Agreed! This is clever! I appreciate cheap design if a product is cheap. It's only unacceptable when advertised as high quality. The only problem I have is the "1080p Compatible" which is just a way for 1080p to grab the eyes when browsing specs
I was actually going to comment something a little bit similar, I was literally gonna say: "I guess there's two ways of looking at this product. Is it just cheap and nasty by using the most simplistic design and the cheapest materials possible, so as to grab as much money as possible from a poorer demographic of consumer? 🤔 OR... Has a company tasked an engineer to do their best effort in delivering a projector that is decent enough for the less-well-off consumer to be happy with the resulting picture clarity, by using the cheapest, least amount of materials to hand? 🤔 So yeah, two ways of looking at it! A cheap and nasty money grabber for poor people. OR... Is it a _good enough_ product, slaved over by a relatively low-paid in-house engineer, made as simplistic as possible for the poorer consumer to use and be happy with?"🤔 Am I making sense at all? 🤔 Because ultimately, the result is always the same whichever scenario!!! 😊😀🤔😉 (I threw in some bigg _ish_ words back there too, y'see?) 🤔 ✌🏼😀👍🏼 Wait a minute, did he just say that it's rebranded crap? 🤔 So, then it's the former suggestion, a cheap and nasty money grabber aimed at poor people?! 🤑💰💵💸😉
@@nickthelick I like the way you think man. I may be a bit cynical (ouu big word haha), but now you have me thinking this could be a case of an in-house engineer held hostage by a ridiculously strict bill of materials total cost
@@thenoisyelectron Yeah, well that's how some of these companies work. Y'know, sometimes delegating projects to their engineers. Not all companies but yeah, they do do that.
I got one of these off ebay back in 2015 and it also has the AV input but full 480 resolution and it was $40 shipped. I figured it was a stupid price and not worth it but the thing is pretty decent. My youngest daughter and I used to use it to play "drive-in" where I'd put it on the roof of my car in front of the open sunroof. Run the HDMI and power cables in through the sunroof to my head unit and power adaptor and project it on the side of the house. Sound coming from the car speakers made it much better. We had some great nights doing that. One of my other daughters took it with her to university and used it in a number of presentations in her chem and biology classes. I firmly believe I got my full $40 out of it.
"it's gunna be so DIM it's going to be a memory slot." That genuinely made me laugh out loud. That's the kind of humor I've followed you for 10 years for lol.
320*240 - means you can play DooM in native resolution! (at least in the width) There's lots of room for a single board computer in there, for things like a projection clock, general data displays, etc.
Your comment reminds me of when I saw those cheap projectors for sale and looked at used older projectors instead, but never actually bought one due to my focus shifting towards more important things, since my only real use for a projector in my bedroom would be to project Milanote (virtual pinboard) onto a small empty wall in my bedroom.
I got an 800 x 600 version quite similar to this for $49 at Walmart’s Black Friday sale on Thanksgiving evening in 2019. It looks almost identical on the inside, including the hot melt glue and the PC board and LED/heat sink. I projected a screen mirror of NI Multisim running on my notebook PC at 1024 x 768. I expected the little projector to scale the image by simply doing decimation, but the projector averaged and half toned adjacent pixels from the higher resolution source into 800 x 600. The projected Multisim schematic was very legible. For about fifty bucks, I was impressed.
I always wonder Menards looking at all the worryingly low priced "tech" and wondering, "I'm positive it's bad, but how bad". This is my favorite series on the channel because you've saved me literally dozens of dollars 😂
That's pretty neat for what it is, honestly. I wasn't expecting much, but they shouldn't be putting "1080P" anywhere on that thing in any context at all.
Literally *just* saw that at Menards the other day and thought, "Y'know, I would love to see Ben tear this thing apart" as I was buying lightbulbs. What great timing! edit: this is also the only madlad who I've heard of describing the smell of his overpriced projector
I’m having deja vu all over again after reading that comment! I was in Menards this past Wednesday to pick up two ceramic light sockets and saw a pile of these little projectors in the electronics section and wondered just how de-contented they might be. Now we know,
@@jeremys6387 I mean. Just because they cost something doesn’t make the product worth anything. Sure, if you need a 240p projector with zero brightness, this is a totally neat product. If you don’t need such a low res projector with this small a lamp, it’s worthless. And almost everyone doesn’t need it.
This would make a great toy for a pre-teen kid. When I was a kid I had a projector with about a 10 Watt bulb that could show dim images from one side of the stereo pair of Sawyer’s Viewmaster discs. Adjusted for inflation, that 1960s Sawyer probably cost more this RCA projector. The RCA is way cooler - could actually play video games or watch movies with it.
