I always appreciate watching Clive tear down random gizmos that I've never seen and then thoroughly analyzing the innards. He has a unique skill level and thoroughness!
My boys got the big version of this last Christmas. They use it every night light and it still works like new. Cool to see a tear down of something similar
I’ve bought few of these over the years as gifts and have always been impressed with the build quality and feel of these. The industrial design of the astronaut and mould is cool tool. Oh optikinetics are still sort of in business, building LED versions of their classic projectors targeted a health/relaxation/austism market. They recently had a kickstarter for a new solar 250 styled projector with a wooden case .
This Year, I bought one of those for my nephew's birthday, the little dude LOVES it. When I tested it, I thought of you: "Thats exactly the kind of thing that will eventually pop up at bigclive's Channel" xD I share your excitement for evetything blinking and shiny
The phrase "distortion disc" reminds me of a notorious incident in my childhood. My father was washing up and my sister and I had been roped into drying the dishes for him. I had a big glass bowl. I held it up and looked through it, and saw that Daddy had gone a funny shape. I exclaimed delightedly "Look, it's a Daddy-distorting machine!" and for reasons I have never really understood Daddy flew into a rage and threw us out of the kitchen. But he never asked us to dry up for him again...
Honestly really enjoy the effect, not too sold on the laser as far as making a convincing star pattern but idk how I'd do any better. I really enjoy how slow the disk turns, it's relaxing instead of being distracting
My kids have a super similar one to this and i had to take it apart to repair it beause the nebula stopped working. The design internally seemed quite different to yours! What had happened was the led accumulated so much heat that the pads of a connecor got unsoldered. I fixed it, added hot glue to keep the components in place, and added thermal paste between the led and the metal plate they had to dissipate heat.
My daughters stopped working properly so I opened it up and the LED1 board is just floating around inside and I have no idea where it goes, now the Lazer just flashes so I think I have broke it even more x
Dammit Clive, I bought one of these off temu and absolutely bloody love it! I definitely probably have mild autism, but this is still my favorite toy as a 30-year-old male.
Quite an efficient PCB, concur on the danger of all the laser equipped gadgets without warning yet with obvious kid appeal. Same goes for the (awesome) automated cat laser thingy.
Those 'beams of light' you drew next to the LED indicators look remarkably like a man with a massive, Doctor Watson-style handlebar mustache, grinning from ear to ear. Just thought I'd point that out. Those are some very jovial LEDs.
You do get some nice items to take a part, Clive. The magnet isn't strong if the head keeps dropping off when moved, I'd replace the magnet with a rare earther one. I like the motor mechanics they have used to for rotating nebula lense.
Naughty Clive pointed the laser straight at us. Lucky for me I blinked at just the right time. I hope none of the other viewers suffers eye damage. Bit strange that, considering how well made this item is, there's no flywheel diode (or even snubber) across the motor.
@@markstuckey6225 Means the manufacturer does not suffer a reputation hit or a class action when it fails. Well, who am I kidding, also that Chinese culture looks the other way about such things
I would be careful with the green laser star projector. It uses a IR laser to pump a crystal to make green stars. The IR, if not filtered at the output can burn the eyes. As a test, I placed a temperature sensor (LM34) at the opening of a star projector and found that the sensor's temperature raised by several degrees. Could be powerful enough to harm the eyes. Nice that you can turn that function off, so it's still a nice product. Good show Clive!
First, a sidenote....You mentioned how you dislike the placement of lasers on products like these. I am a UPS driver....I cannot tell you how much I hate those Christmas house projectors that people put outside around the holidays. Its to the point now, I will not go onto a porch if you have one of those. I'll put it as close as I can, but I am tired of getting green and red lasers to the eye every time I come off a porch at night. Second.... thanks for this video. I have seen these advertised for like $75....I know most of these ad's are just a reseller that sourced from a nameless overseas manufacture. So I went on amazon and found the same one you reviewed for a much cheaper price. Same remote, same figure, same instruction sheet. I'll give it a go.
ooh. i love lasers. i never gave them any thought before really. but a month ago i ordered some 2w light output blue diodes and some 500mw lo red diodes. they are great! the way to learn about using voltage regulators as CC supplies is by knackering cheap laser diodes. i killed a few, but now i have an x-cube with a red laser diode, a blue laser diode, and a green pointer i bought. i have done all the usual balloon popping, and blasting holes in cd inlay cases. now im trying to make a white laser using the x-cube. it is hard though, as the red and green are single mode, and the nichia 445s are multi-mode. i even, after watching clive's fog machine vids, bought a cheap 30 quid unit from amazon, it was crap with the juice that came with it. so i got some vegetable glycerol and some distilled water and made my own, around 30/70. wow it fills my study with fog, and my lasers look awesome. i glued some fragments of looking glass to USB PC fans, and aimed my lasers at that. wow again. my study looked like a nightclub. i then bought some diffraction gratings from ebay and some fluorescent markers. all utterly intriguing. lasers are ruddy ace. i'd like to point out after the diodes the second thing i bought was some OD6 goggles. don't fuck about with lasers in an unsafe manner!
