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Inside a simple vintage disco light. (Single Derby.)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 ก.พ. 2019
- This is one of the simplest disco style lighting effects of all. No movement (other than the fan) - just a flat beam in three coloured sections that fans out from the front of the unit.
The efficiency is horrific like most of the lights from that era. High power LEDs were not available back then so the lights used tungsten or discharge sources. In this case it's a 300W halogen source of which only a tiny percentage of its light output is used.
Lights like these tended to be controlled by universal switch packs that could either be used to toggle the light on and off or put it in a simple group and then step through them, either on a timer or to the beat of the music.
The modern version of this usually has a panel of LEDs that rotates back and forth while chasing the LEDs. It's smaller, projects a lot of beams and runs almost cold.
If you enjoy these videos you can help support the channel with a dollar for coffee, cookies and random gadgets for disassembly at:-
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Clive could take apart a peanut butter & jelly sandwich, and I would watch.
Cammi Rosanov, “rrrrrrrright. let's take that to bits, shall we? … there are no plugs for power supply. that's not very unusual. this setup relies on human digestion for energy supply …”
@TomiSlav I have seen that one. ☺
I'm sure he'd find a way to make it intresting. Perhaps burning it or blowing it up😉
He best video by far was about the "cyber pussy".
@@AskMeWhen HAHA Oh lordy! I did see the one about "Fanny Flambeaux" But I have yet to see Cyber Pussy. Now I have to look it up.
As with just about anything older, the quality was top-notch, but the technology hadn't advanced for efficiency yet.
That is the prettiest heater I have ever seen 😅
Ha! I've got an ancient large one with I believe 7 color lenses, it has a 700 watt halogen bulb of a small weird size, looks like an old Christmas light sort of. It also spins the bulb on an off center bar...I would send it to you if I could, just to see you tear it down 😁 love the channel.
And the ridiculous thing is the bulb lasted longer being spun about and thrown into the back of disco wagons than a static security lamp.
Geez!! A single ET !!
Had 36 of those singles like that one.. doubles and triples!! All plug on a matrix light chaser!!
Love your channel Clive, you have such a soothing and calming voice, as a relatively new subscriber I have lots to catch up on. I guess if you like that retro style, they shouldn't be too hard to convert to LED would they, and it would be a really nice project for us to watch you build bud.
When Things Were Made Properly...! Very Nice. Keep up the great work Clive. Nick🧔🏽, Lock Pick Nick.
I like these older devices. They often have a build quality you just don't really see anymore in your average modern device, with a nice, thick gauge of material. Usually steel as well as opposed to that flimsy aluminium. And it's made to come apart with real actual fasteners. Lovely.
You give and you take though. Can't act like build quality hasn't improved in someways as it's declined in others. Ergonomics has come a long way way since the times of when things were built with 'real' materials. And cost has come down to, although that's not exactly for the better.
@@benbauer1257 You're right. And of course it's only the well built stuff from the past that survives today which is also a bias. Still, I can't help but feel nostalgic when I see a well-built bit of old gear.
Since you were wondering, Clive, it's called a cylindrical lens. It sez 'ere (on a lens supplier's website), "These cylindrical lenses are designed for applications requiring one-dimensional shaping of a light source". Another fine video, thanks!
I've never seen one of those in such good condition! I'm used to them being full of gunk, All baked solid, Rust where the smoke fluid had built up, As well as the colour started peeling off the lenses, I often just gave up an soaked what was left of the paint off them and had it as an all white effect (or gelled it), As I remember they did do very slight sound to light movement as the bass would make the lamp filament shake! Good example of the ones with the rotating lamp was the Fal Alligator, Comar also did a very similar effect that used round lenses in a half moon configuration (dots instead of lines)
Love that Vintage stuff...I guess Im vintage myself...love that crinkle finish as well
"Do not mount near flammable materials"; Always good advice.
When the big Clive banner pops up I drop everything! You sir are an inspiration keep up the great work!
The acronym KIS comes to mind when you showed that. So much less to fail in that device.
Sean Not-telling - don’t you mean KISS?
Mark 1024MAK Keep it Simple or keep it stupid?
KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid.
@@Mark1024MAK I have ran into is both ways. Keep It Simple & Keep It Simple Stupid.
Less components to fail . The lamp would fail for all the missing components. Linear halogen lamps dont do well when subject to vibration. Hey DJ wheres the bass
Omg I had one of these donkeys years ago but it didn’t have a fan, it got so hot it almost set a wooden stool on fire. Thanks for bringing back some fun memories.
