Upgrading Fiber Optic Lamps to LASER Brightness!

I like fiber optic lamps but their brightness always disappoints me. They are too dim to really impress me. No matter if it is an old halogen or new LED type.
Time to upgrade my two fiber lamps! Make them brighter - much brighter. Will I succeed or is there a limit I overlooked?
LaserCube 7.5W Ultra donated earlier by www.wickedlase... for this video: • New LASER Power Record...
My Patreon-page: / brainiac75
Other videos worth a watch:
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Did you miss one of my videos?: / brainiac75
FULL MUSIC CREDITS
Time codes: 0:01 + 13:46
"Long Note Two" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
ISRC: USUAN1100420
Time codes: 0:55 + 5:00 + 11:05
"Perspectives" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
ISRC: USUAN1300027
Time codes: 2:48 + 7:17
"Lightless Dawn" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
ISRC: USUAN1100655
Time codes: 4:29 + 8:48
"Impact Lento" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
ISRC: USUAN1100619
Time code: 10:06
"Supernatural" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
ISRC: USUAN1100397
Time code: 11:51
"Ossuary 6 - Air" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
ISRC: USUAN1500048
Time code: 12:32
"Floating Cities" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
ISRC: USUAN1600018
All music above licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
creativecommons...
Time code: 9:42
Mix of two tracks:
1) The Shimmering by fran_ky (freesound.org/s/237363)
Licensed under Creative Commons 0 license
2) "Spacial Harvest" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
creativecommons...
ISRC: USUAN1100653
#fiber #lamp #laser

[@Pleplerhep]

Protip, if you spraypaint the sides of the fibers black it looks so much better in the dark :)

[@brainiac75]

Yes, I have considered it but not sure how to do it properly without getting the fibers stuck to each other. And covering every tip carefully before painting will be tedious. Will have to look into it - no doubt it will be worth the work if done right! It is the superbright tips hovering in mid-air I am interested in. Thanks for watching!

[@Skiman__]

@@brainiac75true, it takes a lot of effort to do it carefully😅. Have you looked into maybe using something like vantablack once painting them is figured out? It should make the end pop more and not let any light accidentally leak through the fiber

[@ashajeer2383]

Also might change the critical angle of light inside the fibre and cause the light to be absorbed

[@FriedEgg101]

@@brainiac75 You could maybe dip them in paint? You could hold both ends and dip the middle section of fibre, leaving a cm at each end unpainted.

[@volvo09]

​@@FriedEgg101they would all stick together like wet hair.

[@IlluminatiBG]

At least to the camera, the star effect is more pronounced with less light. This gives interesting idea whether you can lit the lamp with an LCD screen from smart watch, making the stars dance. It won't be an effective lamp to lit the room, but it can be truly amazing to watch.

[@Jefferson-ly5qe]

You can just dial down the exposure and the colours should come back

[@zyeborm]

Probably want to scale the colours in editing. Drop the lows and increase the highs kind of a fake HDR effect.

[@Jefferson-ly5qe]

@@zyeborm I smoked crack with Jesus once

[@Auziuwu]

I've always wanted to do this! These fiber lamps have always been so cool to me ever since I was a child

[@brainiac75]

Me to - and finally got around to doing it. So worth it! Thanks for the early watch.

[@kayagorzan]

I loved it so much as a kid. I was so pumped when my mom bought it for me

[@BillAnt]

Stick a lava lamp on top of of show laser. hehe

[@smrp1984]

12:42 I don't know what I was expecting but this is so much more beautiful that I could have ever expected, I can only imagine how it looked in person!

[@GQuack]

I had completely forgotten that fiber optic lamps even existed! Seeing you 'upgrade' one with lasers, even crudely, looked absolutely beautiful in video as well. This video quite surprised me, glad to know fiber optic lamps, while still not very bright, aren't completely phased out yet. Great video as usual, can't wait for your next project!

[@ehsnils]

I have a tiny plastic Christmas tree with that technology (used to be a halogen, I changed to a LED lamp), always fun to see stuff like this.

[@sempertard]

I have often wonder what a fiber lamp display would look like if the fibers were painted flat black somehow with only the tip ends left clear. With your laser setup, now I really want to know!