I remember ordering theses from Aliexpress for around this price point back in 2016 Same quality, but with the 3.5mm to RCA & SD slots (They work decently enough) We brought it with us on a trip cause it needs low power, and the hotel we were staying at didn't accept HDMI signal from any of our other devices. But the most useful thing was when we first moved in, and slept on an inflatable mattress, we plugged our Nintendo 64 into the RCA jack of this thing and it was fun. Basically I've used it twice in 5 years, but every now and then it's useful and it's more rugged than a monitor, I've even used it to troubleshoot a Pi when I didn't have an extra monitor, but text was literally unreadable.
I don't get why on the UA-cam Chinesium teardowns everyone sniggers and laughs? Why aren't we giving props to our Aisian brother designers who manage to eliminate components down to the barest of minimal for the device to function AND be sold at the minimum price? I think there is immence skill here that we always just seem to laugh at in the West. Leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Looks like the holiday projector I got on clearance that displayed Halloween christmas clips.
3 роки тому+1
In general, the word ensure is defined as the act of making sure something happens, while insure is the act of providing payment in the event of an accident. Insure is rarely used in place of ensure for formal writing, and it is best only to use insure while discussing insurance-related topics, such as insurance policies or insurance companies.
"This thing is gonna be so dim, it's gonna be SODIMM its gonna be a memory slot..." You got me good on that one...it was a slow burn, but first I chuckled, then I laughed then I couldn't stop laughing. Thank you.
I picked up one of these at Walmart, but it is 480p. I just needed something to put in the front room for cheap. Now it’s my favorite place to watch anime. It’s super cheaply built but works for what I wanted. Now I can save up for a nice projector and ceiling mount.
I would be impressed by the accomplishment of being able to bring that to market at that price point. It’s a poor engineer who mocks others designs without considering the products design parameters and budget.
I think this is aimed at kids. As a stupid child in 1989 I desperately wanted a video projector, but they cost like $10,000 and took two people to lift back then. I would have killed for something like this.
I have the same projector, but bought it on clearance for 10 bucks a couple years ago, and I've used it with my sheer curtains at my shop to project slimer on them for Halloween. It's not the best, but at the same time it's not the worst. When the power goes out since I can run it off of a USB pack, it's a fun little thing for me and my daughter to do to watch movies.
"Ben, you could take some portable console and turn it into a projector-version, using original lcd without backlight. It would literally project pixel-perfect image! Just imagen Game & Project, or ProjectorBoy!!" ...i was typing as he turned on Dremel and destroyed poor thing for good.
I had one of these (similar specs but with A/V inputs and SD card slot) that I used outside of my shop to advertise at night. It was way cheaper than a LED or LCD panel and I had anyway a free white wall on a side on which I could project the video. It lasted almost a year and half until the LED gave up.
Just for the info -- the USB port provides enough current to power a Roku Stick with no problems. The problem comes when you turn the unit off -- it still sends power to the USB port, to anything you have plugged into it is being powered as long the projector is plugged in.
I bought the 80 dollar version that supports up to 1080i, not a bad little projector for running it at 1080p with a max 150 inch display. The tiny stereo speakers are less than subpar but for what I paid for it, it's not something I'll complain about. It does its job as a widescreen projector!
I did the exact same thing with shoes! Just put on the pair I stashed aside the other day. I also love New Balance since they come in the wider sizes and are super comfortable.
I'd almost consider something like this for viewing DVDs projected on to my bedroom ceiling since the low resolution is irrelevant to me when I'm not wearing my glasses anyway. Normally, if I'm watching DVDs in my bedroom, I just watch them on this Macbook Pro which is old enough that it still has an optical drive but the idea of being able to watch DVDs in fuzzy vision lying flat on my back has a certain appeal.
for almost $34 dollars not a bad little projector. Good for kids to play on with there phones when playing games in there room. And not having to give them a $200 plus dollar projector. Plus the upside the parts on it is pretty good. got led in it and a screen plus a fan makes up for the low resolution of the screen.
Hey, my projector downstairs runs at 90 inches! I mean that's not it's absolute maximum size, but with the wall size and throw distance I had available that's about the best I could do. It also happens to be a Sony VPH-1272Q CRT projector and will natively project 720p or 1080i quite handily.
I've come across cheap action cameras that have 4K written in big text on them and appearing everywhere in the product listing - it turns out this is the "model name" and they actually appear to have 720p sensors or smaller (they actually seem to make acceptable, if wide angle and a bit rolling shutter prone webcams).
The SD card area, and AV input are probably for an upgraded model. We couldn't use bluetooth heads sets with one of our Samsung tv's. I googled it, and found you can set it up by going into the technician settings. However, if you don't have the SD card holder than you can't change the settings unless you add one.
Lol. I picked up 9 projectors from my schools surplus store the other day for at max $30 a pop lol. Got a funky little infocus LP120 DLP with 120~ hours clocked on it for a whole $3!
