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Post by Ron Walker on Jun 13, 2022 12:59:14 GMT -7
Posted by: Ron Walker Jan 28 2008, 03:41 PM Sooner or later I knew I had to get one of these things but was not about to pluck down nearly two "C" notes for one. I had seen one some time ago and there were things that I liked but didn't like that much. Ebay is a good thing and a bad thing. Good in that you can get great buys, but bad in that "did you really need it" kind of category. I know a lot of you out there have probably wondered about this projector, especially after reading the advertisement.  Words like, "Absolutely Incredible", and "An experience you'll never forget", tend to scare me away and to tell the truth, if I hadn't see it in real life I would never have fallen for it. |
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Post by Ron Walker on Jun 13, 2022 13:06:32 GMT -7
Posted by: Ron Walker Jan 28 2008, 03:49 PM Anyway, it comes in a very colorful box and is totally made of plastic in the shape of (what else) a star about ten inches across.  I have not taken the unit appart as of yet to see exactly how it works but I have a guess and will go for that right now. The unit has two projection ports, one "star" projector and one cloud projector.  The unit contains a green laser (which probably accounts for a substantial part of the cost) and it projects through a rotating grating or hollagram. You can see the top part of the rotating image plate through the upper clear window just above the business end of the laser. |
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Post by Ron Walker on Jun 13, 2022 13:10:18 GMT -7
Posted by: Ron Walker Jan 28 2008, 04:14 PM Turning on the "star" projector in a dark room produces a most interesting effect.  The unit produces literally thousands of pinpoint green stars that move and swirl in all directions. My time exposure doesn't do it justice and they appear almost three dimensional in a trully dark room. The biggest disappointment is not the green color, but the fact that they don't represent the night sky in any way, shape, or form. The very bright set of five stars projected in the center of the field stay in formation and slowly rotate. There are other "sets" of stars that remain together but for the most part the fainter stars move around in seemingly totally independent directions. If you choose to follow any of them, they do form a set pattern and repeat themselves but this could take several minutes. This is a very relaxing display and is even more so after a couple of glasses of wine or its equivalent. As a teaching, or accurate representation of the night sky, forget it, at least from an Earth point of view. One could consider it a view from an alien world or the sky just after the "big bang" but my daughter hit it right on the head. For any of you X-files junkies out there (I admit that I am one as well) there was a great show from the first season called "Darkness Falls". This projector produces a perfect reproduction of the nemesis in that episode. So your probably asking why, if I'm not that impressed with the stars, what possessed me to buy this thing at all. Ah, my friends, it is the second projector, the "cloud" projector that impressed me the most. Generated by a hologram, this blue cloud immediate brings to mind a birth place for stars. This could be the first image before the big bang as well. It is more of a very special effect one use only projector but it produces a rather effective image. Remember that this is not a static view but an ever evolving and undulating cloud. Again my photo doesn't do it justice.  Projecting the two together works especially well when sharing that second bottle of wine!  So basically it has some good uses as an auxiliary projector in a planetarium, and is a great relaxation tool, but as a substitute for an accurate planetarium projector, sorry, no good at all. |
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Post by Ron Walker on Jun 13, 2022 13:11:10 GMT -7
Posted by: nitegazr Jan 28 2008, 11:04 PM
Ron,
This is great, thanks fo the quick review. Very good information. I wil probably stick to the Homestar Pro if I buy anything. If anybody wants to know anything about Meade LX200 GPS telescopes, I have two of them.
nitegazr
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Post by Ron Walker on Jun 13, 2022 13:11:41 GMT -7
Posted by: Owen Phairis Jan 29 2008, 01:49 PM Thanks Ron, I know it is just a matter of time, and convience, till I buy one. Owen Planetarium Projector and Space Museum www.pictorialism.com |
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Post by Ron Walker on Jun 13, 2022 13:12:04 GMT -7
Posted by: mrgare5050 Jan 29 2008, 05:10 PM
sweet looking! im ALWAYS afraid of something like this though, if it breaks who will fix it? i got the willys with those two laser dj show projectors when both got clunked and never worked again.
the cloud effect is very impressive from our atmospherium perspective, wonder how they make it blue if its a green laser? g
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Post by Ron Walker on Jun 13, 2022 13:12:44 GMT -7
Posted by: mrgare5050 Jan 29 2008, 05:11 PM
by the way, it was that 'second bottle of wine' that started my problems! g
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Post by Ron Walker on Jun 13, 2022 13:13:06 GMT -7
Posted by: Ron Walker Jan 30 2008, 10:51 AM
QUOTE(mrgare5050 @ Jan 29 2008, 05:10 PM) *
sweet looking! im ALWAYS afraid of something like this though, if it breaks who will fix it? i got the willys with those two laser dj show projectors when both got clunked and never worked again.
the cloud effect is very impressive from our atmospherium perspective, wonder how they make it blue if its a green laser? g
The problem with anything man makes is that it will eventually break. If you can get use and enjoyment out of it before that happens consider yourself lucky. Just enjoy.
