For such a low cost, this little disco light is incredible. Internally it has the same physical structure as many professional lights, but all scaled down to make it affordable. While testing it I connected my DMX-cat by City Theatrical, a piece of specialist test equipment used in the entertainment industry for diagnostics and configuring lights on a network. I was absolutely stunned when the light correctly identified itself on RDM (Remote Device Management) protocol and was able to accept remote commands over the network to change various parameters including its network address. I've never seen that in any of the listings or manuals for these lights. I subsequently found the same functionality in a cheap LED PARcan that also uses an ARM Cortex processor, so I think the software is coming from a common source. In the past the software used to be quite flakey in this style of light, but I think that a geek is now writing it. It manages to cram incredible functionality into a single very small ARM Cortex processor. In hindsight I now realise that the unpopulated power supply area on the main PCB is actually the LED driver. I'd guess the use of an external driver in the yoke gives them better options for upgrading LED power. One thing to note about these cheap disco lights is that their power supplies may not have electrical separation up to many countries standards. That's especially significant in the way the transformer is wound. In the event of insulation breakdown it's possible for a light to cause full mains voltage to appear on the common network, and potentially cause significant damage to other lights and control systems. All in all I'm blown away by how well designed this light is. This one (and the other variant I showed) came from AliExpress, but they are available from many other platforms. It's definitely a good idea to shop around, as the same light is rebranded under many names with a staggering price difference. As soon as one of the "brands" gets popular with DJs its price rockets. Here are some links to the items on AliExpress (not a sponsor). These are affiliate links, but that will not affect the price you pay. Keep in mind that these products may not meet your country's standards. The light that I took apart:- https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_c36FaSg9 Guide price around £45. The other light I showed:- https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_c3r6cNfR Guide price around £35. The mini lighting desk I was using to test the lights:- https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_c3fvfy7T Guide price around £20. All these listings are for UK shipping from a local warehouse. To find other listings try searching for 120W or 150W LED moving head. Noting that the power ratings are entirely made up. Definitely hunt around for a good deal as there is major price variation for what appears to be identical lights. For the lighting desk, search for 192 channel dmx, and again shop around for the best deal as the price varies from £20 to £100! If you buy the desk and lights, remember to buy some 3-pin DMX cables for them too. If you enjoy my videos, supporting the channel on Patreon helps keep it independent of YouTube's quirks, avoids intrusive mid-video adverts, gives early access, bonus footage and regular quiet Patreon live streams. https://www.patreon.com/bigclive Alternatively, for a single coffee contribution you can use PayPal:- https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/bigclive #ElectronicsCreators
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With all this Ali Express lighting tat, I can only imagine Clive running underground raves in abandoned warehouses, serving carbonated liquors.
I talked to Philip and he says the screwdriver is indeed his and he wants it back.
i have a few of exactly those lights - bought them from a chinese reseller at ebay and suggested a low price for a bigger amount of them. they are not super bright but for the occacional birthday party they work really nice. especially for the price those are awesome. pro tip: when they are in "sound to light" or "auto" mode they send all what they do out via dmx so you can sync others with the "slave" mode to them. this makes it possible to for example hang 8 of them in a row, set the left and right one to sound to light and connect every second one via dmx. if you now set all the remaining six of them to slave they will receive the send signal from the outer two. this will result in two groups with sound to light but synced together and because they wont hear the exact same the two groups will shift over time. the resulting effect is pretty neat with responding to sound but every second light will do someting different while also every second one is doing the same thing. with this you will get a very good looking scene while using sound to light without looking chaotic.
2:35 lmfao! That was hilarious 😂
Fantastic value for money, I want to build a wall of 256 of them! I really admire the no-nonsense minimal Chinese engineering, just the bare minimum for it to work, that's it, it's a product of beauty. Can't promise they'll last years, but heck, at that price, you treat them as consumables, you'd spend more on cabling than on lights! Some notes : - Fantastic how they got RDM to work, I am in awe. I worked for a stage light "manufacturer" and most of our (imported) fixtures were terrible with RDM, and Clay Paky ones I had in the lab to look at were very, very buggy too! - The MCU is probably a STM32F030 clone, the package / silkscreen / pinout looks terribly familiar - In that case, a 24 MHz crystal can be PLL-multiplied up to a 48 MHz system clock - The STM32F030 has a temperature sensor available on its ADC input multiplexer, so it could potentially actually monitor the temperature of the base! Since they got RDM right, I have some hope that they got this right too!
Big Clive doing teardowns of lighting fixtures? Sometimes I think the algorithm is creating content just for me.
Amazing functionality for such a cheap device. And apparently well made. I have no need for one, but I want one 🤔Great to see BC so enthusiastic too!
I don't have much use for party lights, only if someone could modify it to shoot lasers at mosquitoes 😁
the beard hits differently in side view
Even this cheapee would have made my lighting world so much easier if I had such things in the 80s
It shocks me that these things listen to RDM
LOL buttplugs! You would think at my age, my humor would be more sophisticated, yet....
I can tell by your voice and the way you move and work, you're in your element and this device is really your thing. Enjoying your work is awesome! I have been debating buying some DMX equipment to play around with, but it's not cheap.
Honestly shocked. Thats a better RDM implementation than most mainstream lights I work with.
OMG! ULN2003s!! Long ago in another life I did emergency repairs to Apple][ computers. And their floppy drives. Instead of a for-purpose controller, Woz designed a bit-banger with that venerable ULN2003 doing the banging. Unlike DIP DRAM, power chips did not get tarnish; but if the head was blocked they could blow the plastic off the ULN2003. Good times! (getting paid $11/hr to replace $0.50 chips) In those days theater lights had asbestos wiring on HOT incandescent lamps, and NO brains. Interesting lot of hi-tech in there now.
0:10 I notice that we are not in the Temu wing today.
I love it when you do A/V gear! Reminds me of simpler times. 😅
Seeing the circle, I imagined you would have set the light a bit farther away so it was larger on the wall, and then pose as saint Big Clive, holy patron of electronics with your holy light shining behind your head xD.
I love the fact that PioneerDJ gear (some if it) supports DMX and can control a lot of lighting gear out of the box, no extra software required beyond rekordbox.
:32 - The classic electrician pose of (sucks teeth) "we don't have that part in stock, and it'll be three weeks before we can get one..." (Goes to van and finds a part. It's not the same model number, but it's just as good).