(2:23) A 'CO-FAN' ceiling fan installed in my aunt's flat came with a remote that used the exact same shell, and I knew it was originally intended to be used with some kind of media player! The power and mute keys were instead fan off and light power, the direction pad was the speed control (up, left, down, right, and enter were speeds 1-5 respectively), 'source' was motor reverse, and lastly, menu, back, volume down, and volume up were the 1, 2, 4, and 8 hour off timers respectively! I have a photo of the remote that I could send you if you want. There, that shell of that projector remote was probably what that off-brand 'CO-FAN' company used for their fan remote! (14:40) That screen reminds me of one that I'd find on an off-brand video camera from the early 2010s, like one I had back in 2011!
Yup I’ve still got like 10 of them sitting on my shelves. Let me know if your are looking for anything to review that you can’t find at Menards I can help you out. I work in the electric department
I saw that at Menards last week. There was another one there that had higher resolution and more light but still not much. I saw that other one first. When I got to this one and it was 240p and 15 lumens I got my best laugh of the day.
Not gonna lie, seeing you mess around with this kinda makes me wonder: Could you use the lenses from this and something like a RasPi to make your own projector? Maybe with a salvaged LCD screen out of a cell phone or other small device, to get something like a 720+ resolution output?
@@BenHeckHacks Neat! Still seems like a neat project then. After all, why hook a console up TO your projector when you could just have it built into the thing?
I bought a variant of this 2 years ago at ALDI sold as a house brand _holiday projector_ . SD reader was populated, HDMI socket _not_ . Was supposed to have a few Halloween videos built in, but no videos present. SD slot isn't accessible from outside the case, so I took it apart to find the card not just blank but completely DOA. A new SD card added significantly to the cost, but it did work with "Jack-o-lantern Jamboree" I bought on the interwebs and rescaled down from DVD resolution. Projected on three plastic pumpkins from a few feet away, it looks fairly good. Trick-or-treaters actually stopped to watch the pumpkins sing and tell jokes. I later found that it had been marketed a few years before at Wal*Mart as a "Mr. Christmas" brand projector with preloaded videos for that holiday. BTW, the ALDI version has a crappy card-style remote, but _does_ include a bendy legs tripod . . . all in that same pressboard box. I have not tried attaching an hdmi socket . . . HDMI options does show in the menu, so might possibly work.
We use two of those (well, very slightly upgraded version) to back project some halloween animations (eyeball above door, scary ghosts in upstairs window), works good enough at night.
I was in Menards last weekend and saw this. It reminded me of a $50 version that I bought from Walmart a few years back. I ended up returning that projector because it really needed a dark room and at 90/100 inches, you can see every pixel.
7:22 I was thinking the same thing, maybe even like the Disney World's Frozen ride's animatronics that have rear projected faces! (or is it front projected?)
I love how you describe the smell of so many things you pull apart, thanks lol Also if you keep remembering the price this isn't all that bad, obviously its too low of a resolution for most use cases, and they cut costs everywhere in the build quality lol, but counter point, a half decent projector still costs a few hundred bucks where i live, you could perhaps even use this as a base for a diy projector of some sorts. And definably cheap enough for projecting halloween / christmas stuff on your house without worrying to much if the thing breaks or gets taken. Thanks for the teardown :D
Just saw this model at my Menards yesterday. They also had 1 copy of an upgraded version for 10$ more that claimed 480p. Good to see this one from the inside out.
@@BenHeckHacks May be the same one I saw. Package docs were confusing, saying 480p one place and 800x600 at another spot. The normal price could have been $79, the store I went to had 1 copy on sale for $43-44.
the perfect use case for this is you are flying into a meeting and need to present a powerpoint presentation you run to the store and grab this for $34
@@BenHeckHacks can't go wrong with high life, and I like Lake Louie beers as well. Im in NW Indiana, and don't make it up there but a couple times a year. There are some awesome breweries up your way.
holiday projector or for Windows that's what this thing is made for. also overdriving the snot out of the LED. these things are great because you can put them outside and you don't really care about them all that much if they work after the holidays
I paid $43 for a similar thing but with 1000 lumens (claimed) and an 800x480 native resolution. Used it paired with a sheet on my wall for a cheap but functional setup. And it does have composite input.
I have a few of these, although I only paid the equivalent of $20 for them.. to project 'decorations' on the house for Halloween and Christmas.. On when it's dark out, cheap enough that weather damage or being stolen is largely irrelevant
It was $34. it worked. I don't get the hate. Could *you* make a better one at that price? I'm actually impressed at how much functionality they got out of so little money.
That what I was thinking, you can find a better projector LCD that same size for under $50 off of places like aliexpress. However I don't know if the firmware would accept a LCD with a larger resolution.