Try getting you hands on an old laser DLP projector, usually they have a bunch blue diodes, and a load of other optical components that can be quite fun to muck about with
@@Muonium1 too right. as part of my laser fun i put reed switch interlocks on my study door, which disconnect the power to my bench supplies which power my lasers, so my wife doesn't get hurt. this was also good fun too. thank you for your concern!
Hi. let me thank you for your excellent education videos ... I lived in uk many years and have left uk twenty eight years ago videos like your helps me out with my hobby’s and it help me not to forget the English language saying that I recently had to open one of those toys and had to solder the cable inside because the tie didn’t prevent the cable from ripping the socket but I managed to solder it back in … My problem was I couldn’t get the laser to illuminate the stars and that square plastic inside the laser holder that you pointed out was the problem it’s now working 100% thank you wish you well
We have a unit that does similar. I popped the lenses out of an old pair of sunglasses and taped them over the projectors because even at the lowest level, they still lit the room up far too much.
We recently had a storm system that passed, bringing us torrential downpours, minor spotty flooding, and winds up to 50 mph (80.5 kph). Many homes with the Christmas outdoor laser projectors had their projectors knocked over, so as I delivered newspapers in the wee hours I'd get blasted in the eyeballs repeatedly. Have you ever tried driving down the opposite side of the road, along a curb, with your eyes closed for safety reasons? 🤣 I'm actually surprised that they splurged for the aluminum/aluminium-core PCB. I fully expected every possible corner to be cut, but it seems someone had enough sense to think about the longevity of their products! If I ever bought one, I'd yank the laser out and hack in a slow-changing RGB LED behind the white dimpled dome used on IR sensors.
Nice construction and reuse of a spy/babysit camera housing. That's why there is a speaker placement option for talkback. Like this product more though as its more fun.
A gobo is either a metal or mirrored glass disk with an image. This is a distortion wheel. Search my videos for PRG to see some gobos in a best boy light.
I have purchased the bigger brother Bluetooth UFO Speaker version in Black where it makes a pattern like effect that has a USB-C Power socket & Remote. I love them. Years ago these were 100s of dollars. Today? You can get them for a Tenner. I also got the Small units where it makes a Wave effect that is just LED's. I absoulutly LOVE IT! Along with a Small AUKING LED projector for the Ceiling? Its truly magical in my bedroom. Amazing how bright these really TINY LED's are! I mean they are laser bright. The Units get warm, but in a normal 70'F room, they do just fine. The motors are still very audible and you can hear the wine from the small black units, but with the Ikea Air filter and brown noise in the background, it's hardly a bother. Also, a great source of cheap ready made replacement parts for your Outdoor Holiday Lasers that are plug and play if you need them like I do this year on one of my units I pull out of storage for Christmas. The slow and soft fading of the Green laser is nice for the "Starfield effect" It will dazzle you if you don't set it above Bookshelf level at an Angle to get coverage of the entire ceiling. I have not checked the temp of the Laser as it does not have a finned heat sink, but since its not really being driven at a constant "ON" state, rather a fading setting for me. So heat does not seem to be an issue the few times I touched the laser housed inside that metal case. Worthy of note? Some of these just throw the laser diode unit inside with little contact to the metal housing they are encased in. (the laser and the silver looking metal around the laser , as it has a hole inside of it ) Some use the ones that look like a typical laser unit that back mounts. Some have the small copper looking thing with a curcuit board behind it as used in those Back-up or Motorcycle laser they sell on ebay. Instead of a night light? I use these in the bathroom as well. Thank you BigCLive! What a great video to wake up too!
I have a different kind of projector that does a similar thing, it projects a "galaxy" on the ceiling. It has the same green laser "star" option, and on the different laser brightness settings, mine ramps the brightness up and down also. I believe this is done to ease the heating of the laser module. Even with a generous heatsink wrapped around the laser module in mine, AND the ramping up and down of the power, it STILL gets QUITE hot after an hour or two of use. On the packaging of my unit, it says "New improved laser" on it, and I'm wondering if they had an issue with the laser modules burning out in the older units that did not ramp the laser power up and down.... 🤷
I think some of them advertise having sound, so the extra hole is probably for a speaker. I would quite like one of these minus the laser! Is it the same effect as the cube light?
I have the standing version of this. It is actually one of just a couple things I got from Temu that actually still works. Anything with a zipper will inevitably fail.
Thats the magic of MCUs. They do all/most of the work and let you simplify the circuit. Imagine how complicated that would be if you had to implement the logic manually.
We had a similar product as a night light for the kids. Worked very well, it sent the kids to sleep and we had a timer on it too, it went missing when we moved, sadly. Fascinating, simple product, I'll get one for my recent Grandson, thanks for reminding me of them Clive 👍
I'm decorating my 6 year old Niece's room. I plan to use IKEA like methods of holding things down in place to make sure they stay there where I put them! My sister and her husband are as much in organization as they are into saving money for a rainy day. Meaning none. Same with design & Decor.
