Doing it in software would require an expensive screen. Well, expensive compared to this thing, anyway. This is probably just a few dollars' worth of parts. A screen and suitably-powerful processor to generate a fire effect in software would easily be ten times the cost.
I'd be very tempted to cut out some letters in a bit of my own mylar to see of it's possible to sneak a rude word into the effect. I think you've just given me a Christmas present idea!
@Matt Quinn Yeah they aren't cheap, in most cases a bioethanol-powered real fireplace is probably cheaper. But these are permanent fixtures, and people do spend it large on these showcase products as they add more value to their real estate, when it's time to flip.
They've been using the same technique for at least 70 years. My mom had an old incandescent version from the 50s that functioned exactly the same way. I took it apart when I was a kid. And put it back together too. Otherwise, I wouldn't be here now telling you about it. The actual materials weren't the same of course, but the principles involved are the same. Except for one thing. That one actually had a 1400 watt radiant heater built into it.
And I have recently sold a “vintage Belling fire suit” on eBay that has the same flame effect as the one you have described - as the customer wanted a 50/60s themed interior to their recently bought house 🥰
I remember the one my grandparents had - a disc that rotated in the convection current caused by the incandescent orange bulbs. I found it mesmerising!
It's an OK effect for the price, but once you see it in person you'll find the effect to be just a plain 2D projection. Good fake fire effects use water vapour (e.g. Dimplex Opti-myst).
only thing that seemed missed out was that the lights are also illuminating the ember'd logs. which flickering leds might make a little odd. now if you could get a few fading leds, possibly slightly differently tinted that might look rather nifty. pulsing would seem more natural than a flicker. although if you added about 4 flickering leds in there with a timer to fire them off one at a time in an alternating pattern vs a linear one, it could add to the effect . just my 2 cents on the idea.
This teardown is inspiring me to build a custom insert for my unused fireplace I can scale up the reflectors and use some led strips with WLED where I could have a mixture of fading and fire effect lights. I just need to buy some sheets of milar
Neat. I bought an electric fireplace this year and my one complaint is that it's not bright enough. Good to know how it works so I may dare to modify it eventually.
I just harvested some printer stepper motors & spindles, and hard-drive motors, time to upgrade my non-fire fire effects! I'd love to try making an led 'flame vortex' effect, - any ideas come to mind? I respect your mad science, been following since 'back in the day' you made brick splitting gauntlets with some hinges to focus the strike. It worked like a charm for a patio diy.
@@TheOrganicartist You know, you could unwrap a Flame Effect lamp (type Big Clive showed in another video) this way flames would be coming at the reflective material from all angles. How well this might work? Only one way to find out!
Good job on the teardown, as always, Clive. I like of these units so much that the gears wore down and got loud, so I spent the time to figure out how to drive it with a silent stepper motor system, so that it runs with no noise and will never have gear problems 😀🤓😂
Thanks. My 5th wheel RV (caravan) has a fireplace like this, but is larger and includes a 1200 watt electric heater. I've been dying to find out how the effect works but didn't want to tare it apart to find out.
Some older fireplace simulators had a single low wattage light bulb with a fan mounted on top of it that rotated by warm air rising from that bulb. It was as effective for its simplicity.
Ours had the heater fan that wouldn't turn and by the time I realized something wasn't right, the fireplace died right there and then. I had a quick look at it but just visually, without real tools other than just a screwdriver, I haven't seen any physically broken part . I really want to revive it cause it was the best bedroom ambiance while watching TV , just reading a book or, you know. ☺
I used to have an old "Magicoal" heater that used something very similar but with two 'flame orange' incandescent lightbulbs and a small geared synchronous motor
Ah yes, the good old "Berry Magicoal" - I remember seeing the adverts on the telly, back in the 1960s, back in the days when brand names meant something.
My parents had something similar: a red bulb for the light and a vaned wheel to provide the effect. No motor; the wheel was entirely driven by the hot air rising from the bulb. Heat came from standard electric fire elements mounted either side of and below the fire effect.
@@Michael75579 Even old school gas fires (e.g. Flavel Welcome - installed in mum's house in the late 1980s, still manufactured and made today) had the twin bulb, vaned spinner and fibreglass fake coal below and in front of the radiants.
We had something like this back in the 70's. On a bigger scale, it was a 3 bar fire place with a light bulb and metal spinning disc for the flame effect. Only downside was the horrible fake polystyrene brick effect surround. As young children at the time, we would normally poke holes in the polystyrene bricks.
@@oldbatwit5102 right? like the polystyrene drop ceiling panels in my grade school... every classroom you went into there were a bunch of pens and pencils that had been blasted into orbit by means of a flexible ruler... now they just hung there, ominously threatening to randomly let go and imbed themselves into your skull on their way back to earth =)
We had a much classier one... Spinny, shiny disc thing with a 60w lightbulb painted red + orange (definitely hand painted) But the 'real log' effect fibreglass fakery at the front was absolute top notch... The sort of thing you would expect to find in a Rolls Royce foot well Cheap and nasty can also be high class!
I had one of those also back in the 70's but instead of one bulb there were four 10 watt small color bulbs and a long spinning tube with what appear to be hairs of aluminum for the flame effect.
I've got a LED flame candle that has a timer function on it where it comes on for 6 hours and is off for 18 hours as well, chances are that it uses the same timing controller.
He will start by doing a spectral analysis of a real fire and recreate the spectrum completely including the heat radiation. It will also be water cooled.
£12,000 later and he'll have an led fireplace you can make with just £40 and impossible DIY skills. Fairs fair though I was impressed with the microphone.