I've got a Unic LCD projector with a 5 inch panel in it. Seriously thinking of getting a 1440p 5" with driver board and modding it work. Add in a simple LED driver for the light and a power switch and it'll be good to go
Just as you said Haunted Mansion, I was also thinking it might be usable in a Pepper's Ghost diorama or something like that. The pixelization might be cool for MAME games too... Pac-Man is like 224x288, which this would actually be enough for. Honestly, I'm impressed how few components it takes to make an LCD projector. But to make a GOOD one is a different matter... lol
Actually that's a usable gadget for small/home office. Can be useful for some KVM scenarios for server/service status monitoring. Like a whole wall of these. For that price sounds fine if it can be seen without having to be pitch black. The low resolution would not be a problem, but digital input might be in such scenario. A VGA to HDMI convertor would be more expensive then this gadget. Another use I can think of is cheepo peephole home solution with the analog input and paired with a camera.
What about building this into a historic CRT TV to project a picture on the original glass screen? 240P is be still low for that and the moiré effect would be bad.
That projector is monstrous compared to my Kodak RODPJS75. I bought this tiny 75 Lumen projected for a trip I took to the Philippines some could watch movies. I projected onto the bare wall (light green unfortunately), but it seemed to work great. I did look at the RCA you have in this review, but was scared away by the 15 lumens as well. I believe newer versions of mine come in At 450 lumens around the physical same size and native 1080p. I may need to upgrade.
I bought a VGA one about 8 years ago for slightly more money. It's quite useful and has a lot of inputs, but no USB or SD. 50W. It's nice to fire up some retro consoles since it has both composite and RGB.
I wouldn't be a at all surprised if the control board uses a generic chip like the ones on those LCD screen driver/control boards you can buy at your preferred online Chinese electronics website. If it is one of those chip, you can probably find different firmware to flash it with that can enable analog video input and SD card reading. It would make sense for them to use a readily available, mass produced part that can just be flashed with different firmware depending on what inputs you want to populate and what display you use. Or not, as the case may be.
if they could have sold something like this 30 years ago for this price it would have been epic. (obviously minus the USB / HDMI and replace with composite video)
My computer lab in about 1999 had a digital projector when they were very new. It cost thousands of dollars and had a quality similar to this as far as resolution goes.
22:10 Found a similar model at Goodwill a few years that, in addition, has VGA and AV (via 3.5mm jack) for under $5 that I hooked an old Golden Tee plug n play (also sub $5 Goodwill grab) to.. every time a friend brings up the pixelation/low resolution, I think of how it wouldn't be a bad option hooking an NES up to it! Plan is a multi-input portable emulation box in the form factor of a tabletop arcade controller, but with an embedded display via the projector. And as a nod to the 2600, (and to save on weight) I'll be using old wood paneling for the sidewalls.
Don't anyone forget, another part of this story is RCA's name on this thing, another great brand name of a defunct company who's IP is owned by another company that just sells the name to the highest bidder who wants to slap that name on something to sell.
Many, many years ago I got an almost identical but unbranded one of these as a gift. Mine did indeed have composite AV input, so I think yours is either missing a component or two for cost savings, and/or has the input disabled in software.
How do you make a projector that weak for that cheap at that size? Is it just like an LCD/OLED with a plastic lens pointed at it? That's better than I thought. I expected a normal backlight stack instead of a high power LED and a transparent stack in the middle. Also the lens had at least one more group to it (the fresnel) than I expected.
Higher end versions of this do have that RCA plug and up to 720p resolution. Should look into one of those for $15 more Ben. It pales in comparison to my 4k projector, but for the money? It's an ok piece of equipment. Case looks similar to your teardown one btw & the one I got has Bluetooth and came with a case.
@@BenHeckHacks Mine was the $200 Walmart special, "Vankyo" brand but w/ true native 1080p and about 330 lumens, so it's decent enough to use as a primary media projector. I just noticed the flipping modes in the menu too and have been thinking of how to creatively use that. The fan is loud though, I'd like to replace it but it's one of those ducted fans and most of the noise isn't from the fan itself but the turbulence of the duct.
I have a better version of this, walmart purchase. RCA, looks the same but it's a white casing and remote. it's 800x480 native resolution panel, and has av in, hdmi, the usb port and a SD slot. seems to have more options too, can be used for rear projection as well as 16:9 in 720p.
These cheap projectors are great for effects and lighting for props. I have one behind my monitors pointed at the roof. Use a USB-HDMI and play milk drop visualizations on it. Makes for a cool visual effect.
You laugh at this till you realize that with a small 12 battery you can run this in a blackout situation and or take it camping for a low profile entertainment setup with cheap self-powered speakers. This thing rocks in a pinch.