[@kyzercube]

Brainiac, your channel has aged well. What a fantastic video!! 🎉

[@brainiac75]

Thanks :) I'm afraid most channels that started uploading in 2009 are inactive nowadays :/ But I think my best videos are still to come - stay tuned for much more ;) And thanks for the early watch!

[@gallium-gonzollium]

12:40 Those showcases feel like an optical illusion, they feel like it was filmed with lots of light on a tree :o

[@lukasvondaheim]

I didn't even know fibre optic lamps exist but now I want one! Thank you for this beautiful video

[@capatainnemo]

where do you live? the north pole? they have been a thing sinse the 1960s

[@lukasvondaheim]

@@capatainnemo i live in the middle of europe and we were poor. What do you want?

[@gerasimger15]

For real me too what a bad reply i also just learnt about them

[@MasthaX]

We had these handheld ones as a kid. Once the battery ran out me and my brother had the brilliant idea of connection a cord to it and plug it into the mains to supposedly make it brighter. It did go very bright for about half a second! Fortunaly circuit breakers exist is all I can say!

[@jimmy_jamesjams_a_lot4171]

THIS is an absolutely excellent video. Very straightforward how you took the info on the lamp’s sticker, and then shopped for the LED replacement. You’ve left nothing to mystery, and made every consideration. That awesome comment you made about the ‘perfectly straight fiber’ acting as a collimating lens - with the illustrations demonstrating the reflections within the fibers - was the climactic moment. I really like this video and Ill be watching your channel. Thank you very much for making this one!! I love the music too!

[@SilesiaLasers]

I love the way how you used that LaserCube! 😂 so cool!

[@JustPyroYT]

Wow these upgraded lamps look Amazing! 😍 Great Video as always! :D

[@brainiac75]

Thanks :o) Must admit it worked out better than I thought. Despite the oversaturation of the color wheel. Maybe because the wheel is not covering all of the lamp... Still room for some improvements - including darkening the 'sides' of the fibers to limit the side emitting spillage.

[@DreStyle]

I miss these things, I got mesmerised as a kid!! Same as with lavalamps!! They have something so calming ❤

[@Haarschmuckfachgeschafttadpole]

Something interesting like you showed is how much brighter LED reflector replacement lamps are. I have two kitchen fixtures that accept GU10 50w halogen for 8 bulbs total between both. When replacing with LED I ran into the issue that they're actually way too bright. I had to install dimmer switches on both and remove a few of the LED bulbs. With all LED bulbs in at full brightness it's bright enough to use as a studio but too bright to be comfortable. Just a weird issue I never expected to run into.

[@arcrad]

A long time ago I repurposed the fiber bundle into a ring light for a SLR camera. It redirected the built in flash into a ring around the lens. Worked pretty well.

[@teriyakipuppy]

I would watch a video on how you did that.

[@arcrad]

@@teriyakipuppy I'll try to make one. I think I still have it around somewhere.

[@celebrityrog]

My aunt and uncle had one of those "vintage fiber optic flower lamps" (that was not retro at the time) back in the 80s and it was awesome, was bright as hell. Loved it.

[@Gunbudder]

i got one of these in a hand held version from DisneyLand in the 90's, and i was obsessed with it. played with it constantly until it broke, and then i took it apart and just messed around with shining different things into the fibers. such a great toy

[@rocketboysmc]

A safer idea might be to use some addressable RGB light neopixel array. and a microcontroller. It probably wouldn't be quite as cool. but probably safer and could still allow for some cool effects. Just an idea.

[@Sekir80]

I've already done that. It's a christmas tree infused with fibers, works the same as the thing in the video. It made horrendous sound after a couple of years, so I removed the halogen lamp and colorwheel and replaced it with 16 tightly packed WS2812B chips (no pcb, no flex material, nothing). Driven by a Teensy, and some code it looks pretty nice.

[@marcusbuchner1615]

A few years ago, I did an upgrade from a plain white led fibre lamp to a cluster of seven rainbow led's. As they all have slightly different timings, they will create color patterns on their own. Neopixels didn't really exist back then.

[@mycosys]

if you wanted to go that way, a 1" high brightness OLED screen would be uber cool

[@rocketboysmc]

@@mycosys That sounds like quite a good idea.

[@Tomazack]

Watching the laser fiber lamp on an oled TV was mesmerizing. Truly beautiful.

