While working on a show with a lighting rig that is valued in millions of pounds, I thought it would be amusing to buy a load of cheap eBay disco lights to determine the level of electrical isolation between their mains power and the network connections that could potentially destroy every light in a rig if the isolation failed and mains voltage ended up on the DMX network.
This first light arrived in spectacular fashion complete with a police escort when it was flagged up as high risk package by the post office when I got it delivered to the main offices of the show I'm working on due to its military connections.
It then continued to surprise by not having any DMX facility at all, and then redeeming itself with a rather beefy audio output for such a cheap device.
In summary for the audio side of things. The unit auto-runs on power up at mid-volume and will sequentially play all the audio tracks it finds on the storage device, regardless of their file names.
I'm not sure what the USB device is and have no intention of plugging it into any of my PCs.
If you enjoy these videos you can help support the channel with a dollar for coffee, cookies and random gadgets for disassembly at:-
http://www.bigclive.com/coffee.htm

16 thoughts on “Not so shitty mp3 disco light.”
  1. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Peter Sage says:

    I got one of these a while ago based on this video. Came with Euro pin plug, but runs fine on 120ish VAC, so clearly "universal" power supply. Sound is more or less as I expected from a plastic enclosure like this – like a can of oatmeal. Might look into gutting it and putting the speakers in a smaller enclosure that matches their Thiele/Small parameters.
    Could be fun on a suspended platform lighting up the ceiling as a sound-activated mirror ball thingy.

  2. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Hola! craigr306 says:

    what was on it then ?

  3. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Armen Bagdasaryan says:

    How to charge?

  4. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Roselene Alvarez says:

    How to order sir

  5. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Zareen Rafa says:

    How to play Bluetooth?

  6. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars NESTOR says:

    Hi, can you explain me how to disable the motor and how to have only three colour fixed without shuffling other colors? I lost the controler for it

  7. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Colter Stevens says:

    Can you connect phone? And how do you use bluetooth

  8. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Christhekid674 says:

    I had one before it spins forward and backwards

  9. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Olga Ostrzeńska says:

    OMG u do smart

    Please Tell me how to stop this lights just on one mode 😧 without of this strobo THINGS….

  10. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars TOMMY N .J says:

    You kill IT 😁 but cheap junk 🙂

  11. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Spire Sound & Light says:

    I bought the Maplin version of that light a few years ago; it has DMX connections, but that's about all. The user guide has the DMX personality table; but it's meaningless. Other than the odd blink when you change a couple of the DMX values; it doesn't do a lot. It's been sat in the bottom drawer of my filing cabinet ever since. I might put it on Freecycle; unless that is Clive, you want me to send it your way to take to bits?

  12. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Beautiful Woman says:

    You've made this so technical that you've made it boring.

  13. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Sonny Fontes says:

    That power transistor probably forms a blocking oscillator with that transformer, which is a very cheap way of forming a switching supply

  14. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars antkoos says:

    Just take "audio circuitry" and speaker and place them in another box. Bam, you got mains-powered boombox

  15. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars neonte13 says:

    I imagine someone else has mentioned it by now, and I imagine Big Clive already knew, but for the record, I recommend a suitable Linux live cd/dvd for testing potentially nefarious drives and whatnot. That way you can pull all storage and networking and still have a handy gui and terminal for testing stuff out. Additionally, Windows and Mac both tend to go "la-la-la, I can't see it!" to certain formatting types and file types, so Linux helps with that.

    More importantly, I don't know what kind of permissions a Chromebook user has, but from what I understand, there are plenty of Ducky scripts for Linux, Mac, and Windows, (And other OS's, I imagine) so personally, I wouldn't count on a random drive being completely safe, just because it's plugged into a box running a particular OS. And this being Big Clive's channel, I don't think I need to add that a Ducky or something like a Ducky could be in any USB drive case.

    But then, all that being said, I would bet the bigger risk from data storage shipped with cheap crap is classic style malware, spyware, and most of all, by far, bloatware. "Oh yes, I'd love to install slow, hideous looking software for every random cheap-ass device I buy! I mean, Windows found a driver, and my software seems to have me covered, but yeah, your clunky Windows ME lookin' software is a must-have, clearly!"

  16. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Suriyatna Nam says:

    Help mine wasnt working when i plugged it… Nothing at all i had to return it

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