, no freehand marathon molten metal mayhem?
_"My breadsticks!"_
We need also yellow, green and pink :-D
How about spraying the inside of the shell Matt white to boost output without increasing power usage?
19:55 almost looks like a swast...never mind ;) And with the dip switches that looks like my garage door opener! Yes, it's ancient.
The best thing about the ancient garage door openers was putting a 4040 binary counter on the switch inputs to scan through every transmitter code automatically.
And the pcb makes a comeback in 2020 for the UV light.....
Really interesting that the lens actually focuses almost exactly onto the LED dies... Would placing the PCB in a different slot be enough to get it out of focus?
It changes the focal distance slightly, but not too much.
What about a hexagonal (equilateral) pattern rather than the square grid?
You could also stand the outer LEDs off the board to make the shape closer to parabolic, though it looks like it only really matters at the edge (probably due to the lensing of the LED package), in which case you could probably just slightly angle the edge LEDs towards the centre of the arrayed
This was just a test to see how the focus was across the area of LEDs. I may do one more in the style of the original windows that inspired the hack.
Circular rather than rectangular array? Certainly more fiddly but might be interesting?
If you turn each LED 90°, the tracks will be shorter and the track isolation better.
There's only about 2 or 3V between tracks. I prefer all LEDs to be in the same orientation as it makes assembly easier.
The success of this project depends on the feedback from June, and whether it replicates the religious experience of the Indian church.
Just to add, I know nothing about electrical stuff (even though I subscribe to you), but after many beers myself, I think I could modify the lights in the cooker hood into something more disco, or even religious.
Roger Musson
Surely, after many beers ANYTHING can be more religious (or disco)!?
I believe his name is spelled Juan a very difficult name to write correctly when heard only
what about using some lcd screen diffraction foil in this
Fish and chips is the one time we Americans use the word chips "correctly".
Boo for cutting the build from the video. I was so ready to listen you talk for a long video, and then it isn't really a build.
I agree. Build videos are cool.
If I make another I'll do a full build.
+1 for full build videos :) @bigclivedotcom you're a performance artist expressing yourself through the medium of soldering. A ballet dancer of the PCB ;)
Or even film it and play back at 8x speed
Sometimes you just have to keep all the build fun to yourself.
Actually you could make an led matrix projection display with this.
Perhaps throw in there an atmega microcontroller and a demultiplexer for some RGB LEDs?
That way you could potentially have a remote, DMX or USB light that can be completely customizable
EDIT: Or a picaxe microcontroller, perhaps
Build one for 1920*1080 red, green, blue LEDs and hook up a video input! Brb, going to patent the idea.
gabest4 That's how jumbotrons work. Stacked boxes of LED matrixes and a control box converting the video signal. Pixel size is usually 2 to 5mm. To fit 2Mpixels behind that little lens, you need to use AMOLED or some other dense LED die.
Is the board supplied simply missing the dmx components, would it be possible to add them on and turn it into a dmx controllable effect?
It doesn't have a space for the RS485 network driver and the software in the chip probably doesn't have the DMX facility.
Thanks Clive!
RGB ws2812 and a arduino for the V2.0 ?
I kinda wanted to see the led placement and the soldering but at normal speed it would have been slow. Maybe in the future you could still record this but play it back at 10x speed or something 🙂
Those 595s are shift registers. A goto for led displays and matrixes.
Also, what was the microcontroller? And why was it a DIP package? I mean DIP MCUs are much more expensive and the assembly is a pain in volume.
It was unmarked.
Slow color changing less? Edit: watched till end. But it still may be worth trying
That's Monday's video. In diffused RGB too. Just to see how well it worked.
I was waiting for - kind of anticipating him to say "five-nine-five" when he took a closer look at those chips. 😄 Am currently doing a bit of Arduino magic on a breadboard, and have four seven-segment LED digits (1x HC595 for the 7 segments + decimal point, but the digits are time-multiplexed by switching HIGH signal through 4 distinct Common Anode pins on the Arduino) hooked to it. Btw, is it possible for a 595 to have a dead Q0 output pin (always HIGH potential), though Q0INV shows the correct signal? It's my only HC595 atm, so - yeah! Until reinforcements arrive, I will have to deal with it... 🙂
Put all self-blinking LEDs in it instead! 😉
Wonder if some one can help me ... trying to modify my led stage lights replaceing rgbw 12watt led diodes with 30watt led emitters ... voltage seems to match ... My question is will the power supply support the increase wattage and will it be twice as bright
What about a Noctua low noise fan for cooling purposes.
Obvious thing to do with the power supply is shove some blu-tack in the unused connector to stop you accidentally re-assembling it wrong. You could use epoxy resin or hot-melt glue, but that's a problem if you later want to use the power supply for something else and need the connector you permanently blocked off.
bdf2718
Or just put a mark on the PCB with a Sharpie.
+Pete Allum
Sharpie marks can be hard to see in poor lighting. Blu-tack is kinda obvious.
Maybe to put 8x8 ws21.. leds so you can animate them?
👍
Clive! You are jsut the man I wanted to ask. In the Childish Gambino SNL performance of This Is America I am trying to figure out how they did the lights at the end where its projecting from above but only a partial beam floating in the air. I can't figure out how they did this holographic type effect. Can you explain it?