My kid wants a nebula/galaxy projector, i was very concerned getting one that has lasers as back in the 90s when laser pointers were actually rare i was stupid and would stare into it all the time despite the warning (thankfully 30 years later still no noticeable effects), and that was a low power red one, despite them being smarter than i was, not sure if i can stop my kids doing the same or protect form errant beams, which as you say are likely to not have adequate IR filtering, esp from a company with no reputation. I'd probably disassemble and remove the laser if i were to get one.
Man it looks so cool, but I don’t even know which one to get , like on Amazon, tiktok, and what brand etc.and I keep seeing little complaints here and there like lights stop, something with the remote or sound is too loud. Anyways cool channel, nice to see content thriving and unbiased on TH-cam. And happy that you have a niche for yourself.
If you change the laser wit a flux capacitor you can create a worm hole to other dimmensions. Have you tried that and can you do a video on that too please
I bought one of those little star field laser projectors a while ago, I went with purple and was pretty disappointed with how dim it was.... then out the corner of my eye it seemed bright. The anti-UV coating on my glasses was screening out about >60% of the light! Careful with lasers ehh? Oh also, I met your cousin Fiona a few weeks back at a funeral, small world!
For what it's worth, violet lasers are generally 405nm, because they're narrow band they don't meaningfully emit UV-A but they're still on the edge of visible light so your eyes aren't as sensitive to them and UV coatings on sunglasses will be broad enough to catch the top edge of visible light as well
Interesting little device, and since they used connectors instead of hard-wireing everything you at least have the option to unplug/remove the laser part. But what I'll never understand is why so many products that are USB powered still have proprietary jacks. Is it really cheaper to use one and having to supply a proprietary cable or why aren't they just using micro USB or type C instead?
I got one of these gifted, only complaint i have with mine is the terrible IR recpetion, cant get the remote to work reliable or via an IR transmitter to control. I feel like the light it emits blocks the IR signals
I found some old 8mm footage from Germany I wish to restore. To bad I don't have the original 8mm film stock. I would have had so much fun restoring the footage.
These pop up every year, I’m always interested that they cost about £40 on the social media ads but around £10 on Aliexpress and similar, I wonder if they’re the same product.
Saw this advertised on social media - wondered how badly it's going to blind people on a scale of a bit to a lot: thanks for the review 😉 let us know how the retinal scarring works out 🙌🙏😉
Around the US towards the holiday season more and more I am seeing these star shower laser shower things that you peg in your front yard and point at your house and it projects a laser pattern. And every time I see one all I'm thinking is I hope they don't look out the window during the winter season?? So what laser safety!
I think the word you were looking for is 'Gobo' I remember the optokinetics days, we had an optokinetics projector with several gobo's for our mobile disco, or it could take the colour wheel
Even the "high" powered lawn projector lasers are only around 20-80mW usually, I doubt this tiny unit is over 10 milliwatts and the individual sub-beams after the holographic diffraction grating probably don't exceed a few hundred microwatts each. I'd be very surprised if it wasn't eye safe even including any unfiltered IR.
@@bigclivedotcom this in fact would be my only real concern with its use. I am reminded of similar concern over the Kinect "structured illumination" dot projector when it came out over a decade ago.
Okay, I have to admit this is a rather cute retina tickler. Given the cheap prices of APA102 or WS2812 leds these days, I wonder why they're still using 11 discrete components to achieve RGB mixing. 3 mosfets, 6 resistors, 1 three-channels batwing diode = still cheaper than an 5050 Sk6812 ? Hmmm... 🤔 Optical power maybe...
The diffusion disc should have been mounted directly onto the lens. Wouldn't need the special housing for it. Motor shaft would need to be a little shorter to edge connect to the disc. Disc would need to be of smaller diameter to match the lens. That would reduce the parts somewhat and reduce the cost a little. Of course, the disc and the lens could have been the same thing, reducing costs even further. Naturally, the lens would need to be able to spin.
The speaker style holes look like they are adjacent to the infrared sensor and there doesn't appear to be any other window for the IR signal to get into the case. Maybe just for the IR then?
Ahh, Clive, you've taken apart my little "Naughty Astronaut. " Little thing, cute. OH MY. would have loved this plastic thing, shooting out laser lights and coloured effects while listening to "Luke Slater" 7th Plain .... Astra-Naut-E (In The Shadow) .....
There must be different designs. The one I have looks identical, but an RF remote control and an RGBW LED. Annoyingly the RF remote doesn't have unique codes so if you have more than one light, they all get controlled in different rooms
Have issue with this device in my son's creche, found some documentation stating class 2R laser. It certainly dazzled me and left an artifact in my vision for a few minutes when I dropped him off. I have a thermal imaging camera would that show up IR from the laser?
The only design flaw I can see (admittedly I am not an engineer, electrical or otherwise), is that the gear on the external drive, just rubbing against that tray, is going to wear down eventually, thus disabling the nebula spin effect.
Interesting thing but are you paying more for the mould of the spaceman, because Im sure this projectors been around for a long time now. Interesting non the less 2x👍
What do people think about the danger of the laser? I bought one unit for a 4/5 year old but ultimately sent it back because it was very unclear about what the laser rating really is and I couldn't guarantee safe handling. I also read that some of those lasers are cheaply built and might not really conform to its stated (or here not even stated) specs because it seems to be simpler to take a simpler, more powerful design and try to tune it down with more or less effect. It's that true?