A lens like that, curved in only one of the two dimensions, is called a cylindrical lens.
Double convex is the right name.
@@Fuzzems it's biconvex, but also cylindrical, as opposed to spherical; a cylindrical lens focuses light into a line rather than a point.
You can see it's spherical ground when it magnifies Clive's fingers and the textured paint.
I was hoping clive would hold it up to the camera and tilt it from side to side a bit.
Is this also called an anamorphic lens? Anamorphic lenses are how they used to get widescreen from a 35mm frame and this is the shape I imagine them to be.
Clive! Love your channel, look all the time for videos. You have inspired me to get back into soldering. Thanks for showing me new into my old hobby.
Now all we need is Clive singing "Xanadu."
As soon as you said that I could hear that music in my head.
Xanadu be careful with high wattage appliances.
Ooo those lenses remind me of physics in school - watching light beams being refracted on a bit of paper :p
The white one would be great for burning your initials into a bit of wood (i.e a school desk) on a sunny day. I'm sure I'm not the only 80s child who carried a magnifying glass in their pencil case for that purpose...
You've not taken apart anything dangerous for a while. I miss the deadly things, they are so much fun. My favourite is perhaps the fish-o-cutor if only for the delightful double insulated power supply that "just sticks out mains". I have one of those power supplies that came with a Chinese desk lamp, I got a lovely zing from it.
Convex lens?
You should modernize the internals for a new project that would be cool
Parabolic.
Once again proving that anything related to disco is absolutely lethal
I love looking at old school gadgetry.
Great video good old disco light big Clive
I would be tempted to use the case and make a much more brilliant and modern display of effects. Longtime subscriber... Thanks for sharing so much of your time, Clive.
I refurbished a stack of similar lights in a night club in Glasgow about 20 years ago... 300w halogen with 6 coloured lenses. Not fan cooled though... The units were thick aluminum with heatsinks at the sides to disperse the heat. 16 or so connected into a simple 4 way sequencer
I purchased three of them lights in approx 1985. I used them with a sound to light controler . The flat beam effect looked great when used with smoke .
Vintage is king. 👍
Covert it to LED and make it dance. Just saying... Oh wait never mind just convert it to LED :)
I *_love_* old incandescent lighting effects because they are as you say, simple yet clever. Give me a motor, baby food jars, black paint and some gels and I can make dozens of effects :)
A couple hours ago I took to bits a Bell and Howell super 8 projector hoping to find something interesting, perhaps an IC or two but no..it was a myriad of mechanisms. I found what looks like a shaded pole synchronous motor connected to a cool fan that would make a great paint mixer hahaha I saved the optics also plus the lightbulb that looks neat..rated 30V and 80W. Imagine the time spent designing all those moving parts. The injection moulding alone was crazy.
3:14 - So that's where my grandad's glasses went. He'll be pleased to find that out!
I remember these things but mine had a spinning halogen lamp! OMG I'm feeling old. One of the first lights I used for parties actually one of these.
I loved them Derbys.
I've also seen manual lights like these rigged up to be "played" by a keyboard that was nothing more than an array of switches (in the form of a keyboard) and then the designated "lighting guy" would "play" the lights to the music. Although the types of lights most often used with this type of keyboard switch panel were the plain old spot type lighting. I'm guessing that Mr. Clive in his years of lightning control knows exactly what I'm talking about. 👍
Small wonder my disco light melted. It had three separate bulbs for each color, something like 600 watts all together. And no fans!
Unlike this one, which seems well constructed. I have nostalgia for robust, reliable and quality constructed tech. Even though everything weighted slightly more.
“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” ― L.P. Hartley, The Go-Between
I love and hate these old designs. I remember buying zig zag to home use and it was a nice effect and relatively cheap. But god it was noisy and the fact that bulbs moved instead of mirrors or something the bulbs broke all the time.... oh and yes it used a ton of power. I still have it.
Yea the squiky noizes it made
Oh I almost burnt the house down with one of these that didn’t have a fan in & I left it running on a wooden stool. Memories
New Big Clive video at 3am? Yes please!
It was when the disco closed.