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Post by Ron Walker on Jun 13, 2022 13:17:11 GMT -7
Posted by: Ron Walker Jan 30 2008, 11:15 AM Since I was a little kid I always wanted to know how and why things worked. In my younger years things I took apart didn't always function again, but as I've grown older my need to know why hasn't diminished at all, but my respect for the equipment has. Things now come apart and then go back together and for the most part continue to work. Gare's question about how they get a blue cloud out of a green laser had crossed my mind as well, so throwing warranties to the wind (didn't really matter anyway as it was an E-bay "as-is" buy) I took out my trusty screwdriver and went to work.  The entire "star" shell is stuffed with materials to make the Laserstars go. The top star point contains the on/off switch, the top left houses the dimmer control for the cloud projector, the lower left has a small cooling fan, the lower right contains parts for the cloud projector, and the upper and lower right points house the laser stars and cloud projectors respectively. In the center you can see the drive motor that provides the movements to the stars and clouds.  A "wall-wort" provides the unit with 6 volts AC and thus saves space that would otherwise be taken up with a transformer. The cloud brightness control knob (upper right) operates a control pot mounted directly on the pc board. Directly to the left on the opposite side of the pc board are two metal heat sinks for electrical components used to power the unit. You can see some of the parts between the two heat sinks. To the far left is the small cooling fan and in the center is the drive motor and some of the gearing. |
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Post by Ron Walker on Jun 13, 2022 13:19:49 GMT -7
Posted by: Ron Walker Jan 30 2008, 11:24 AM  The star projector consists of the green laser mounted in a heat sink with control electronics aimed toward a hologram mounted on a shaft (far left) that is slowly rotated by the motor drive. The resultant stars are then projected out through a clear window used basically as a dust shield.  In operation you can see the green laser projecting on the hologram wheel and then out to the screen. |
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Post by Ron Walker on Jun 13, 2022 13:23:21 GMT -7
Posted by: Ron Walker Jan 30 2008, 11:59 AM The cloud projector is just a good old fashioned machine that anyone can put together out of small parts. The time to do it might have me rethink that last statement, but if you had a lot of time and nothing else to do... blink.gif  This projector does use a plano-convex lens to project out the cloud image. It is produced by two pieces of "privacy glass", glass with one side lumpy so one cannot see clearly through it. The front piece is stationary and the second piece is circular and rotated by the motor.  From this angle you can make out the light source which is directly behind the rotating section of glass. It consists of six or seven (hard to tell) blue LED's.  In this close up you can see the tops of the LED's. |
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Post by Ron Walker on Jun 13, 2022 13:24:49 GMT -7
Posted by: Ron Walker Jan 30 2008, 12:02 PM  This final shot shows the unit on and working. By the way, I did get it back together and it still works. biggrin.gif |
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Post by Ron Walker on Jun 13, 2022 13:25:19 GMT -7
Posted by: mrgare5050 Jan 30 2008, 08:03 PM
oh ok so the cloud projector is separate from the star projector, and uses blue leds. how many color leds ARE there, i thought they were all white. g
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Post by Ron Walker on Jun 13, 2022 13:25:43 GMT -7
Posted by: Ron Walker Jan 31 2008, 09:43 AM
QUOTE(mrgare5050 @ Jan 30 2008, 08:03 PM) *
oh ok so the cloud projector is separate from the star projector, and uses blue leds. how many color leds ARE there, i thought they were all white. g
White, blue, red, yellow, green and probably others. Take a look at a new stoplight and you will see the red, yellow, and green are made up of 100's of LED's.
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Post by Ron Walker on Jun 13, 2022 13:26:11 GMT -7
Posted by: chemed Feb 11 2008, 11:26 AM
I just got mine in the mail today.
THIS THING IS AWESOME! ohmy.gif
Its probably the best SPFX projector that I have now!
If i put it at just the right height, it projects the laser stars on the whole of my dome!!!!
I wish there was some way to separate the cloud projector and the laser stars projector so that I could control them separately or at least turn off the laser while leaving the cloud on.
Ron?
-Adam
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