[@mycosys]

Hi! i love this project. The washed out colours are not cause by 'overwhelming' the colour wheel, it is the low CRI of the LED you are using. It just isnt emitting all colours, nothing like a black body curve. You could get around this by getting a high CRI MR11, readily available. Or if you wanted to do something REALLY cool and old-school, we used to use MR11 globes as Halogen Static Discharge globes. They have the same socket as the HSD globes martin used in the early RoboScans (Pro 518, Pro 812 etc), you just need to add a ground wire round the bubble (globe). The advantage of this would be an absolutely perfect black body curve, and much higher efficiency than incandescent.

[@Wyatt_James]

Part of this will also be because the LED is a diffuse source, and pokes out past the color wheel significantly, letting white light reach the fibers. Masking the lamp off with a dark material would improve it.

[@timothybayliss6680]

It might be something with the spectra of the LED. There wont be full color band emissions from the chip and any spot the color wheel and led have conflict you are going to have issues. That was my guess why the 2700k led looked better

[@Duolingo_on_meth]

1:55 "one must imagine sysiphus happy"

[@brainiac75]

LOL x) Wanted so much to show that sticker just sticking but... Thanks for the early watch!

[@XanTheDragon]

dude that wave pattern at the end goes unbelievably hard

[@xehpuk]

Beautiful! Now waiting for Styropyro to upgrade one.

[@atashgallagher5139]

And never go beyond the thermal or electrical capacity of it's housing StyroPyro: And I took that personally

[@threeMetreJim]

I'd have put a small (50mm) lens focused onto the fibre bundle and then placed one of those LED disco lights underneath, with it's dome and motor shaft removed (one of those things that you can get that go into a standard light fitting). The older 'disco lights' have red green and blue 1 watt LEDs in a ring, you could swap them out for 1 watt colour changing LEDs, no colour wheel required.

[@kerzwhile]

I ha e ben searching everywhere for new lamp that isn't a toy. Only thing I have found are original ones on ebay and the one you upgraded. Great work! 😊

[@ethanpschwartz]

I had an ancient fiber optic christmas tree that ran the same way with an AC12V motor and halogen bulb. I ripped the whole assembly out and replaced it with an Arduino and a little round PCB with 7 addressable RGB lights. Twice as bright at half brightness, runs off a USB cable, and you can change the light patterns whenever you want!

[@photonik-luminescence]

Really cool video !

[@aarongreenfield9038]

It's always a bright idea to have the right amount of fiber.

[@s-aluma-r]

You should try a small dotstar led matrix! It should fit the small enclosure and maybe produce similar moving color areas as the laser!

[@vvv331]

Kevin Macleod - Floating Cities continue to bring me nostalgia in your videos. i dont know what other science channel uses such song. also this looks realllly cool, kinda like ergonomic light.

[@KTPDAILY]

BEST VIDEO OF THE YEAR SIR - I THANK YOU!!!

[@tylermiddaugh1515]

absolutely amazing. tempted to do this with my dmx laser

[@maelmauron7530]

Even though much more expensive and fragile I would love to see such a lamp with actual glass fiber optics... They transmit light much better

[@psirvent8]

1:35 Interesting how the vintage lamp uses a christmas light for the decorative blinking lights on the outside. Remember having seen these lamps for sale at the stores back in the early 2000s.

[@Leonardokite]

You definitely like to take things to the extreme. Awesome! 👍😃

[@theDane70]

The effects with the show lazer is amazing it actually looks like internet communications...

[@neoqueto]

It's really beautiful at the end.

[@8ending8ranches]

I thought I was getting styropyro but I got you and I’m not upset about it. Subscribed.

[@cals.8221]

When I was a kid, I had a magic wand like that, with less fibers, though. It was fun waving that thing around in the dark. I didn't know there are actual lamps like this, only some super expensive designer lamps that borrow the concept, not the style.

[@hulkgqnissanpatrol6121]

I want a party laser now 😂 That looked awesome!

[@ChristianBehnke]

The laser makes the colours SOOOO rich! Amazing!

[@critical_always]

Using a show laser seems a bit expensive but one of those cheap 240p led projectors would be a great way to create epic color waves and animations

[@JeepinBoon]

It's amazing the heating effect of this laser causing the fibers to dance as their structures expand internally.

[@Mad-Lad-Chad]

It’s the fan causing it.

