EEVblog #928 - Jaycar DMX RGB LED Lights Teardown

Inside the cheap arse Jaycar SL3467 "Rave" DMX controlled RGB LED disco party lights scored for $1 from the dumpster sale. Did Dave get ripped off?

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[bronzedivision]

Menu is fine, it's just upside down. Also you don't know the abbreviations.

[rich]

That display is upside down dave! Thats why you couldn't read it.

[TheWebstaff]

:( I wish this was big clive was doing this tear down.

Send it to him!

At least he would have spent one minute to actually test the unit seeing as there appeared to only be two things wrong with the unit.. you found one of them and the comments section is screaming the fact you didn't notice the other.

Plus he's not so rude and smug, he's at least open to the idea that cheap stuff can do the job and built to a price is ok if needs must..

And no you didn't get ripped of it was a dollar..

shame that, if it had been full price you might have spent less time piss taking and spent two minutes going.. hmm everything that needs to be there is there but look no solder, I'll just solder them in and turn the screen the right way up.. look it works but no, your smug attitude made you blind..

And they do have to build to a price. so jaycar can make their profits too.. If they didn't think it would sell they wouldn't imported them.. And i'm sure jaycar bought them cheap enough..

Come on Dave be a little more open minded sometime.. your a smart ass guy lets see you fix it and then you can take the piss :D

[rodstartube]

*LED DISPLAY IS DISPLAYING 180° UPWARDS. THAT WAY YOU CAN READ/UNDERSTAND EVERYTHING ON DISPLAY*

[SeanDamonGreene]

"dryer than a dead dingo's donger"... best thing i've heard all day!

[tylerwatt]

4:23 it's just upside down. It wants a DMX address

[Zadster]

The Power FETs may be from Shenzhen, but they are at least marked as ONSemi items! Bigclive would have a field day with this :D

[Unordung]

7seg is displaying upside down it seems to work fine!

[johnnyprimavera]

The display was upside down. It is common on DMX fixtures to be able to change it's orientation. Took me some bit of my grey matter the first time I came across those... :->

[JohnDoe-qxzs]

Usage idea: Color adjustable spot lighting for your video production. Probably without the cheap controller. You'll obviously have to fix the broken connection to some of the red leds.

P.S. The white soldermask is obviously to reflect light, and it was just cheaper to get the same color on both sides of the board.

P.P.S. The internal wires to the connectors is at least as thick as the inside of standard DMX cables, so nothing wrong there. At the lamp end, I wonder why they bothered designing in a PCB connector. A big solderpad is good enough for the number of cable replacements within the component lifetime.

[zakzennii]

Wow. If I found something like that for a dollar, I'd be jumping for joy.

[pulsethreadstudios]

the display was upside down and the red used less power because the array likely had a broken connection (hence not all lights came on)

[iamdarkyoshi]

Red was out a couple circuits and as others have said, the display was set in the settings to go upside down.

I would have used thin wires for the leds as well, spread the dissipation out

[rocketmanprojects]

For a dollar, I would have bough them just for the LEDs. I don't know what I would do with them, but you can never have too many parts on hand.

[CJWarlock]

The making is cheap but I strongly disagree with Dave's opinion the device is crap and his laughing of lack of constant current circuitry. It's not crap, it's the standard, many of more expensive lighs from the amateur range are made this way. And it's NOT a constant current lamp so the use of dropper resistors is another standard widely used in such lights. It's very similar to how RGB LED stripes are driven: 12V CV PWM. It's actually thoughtful in its low cost. Even professional RGB lighs for TV studios, stages and theaters are driven this way (CV PWM). So the laughs are at Dave's premature assumtions. And that assumption about RGB LED's - anyone who paid attention for a short while at a concert or had read anything about such equipment know there are mainly two types: 10mm LED's where R, G and B are separate LED's and big ass power LED's with acrylic (or sometimes glass) lens. TO make it simple, most often: many 10 mm LED's = separate R, G and B, low power, amateur level, small venues; 10 - 20 power LED's with lens = middle and pro level, mid and high power, mid and big venues. And we are just talking about PAR 56 and 64 lights equivalents, not floodlights nor washes. What happened to Dave's "an electronic person does not assume anything"? ;) Too many assumptions and too few real understanding of the item in this movie. Like a rant of an old lady for the sole sake of the rant. One of the worst tear downs here. Not really informative. FYI: non-PWM pro fixtures for filming an TV are like a pro level inside an already pro level niche. That's how popular and standard CV PWM is, even in pro level LED RGB fixtures. Dave really could do some reading or ask someone who knows better before talking too much. ;)

[John_Ridley]

Some of the stuff complained about is IMO not actually an issue. The lack of a connector inside the light head - in what way is that a bad thing? Those are probably never going to be disassembled, the wires will not be getting flexed, in fact IMO soldering them on is probably ever so slightly more reliable than having a connector there. I think eliminating the connector there is actually a valid decision to save a few cents.

[Tomcat]

I think you might want to try and check what channel the lights are on for the DMX interface and make sure the controller is set to output to them. I saw that the interface said it had an Addr setting, but that might be for the input.

[efilnikufecin]

I don't think you got ripped off for a buck. You was able to make a 17 minute and 49 second video for us tear-down lovers, and that has gotta be worth more than a buck.

[cougarhunter]

You guys need to take it easy on him. He's upside-down down there.

[gavincurtis]

Your ego made it feel bad about itself. So now you have to fix it and I expect it to be working in your lab for the next video with ABBA Dancing Queen music at the intro.