Back in the 1960s my gran had an electric bar heater with this sort of effect. It worked using a red painted 60w light bulb and a metal disc above it. The heat from the bulb caused the disc to rotate thus producing the flickering effect.
I have a similar unit about the same size that I run off a 5V PWM signal from an ESP board. As my heating power goes up the "fire" gets brighter and faster.
Thanks for your videos Clive they are really helping me take my mind off pain while in hospital. Just wish I had not watched most of your back catalogue before I went in :/
Yes. A veritable MARVEL of SIMPLICITY. BUT-BUT (The Inevitable arse of Creative Afterthought): THE LOGS! Wouldn't convince an EYE-SHORN Beaver! Coaly-like cubics of Plassticks! With light-emitting HOLES and variegated, colored bits-o-transparent FILIM! Maybe even real COAL! What with the UP-AND-COMING NO-COAL MANDATE on the Isles' Horizon, it might give a BOOST to the folks back home in NEWCASTLE. I, myself, would be pleased as PUNCH to TRANSACT my collection of CLINKERS, acquired through FOUR DECADES of Christmas Stockings, HUNG by the fire. (Never saw no "Folks Dressed-up like ESQUIMOS", though. Potato sacks, YES. De Rigueur for keeping the fly-ash off yur COIF.) I tender this EYE-DEE-UR w/out desire for compensation, in the interest of better LIVIN' AN' JOY THRU SCIENCE! BUT! TUT-TUT (Is HE the Ghist-o-Christmas Past, or what!?) I would NOT defer from donations of Single-Malt Spirits in recognition of my contribution. 'Tis the Season, mind you, to be JOLLY! AND engage the Gift imparted in GIVIN'. 💬* 🐧 *[WTF!? How'd I wind up in BRIGHTON!? Musta been BAAAD in Hell.🐑]
The old motors had a part that made them turn one way only. With age they would go bad and it was a 50/50 chance as to what direction it would go when power was turned on. I used to remove the part and run them on a sound-to-light unit that turned the wheels in my disco projectors. The same could be done to one of these so the flames would move to music.
Reminds me of an old electric fire we had when I was a kid..it had red bulbs inside, and disc type things that balanced on top, the heat from the bulbs made the discs turn which created the smoke/flame effect on the panel at the back. Simple but effective.
The circuit polarity is because the chip output is probably an N-channel driver for a single LED candle. Driving the higher current of 3 LEDs and a motor thus needed an extra transistor with opposite polarity.
Thank you for mentioning the use of a diode to drop the voltage from usb. I purchased one of these for my van over a year ago planning this conversion and hadn't thought to use one
@@TomAlter1000 I've got one in my home (here when I bought it, never used because it is so fricking loud!), the fan is a Cylindrical affair, exactly the same design (so likely the same model) as used in the heater above the not particularly convincing ribbons.
I got the fireplace version with is like a foot wide. It doesn't have any timer function that I know of. It just has a flat top to it. It didn't come with a DC jack, so I added one. I didn't want to burn through batteries or have them leak. The stem is just a wooden dowel, but it has the same Mylar and hot glue arrangement. I got it a couple of years ago. It takes like 4 batteries for 6 volts, but I actually run it on 5 volts. I thought it might make the LEDs last longer, and 5 volt power supplies are much easier to get.
Just recently I bought one like this but bigger and with a wall plug. I was wondering how the fake flames are made, now I know! Mine has a small spiral type of heater inside, which is not very useful. I love the warm light; the plastic logs even have a bit of glitter on to make it look like they’re glowing on the inside.
Tried to guess how these worked before. Imagined all sorts of complicated methods. It turns out to be so simple, I'm embarassed. Very clever and simple.
I kept flinching when you touched the 'hot' surface. It reminded me too much of the fire our caravan when I was a child - barely felt any heat from it until you'd accidentally touched the mica window.
Very impresive look. I think its got some good hacking bits too. I wounder if you warpper a cylinder round it and lit from both ends with colour-change LEDs.
Thanks for including footage of the device at the end of the video! I was going to hit replay as soon as the video ended to behold the awesome effect once more, but you read my mind :)
I enjoyed the yule logs at the end. You'll have to put it back together and have it on hand for a Christmas Big Clive Live. Perhaps modify it with an electric scent diffuser filled with liquid smoke?
I worked at a store that sold electric fireplaces, the really big ones with a heater. The same principle and mechanism though, as I learned when I fixed a couple of them. In the large version it's common for the reflector bar to have a pillow block with a bearing at the non-motor end. It also likes to rip free from the housing because they just rivet them in. Then your fireplace comes complete with a horrible grinding pinging noise.
The end of the video would make me feel like I was having a white Christmas with Christmas music or just some instrumental music or even the sounds of having a fire in a fireplace on a at home date.
I always thought these devices had a hidden magical property to them. I would have never thought the concept behind the cover is so simple and effective.
I sometimes hate that I'm the type of person that can see the pattern of the rotating mirrors and am thinking of ways to make it more random... possibly overcomplicating the design :P
Hi Big Clive! ....... Little Clive here! 👍😂 Can you do a video, reverse engineering Star Trek Voyager's Warp Core, as you say it works on the same principle? But be careful to ensure you don't cause an anti-matter containment breach! ....... Wouldn't want the Isle Of Man to be vapourised! 💥🔥😂
We have one of these but it's also a heater. Cool thing is it has multi colored flames and logs, both can be choose independently. Outputs a decent amount of heat too
Looking at the flame effect.. You know those prism glasses that give you all the colors of the rainbow? A couple of those lenses tacked in there (or pieces) might be... interesting.
