# Upping the power on a Star Shower Christmas laser light projector



## signal15

Mine was pretty weak, I couldn't even see it in the house with the lights on. A friend of mine had one as well, and it was way brighter. So, out came the tools. There are 4 rubber plugs on the back, which cover tri-wing screws. The are way down in there, so using a tri-wing bit was out of the question since the socket for it won't fit. A 2mm Allen wrench took them right out. 

On the bottom of the driver board is a pot. I plugged the light in with some tape over the light sensor and started turning. I turned to the right until it got dim, and then backed off a bit until it was bright again. I got about double the light out of it. 

One thing I noticed was that the positive wire going to the green diode seems to have an Inline resistor with shrink tube over it. I didn't mess with it, or measure it. But, could this be swapped out to increase the brightness more? Or is it likely the board has an overcurrent circuit that would shut it off? How can I turn it up more? 

Here's a few pics, you can see the Inline resistor in the first two on a red wire, with black shrink tubing:


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## FRITZHID

In a single answer, yes you could swap that resistor out, if you don't mind that it could fry. Chances are that it's lifespan will be significantly reduced. I tweaked an old rgy laser scanner I had, got about an extra 50mw out of the red and 15 out of the green but it only ran for about 200hrs before the green dimmed allot and red finally failed at about 30 hrs later.


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## signal15

Eh, I bridged it as it was only a 20 ohm resistor. No difference.


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## FRITZHID

The the laser diode is already at its max and bypassing the resistor only serves to cook the diode. Most of these laser units don't have allot of overhead to work with since manf tend to squeeze every little bit they can to begin with.


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## sikstix

signal15 said:


> Mine was pretty weak, I couldn't even see it in the house with the lights on. A friend of mine had one as well, and it was way brighter. So, out came the tools. There are 4 rubber plugs on the back, which cover tri-wing screws. The are way down in there, so using a tri-wing bit was out of the question since the socket for it won't fit. A 2mm Allen wrench took them right out.
> 
> On the bottom of the driver board is a pot. I plugged the light in with some tape over the light sensor and started turning. I turned to the right until it got dim, and then backed off a bit until it was bright again. I got about double the light out of it.
> 
> One thing I noticed was that the positive wire going to the green diode seems to have an Inline resistor with shrink tube over it. I didn't mess with it, or measure it. But, could this be swapped out to increase the brightness more? Or is it likely the board has an overcurrent circuit that would shut it off? How can I turn it up more?
> 
> Here's a few pics, you can see the Inline resistor in the first two on a red wire, with black shrink tubing:


what exactly did you turn to make laser brighter?


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## FRITZHID

sikstix said:


> what exactly did you turn to make laser brighter?





In the last photo, the small, round silver thing with red goop on it, is an Adj POT. thats what he adjusted.


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## Danny Williams

FRITZHID said:


> In the last photo, the small, round silver thing with red goop on it, is an Adj POT. thats what he adjusted.



I have serveral "Star Night Laser" projectors (red and green diodes). I have been trying to find out exactly where I can buy additional diodes with the following parameters:

Red Laser

Laser Diode: Red 650nm

Power: AC 120V, 60Hz

Laser Power: Red < 1.5mW

Effect: Static firefly twinkling

 

Green Laser

Laser Diode: Green 532nM

Power: AC 120V, 60Hz

Laser Power: Green < 1.0 mW

Effect: Static firefly twinkling


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## LouF

This is off-topic, but I want to defeat the manual soft motion button. If power is shut off to the device, the motion button will need to re-pushed every time.

Can this button be bypassed with a capacitor (instead of shorting or hard-switching?


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