Disco light teardown - (Mac Aura clone)

I wasn't expecting this light to be so well built. In many ways it puts pro-lights to shame, but as with most lights it has its little quirks.

As revealed in the video it has a slightly odd issue with the ballistic curve of the motor drive. If you send a DMX data change that is significant, the unit will rotate to that position quickly, with the usual stepper motor ramp up and down to maintain torque. But if you make a very small change the unit does not seem to fully enter the torgue ramp, and instead crawls slowly to the selected position over a period of time.

The circuitry is breathtakingly simple compared to many pro units. It uses the same multi-processor topology, with one master processor delegating tasks like motor control and LED dimming to other processors.

The microcontrollers it is using are:-

Main brain - Nation N32L406 CBL7

Motor and position monitoring - Nation N32G430 C8L7

LED drive - CW32F030 K8TT

The main processor has 256kb (32 kilobyte) local flash memory for settings.

The stepper drivers are the vague SA8555 (TI DRV8885?)

The RS485 (DMX512) transmitter/receiver is a BL1585B (MAX485?)

The LED drivers are vague generic buck regulator chips.

The unit uses a power supply supposedly rated 24V at 400W. The light's power data is:-
Standby 18.6W
Red 33.4W
Green 42.4W
Blue 43.4W
White 44.4W
All at full 182W. (Mac Aura is 228W)

The light can operate in DMX mode where it receives data from a lighting network, or it can be used in standalone mode, audio sensing mode and possibly with slave and master functionality - although the manual is vague about that.

I compared this light to the Martin Lighting MAC Aura, which is a popular moving wash light in the entertainment industry. A real MAC Aura is very expensive, even second hand. It's a useful light, but I'd never buy a heavily used one, as the spares are expensive.

If you have a MAC Aura and it is not lighting the white LEDs in test mode, don't panic. There's an annoying software quirk that removes white from the test sequence when the light is set to calibrated colour mode. If you change it to raw colour mode the white should work.

This style of light is available from many sources under different brand names. This one came from a local AliExpress warehouse. I'll give you a starter link (affiliate link) but I strongly recommend you shop about, as the price of these lights covers a massive range.
https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_c2xqEskB
Search for a price around £60 to £80. You may find this light pops up in deals, and may also be available from a local warehouse in your country to avoid shipping issues.

Something worth noting. There is a common trend that lights like this are used for their physical effect of a moving light panning back and forth. It's not unusual to see them literally thrashing about over their full range continuously at full speed, and this puts lots of stress on the cables passing between moving parts. If you are using these as a decorative effect, they will be much more reliable if you limit the movement to a smaller range and run them at a lower speed.



Supporting the channel with a dollar or two on Patreon helps keep it independent of YouTube's quirks, avoids intrusive mid-video adverts, gives early access, bonus footage and regular quiet Patreon live streams.

https://www.patreon.com/bigclive

Alternatively, for a single coffee contribution you can use PayPal:-
https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/bigclive

#ElectronicsCreators