[@GavinColbourne]

I can remember about 30 years ago when my parents had 1 of those lamps it had the original glass fiber's which were notorious for the fiber's breaking and getting into feet

[@JohnnyX50]

I have a black version of the silver battery operated LED fiber optic lamp i found in a second hand shop. It is blue LED only but the optics are black with only the end showing the light. If you could find one, your laser show would look even more intense and the effect I think you are after :) x

[@nkronert]

I was unpleasantly surprised to see that the original fiber lamps from the 70s are not sold a lot on second hand websites and they tend to be much more expensive than I hoped.

[@pseudomonad]

Now I'm just waiting for the collab between you and Styropyro...

[@snakezdewiggle6084]

Great video, and project. Thank you.

[@Koopai386]

Love your videos man. Such entertaining videos

[@avix213]

the ending result was amazing

[@Sonicgott]

Don’t let Styropyro discover this! Gorgeous work!

[@PopCapMusicTrending]

When I was in grade 5, I swear like every teacher have a plastic flower pot with fiber optic lamps on their table.

[@nickk6518]

It would be interesting to see if replacing the halogen/led bulbs and using a 5V WS2812B pixel ring with an ESP32 development board and WLED would also work. I guess a 3D printed base and 5V mains transformer might also be the way to go.

[@gblargg]

My thought as well, LEDs can have much purer colors than the old lamp and color filters, and be brighter. That might be enough to upgrade it visually without the issues with lasers.

[@nickk6518]

@@gblargg I am tempted to try some time. I have 100s of strands of fibre optic cable I salvaged from a fibre optic Christmas tree which I pulled apart. I managed to keep the straightest pieces of cable and even though they are only about 13 cm long, I still think they could be used for something interesting. Plus, with WLED (even in combination with Xlights), you can get some pretty neat lighting effects with individually addressable leds.

[@ares395]

I was gonna suggest painting the fibers but the first comment I see already did suggest that. Also that 4000K bulb is the perfect white to me. I love it

[@kaitlyn__L]

If I ever find my childhood fibre optic Christmas tree, I’ll definitely swap the tiny incandescent bulb for an LED!

[@JohnGotts]

Fiber optic lamps nowadays are cheap, about four bucks shipped from the usual Chinese sites, and they use LEDs. They run on 3 AA batteries that last a long time. No more color wheel. That has been replaced by a chip. There is a button that selects the mode you want. Constant red, constant green, constant blue, all three LEDs, and patterns. Also, the fiber optic strands can be decorated with various objects like fake flowers for an interesting effect. Chinese factories have over time innovated fiber optic lamps to the point that you can easily own several of them, and only use them occasionally. I bring one with me camping and it's been soaked in the rain many times, has gotten rusty, and it's right back to where it was with a metal brush and contact cleaner. Your GU4 unit is an antique, even with upgrades.

[@andrewmartino6144]

If you use Heat Shrink on the fibers you don't have to worry about painting them and it will be bonded with heat, or don't use heat and use it as a sleeve but then you could just use that soft pneumatic air hose.

[@Roads_of_Europe]

I need a setup just like that. My wife would absolutely love it..

[@Resonanttheme]

It came to mind how bright burning magnesium is and thought some shielded outdoor arrangement could be tried using the fibers to transmit the light.

[@jucando4407]

Another improvement could be using longer fibers and give the bundled fibers a turn before exiting the housing. So the source of light and the exit hole aren’t in the same direction. So much less light can escape through the space between the fibers

[@Hnkka]

I really need something like this, its just awesome

[@Max_Marz]

I had one of these with deteriorating fibers that would shed little splinter long pieces into my carpet that I would step on as a kid. Id test any of these to see if the fiber breaks between my fingers before I left it out in my house.

[@JaSon-wc4pn]

I got a (reduced priced) battery operated Halloween wall projector candle. 5 different solid coloured LED's shine through a four spot magnified lense At different angles, I removed the spinning wheels as it was mainly blackedout with tiny skulls or ghost silhouettes. Was planning on defusing the light. Fibre optics will work perfectly.

[@adnanmlivo5885]

Still here, still loving the content as always !

[@Gainn]

A GU bulb with a load of color changing LED's that go out of sequence inserted in it might give that illusion of movement the pro laser did.