When you pointed out the IR module I was confused as to how it was supposed to see signals from the remote. From its placement, hanging off the edge of the board by its leads, I thought at first it was somehow looking out the laser port untilI realized it was on the wrong side of the board. It apparently is looking out that small grid of holes that you thought could have been intended for a microphone. I don’t doubt there is, or at least was at one time, a sound activated version. I hope that the manufacturers eventually realized how horrid that concept is and instead went with remote control. I also didn’t realize that green lasers had gotten so small and inexpensive as to be casually built into toys. Is it an actual green laser, or a DPSS do you suppose?
I have an electronic pop-it stim toy game that I desperately wish I could take apart and study, but I love it too much to risk breaking it. Here's hoping Clive gets ahold of one sometime.
my nephew had one of these for his birthday, used it the one night by the morning it wouldn't turn on again, so said id have a little look at it plugged into every outley possible and nothing so plugged into a usb port on the pc fired up straight away but within 10 seconds the pc shut off and displays a message at bios saying usb over current, from the research i've come up with it's drawing too much power for whatever reason
Do you have information on the battery and it's BMS for the astronaut? I got one and the astronaut worked using it's 3 buttons. But after USB charging overnight it quit working from the battery. It does work from USB power including responding to the remote.
You know a product is great value and well made when Clive says it's 'Not bad'.
I always appreciate watching Clive tear down random gizmos that I've never seen and then thoroughly analyzing the innards. He has a unique skill level and thoroughness!
This looks well made. The remote looked decent as well.
It's been sold in other enclosures for several years now, I have the same remote and the same effects but it's not a spaceman
My boys got the big version of this last Christmas. They use it every night light and it still works like new. Cool to see a tear down of something similar
I’ve bought few of these over the years as gifts and have always been impressed with the build quality and feel of these.
The industrial design of the astronaut and mould is cool tool.
Oh optikinetics are still sort of in business, building LED versions of their classic projectors targeted a health/relaxation/austism market. They recently had a kickstarter for a new solar 250 styled projector with a wooden case .
I linked to their site in the description.
"Austism"
This Year, I bought one of those for my nephew's birthday, the little dude LOVES it. When I tested it, I thought of you: "Thats exactly the kind of thing that will eventually pop up at bigclive's Channel" xD I share your excitement for evetything blinking and shiny
Well done Clive, much appreciated. The very notification of a BigClive video is a smile maker, thank you.
The phrase "distortion disc" reminds me of a notorious incident in my childhood. My father was washing up and my sister and I had been roped into drying the dishes for him. I had a big glass bowl. I held it up and looked through it, and saw that Daddy had gone a funny shape. I exclaimed delightedly "Look, it's a Daddy-distorting machine!" and for reasons I have never really understood Daddy flew into a rage and threw us out of the kitchen. But he never asked us to dry up for him again...
His crack bowl lol
Repressed trauma, now unlocked.
That sounded like a good plan that worked to perfection
That is a really odd thing to fly into a rage over.
@@alanscoffins3148 It wasn't planned, but it was a useful side effect ;-)
Honestly really enjoy the effect, not too sold on the laser as far as making a convincing star pattern but idk how I'd do any better. I really enjoy how slow the disk turns, it's relaxing instead of being distracting
My kids have a super similar one to this and i had to take it apart to repair it beause the nebula stopped working. The design internally seemed quite different to yours! What had happened was the led accumulated so much heat that the pads of a connecor got unsoldered. I fixed it, added hot glue to keep the components in place, and added thermal paste between the led and the metal plate they had to dissipate heat.
My daughters stopped working properly so I opened it up and the LED1 board is just floating around inside and I have no idea where it goes, now the Lazer just flashes so I think I have broke it even more x
Can you fix mine please lol
Dammit Clive, I bought one of these off temu and absolutely bloody love it! I definitely probably have mild autism, but this is still my favorite toy as a 30-year-old male.
Quite an efficient PCB, concur on the danger of all the laser equipped gadgets without warning yet with obvious kid appeal. Same goes for the (awesome) automated cat laser thingy.
Those 'beams of light' you drew next to the LED indicators look remarkably like a man with a massive, Doctor Watson-style handlebar mustache, grinning from ear to ear.
Just thought I'd point that out. Those are some very jovial LEDs.
You do get some nice items to take a part, Clive. The magnet isn't strong if the head keeps dropping off when moved, I'd replace the magnet with a rare earther one. I like the motor mechanics they have used to for rotating nebula lense.
Naughty Clive pointed the laser straight at us. Lucky for me I blinked at just the right time. I hope none of the other viewers suffers eye damage.
Bit strange that, considering how well made this item is, there's no flywheel diode (or even snubber) across the motor.
C'mom mate, it's Chinese.
@@allancopland1768 What does that mean?
@@markstuckey6225 Means the manufacturer does not suffer a reputation hit or a class action when it fails. Well, who am I kidding, also that Chinese culture looks the other way about such things
@@rexsceleratorum1632Stupid Ukraine flag in profile picture checks out.