This wasnt an optical effect, it was a video effect with a soft white input on one of the GVG switcher inputs, allowing them to cut out and paste this white beam anywhere on the screen. This "Beam" could be softened around the edges by the GVG Switcher to make it look like it was optical. This was in the old "Live Analogue Video days"
Oh so it wasn't actual on stage lights? It looked very convincing as it even hit his hair in parts making it seem like it was projected live on stage.
I would think that they also provided practical lighting as well, on stage to suppliment the effect...but in no way was it a projected hologram.
This explanation seems reasonable www.reddit.com/r/lightingdesign/comments/8hfuei/snl_donald_glover_childish_gambino/dyjrc6q/
Great video .... 😂😂😂
I feel like this is begging to be turned into Tetris....
You may want to try sanding the led lenses for smoother projected circles?
It really cuts down the intensity. You'll see that with diffused LEDs on Monday's video.
How about some addressable LEDs with an arduino / PI wifi control ?
5mm led is bright?
Hey do you think you could play with liquid nitrogen and leds? Always wanted to know more about how they change color as they cool and there are not many videos of it online.
Getting liquid nitrogen here would be tricky. One of the perils of living on an island.
ahh did not know you were on an island hehe new to the channel thank you for the reply
You could make it into a flag pattern easily I think. I wonder if you put a diffusion sheet between it may get rid of the focused bits inside the led's.
Any diffusion has a significant effect on intensity. You'll see that in Monday's video.
I thought the monks liked to play twister...
They do. Naked twister with nuns.
Plus a few casks of the ol' Blood O' Christ to limber themselves up...
"You've drawn a line!"
"Where?"
"There!"
1 minute in and I'm cracking up!
Perfect example of why I love Clive so much.
It tickles me that American 9/11 memes like Freedom Fries made it to Isle of Man.
We thought it was quite funny that you guys took the hump with the French at the time. We kept referring to chips (our name for fries) as FREEDOM fries.
In Dutch its called Patat
247,5V mains? I thought we were 220V here in the EU once, 230V maybe, but close to 250V seems a little high for what EU tolerances are usually...
The standard is 230V +/- 10%.
I'm sure you must have seen the millions of electrical company workers going around replacing all the sub-station and pole transformers on the night when the mains voltage was harmonised? No? None? No activity at all?
Well maybe that's because in reality, only the 'paper' specifications changed. There was no actual changes to the power generators, the mains grid, or to any sub-stations or pole transformers. Hence you will still find properties in the U.K. where at off-peek times, the supply voltage can be around 250V.
Why would they need to change anything? The tolerances were obivously chosen so national grids would fit within the tolerances. A device that is built for 230V +/- 10% can run in any of those countries using this standard. That's the point.
Yeah, and that's why they banned filament lamps. Not because they're inefficient (they are) but because it becomes damned obvious when you run a 230V filament lamp on 220V (it's more orange than white) or on 240V (it burns out damned fast).
It's also a problem with motors.
bdf2718
I bet Clive's vacuum cleaner really sucks then!
Multi reflector or like a MR bulb
Hi BC have you ever explained what Power Factor Is????
You often talk about a power factor, what is it? And what makes a bad/good power factor and why?
It's the relationship between the voltage and current waveforms. The ideal power factor is unity or "1". When the current is drawn as pulses, out of phase or just for part of the voltage sinewave it means that while the power may be low, the current seen in cables can be seen as being higher and it needs heavier rated electrical distribution equipment. Up to now this hasn't mattered as you usually only get billed for actual power, but with smart meters the utility companies can now start charging for apparent power which means the cost of running some items will increase. In the case of some LED lamps it may cost several times to use them as it does now.
bigclivedotcom Thank you! and also OMFG I'm on a key metre and I was forced into a smart metre, my bill has doubled, I have a lot of high power Computers but the cost has never been so high, could this be the reason?
In the mainland U.K. you are (currently) under no legal obligation to accept a so called 'smart' meter. From my point of view, I don't think fitting these 'smart' meters will significantly reduce energy consumption despite the advertised objective of these being to reduce energy consumption. Personally I use my own methods to reduce my energy use. So have no need for a so called 'smart' meter. So I will not allow one to be fitted.
Mark 1024MAK I pretty much was harrassed into it, they installed it at the same time as they renewed the switch box.☹
Clive, why do you use such a shitty explanation.
Power Factor is basically when you're drawing your electrical current at the peak of the 220 volt sine wave. Then resistance in the network is lowest and power loss is minimal. If you draw your current when the sine wave is at 1 volt, most of it, if not all, is lost in the wiring of the network, turning your entire wiring into a fancy heater, not power you end up using. That's what the voltage/current waveforms represent. You are best off drawing all your amperage at the 220v peak and nowhere else. But that's a pain.
Hi clive. If I want to send you something to take apart. Where do I send it to ?
You could send me a message (don't include any links or RUclips spam-files it).
Thanks will do 👍
I have one that the last row (of LEDs) is always fucked up. Pro light, rotates, has dmx, I don't mind, it was $80 USD