Now that I know how it works, I can see the cylindrical rotation in the flame pattern in the video end-shot. That does not mean that I don't like it! I have several battery clocks with smooth-running 'second hands'. Toaster pastries come wrapped in flimsy Mylar. Let's hope the clock motor doesn't smoke.
Shows how little things have changed in some ways. In the 60s my Nan's new electric 4 bar fire came with a "coal effect" front with the usual ceramic/wire glowing bars and a crappy moulded plastic blocks of coal. The magic happened when you switched on a small red bulb with a very thin tinplate fan on top. Eventually the heat from the bulb created enough heat to spin the blades and the glowing coals started to burn. Quite effective and with the lights off it did seem to make the room warmer. This one is better, but very similar in concept
As an 8 yr old I tore down and old electric fire with flame effect. The flames were produced by 3 shiny propellers powered by the rising heat from the elements.
What is the blue cased object on the left hand side at the 10:40 mark? A rechargeable soldering iron or a screwdriver? If it is a soldering iron could you do a review on it?
@@bigclivedotcom Ooooohhh. Definitely needs a video. EDIT: I was recently given a selfie stick for which I have no use. Now I think I might have an idea how to repurpose it.
Today I learned that "wake up timer ICs" are a specific type of ASIC, nearly all in TMSOP-8 packaging. They can be set in "pull up" or "one shot interrupt" mode. Ablic's S-35710 series even has internal 32kHz quartz.
What is missing? Two things. sparks and the popping sound that comes with them. As B.C. said I like it. I have enjoyed B.C. for quite a few years probably every episode since day one. thankyou for the entertainment and education. 70yo and still want more. Keep it up Clive and I hope you have a very good Christmas and a happy new year. Don't get too wasted. I"m just getting in early.
Berry "Magicoal" electric and gas "fires" used a similar effect in the 1960s-1970s, except the reflector (onto a backplate) was a non-uniformly bladed horizontal aluminium fan blade powered by just the convected heat from a red film coated non-frosted incandescent lamp of about 25-40 watts, which also illuminated the glass-fibre fake logs in front of the bulb and the flicker-fan. These were totally separate from the heating elements, which were usually situated above the coal or log - effect display. Unusually these bulbs had 3 bayonet pins IIRC.
The end of this video reminds me of years gone by when there were only three or four TV stations and one of them would show the Yule Log burning all day on Christmas. (Tell me you're old without saying you're old.)
The heater ones typically use Mylar blown by the fan that inevitably blows over the heating elements. Thankfully those use replaceable bulbs instead of Non-replaceable LED strips.
Reminds me of those 3 bar electric fires with the clear orange lamp with the fan that rotated using the heat from the lamp...the fake logs were clear and it projected on to the back of the frame...3k flat out not exactly cheap to run but we were fiddling the meter!!!👉🧿👈👉🫂
Thinking I'll make one of those and try laser diodes and colour changing diodes. The laser diodes would give a nice point source, but the colour changing might be too diffused 🤔
I remember making such a prop for a local small theatre group but it was a vertical cylinder with spiral cutouts covered with coloured lighting gel and with fins on top that rotated from the heat of a light bulb on the base; just like spinning Christmas angels with bells and candles. None of that fancy electronic stuff for me....didn't really exist back then.
I did an "amateur" version of this decades ago. 4000-series CMOS, 4020s to divide it down and NANDs for the 1-of-4 (6hrs of 24hrs) and crystal oscillator. Bunch of orange Christmas-light bulbs for the "fire", and tinsel wrapped around a motor shaft for the effects. Looked good if you squinted your eyes just right. :D
Makes you feel cosy just looking at it, much better than the old flame effect fires! Simple and effective. I like it as well, not seen one that small, I will have to look for one. :-)) Seen it running in the background of your live videos, very effective :-)) 😎
Another great video 🙂 What is the kind of orange plastic used please ? Is it a simple orange acrylic plate or is it grooved on one side? I would like to make my own version 🙂
Yay! Finally something more fun than ozone machines. We happened to have a fake fireplace in our living room, built into a book case. Now I do not have to disassemble it to see how it works. Our last one used an incandescent bulb that kept burning out.
I don't know why it took me this long to realize that when Clive says "this is worth buying even just for the ______", he's coming from the perspective of someone who hashes together stage props and effects!
It looks quite spacious inside, I wonder if you could cut off the back part to reduce the depth of the unit, that way it would look more walled in when mounted on a wall.
All bulk and not much else in these things to make a significant effect with so little electrical circuitry in it to work. In fact, Clive I would like the M4 file you created of the fire working at the end. I'd like to use it as a screen saver on my laptop. If that is okay by you. Then wherever I go it will bring me a nice warm fuzzy feeling these chilly winter nights.
I like this effect so much, that is, LEDs and rotating Mylar. Something similar has been used in lots of Star Trek, in simulations of computers and warp cores. I'm really thinking of doing something for myself at home. If I put Mylar bits on a rotating shaft, so that they can move and swing individually, it would make for truly random reflections and not just repetition as it spins. Looks like that gear motor outputs about 12 rpm.
Seems nice, and a good upgrade would be 3 star PCB's with 1W warm white LED's, and between them 2 warm white slow flash units, so that you get an irregular looking flame effect out. 1W chips should be run at a half watt, so they do not swamp the 5mm slow flash out totally.
You say it's not very efficient, but surely far more efficient than old ones that used a 60W red coloured bulb to make the same effect! The old ones didn't have a motor, they used the rising heat from the bulb to turn a windmill geared to the shaft with the metallic reflectors on it. So the effect would be stationary for the first few minutes then gradually start to turn.