I had one from the late 90's early 2000s that had 2x globes on a rotating motor that reacted to music, still prior to LEDs, great bright effect with wide coverage
I remember at the young age I had four of them and a dj chaser light control i used to set them on chase every 2 seconds
Looking at the fan @ 0:50 its spinning to the left and the blades are "pointing" inwards so i guess it blows onto the lamp and then blow hot air out of the case. Also @ 4:12 the fan says air flow and points > so it blows onto the lamp and exhausts out of the case in case you were wondering
(no pun intended)
It's partly to avoid the fan drawing heated air over itself.
bigclivedotcom I still wouldn’t trust it, especially because it’s one of the halogen bulbs
It has a fuse in it ? Certainly not made by Weller ;-)
Surprise simple and worked! Now let's bring it up to date and see how long it wotks. Take something simple and make over complicated!
one club I worked at had about 8 Derbies pointed at the center of the dance floor they looked great with JUST the right amount of fog (2 Gem ZR 20s from memory). ahhhhhh the 1980s and the 1990s. :-)
I have one like that it has 6 lenses and a 500 watt tube light that rotates to the bass beat of the music . makes a interesting effect .
Nice condition for an old disco light
That looks a lot like the lamps that go in outdoor floodlights...wonder if it would work with a LED floodlight retrofit kit?
From the days where energy concerns were limited to whether or not the disc in the meter would spin out of control from running all those lights... :P
" there must be a name for that, the oval lens " oh I have been there and forgotten that all over again so many times being an optics tech. It's a cylinder/cylindrical lens.
I am sure you know already, but just for the readers, you can get high power replacement LED lights that fit as direct replacements. I have one "rated" at 8 watts, it is very bright. Its in a security type light, the infrared detector does not work on LED. I use an external one for it. I presume the original detector goes to neutral via the lamp.
Nice piece old Scholl disco ligths i now remember that from disco in 80s. take care of the lens Will be hard to find again i Am nearly done with restore a disco eyeball rotate ligth from circa (1962 ) Will be uploaded on TH-cam wheen completed
3:16 Convex! When the convex lens are reflexive its called a double convex or biconvex lens. A biconvex is probably the most common lens as it focuses or magnifies light. (A single point outward or many points inward) Then the depth or thickness changes the focal point. A biconcave lens scatters light. (Many points outward or a single point inward). Thus that type of lens is useful for concentrating light.
Finally the "oval" shape is just the rectangular cut of the lens because of the fact that the input light in mostly on a single plane.
I had the small mushroom and a dubble derby with 2x240v 300w bulbs in em
Wow... that was really neat. I like the older lighting components. I have a newer disco light if you wanna have a go at it. Let me know.
Not even a moving fan which made the light strobe, dang that is ancient.
or maybe just dirt cheap
Fit a driverless COB (warm white would probably be the best) and compare the effect, I reckon that's give some interesting results!
i like the rich bass in the audio
I can't help but wonder what it would look like with a led lamp replacement thing in it
It would probably look pretty much the same
Clive is disassembling stuff on the toilet. Don't let him fool you.. ;)
BigClive Extra. Bellbottoms and dance moves, come back next week for live footage.
LED Upgrade ? that would be cool
It would be interresting to see you take a gander at one of the modern RGB LED Derby effects you can get for rather cheap these days.
I have one here in the gadget mountain.
@@bigclivedotcom Well then you know what to do :D
I wonder if converting it to use a modern LED light source (warm white, of course!) would be practical?
Depends on how much you plan to use it, if you are only going to use it occasionally for things like house parties, then no, But if you are a professional DJ or something then yea probably.
i had a 500W halogen flood light that got so hot the glass melted in one spot on the bulb and the filament went open.
Often a symptom of oils from your fingers on the lamp. The quartz heats up more at that point. Always install lamps without touching them but you can use an alcohol wipe to clean them if you do.
Those halogen bulbs run so hot that any impurities on the glass (especially grease/oil) would contaminate the quartz glass and make a weak spot, resulting in the demise of the bulb in just this way. More than likely whoever put the bulb in left a fingerprint on the glass.
I was a photographer in the 80's and we used the 500 watt versions as studio lights, and everyone knew to clean the bulbs with alcohol if you happened to touch them. Mostly though, you wanted to fit them without touching them (cotton film handling gloves or a clean handkerchief). Yes we still used handkerchiefs in the 80's.
When the aliens invade and we have spent our last round of ammunition against them, perhaps we can blind them with this lamp.
they'll be colourblinded :D
I bet you could put one of those direct replacement cfl units designed to fit in floodlights or the led version in there
Vintage lights for me are way better than annoying fast moving cheap laser/leds.
Nice project case! T... W
Nice 80s blue plug!
would have loved to have seen it lighted up...
How come it's so clean?!
New old stock.
I did wonder if that thing had ever seen a discotheque in its life...
do you have more of these old fixtures? would love to see more of these video's!
Yes I do. This was one of the simplest ones.