I think for the given low budget for the material bill the designers of this projector have done a pretty good job 👨🏼🔧
Agreed! This is clever! I appreciate cheap design if a product is cheap. It's only unacceptable when advertised as high quality. The only problem I have is the "1080p Compatible" which is just a way for 1080p to grab the eyes when browsing specs
I was actually going to comment something a little bit similar, I was literally gonna say:
"I guess there's two ways of looking at this product. Is it just cheap and nasty by using the most simplistic design and the cheapest materials possible, so as to grab as much money as possible from a poorer demographic of consumer? 🤔
OR...
Has a company tasked an engineer to do their best effort in delivering a projector that is decent enough for the less-well-off consumer to be happy with the resulting picture clarity, by using the cheapest, least amount of materials to hand? 🤔
So yeah, two ways of looking at it! A cheap and nasty money grabber for poor people.
OR...
Is it a _good enough_ product, slaved over by a relatively low-paid in-house engineer, made as simplistic as possible for the poorer consumer to use and be happy with?"🤔
Am I making sense at all? 🤔
Because ultimately, the result is always the same whichever scenario!!! 😊😀🤔😉
(I threw in some bigg _ish_ words back there too, y'see?) 🤔 ✌🏼😀👍🏼
Wait a minute, did he just say that it's rebranded crap? 🤔
So, then it's the former suggestion, a cheap and nasty money grabber aimed at poor people?! 🤑💰💵💸😉
@@nickthelick I like the way you think man. I may be a bit cynical (ouu big word haha), but now you have me thinking this could be a case of an in-house engineer held hostage by a ridiculously strict bill of materials total cost
Its just E-WASTE, good video from Ben Heck but as far as the designers and manufacturers, its just more shit to fill the landfill.
@@thenoisyelectron Yeah, well that's how some of these companies work. Y'know, sometimes
delegating projects to their engineers. Not all companies but yeah, they do do that.
I got one of these off ebay back in 2015 and it also has the AV input but full 480 resolution and it was $40 shipped. I figured it was a stupid price and not worth it but the thing is pretty decent. My youngest daughter and I used to use it to play "drive-in" where I'd put it on the roof of my car in front of the open sunroof. Run the HDMI and power cables in through the sunroof to my head unit and power adaptor and project it on the side of the house. Sound coming from the car speakers made it much better. We had some great nights doing that. One of my other daughters took it with her to university and used it in a number of presentations in her chem and biology classes. I firmly believe I got my full $40 out of it.
Yup. AV and 480p and it would be SO much more useful.
Awwwww :D
@@BenHeckHacks It's useful for retro gaming .
Dude you got 40$ of awesome memories, you made out big time.
You sound like a kick-ass dad...good job 👍👍
"it's gunna be so DIM it's going to be a memory slot."
That genuinely made me laugh out loud. That's the kind of humor I've followed you for 10 years for lol.
I was thinking SODIMM (laptop RAM stick) before he even said it haha
320*240 - means you can play DooM in native resolution! (at least in the width)
There's lots of room for a single board computer in there, for things like a projection clock, general data displays, etc.
This makes my $20 second hand projector look like a beast. 1024x768, eye searing brightness and a low enough latency for SNES games.
Your comment reminds me of when I saw those cheap projectors for sale and looked at used older projectors instead, but never actually bought one due to my focus shifting towards more important things, since my only real use for a projector in my bedroom would be to project Milanote (virtual pinboard) onto a small empty wall in my bedroom.
and pretty capable for Laserdisc and DVD projection too :O
Brookstone had some $15 pocket projectors a few years back. Modded to turn the brightness way down, they're great for a bedroom clock project.
That was the best smallest projector that we could buy. Wish someone would make a updated version with double the resolution...
I got an 800 x 600 version quite similar to this for $49 at Walmart’s Black Friday sale on Thanksgiving evening in 2019. It looks almost identical on the inside, including the hot melt glue and the PC board and LED/heat sink. I projected a screen mirror of NI Multisim running on my notebook PC at 1024 x 768. I expected the little projector to scale the image by simply doing decimation, but the projector averaged and half toned adjacent pixels from the higher resolution source into 800 x 600. The projected Multisim schematic was very legible. For about fifty bucks, I was impressed.
I always wonder Menards looking at all the worryingly low priced "tech" and wondering, "I'm positive it's bad, but how bad". This is my favorite series on the channel because you've saved me literally dozens of dollars 😂
3 whole dozens with one video.
@@SimonJ57 Indeed!
Do you also wander?
@@CrawfordMethod Awe dang. I'd make some excuses like auto correct or just learning English a couple weeks ago, but I just plane suck at spelling 😉
Dozens!