Realistic until you you quickly realize it repeats itself but it's probably meant to be glanced at, not looked at while contemplating 42 like with a real fire. I do wonder how hard it would be to create a similar but not obviously repeating effect for a similar price.
Very cool, I've never seen one taken apart and I have wondered how they were built. I would have made the reflectors so they rotated somewhat with as random a pattern of gearing as possible, so the flames didn't repeat.
I've watched these in store displays, and realized that, sure enough...eventually there was a repetition of flame pattern. Pretty clever though, quite a good effect for almost nothing.....now for the 'smoke' part of the 'Smoke and Mirrors'...?
Simple but effective. I’d definitely modify it though, certainly the logs look so fake, I’d put Quartz or some shiny natural minerals in there. Nice vid!
couldn't fine anything about that chip, but many 8-pin MCUs have internal LC clocks, and/or have a different pinout (ON, Atmel, PICs, Holtek, etc, they all have similar layouts). However, many RTC ICs have a suspiciously close pinouts, like power on pin3, crystal between 1 and 2, and some extra stuff in pins 6, 7 and 8. So it's probably some dedicated chip. But everytime i try to search for something like that (even in many manufacturers catalogs) i only find the 555 (even trying to exclude it from the search) - I guess the fact that it's even and smd and not a blob is lucky enough
I just bought a 36" wall-mounted faux fireplace that uses the exact same technique to create the flame effect. ( ~ $70 USD from the usual scumbags ) I was quite impressed with it for the money, but seeing that they have a very minimal bill of materials, low assembly labor, and likely some serious economy of scale going on, I am even more so. This thing is neat, and I enjoyed watching you take its little brother apart.
My parents had one back in the 60's and it worked by having three small turbines each set over a clearish orange light bulb on a point bearing and the turbines rotated due to the hot air rising past the hot bulbs. In that design it was the gaps between the turbine blades that allowed light to shine up onto a bed of translucent coals to achieve a similar, though not nearly as nice, effect.
It's amazing how effective some of the simple methods are. I often wondered what was inside one of these "fireplaces" but never had an opportunity to open one. Now.... To build a larger version for Halloween. Muh ha ha....
You can improve its fire simulation capabilities by connecting it to a few car batteries in series
Infinite Solutions approves your method.
That's not simulation, that's emulation (lol!).
Lol
More like realization.
🤣🤣🤣🤣made my day
Its amazing how convincing the effect is compared to how simple the mechanism is
Makes me happy that things are still made like this instead of being purely done in software :3
I double that, having seen modern software.
Anybody else want to see what happens when you combine two or three methods?
Plus, doing it using computers would cost a LOT MORE! 👎😂
Doing it in software would require an expensive screen. Well, expensive compared to this thing, anyway. This is probably just a few dollars' worth of parts. A screen and suitably-powerful processor to generate a fire effect in software would easily be ten times the cost.
@@Roxor128 well, you could use projections, maybe differently, but still could.
I'd be very tempted to cut out some letters in a bit of my own mylar to see of it's possible to sneak a rude word into the effect.
I think you've just given me a Christmas present idea!
The profaniflame.
🔥🅱️🔥🔥🔥🔥
🔥🔥🅾️🔥🔥🔥
🔥🔥🔥🅾️🔥🔥
🔥🔥🔥🔥🅱️🔥
0r a shape ;)
@@JaRobot Too bad Halloween is just past. Flame images of ghosties and ghoulies would be terrific!
Excellent idea
I'm always impressed with how real these fire boxes look.
@ツMoon Owner - Owner of the Moon Patreon.
@ツMoon Owner - Owner of the Moon Yup, Patreon. I consider it my Adblock tax. 😅
You should have a look at the Dimplex Opti-myst. Far better effect.
@Matt Quinn Yeah they aren't cheap, in most cases a bioethanol-powered real fireplace is probably cheaper. But these are permanent fixtures, and people do spend it large on these showcase products as they add more value to their real estate, when it's time to flip.
They've been using the same technique for at least 70 years. My mom had an old incandescent version from the 50s that functioned exactly the same way. I took it apart when I was a kid. And put it back together too. Otherwise, I wouldn't be here now telling you about it. The actual materials weren't the same of course, but the principles involved are the same. Except for one thing. That one actually had a 1400 watt radiant heater built into it.
And I have recently sold a “vintage Belling fire suit” on eBay that has the same flame effect as the one you have described - as the customer wanted a 50/60s themed interior to their recently bought house 🥰
I remember the one my grandparents had - a disc that rotated in the convection current caused by the incandescent orange bulbs. I found it mesmerising!
I've *always* wanted one of those. *watches the video*
I think I have a project.
This commentator knew what was good for them
The effect is truly well done. Lots of hackability in this, too! I could see playing around with this a long time to create different effects.
Colour changing LEDs would be a good way to start.
@@zh84 First thing that came to my mind was slowing the rotation, putting white LED's in, and cutting out ghosts for a Halloween effect.
@@Okurka. True, though you could take the filter out.
It's an OK effect for the price, but once you see it in person you'll find the effect to be just a plain 2D projection. Good fake fire effects use water vapour (e.g. Dimplex Opti-myst).
would self-flickering LEDs look cool to add to the dynamic mylar reflections I wonder?
only thing that seemed missed out was that the lights are also illuminating the ember'd logs. which flickering leds might make a little odd. now if you could get a few fading leds, possibly slightly differently tinted that might look rather nifty. pulsing would seem more natural than a flicker. although if you added about 4 flickering leds in there with a timer to fire them off one at a time in an alternating pattern vs a linear one, it could add to the effect . just my 2 cents on the idea.