I would be careful with the green laser star projector. It uses a IR laser to pump a crystal to make green stars. The IR, if not filtered at the output can burn the eyes. As a test, I placed a temperature sensor (LM34) at the opening of a star projector and found that the sensor's temperature raised by several degrees. Could be powerful enough to harm the eyes. Nice that you can turn that function off, so it's still a nice product. Good show Clive!
It’s life Jim but not as we know it! It keeps going even when the head falls off
Captain we can't repair it cause we don't have the powet
great. I have one of these and was thinking to get it open. I really appreciate the reverse engineering of the schematic. Keep up the good work!
First, a sidenote....You mentioned how you dislike the placement of lasers on products like these. I am a UPS driver....I cannot tell you how much I hate those Christmas house projectors that people put outside around the holidays. Its to the point now, I will not go onto a porch if you have one of those. I'll put it as close as I can, but I am tired of getting green and red lasers to the eye every time I come off a porch at night. Second.... thanks for this video. I have seen these advertised for like $75....I know most of these ad's are just a reseller that sourced from a nameless overseas manufacture. So I went on amazon and found the same one you reviewed for a much cheaper price. Same remote, same figure, same instruction sheet. I'll give it a go.
You’re the man, clive. Thank you!!
ooh. i love lasers. i never gave them any thought before really. but a month ago i ordered some 2w light output blue diodes and some 500mw lo red diodes. they are great! the way to learn about using voltage regulators as CC supplies is by knackering cheap laser diodes. i killed a few, but now i have an x-cube with a red laser diode, a blue laser diode, and a green pointer i bought. i have done all the usual balloon popping, and blasting holes in cd inlay cases. now im trying to make a white laser using the x-cube. it is hard though, as the red and green are single mode, and the nichia 445s are multi-mode. i even, after watching clive's fog machine vids, bought a cheap 30 quid unit from amazon, it was crap with the juice that came with it. so i got some vegetable glycerol and some distilled water and made my own, around 30/70. wow it fills my study with fog, and my lasers look awesome. i glued some fragments of looking glass to USB PC fans, and aimed my lasers at that. wow again. my study looked like a nightclub. i then bought some diffraction gratings from ebay and some fluorescent markers. all utterly intriguing. lasers are ruddy ace. i'd like to point out after the diodes the second thing i bought was some OD6 goggles. don't fuck about with lasers in an unsafe manner!
Try getting you hands on an old laser DLP projector, usually they have a bunch blue diodes, and a load of other optical components that can be quite fun to muck about with
2 watts of 405nm violet is EXTREMELY dangerous to be messing around with. even diffuse reflections off matte surfaces are hazardous at that power.
Make sure you take precautions to avoid direct eye contact from the source or reflections. Lasers are not great for your eyes.
@@Muonium1 too right. as part of my laser fun i put reed switch interlocks on my study door, which disconnect the power to my bench supplies which power my lasers, so my wife doesn't get hurt. this was also good fun too. thank you for your concern!
I like it. Such an interesting design. Although the laser is a bit too much.
You take apart stuff I've never seen before. Very nice.
Interesting little device and quite a funky effect.
My 8yo daughter would love this, my 2yo daughter would love looking directly into the laser so I’ll give it a few years before getting one
Hi. let me thank you for your excellent education videos ... I lived in uk many years and have left uk twenty eight years ago videos like your helps me out with my hobby’s and it help me not to forget the English language saying that I recently had to open one of those toys and had to solder the cable inside because the tie didn’t prevent the cable from ripping the socket but I managed to solder it back in …
My problem was I couldn’t get the laser to illuminate the stars and that square plastic inside the laser holder that you pointed out was the problem it’s now working 100% thank you wish you well
10:40 There are some versions with a speaker for ambient sounds
Thanks for the close-up.
Pretty cool little thing - glad you can easily get in to it to disable the laser if you were to use it say in a kids room.
We have a unit that does similar. I popped the lenses out of an old pair of sunglasses and taped them over the projectors because even at the lowest level, they still lit the room up far too much.
We used nail polish for the same reason...😂
@@GriotDNB Nail polish instead of sunglasses? . . . Hardcore. : )
We recently had a storm system that passed, bringing us torrential downpours, minor spotty flooding, and winds up to 50 mph (80.5 kph). Many homes with the Christmas outdoor laser projectors had their projectors knocked over, so as I delivered newspapers in the wee hours I'd get blasted in the eyeballs repeatedly. Have you ever tried driving down the opposite side of the road, along a curb, with your eyes closed for safety reasons? 🤣
I'm actually surprised that they splurged for the aluminum/aluminium-core PCB. I fully expected every possible corner to be cut, but it seems someone had enough sense to think about the longevity of their products! If I ever bought one, I'd yank the laser out and hack in a slow-changing RGB LED behind the white dimpled dome used on IR sensors.
My mom set one of those up. I do NOT see the appeal of having moving red dots on the house.
Space-man aint got nothin' on that Fanny Flambeaux doll.