That's pretty neat for what it is, honestly. I wasn't expecting much, but they shouldn't be putting "1080P" anywhere on that thing in any context at all.
costs 1080pence
Well, if you put a video in at 1080p, it will play it (kind of says that on box) but, the most it can output is 240..
Literally *just* saw that at Menards the other day and thought, "Y'know, I would love to see Ben tear this thing apart" as I was buying lightbulbs. What great timing!
edit: this is also the only madlad who I've heard of describing the smell of his overpriced projector
I’m having deja vu all over again after reading that comment! I was in Menards this past Wednesday to pick up two ceramic light sockets and saw a pile of these little projectors in the electronics section and wondered just how de-contented they might be. Now we know,
Oh don't worry! I went and bought the $82 one. Video incoming!
You might be laughing at it, but it's actually a very decent product for the price. Optics are not cheap so I'm actually very impressed
Absolutely
@@jeremys6387 I mean. Just because they cost something doesn’t make the product worth anything. Sure, if you need a 240p projector with zero brightness, this is a totally neat product. If you don’t need such a low res projector with this small a lamp, it’s worthless. And almost everyone doesn’t need it.
This would make a great toy for a pre-teen kid. When I was a kid I had a projector with about a 10 Watt bulb that could show dim images from one side of the stereo pair of Sawyer’s Viewmaster discs. Adjusted for inflation, that 1960s Sawyer probably cost more this RCA projector. The RCA is way cooler - could actually play video games or watch movies with it.
I'm impressed that they aren't lying about the brightness. Usually it's out by an order of magnitude on this sort of tat.
Definitely 😂
I remember ordering theses from Aliexpress for around this price point back in 2016
Same quality, but with the 3.5mm to RCA & SD slots (They work decently enough)
We brought it with us on a trip cause it needs low power, and the hotel we were staying at didn't accept HDMI signal from any of our other devices.
But the most useful thing was when we first moved in, and slept on an inflatable mattress, we plugged our Nintendo 64 into the RCA jack of this thing and it was fun.
Basically I've used it twice in 5 years, but every now and then it's useful and it's more rugged than a monitor, I've even used it to troubleshoot a Pi when I didn't have an extra monitor, but text was literally unreadable.
well if they put the rca brand on the box, they have to take something out to keep the price low.
I don't get why on the UA-cam Chinesium teardowns everyone sniggers and laughs? Why aren't we giving props to our Aisian brother designers who manage to eliminate components down to the barest of minimal for the device to function AND be sold at the minimum price? I think there is immence skill here that we always just seem to laugh at in the West. Leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Because they are mostly garbage and break easily? Just a hunch
Looks like the holiday projector I got on clearance that displayed Halloween christmas clips.
In general, the word ensure is defined as the act of making sure something happens, while insure is the act of providing payment in the event of an accident. Insure is rarely used in place of ensure for formal writing, and it is best only to use insure while discussing insurance-related topics, such as insurance policies or insurance companies.
"This thing is gonna be so dim, it's gonna be SODIMM its gonna be a memory slot..." You got me good on that one...it was a slow burn, but first I chuckled, then I laughed then I couldn't stop laughing. Thank you.
I picked up one of these at Walmart, but it is 480p. I just needed something to put in the front room for cheap. Now it’s my favorite place to watch anime. It’s super cheaply built but works for what I wanted.
Now I can save up for a nice projector and ceiling mount.
Your videos are discovery channel worthy! I lean how suff works plus a good laugh. Thanks for the effort you put in these videos, always fun to watch!
I would be impressed by the accomplishment of being able to bring that to market at that price point. It’s a poor engineer who mocks others designs without considering the products design parameters and budget.
Ben, thanks for continuing to make videos since closing up shop on TBHS. I know I would have missed your videos, sensibilities and humor.
I think this is aimed at kids. As a stupid child in 1989 I desperately wanted a video projector, but they cost like $10,000 and took two people to lift back then. I would have killed for something like this.
The last time I was this early for new Ben content, Ben had to sneak into a workshop to have access to a CNC machine.
I have the same projector, but bought it on clearance for 10 bucks a couple years ago, and I've used it with my sheer curtains at my shop to project slimer on them for Halloween. It's not the best, but at the same time it's not the worst. When the power goes out since I can run it off of a USB pack, it's a fun little thing for me and my daughter to do to watch movies.
They can’t keep getting away with this. But I hope they do. More Menard’s content better.
This would be good for a gif art installation or something.
"Ben, you could take some portable console and turn it into a projector-version, using original lcd without backlight. It would literally project pixel-perfect image! Just imagen Game & Project, or ProjectorBoy!!" ...i was typing as he turned on Dremel and destroyed poor thing for good.
It crossed my mind but I'd have to use an LCD as small or smaller, and the one inside wasn't very big.