This teardown is inspiring me to build a custom insert for my unused fireplace I can scale up the reflectors and use some led strips with WLED where I could have a mixture of fading and fire effect lights. I just need to buy some sheets of milar
I was wondering about trying to shove 2 sets of rotating mirrors in, so the speed difference stops you getting repeating patterns
@@nathanlucas6465 Just had a similar thought myself. Didn't see your comment in time!
I really should read more comments before posting my own. Just posted this myself.
Never taken a look at the innards of one of these before, remarkably simple yet clever method.
I feel like using flicker flame LEDs would be a logical mod here. The intensity changes coupled with the reflections could expand the effect nicely.
6:00 was the best and simplest description as to why quartz are relevant to computing clocks yet.
thank you
Neat. I bought an electric fireplace this year and my one complaint is that it's not bright enough. Good to know how it works so I may dare to modify it eventually.
+Looks like kinda slow motion footage.
Go for it, put bigger LEDs in, but I think they would have to be quite a focused sharp LED.
I just harvested some printer stepper motors & spindles, and hard-drive motors, time to upgrade my non-fire fire effects! I'd love to try making an led 'flame vortex' effect, - any ideas come to mind? I respect your mad science, been following since 'back in the day' you made brick splitting gauntlets with some hinges to focus the strike. It worked like a charm for a patio diy.
@@TheOrganicartist You know, you could unwrap a Flame Effect lamp (type Big Clive showed in another video) this way flames would be coming at the reflective material from all angles. How well this might work? Only one way to find out!
Good job on the teardown, as always, Clive. I like of these units so much that the gears wore down and got loud, so I spent the time to figure out how to drive it with a silent stepper motor system, so that it runs with no noise and will never have gear problems 😀🤓😂
Great Idea.
Wouldn't mind seeing an instructional video on that.
A £10 solution to a £2 problem 🤣... But so would I... They are great!
what type of engine is it? step motor? with which characteristics can I search for it?
Thanks. My 5th wheel RV (caravan) has a fireplace like this, but is larger and includes a 1200 watt electric heater. I've been dying to find out how the effect works but didn't want to tare it apart to find out.
Some older fireplace simulators had a single low wattage light bulb with a fan mounted on top of it that rotated by warm air rising from that bulb. It was as effective for its simplicity.
Ours had the heater fan that wouldn't turn and by the time I realized something wasn't right, the fireplace died right there and then. I had a quick look at it but just visually, without real tools other than just a screwdriver, I haven't seen any physically broken part . I really want to revive it cause it was the best bedroom ambiance while watching TV , just reading a book or, you know. ☺
I predict a future video where Clive makes his own supersize version of this :)
I used to have an old "Magicoal" heater that used something very similar but with two 'flame orange' incandescent lightbulbs and a small geared synchronous motor
o for the love of the wee man. yes! magicoal was the bees knees at one time, ae. i took one apart, like clive jus did. had great fun
We had one when I was small. I had forgot the name but as soon as I saw "Magicoal" I was a kid again for a few seconds.
Ah yes, the good old "Berry Magicoal" - I remember seeing the adverts on the telly, back in the 1960s, back in the days when brand names meant something.
My parents had something similar: a red bulb for the light and a vaned wheel to provide the effect. No motor; the wheel was entirely driven by the hot air rising from the bulb. Heat came from standard electric fire elements mounted either side of and below the fire effect.
@@Michael75579 Even old school gas fires (e.g. Flavel Welcome - installed in mum's house in the late 1980s, still manufactured and made today) had the twin bulb, vaned spinner and fibreglass fake coal below and in front of the radiants.
Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas... BigClive is now into the Christmas style electronics...
We had something like this back in the 70's. On a bigger scale, it was a 3 bar fire place with a light bulb and metal spinning disc for the flame effect. Only downside was the horrible fake polystyrene brick effect surround. As young children at the time, we would normally poke holes in the polystyrene bricks.
As you do.
@@oldbatwit5102 right? like the polystyrene drop ceiling panels in my grade school... every classroom you went into there were a bunch of pens and pencils that had been blasted into orbit by means of a flexible ruler... now they just hung there, ominously threatening to randomly let go and imbed themselves into your skull on their way back to earth =)
We had a much classier one... Spinny, shiny disc thing with a 60w lightbulb painted red + orange (definitely hand painted)
But the 'real log' effect fibreglass fakery at the front was absolute top notch... The sort of thing you would expect to find in a Rolls Royce foot well
Cheap and nasty can also be high class!
I had one of those also back in the 70's but instead of one bulb there were four 10 watt small color bulbs and a long spinning tube with what appear to be hairs of aluminum for the flame effect.
@@javiergt wow, that's really posh!
I've got a LED flame candle that has a timer function on it where it comes on for 6 hours and is off for 18 hours as well, chances are that it uses the same timing controller.
I can't trust my clumsy self around real candles so my led candle is perfect and it switches itself on and off too😁
Now I want to see DIY Perks do his version of an LED fireplace
He will start by doing a spectral analysis of a real fire and recreate the spectrum completely including the heat radiation. It will also be water cooled.
£12,000 later and he'll have an led fireplace you can make with just £40 and impossible DIY skills.
Fairs fair though I was impressed with the microphone.
@@3dlabs99 ...
Yes, and it would all be made out of 3mm Aluminium sheets.
Back in the 1960s my gran had an electric bar heater with this sort of effect. It worked using a red painted 60w light bulb and a metal disc above it. The heat from the bulb caused the disc to rotate thus producing the flickering effect.
Yes, that's what I was alluding to!