Nice, nice and surprisingly clean... But I bet it was full of dead spiders and cigarette tar when you first got it
Apparently it was new old stock, it's never seen a nightclub or a mobile DJ's trailer in all its 35+ years.
3:09 I just have the weirdest fascination for glass lenses and I can't explain why!
Im sure there is at least one version of those being sold somewhere that still uses a halogen lamp.
The 'oval' lens is biconvex.
Have you ever tried taking two rechargeable photocell/lithium units, and see if you can charge them back and forth?
You would obviously want to choose the most efficient that you could find,
the reflector maybe is like heat shield
If it was black, it would absorb even more light, turning more light into heat.
Got a question, have ya ever had a chance to take to bits aviation led lamps.
I've not taken any aviation LED lamps apart yet. Other than a couple of internal lights.
@@bigclivedotcom Let me know if you want one, I have a USA made red LED one, that would have been mounted to a building etc.. close to a runway or airfield. I can only imagine the quality of the LED array is super premium given it would be expected to last a long time between servicing.
@@freepbx6070 Tempted as I am, it sounds like it could be big and heavy for shipping.
@@bigclivedotcom It's fully working (just so you know!), about the size of a bog brush - a fair bit heavier though that's true. Happy to send at my expense of course - or not, as you wish. If your pile of 'stuff to have a look at fixing one day or at least find out why it failed then bin it' is anything like mine, I understand :)
@@freepbx6070 personally I would love for him to tear one down. I've been watching a few videos on aviation LEDs for aircrafts and am curious how they compare to automotive
It's a Biconvex Cylindrical Lens.
Old lights is smoke and mirrors. Ive got four old school lights. one is i think called a gobo ? has a disc with different images and colours and a dish with chunks of mirror glued to it attached to a slow motor.. The gobos are on a stepper motor and all motors ca be activated by sound. or set to static or just random.. Does get mighty hot!! another is a 4 spot chasing light box.. also sound activated or just random..
Gobo flower. The parabolic dish of mirrors is from the moonflower design.
Sometimes simplicity is better than complexity with more features.
Clive should open a really overdone, retro 20kw discotech. I think it would be the coolest place on Earth. Lol. It should be called 'Black Room Bar' where everything is black and the only lighting is provided by heavy duty, oldschool disco lighting.
That describes a club I worked on. All black with UV highlights. Hundreds of scanners and a large truss filled with loads of old heavily motorised disco lights.
That club did well until the DJ decided the booth would be better at the other side of the dance floor and being an "electrical expert" he sawed the large trunking that contained all the 100's of wires for the lights in half without marking a single wire and then did a runner.
@@bigclivedotcom That sounded like a sick club, what a shame that he decided to destroy it... lol.
I the notification I read "inside a simple village disco"
Lens name is rectangular biconvex
nice case and good quality glass lenses. this thing is crying out for some Arduino controlled high wattage LEDS and spinning mirrors to be retro fittted into it.
any info on the make / model ?
3:17 spherical lens cut into the shape of a rectangle
Because Silly String is such cool stuff, we'll let the lack of a proper schematic go. This time.
No wonder Discos got so Hot...
D.I.S.C.O. D.I.S.C.O. Big Clive on the road again...lock up your electronics!!👜⚡👍
Double convex lens
At the end of the floating diamonds video was time shifted music. What the hell was it from been driving me nuts
th-cam.com/video/cDI4Vm9tAys/w-d-xo.html
That lens sure looks like it came out of my eye glasses! Yes, I know I have shitty eyesight thank you very much:)!! PEACE:)
This video's got BASS
Convex lens.
That might be a good source for parts depending on the pricing.
Laser death beam from old 80's tech!
lol
A bi-convex lens methinks
Love a good disco wobbler, any chance of a teardown of something ridiculous like an 8 moving mirror dj effects light
The centrepiece lights are quite hard to get a hold of these days. They're so iconic that the collectors will pay high prices for them in any condition.
@@bigclivedotcom fair enough, i didn't realise they'd be that collectable! I'm still trying to remember what the one we had at the uni was, it kept burning itself out because it couldn't dissipate enough heat, furiously complicated and dense design. Lots of gobos and dichroic lenses, a real party in a box jobby.
@@TheErador Most of the problems with those effects were their use for long periods of time, incorrect lamps or burned lamp contacts.
@@bigclivedotcom wow, I didn't realise there was a 'vintage tax' on old disco lighting. Especially considering that 10 years ago, when a lot of clubs were closing in the wake of the smoking ban, you could pretty much fish them out of skips.