I had one of these (similar specs but with A/V inputs and SD card slot) that I used outside of my shop to advertise at night. It was way cheaper than a LED or LCD panel and I had anyway a free white wall on a side on which I could project the video. It lasted almost a year and half until the LED gave up.
“It smells like a shoe store”. The perfect quote from a 34 dollar projector review!
Just for the info -- the USB port provides enough current to power a Roku Stick with no problems. The problem comes when you turn the unit off -- it still sends power to the USB port, to anything you have plugged into it is being powered as long the projector is plugged in.
I bought the 80 dollar version that supports up to 1080i, not a bad little projector for running it at 1080p with a max 150 inch display. The tiny stereo speakers are less than subpar but for what I paid for it, it's not something I'll complain about. It does its job as a widescreen projector!
I did the exact same thing with shoes! Just put on the pair I stashed aside the other day. I also love New Balance since they come in the wider sizes and are super comfortable.
I'd almost consider something like this for viewing DVDs projected on to my bedroom ceiling since the low resolution is irrelevant to me when I'm not wearing my glasses anyway. Normally, if I'm watching DVDs in my bedroom, I just watch them on this Macbook Pro which is old enough that it still has an optical drive but the idea of being able to watch DVDs in fuzzy vision lying flat on my back has a certain appeal.
It legitimately does actually, best real world use for it! I'm blind without my contact and would be great like you said! May have to get one lol
for almost $34 dollars not a bad little projector. Good for kids to play on with there phones when playing games in there room. And not having to give them a $200 plus dollar projector. Plus the upside the parts on it is pretty good. got led in it and a screen plus a fan makes up for the low resolution of the screen.
21:00 on the trrs jack is it possible it's detecting plug insertion through a make-on-tip switch?
Hey, my projector downstairs runs at 90 inches! I mean that's not it's absolute maximum size, but with the wall size and throw distance I had available that's about the best I could do.
It also happens to be a Sony VPH-1272Q CRT projector and will natively project 720p or 1080i quite handily.
“Active Matrix” “1993” and no Hackers reference! God dammit Ben. Cereal Killer has left the chat…….
The Fact they make the letters 1080P big and prominent over the 280p is SOOOOOOO silimy!
Unfortunately very common among cheaper projectors :(
The price is a dead giveaway. You can't seriously expect genuine 1080p at anything less than 10 times the price.
I've come across cheap action cameras that have 4K written in big text on them and appearing everywhere in the product listing - it turns out this is the "model name" and they actually appear to have 720p sensors or smaller (they actually seem to make acceptable, if wide angle and a bit rolling shutter prone webcams).
God I love the Menards videos.
The SD card area, and AV input are probably for an upgraded model. We couldn't use bluetooth heads sets with one of our Samsung tv's. I googled it, and found you can set it up by going into the technician settings. However, if you don't have the SD card holder than you can't change the settings unless you add one.
Lol. I picked up 9 projectors from my schools surplus store the other day for at max $30 a pop lol. Got a funky little infocus LP120 DLP with 120~ hours clocked on it for a whole $3!
Somehow, Ben, your videos keep me sane during these plague years.
(2:23) A 'CO-FAN' ceiling fan installed in my aunt's flat came with a remote that used the exact same shell, and I knew it was originally intended to be used with some kind of media player! The power and mute keys were instead fan off and light power, the direction pad was the speed control (up, left, down, right, and enter were speeds 1-5 respectively), 'source' was motor reverse, and lastly, menu, back, volume down, and volume up were the 1, 2, 4, and 8 hour off timers respectively! I have a photo of the remote that I could send you if you want. There, that shell of that projector remote was probably what that off-brand 'CO-FAN' company used for their fan remote!
(14:40) That screen reminds me of one that I'd find on an off-brand video camera from the early 2010s, like one I had back in 2011!
Yup I’ve still got like 10 of them sitting on my shelves. Let me know if your are looking for anything to review that you can’t find at Menards I can help you out. I work in the electric department
320x240 was all we had until our 20's. It might make a good animated picture frame or a starfield projector.
What we all really need is for you to watch your films and give us commentary along the way. Who else is with me on this???
BEN! I didn't know you started your own channel. I just assumed you wanted to escape the public eye. Glad to see you again.
I saw that at Menards last week. There was another one there that had higher resolution and more light but still not much. I saw that other one first. When I got to this one and it was 240p and 15 lumens I got my best laugh of the day.
Not gonna lie, seeing you mess around with this kinda makes me wonder:
Could you use the lenses from this and something like a RasPi to make your own projector? Maybe with a salvaged LCD screen out of a cell phone or other small device, to get something like a 720+ resolution output?
People used to do that back when 2nd LCD panels became affordable. You'd make a box with lenses and put the old panel in to create an image.
@@BenHeckHacks Neat! Still seems like a neat project then. After all, why hook a console up TO your projector when you could just have it built into the thing?