I have a similar unit about the same size that I run off a 5V PWM signal from an ESP board. As my heating power goes up the "fire" gets brighter and faster.
thats VERY cool. gotta try that too if i get one
Thanks for your videos Clive they are really helping me take my mind off pain while in hospital. Just wish I had not watched most of your back catalogue before I went in :/
Keep in mind there's the slightly rude BigCliveLive channel for marathon 3 hour streams.
Speedy recovery!
Yes. A veritable MARVEL of SIMPLICITY.
BUT-BUT (The Inevitable arse of Creative Afterthought): THE LOGS! Wouldn't convince an EYE-SHORN Beaver!
Coaly-like cubics of Plassticks! With light-emitting HOLES and variegated, colored bits-o-transparent FILIM! Maybe even real COAL! What with the UP-AND-COMING NO-COAL MANDATE on the Isles' Horizon, it might give a BOOST to the folks back home in NEWCASTLE.
I, myself, would be pleased as PUNCH to TRANSACT my collection of CLINKERS, acquired through FOUR DECADES of Christmas Stockings, HUNG by the fire. (Never saw no "Folks Dressed-up like ESQUIMOS", though. Potato sacks, YES. De Rigueur for keeping the fly-ash off yur COIF.)
I tender this EYE-DEE-UR
w/out desire for compensation, in the interest of better LIVIN' AN' JOY THRU SCIENCE!
BUT! TUT-TUT (Is HE the Ghist-o-Christmas Past, or what!?) I would NOT defer from donations of Single-Malt Spirits in recognition of my contribution. 'Tis the Season, mind you, to be JOLLY! AND engage the Gift imparted in GIVIN'.
💬*
🐧
*[WTF!? How'd I wind up in BRIGHTON!? Musta been BAAAD in Hell.🐑]
Get well soon 🤗
I wish you a speedy recovery Leah.
I saw one of these in a hotel lobby, but wired up backwards. The "flames" were going _down_. I filed it under "unclear on the concept".
The old motors had a part that made them turn one way only. With age they would go bad and it was a 50/50 chance as to what direction it would go when power was turned on. I used to remove the part and run them on a sound-to-light unit that turned the wheels in my disco projectors. The same could be done to one of these so the flames would move to music.
They bought the Australian version by mistake!
😁 - opps,
Reminds me of an old electric fire we had when I was a kid..it had red bulbs inside, and disc type things that balanced on top, the heat from the bulbs made the discs turn which created the smoke/flame effect on the panel at the back. Simple but effective.
The circuit polarity is because the chip output is probably an N-channel driver for a single LED candle. Driving the higher current of 3 LEDs and a motor thus needed an extra transistor with opposite polarity.
Is this a foreshadowing of BC doing a yule log video complete with christmas music to a sizzling 240V piece of spam?
Thank you for mentioning the use of a diode to drop the voltage from usb. I purchased one of these for my van over a year ago planning this conversion and hadn't thought to use one
In the old days, they had a version with ribbons and a fan that blew the ribbons around while back-lighting them.
Not as convincing as these.
Yeah, the ribbons were made of tinsel. 👍
@@TomAlter1000 I've got one in my home (here when I bought it, never used because it is so fricking loud!), the fan is a Cylindrical affair, exactly the same design (so likely the same model) as used in the heater above the not particularly convincing ribbons.
I got hypnotized by the flames at the end and now staring thru my monitor...can u pls fullwave rectify the situation !!
I got the fireplace version with is like a foot wide. It doesn't have any timer function that I know of. It just has a flat top to it. It didn't come with a DC jack, so I added one. I didn't want to burn through batteries or have them leak. The stem is just a wooden dowel, but it has the same Mylar and hot glue arrangement. I got it a couple of years ago. It takes like 4 batteries for 6 volts, but I actually run it on 5 volts. I thought it might make the LEDs last longer, and 5 volt power supplies are much easier to get.
Just recently I bought one like this but bigger and with a wall plug. I was wondering how the fake flames are made, now I know!
Mine has a small spiral type of heater inside, which is not very useful.
I love the warm light; the plastic logs even have a bit of glitter on to make it look like they’re glowing on the inside.
I also have it as a fan heater. It also crackles like a fire. I enjoy the effect and it makes my room very cozy
@@NyanyiC got a link to it please, sounds like just what I need now autumn's here.
Always wondered how these worked, thank you Clive
Tried to guess how these worked before. Imagined all sorts of complicated methods. It turns out to be so simple, I'm embarassed. Very clever and simple.
I kept flinching when you touched the 'hot' surface. It reminded me too much of the fire our caravan when I was a child - barely felt any heat from it until you'd accidentally touched the mica window.
Very impresive look. I think its got some good hacking bits too. I wounder if you warpper a cylinder round it and lit from both ends with colour-change LEDs.
There are some larger wall mounting versions with RGB LEDs.
@@bigclivedotcom So that would HAVE been a ggod idea. 🤣🤣Im just a bit slow.2x👍 Bet they look great too just going to see if I can get one now.
Thanks for including footage of the device at the end of the video! I was going to hit replay as soon as the video ended to behold the awesome effect once more, but you read my mind :)
I enjoyed the yule logs at the end. You'll have to put it back together and have it on hand for a Christmas Big Clive Live.
Perhaps modify it with an electric scent diffuser filled with liquid smoke?
You know it's good when Clive likes it.
Loved how Clive used cells from two different manufacturers at the start, I almost felt “triggered” there myself - great wind up.
That's how it came from the shop. I get the feeling it had been the display model.