[@andycrask3531]

Omg i had the ufo one years ago as a child. Thanks for the memories

[@Demnus]

What if I use 3 separate laser pointers with different colors, and replace a color disc with refraction grating film? I think it's will be epic!

[@iamdarkyoshi]

Absolutely mesmerizing :)

[@MahBor]

Can you make a video about laser safety glasses? You can explain how to choose the right glasses for each laser and test some of the cheap and fake ones. One of the questions i have is what should i use if I'm using lasers with different wavelengths at the same time

[@michaelodendaal5776]

Beautiful ❤

[@MelodyCraftAI2025]

Thank you for video sharing sir

[@penguinsushi8442]

I can imagine the end result would be used in a corporate video, showing how everything's connected lol

[@NekoSteamBoy]

How about a small oled display or something and a array of fibers direct above it would that also give me more ways to animate the fibers or wouldnt it be strong enough?

[@Alice.59]

12:54 Watched it on a LG G3 Oled, even with your camera + youtube shitty compression, it still looked amazing I wonder how it would look to have the entire fiber covered in black so the light can only come out from the tip

[@MathewMoss-fp9ju]

I wanted to do something similar with optical audio cables and have various lasers illuminating the fibers

[@BlueNukez]

i completely forgot these things existed, buying one asap

[@zandane]

Well, now I just wanna get one, slap some ws2812b leds in there and see what happens. Could even go so far as to get long "fibers" paint them black so light doesn't leak out the sides, and stick them in further but point them at different leds in groups etc etc etc

[@Da1ienx]

If your fiber wig is a bit old and yellow, you can clean them up super easy with some water and mild dish soup

[@berukadehikari2634]

for improved color saturation, my idea is using a 5W RGB LED chip with each color channel connected to an Arduino for customizable color patterns. Colored LEDs emit a more saturated color. Would also eliminate the need of a turning color wheel.

[@mycosys]

The problem is the very low CRI with a colour wheel - that would make it worse as it would only 3 3 specific bands. Whats needed is a high CRI/proper black body curve with all light frequencies.

[@bobertbolero]

Can you tell us the camera setup? That macro shot of the little info tag was so crisp!

[@flagman3116]

Wonder if you could build a PCB for the new-style lamp using a bunch of WS2816B-2020 2x2mm LEDs. Looks like you'd probably be able to fit about 28 LEDs into D=18mm, which gets you 2.5-5W of total power dissipated? Might be able to get much of the zoned color effect of the laser & classic style, with decent color rendering and a very reasonable brightness & price.

[@Baleur]

12:20 there must be fiber optic cables that are pre-wrapped in dark insulating wire, only exposing the ends, right?

[@E85_STI]

Grandmas watching this video are amazed by the technology of lighting vs incandescent bulbs.

[@CAESARbonds]

That was a fun video. I’d love to own a show laser. Oh it has such nice colors. And send it it to a big bundle of fibers :-)

[@hammbone82]

Is there a way to hange this fiberoptic lamp from the ceiling using the suns natural light to create the same light output using a large half sphere and focus through the fiberoptic to the endpoint fore helping to grow food in a small greenhouse to improve plant production?

[@DumaJo]

Awesome, would like to see something like this in huge size, 2m high

[@No_Way_NO_WAY]

Giant version, giant version, giant version *chants

[@joshacollins84]

This, 👆

[@johnspence2466]

that's awesome another great video

[@SamFirthDesigner]

I actually made something similar some years ago. Try using a heat gun to melt the end of the fibers into a nice round lens

[@WorthyBuzz]

@Brainiac75 did you find the laser light heated up and transferred heat to the fibers or the ends?

[@user-pb4jg2dh4w]

Try to paint the beginning of the fiber optics with black to make only the end parts glow brighter ❤❤❤❤

[@kirill2525]

i have a lasercube, tho an old moddel. i may try this

[@djksfhakhaks]

If it puts out 1000x sunlight, put a solar panal in front of it and create 599x more power! You solved the global energy problem!!! #overunity

[@Xellos14]

I was wondering if one of those starlight laser projectors aimed at the underside would work, but I was thinking it was a bit overkill. Then I saw the show laser get pulled out lol

[@vontar1]

i remember those from the 80s. Didn't know for many years what they were made out of.

[@farhanrejwan]

great video!

[@ck2503]

I have a handheld laser that is 7.2 watts that I made years ago. I think I might send it your way.