It's been quite interesting to see the rapid evolution of these type things from high quality with good effects to drop ship garbage
Nice construction and reuse of a spy/babysit camera housing. That's why there is a speaker placement option for talkback. Like this product more though as its more fun.
For interest, the glass wheel the light goes through is called a "gobo" in lighting.
A gobo is either a metal or mirrored glass disk with an image. This is a distortion wheel. Search my videos for PRG to see some gobos in a best boy light.
@@bigclivedotcom Distorted glass disks are also gobos too, it just really means anything that goes in front of a light source.
Quite nicely made
I have purchased the bigger brother Bluetooth UFO Speaker version in Black where it makes a pattern like effect that has a USB-C Power socket & Remote. I love them. Years ago these were 100s of dollars. Today? You can get them for a Tenner.
I also got the Small units where it makes a Wave effect that is just LED's. I absoulutly LOVE IT!
Along with a Small AUKING LED projector for the Ceiling? Its truly magical in my bedroom.
Amazing how bright these really TINY LED's are! I mean they are laser bright.
The Units get warm, but in a normal 70'F room, they do just fine.
The motors are still very audible and you can hear the wine from the small black units, but with the Ikea Air filter and brown noise in the background, it's hardly a bother.
Also, a great source of cheap ready made replacement parts for your Outdoor Holiday Lasers that are plug and play if you need them like I do this year on one of my units I pull out of storage for Christmas.
The slow and soft fading of the Green laser is nice for the "Starfield effect"
It will dazzle you if you don't set it above Bookshelf level at an Angle to get coverage of the entire ceiling.
I have not checked the temp of the Laser as it does not have a finned heat sink, but since its not really being driven at a constant "ON" state, rather a fading setting for me. So heat does not seem to be an issue the few times I touched the laser housed inside that metal case.
Worthy of note?
Some of these just throw the laser diode unit inside with little contact to the metal housing they are encased in. (the laser and the silver looking metal around the laser , as it has a hole inside of it )
Some use the ones that look like a typical laser unit that back mounts. Some have the small copper looking thing with a curcuit board behind it as used in those Back-up or Motorcycle laser they sell on ebay.
Instead of a night light?
I use these in the bathroom as well.
Thank you BigCLive!
What a great video to wake up too!
I have a different kind of projector that does a similar thing, it projects a "galaxy" on the ceiling. It has the same green laser "star" option, and on the different laser brightness settings, mine ramps the brightness up and down also. I believe this is done to ease the heating of the laser module. Even with a generous heatsink wrapped around the laser module in mine, AND the ramping up and down of the power, it STILL gets QUITE hot after an hour or two of use.
On the packaging of my unit, it says "New improved laser" on it, and I'm wondering if they had an issue with the laser modules burning out in the older units that did not ramp the laser power up and down.... 🤷
I think some of them advertise having sound, so the extra hole is probably for a speaker. I would quite like one of these minus the laser! Is it the same effect as the cube light?
Yes similar effect.
Looks like the IR-sensor is positioned behind these holes.
@@andreasdill4329 It is. I spotted that when I was reassembling it. I should add that to the description.
I have the standing version of this. It is actually one of just a couple things I got from Temu that actually still works. Anything with a zipper will inevitably fail.
Thats the magic of MCUs. They do all/most of the work and let you simplify the circuit. Imagine how complicated that would be if you had to implement the logic manually.
5:07 receptical - in memorance to little Donny :)
Thank you for sharing to me how it works. I was going to take apart the one I bought but felt like I would fuck it up.
Probably the holes are for a microphone.
It may allow audio control (e. g. by clapping).
We had a similar product as a night light for the kids. Worked very well, it sent the kids to sleep and we had a timer on it too, it went missing when we moved, sadly. Fascinating, simple product, I'll get one for my recent Grandson, thanks for reminding me of them Clive 👍
Perosnally I think for young kids it would be better to get a non laser version, to remove the risk of them blinding themselves
I'm decorating my 6 year old Niece's room. I plan to use IKEA like methods of holding things down in place to make sure they stay there where I put them!
My sister and her husband are as much in organization as they are into saving money for a rainy day.
Meaning none.
Same with design & Decor.
@@User-es9vp Yes, I agree. The one we bought for our sons was non-laser. Thanks for the heads up 👍
Congrats on the 1 million Clive :)
My kid wants a nebula/galaxy projector, i was very concerned getting one that has lasers as back in the 90s when laser pointers were actually rare i was stupid and would stare into it all the time despite the warning (thankfully 30 years later still no noticeable effects), and that was a low power red one, despite them being smarter than i was, not sure if i can stop my kids doing the same or protect form errant beams, which as you say are likely to not have adequate IR filtering, esp from a company with no reputation.
I'd probably disassemble and remove the laser if i were to get one.
Change
GREEN
laser to
WHITE ?
Or Blue.
Green sucks. Thx
A white laser has to be made from red, green, blue and a combiner. It's big and expensive.
😮💨😂
Saw this pop up and freaked at first as my daughter got one for Christmas but happy now after watching your review Clive thank you
Man it looks so cool, but I don’t even know which one to get , like on Amazon, tiktok, and what brand etc.and I keep seeing little complaints here and there like lights stop, something with the remote or sound is too loud.