I worked at a store that sold electric fireplaces, the really big ones with a heater. The same principle and mechanism though, as I learned when I fixed a couple of them. In the large version it's common for the reflector bar to have a pillow block with a bearing at the non-motor end. It also likes to rip free from the housing because they just rivet them in. Then your fireplace comes complete with a horrible grinding pinging noise.
amazing effect so simple & basic 10/10 for the makers
another great video by MASTER CLIVE! thanks for all you do and share with us here on the channel!
The end of the video would make me feel like I was having a white Christmas with Christmas music or just some instrumental music or even the sounds of having a fire in a fireplace on a at home date.
I always thought these devices had a hidden magical property to them. I would have never thought the concept behind the cover is so simple and effective.
Lol magic!
I sometimes hate that I'm the type of person that can see the pattern of the rotating mirrors and am thinking of ways to make it more random... possibly overcomplicating the design :P
Very fascinating to see a "real-life simulation?" of fire without burning anything.
Hi Big Clive! ....... Little Clive here! 👍😂
Can you do a video, reverse engineering Star Trek Voyager's Warp Core, as you say it works on the same principle? But be careful to ensure you don't cause an anti-matter containment breach! ....... Wouldn't want the Isle Of Man to be vapourised! 💥🔥😂
We have one of these but it's also a heater. Cool thing is it has multi colored flames and logs, both can be choose independently. Outputs a decent amount of heat too
You can improve the flame effect by slightly creasing each mylar reflector which makes the flames finer. I've done that with a full size one.
Just saw this thing at the store for the first time a few days ago. Was wondering how they achieved that, then saw this very video. Good timing!
I wonder how it would look with Red-Yellow colour changing LEDs...
Looking at the flame effect.. You know those prism glasses that give you all the colors of the rainbow? A couple of those lenses tacked in there (or pieces) might be... interesting.
Now that I know how it works, I can see the cylindrical rotation in the flame pattern in the video end-shot. That does not mean that I don't like it! I have several battery clocks with smooth-running 'second hands'. Toaster pastries come wrapped in flimsy Mylar. Let's hope the clock motor doesn't smoke.
Shows how little things have changed in some ways. In the 60s my Nan's new electric 4 bar fire came with a "coal effect" front with the usual ceramic/wire glowing bars and a crappy moulded plastic blocks of coal.
The magic happened when you switched on a small red bulb with a very thin tinplate fan on top. Eventually the heat from the bulb created enough heat to spin the blades and the glowing coals started to burn. Quite effective and with the lights off it did seem to make the room warmer. This one is better, but very similar in concept
As an 8 yr old I tore down and old electric fire with flame effect. The flames were produced by 3 shiny propellers powered by the rising heat from the elements.
What is the blue cased object on the left hand side at the 10:40 mark? A rechargeable soldering iron or a screwdriver? If it is a soldering iron could you do a review on it?
Soldering iron that uses a vape power supply.
@@bigclivedotcom Ooooohhh. Definitely needs a video.
EDIT: I was recently given a selfie stick for which I have no use. Now I think I might have an idea how to repurpose it.
Today I learned that "wake up timer ICs" are a specific type of ASIC, nearly all in TMSOP-8 packaging. They can be set in "pull up" or "one shot interrupt" mode. Ablic's S-35710 series even has internal 32kHz quartz.
What is missing? Two things. sparks and the popping sound that comes with them. As B.C. said I like it.
I have enjoyed B.C. for quite a few years probably every episode since day one. thankyou for the entertainment and education. 70yo and still want more. Keep it up Clive and I hope you have a very good Christmas and a happy new year. Don't get too wasted. I"m just getting in early.
Amazingly simple for such a great effect.
Berry "Magicoal" electric and gas "fires" used a similar effect in the 1960s-1970s, except the reflector (onto a backplate) was a non-uniformly bladed horizontal aluminium fan blade powered by just the convected heat from a red film coated non-frosted incandescent lamp of about 25-40 watts, which also illuminated the glass-fibre fake logs in front of the bulb and the flicker-fan. These were totally separate from the heating elements, which were usually situated above the coal or log - effect display. Unusually these bulbs had 3 bayonet pins IIRC.
I always wondered how those work. Thank you!
The end of this video reminds me of years gone by when there were only three or four TV stations and one of them would show the Yule Log burning all day on Christmas. (Tell me you're old without saying you're old.)
The heater ones typically use Mylar blown by the fan that inevitably blows over the heating elements. Thankfully those use replaceable bulbs instead of Non-replaceable LED strips.
Reminds me of those 3 bar electric fires with the clear orange lamp with the fan that rotated using the heat from the lamp...the fake logs were clear and it projected on to the back of the frame...3k flat out not exactly cheap to run but we were fiddling the meter!!!👉🧿👈👉🫂
Thinking I'll make one of those and try laser diodes and colour changing diodes. The laser diodes would give a nice point source, but the colour changing might be too diffused 🤔
I've seen the color changing ones in clear epoxy (not diffused). Great idea.
That’s actually flamin’ impressive
I remember making such a prop for a local small theatre group but it was a vertical cylinder with spiral cutouts covered with coloured lighting gel and with fins on top that rotated from the heat of a light bulb on the base; just like spinning Christmas angels with bells and candles. None of that fancy electronic stuff for me....didn't really exist back then.
Very smart engineering right there!
I did an "amateur" version of this decades ago. 4000-series CMOS, 4020s to divide it down and NANDs for the 1-of-4 (6hrs of 24hrs) and crystal oscillator. Bunch of orange Christmas-light bulbs for the "fire", and tinsel wrapped around a motor shaft for the effects. Looked good if you squinted your eyes just right. :D
Quite a pleasant flame effect. Is there anything else comparable?
