LIGHT-UP SPINNING
BALL WAND

Light-Up Spinning Ball Wand, retail $4.95 (http://www.orientaltrading.com...)
Manufactured by (Unknown) for Oriental Trading Co. (www.OrientalTrading.com)
Last updated 09-23-10




The Light-Up Spinning Ball Wand is a novelty product that contains ten LEDs (four red, two yellow, two yellow-green, and two blue) on a motorised spinning thing inside a protective plastic globe. The LEDs come on and the motor spins when you press & release the button on the handle.

The LEDs don't just all come on steadily; they rapidly flash independent of one another to give numerous different patterns.


SIZE



The unit came to me ready to use; however the website states that the batteries are not included.
If your unit came without batteries, obtain & install them first (see directly below), and THEN you'll be ready to add some excitement to that 4th of July parade you've been wanting so badly to go to.

Press & release the silvery button near the top of the barrel once to turn the light show on.
Press & release it again to turn the unit off.



To change the batteries, turn the product upside-down so that the globe faces the floor.

On the bottom of the handle/barrel, you'll see a silvery colored battery door with a clip on one side that has a very small screw in it. Use a #0 phillips screwdriver (the smallest one with a 1.4mm shaft diameter from my set of jeweller's screwdrivers worked well here) to unscrew the screw. You do not need to remove it from the door itself. Press in on that clip if necessary; the door should now pop off. Lift it off, gently place it on the ground, and kick it into the garden so the hungry, hungry praying mantids will think it's something yummy to eat and subsequently strike at it...O WAIT!!! YOU'LL NEED THAT!!! So just set it aside instead.

Tip the used AAA cells out of the handle and into your hand, and dispose of or recycle them as you see fit. If that last cell does not come out, use the point of a knife to push it sideways, then tip it out of the barrel and recycle or get rid of it.


Here's a photograph showing how that third cell is behind a metal contact, and may not automatically fall out.

Insert three new AAA cells into the barrel, orienting them as you see in the above photograph. Install the one showing behind that contact first, then install the other two in any order you prefer.

Finally, place the battery door back on, swing it shut, press in on it until you hear a click, & screw in that screw you removed earlier.
Aren't you glad you didn't kick that battery door into the garden with all those hungry, hungry praying mantids now?


Here is what a praying mantis looks like.
I found this guy on the morning of 09-08-06 clinging to the basket of my scooter.

Current usage measures ~115mA on my DMM's 400mA scale.
The "~" means "approximate" - current varied from 100mA to 120mA depending on how many LEDs were illuminated at the moment.



Because this is a novelty item and not a flashlight, the punishments I bestow upon flashlights will not be bestowed upon the Light-Up Spinning Ball Wand. So this section of the web page will be significantly more bare than this section of the web page on a page about a flashlight who's sole purpose in life is to be a flashlight.

The yellow and yellow-green LEDs in my test unit of the Light-Up Spinning Ball Wand are significantly dimmer than the other LEDs.

The product appears to be at least *reasonably* durable, and to worry about handling it like an egg would be illogical...o wait!!! Now I'm starting to sound like a Vulcan.
What I meant to say is that this unit is somewhat fragile, but it should not just fall apart through casual use or handling, or very minor accidents like short falls to carpeted floors (yes, I actually did this).

The unit vibrates quite noticeably during operation (and vibrates strongly enough to "walk" across a glass tabletop), but this was somewhat expected of a very inexpensive product of non-US origin - sometimes known as the "Hoo Phlung Pu" brand.




Photograph of the unit in operation.




Video on YourTube showing the flashing action.

This clip is approximately 7.2 megabytes (7,500,010 bytes) in length; dial-up users please be aware.
It will take no less than thirty minutes to load at 48.0Kbps.

That music you might hear is from a demo I wrote for the Commodore 64 computer in 1992.
The demo's actual filename is a toliet word, so I cannot say it here. It starts with "PU" and ends with "ED".
Think of a kitty cat being flogged with a long instrument used for administering a beating and you can probably figure it out.

The product is not sound-sensitive, so you may ignore or mute the music if desired.

I cannot provide it in other formats, so please do not ask.



TEST NOTES:
Test unit was purchased from the Oriental Trading website on 06-06-07, and was received on the afternoon of 06-15-07.

Product was ***VERY LIKELY*** made in China. A product's country of origin really does matter to some people, which is why I published it on this web page.


UPDATE: 00-00-00






    MANUFACTURER: Unknown
    PRODUCT TYPE: Novelty-type light-up device (seasonal - has body colors red, white, & blue)
    LAMP TYPE: 3mm LED
    No. OF LAMPS: 10
    BEAM TYPE: N/A
    SWITCH TYPE: Pushbutton on/off on handle
    CASE MATERIAL: Plastic
    BEZEL: Transparent pastic globe protects LEDs
    BATTERY: 3xAAA cells
    CURRENT CONSUMPTION: ~115mA
    WATER RESISTANT: Light splatter-resistance at maximum
    SUBMERSIBLE: No
    ACCESSORIES: 3 AAA cells
    WARRANTY: Unknown/not stated

    PRODUCT RATING:

    This is a seasonal, novelty item and will not be furnished with a "star" rating for that reason.





Light-Up Spinning Ball Wand * http://www.orientaltrading.com...






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