Anyways cool channel, nice to see content thriving and unbiased on TH-cam. And happy that you have a niche for yourself.
If you change the laser wit a flux capacitor you can create a worm hole to other dimmensions. Have you tried that and can you do a video on that too please
I bought one of those little star field laser projectors a while ago, I went with purple and was pretty disappointed with how dim it was.... then out the corner of my eye it seemed bright. The anti-UV coating on my glasses was screening out about >60% of the light! Careful with lasers ehh? Oh also, I met your cousin Fiona a few weeks back at a funeral, small world!
For what it's worth, violet lasers are generally 405nm, because they're narrow band they don't meaningfully emit UV-A but they're still on the edge of visible light so your eyes aren't as sensitive to them and UV coatings on sunglasses will be broad enough to catch the top edge of visible light as well
@@bosstowndynamics5488 Good to know. This was screened out by the coating on normal vision glasses, not sunglasses. Crazy how nature do that
I admire your curiosity Bigclive! 🔌
I wonder if Torque Test Channel tests that laser if it would exceed the regulations for eye exposure.
The Marriott Courtyard hotel near Kennedy Space Center has these in every room. Awesome.
Interesting little device, and since they used connectors instead of hard-wireing everything you at least have the option to unplug/remove the laser part.
But what I'll never understand is why so many products that are USB powered still have proprietary jacks. Is it really cheaper to use one and having to supply a proprietary cable or why aren't they just using micro USB or type C instead?
Not enough power delivery
Possibly it was designed to use a dedicated power supply.
Super simple. The distorsion disk was quite cool though.
I got one of these gifted, only complaint i have with mine is the terrible IR recpetion, cant get the remote to work reliable or via an IR transmitter to control. I feel like the light it emits blocks the IR signals
The "speaker" holes at the base are where the sensor was mounted on this one. Make sure they're not obstructed from seeing the IR remote.
something about the nebula light show reminds me of chocky (was a TV show and also a book by john wyndham)
The projector reminds me of the scanners used in the 1960's TV series, The Prisoner.
I found some old 8mm footage from Germany I wish to restore. To bad I don't have the original 8mm film stock. I would have had so much fun restoring the footage.
Big Clive is a pretty special human - A laser star on the TH-cam sky, woof to that. 🔥
These pop up every year, I’m always interested that they cost about £40 on the social media ads but around £10 on Aliexpress and similar, I wonder if they’re the same product.
99 times out of 100 they're the exact same products that have been drop-shipped or private-labelled. 😉
3 pound delivered on tiktok bought one last week
Omg you pointed the laser directly into the camera and burned my eyes out!!! 😂
Saw this advertised on social media - wondered how badly it's going to blind people on a scale of a bit to a lot: thanks for the review 😉 let us know how the retinal scarring works out 🙌🙏😉
Might be nicer to put a screen inside the visor, or have it set up as a webcam or home security camera🤷
So basically you only like the astronaut and want to turn it into a completely different product 😂
@@Ni5ei what else would you do with it, insert it rectally? 🤣
@@phonotical That's what I asked myself once, when I noticed warnings on Christmas lights saying "For Indoor Or Outdoor Use Only."
@@dashcamandy2242 🤣
Around the US towards the holiday season more and more I am seeing these star shower laser shower things that you peg in your front yard and point at your house and it projects a laser pattern. And every time I see one all I'm thinking is I hope they don't look out the window during the winter season?? So what laser safety!
I think the word you were looking for is 'Gobo'
I remember the optokinetics days, we had an optokinetics projector with several gobo's for our mobile disco, or it could take the colour wheel
Great video... Any ideas how I could bypass the on off switch to work off a wifi switchable on - off mains outlet?
The power-up state is locked in software. You'd need to physically bypass control circuitry.
Even the "high" powered lawn projector lasers are only around 20-80mW usually, I doubt this tiny unit is over 10 milliwatts and the individual sub-beams after the holographic diffraction grating probably don't exceed a few hundred microwatts each. I'd be very surprised if it wasn't eye safe even including any unfiltered IR.
Never underestimate the likelihood of a kid putting its eye right against the laser aperture.
@@bigclivedotcom this in fact would be my only real concern with its use. I am reminded of similar concern over the Kinect "structured illumination" dot projector when it came out over a decade ago.
Okay, I have to admit this is a rather cute retina tickler.
Given the cheap prices of APA102 or WS2812 leds these days, I wonder why they're still using 11 discrete components to achieve RGB mixing. 3 mosfets, 6 resistors, 1 three-channels batwing diode = still cheaper than an 5050 Sk6812 ? Hmmm... 🤔 Optical power maybe...
Very elegant design. I'm guessing the holes in the top may be for ventilation.
The holes were at the bottom and are where the IR module is positioned. Not ideal, but it picks up enough to decode.
@@BertNielson Ahh
What would the 3rd pin on the laser be for?
Feedback for power control? I think it relays the brightness .
Usually optical sensor feedback for current regulation.