Very engaging video. There's a connection with beauty and electronics.
Makes you feel cosy just looking at it, much better than the old flame effect fires! Simple and effective. I like it as well, not seen one that small, I will have to look for one. :-)) Seen it running in the background of your live videos, very effective :-)) 😎
Another great video 🙂
What is the kind of orange plastic used please ?
Is it a simple orange acrylic plate or is it grooved on one side?
I would like to make my own version 🙂
It seems to be a plain sheet of diffused orange plastic.
Yay! Finally something more fun than ozone machines. We happened to have a fake fireplace in our living room, built into a book case. Now I do not have to disassemble it to see how it works. Our last one used an incandescent bulb that kept burning out.
I don't know why it took me this long to realize that when Clive says "this is worth buying even just for the ______", he's coming from the perspective of someone who hashes together stage props and effects!
Many props start as other items.
It looks quite spacious inside, I wonder if you could cut off the back part to reduce the depth of the unit, that way it would look more walled in when mounted on a wall.
All bulk and not much else in these things to make a significant effect with so little electrical circuitry in it to work. In fact, Clive I would like the M4 file you created of the fire working at the end. I'd like to use it as a screen saver on my laptop. If that is okay by you. Then wherever I go it will bring me a nice warm fuzzy feeling these chilly winter nights.
I used to have a Fan Heater with this same effect. Looked like a real fire place in the corner.
It used the same mechanism with dim 240V globes
Got two of these last year in (coach lamp size) purely based on your ''review)
Some of the best tatt ive ever bought....
I like this effect so much, that is, LEDs and rotating Mylar. Something similar has been used in lots of Star Trek, in simulations of computers and warp cores. I'm really thinking of doing something for myself at home. If I put Mylar bits on a rotating shaft, so that they can move and swing individually, it would make for truly random reflections and not just repetition as it spins. Looks like that gear motor outputs about 12 rpm.
what type of engine is it? step motor? with which characteristics can I search for it?
Seems nice, and a good upgrade would be 3 star PCB's with 1W warm white LED's, and between them 2 warm white slow flash units, so that you get an irregular looking flame effect out. 1W chips should be run at a half watt, so they do not swamp the 5mm slow flash out totally.
You say it's not very efficient, but surely far more efficient than old ones that used a 60W red coloured bulb to make the same effect! The old ones didn't have a motor, they used the rising heat from the bulb to turn a windmill geared to the shaft with the metallic reflectors on it. So the effect would be stationary for the first few minutes then gradually start to turn.
Realistic until you you quickly realize it repeats itself but it's probably meant to be glanced at, not looked at while contemplating 42 like with a real fire. I do wonder how hard it would be to create a similar but not obviously repeating effect for a similar price.
Just replace the led units with slow flash led's, at least 6 of them, and you will get that as they slowly go out of sync.
@@SeanBZA Yep, like Clive's "supercompuer", just slower.
I reckon, gently morphing LEDs or even rotating LEDs or a multi-section lens could add a layer of complexity.
Very satisfying effect indeed.
Very cool, I've never seen one taken apart and I have wondered how they were built. I would have made the reflectors so they rotated somewhat with as random a pattern of gearing as possible, so the flames didn't repeat.
Cheers. I may put something like that in my computer case.
"Dude, your computer's on fire!"
"Yeah, it gets cold down here."
Awesome led fire simulator Big Clive
I assume the diode would be to drop 0.6V from the USB 5V?
Yes. I did it in the end.
I've watched these in store displays, and realized that, sure enough...eventually there was a repetition of flame pattern. Pretty clever though, quite a good effect for almost nothing.....now for the 'smoke' part of the 'Smoke and Mirrors'...?
Thank you for your videos ... I really am so intrigued as to how these things work. :)
This is very ingenious.
Simple but effective. I’d definitely modify it though, certainly the logs look so fake, I’d put Quartz or some shiny natural minerals in there. Nice vid!
I was gonna sleep but who needs sleep when there's a Clive teardown going on?
I could feel the heat from here. Very effective.
NIce very cleaver design, had no idea, i tought it was a video loop ore something...
couldn't fine anything about that chip, but many 8-pin MCUs have internal LC clocks, and/or have a different pinout (ON, Atmel, PICs, Holtek, etc, they all have similar layouts). However, many RTC ICs have a suspiciously close pinouts, like power on pin3, crystal between 1 and 2, and some extra stuff in pins 6, 7 and 8. So it's probably some dedicated chip. But everytime i try to search for something like that (even in many manufacturers catalogs) i only find the 555 (even trying to exclude it from the search) - I guess the fact that it's even and smd and not a blob is lucky enough
I just bought a 36" wall-mounted faux fireplace that uses the exact same technique to create the flame effect. ( ~ $70 USD from the usual scumbags )
I was quite impressed with it for the money, but seeing that they have a very minimal bill of materials, low assembly labor, and likely some serious economy of scale going on, I am even more so.
This thing is neat, and I enjoyed watching you take its little brother apart.
Just bought one for my old mum see love's it she doesn't care how it work's but I do - great timing 🔥
My parents had one back in the 60's and it worked by having three small turbines each set over a clearish orange light bulb on a point bearing and the turbines rotated due to the hot air rising past the hot bulbs. In that design it was the gaps between the turbine blades that allowed light to shine up onto a bed of translucent coals to achieve a similar, though not nearly as nice, effect.
It's amazing how effective some of the simple methods are. I often wondered what was inside one of these "fireplaces" but never had an opportunity to open one.
Now.... To build a larger version for Halloween. Muh ha ha....