Great video, Clive...👍
I got one for Father's Day! 😎✌️
bought a few of these, the speaker is a bluetooth speaker or it comes with white noise.
These are fun
The diffusion disc should have been mounted directly onto the lens. Wouldn't need the special housing for it. Motor shaft would need to be a little shorter to edge connect to the disc. Disc would need to be of smaller diameter to match the lens. That would reduce the parts somewhat and reduce the cost a little.
Of course, the disc and the lens could have been the same thing, reducing costs even further. Naturally, the lens would need to be able to spin.
The speaker style holes look like they are adjacent to the infrared sensor and there doesn't appear to be any other window for the IR signal to get into the case. Maybe just for the IR then?
Ahh, Clive, you've taken apart my little "Naughty Astronaut. " Little thing, cute. OH MY. would have loved this plastic thing, shooting out laser lights and coloured effects while listening to "Luke Slater" 7th Plain .... Astra-Naut-E (In The Shadow) .....
I feel that this could be combined with the Fart Ninja for maximum illuminated effect, a nice display of nebulous clouds of bum-gases... :P
"The head has fallen off again. This... isn't a good start." 🤣
Thank goodness I was watching wearing my laser goggles. +1M subs well done Clive
Oh the humanity. I guess the dissection of this poor little guy means Major Tom is never coming home. 😢
Spaceman has been fully reassembled.
@bigclivedotcom Peter Schilling thanks you for your medical service to your country!
There must be different designs. The one I have looks identical, but an RF remote control and an RGBW LED. Annoyingly the RF remote doesn't have unique codes so if you have more than one light, they all get controlled in different rooms
I might have added a protective diode to dump current when the motor turns off, but otherwise I like the circuit design.
Yeah, I did ponder the lack of diode or cap across it.
Have issue with this device in my son's creche, found some documentation stating class 2R laser. It certainly dazzled me and left an artifact in my vision for a few minutes when I dropped him off. I have a thermal imaging camera would that show up IR from the laser?
I would not allow any laser to be used in a creche unless there was no way a child could look into it.
Safety advice: do not look directly at laser with remaining eye.
The only design flaw I can see (admittedly I am not an engineer, electrical or otherwise), is that the gear on the external drive, just rubbing against that tray, is going to wear down eventually, thus disabling the nebula spin effect.
Interesting thing but are you paying more for the mould of the spaceman, because Im sure this projectors been around for a long time now. Interesting non the less 2x👍
What do people think about the danger of the laser? I bought one unit for a 4/5 year old but ultimately sent it back because it was very unclear about what the laser rating really is and I couldn't guarantee safe handling. I also read that some of those lasers are cheaply built and might not really conform to its stated (or here not even stated) specs because it seems to be simpler to take a simpler, more powerful design and try to tune it down with more or less effect. It's that true?
I regard the laser as dangerous if young kids use this as a toy.
When you pointed out the IR module I was confused as to how it was supposed to see signals from the remote. From its placement, hanging off the edge of the board by its leads, I thought at first it was somehow looking out the laser port untilI realized it was on the wrong side of the board. It apparently is looking out that small grid of holes that you thought could have been intended for a microphone.
I don’t doubt there is, or at least was at one time, a sound activated version. I hope that the manufacturers eventually realized how horrid that concept is and instead went with remote control.
I also didn’t realize that green lasers had gotten so small and inexpensive as to be casually built into toys. Is it an actual green laser, or a DPSS do you suppose?
It's DPSS.
I have an electronic pop-it stim toy game that I desperately wish I could take apart and study, but I love it too much to risk breaking it. Here's hoping Clive gets ahold of one sometime.
A little bit of disappointment when barrel pug port is not placed in the AstroNut back side :D
I've not seen that style of connector before, might need to go looking.
Does it include a rechargeable internal battery or does it need to be plugged into the wall outlet constantly? Thanks.
It has to be plugged in. But it could run from a power bank.
Pretty neat little gadget :)
my nephew had one of these for his birthday, used it the one night by the morning it wouldn't turn on again, so said id have a little look at it plugged into every outley possible and nothing so plugged into a usb port on the pc fired up straight away but within 10 seconds the pc shut off and displays a message at bios saying usb over current, from the research i've come up with it's drawing too much power for whatever reason
Mr. Clive I need a little help I have a PCB mounted circuit breaker that I can not find if anywhere where should I look
Can you send a picture of it to bigclive1@gmail.com
Seen these advertised on Temu. Wondered what they were like.
That's pretty cool actually 😊
Do you have information on the battery and it's BMS for the astronaut?
I got one and the astronaut worked using it's 3 buttons. But after USB charging overnight it quit working from the battery. It does work from USB power including responding to the remote.
I've not seen the rechargeable version.
@@bigclivedotcom That's because I forgot it needed to be plugged in to work.
Is it me, or does the knurl on the starfield laser also engage with the motor as well as the distortion disc? Maybe to rotate the starfield?
No. The starfield is locked in place.
11 minutes ago I didn't know this thing existed. Now I desperately NEED one...
Search eBay for solar car freshener and you'll find a wide selection at much lower cost than the scam listings.
@@bigclivedotcom Thanks!