@@guerillagrueplays6301 The LCD inside this was fairly small. Maybe 2"? You'd have to find a new better screen that fit that size.
@@BenHeckHacks replacement LCD screens for older resin 3D printers might work. They are just repurposed colour LCDs. They cost maybe $40
SO-DIMM joke really got me
That was so dimm it was a memory slot... Nice one dad
“The heat sink looks like something they’d make on Linus tech tips” hahaha, shots fired
I bought a variant of this 2 years ago at ALDI sold as a house brand _holiday projector_ . SD reader was populated, HDMI socket _not_ . Was supposed to have a few Halloween videos built in, but no videos present. SD slot isn't accessible from outside the case, so I took it apart to find the card not just blank but completely DOA. A new SD card added significantly to the cost, but it did work with "Jack-o-lantern Jamboree" I bought on the interwebs and rescaled down from DVD resolution. Projected on three plastic pumpkins from a few feet away, it looks fairly good. Trick-or-treaters actually stopped to watch the pumpkins sing and tell jokes. I later found that it had been marketed a few years before at Wal*Mart as a "Mr. Christmas" brand projector with preloaded videos for that holiday. BTW, the ALDI version has a crappy card-style remote, but _does_ include a bendy legs tripod . . . all in that same pressboard box. I have not tried attaching an hdmi socket . . . HDMI options does show in the menu, so might possibly work.
We use two of those (well, very slightly upgraded version) to back project some halloween animations (eyeball above door, scary ghosts in upstairs window), works good enough at night.
I was in Menards last weekend and saw this. It reminded me of a $50 version that I bought from Walmart a few years back. I ended up returning that projector because it really needed a dark room and at 90/100 inches, you can see every pixel.
7:22 I was thinking the same thing, maybe even like the Disney World's Frozen ride's animatronics that have rear projected faces! (or is it front projected?)
I love how you describe the smell of so many things you pull apart, thanks lol
Also if you keep remembering the price this isn't all that bad, obviously its too low of a resolution for most use cases, and they cut costs everywhere in the build quality lol, but counter point, a half decent projector still costs a few hundred bucks where i live, you could perhaps even use this as a base for a diy projector of some sorts. And definably cheap enough for projecting halloween / christmas stuff on your house without worrying to much if the thing breaks or gets taken.
Thanks for the teardown :D
“That’s what she said!” I got you, Ben!
Just saw this model at my Menards yesterday. They also had 1 copy of an upgraded version for 10$ more that claimed 480p. Good to see this one from the inside out.
There's a "Bluetooth Projector" at a whopping 800p for like $79
@@BenHeckHacks May be the same one I saw. Package docs were confusing, saying 480p one place and 800x600 at another spot. The normal price could have been $79, the store I went to had 1 copy on sale for $43-44.
240P native resolution lol! Does it properly handle 240P signals? I'd be surprised
I love these cheap Menards videos. Cheap amazing content in my eyes
That thing would be awesome for playing NES, thats the exact right resolution… if it had analog inputs
the perfect use case for this is you are flying into a meeting and need to present a powerpoint presentation you run to the store and grab this for $34
"Do you know how much beer I could buy with that?" Yes Ben, but not even a case, because you drink Spotted Cow. One of my favorites!
Rubbish. A case of Cow is like $27. Though lately I've been vacillating between High Life and Warped Speed.
@@BenHeckHacks can't go wrong with high life, and I like Lake Louie beers as well. Im in NW Indiana, and don't make it up there but a couple times a year. There are some awesome breweries up your way.
I remember always wanting to build my own projector in middle school.
holiday projector or for Windows that's what this thing is made for.
also overdriving the snot out of the LED.
these things are great because you can put them outside and you don't really care about them all that much if they work after the holidays
I paid $43 for a similar thing but with 1000 lumens (claimed) and an 800x480 native resolution. Used it paired with a sheet on my wall for a cheap but functional setup. And it does have composite input.
The 12V power input is interesting. I can think of a few times when powering it from a battery or a car power socket could be useful.
Car power is way too dirty for something like this. But a battery or a power bank with 12V output would definitely work.
love looking at super low cost engineering and hey at least you got an interesting video out of your 30 bucks.
Same thing at Walmart a few years ago. Great for the kids' room to plug in a Google dongle and they can watch cartoons. Best $20 I ever spent
I have a few of these, although I only paid the equivalent of $20 for them.. to project 'decorations' on the house for Halloween and Christmas.. On when it's dark out, cheap enough that weather damage or being stolen is largely irrelevant
Extra kudos for mentioning the movie "They Live" (1988).
Playing Duke Nukem 3D was never the same after seeing that. lol
THEY LIVE! Thanks for the video Ben.
It was $34. it worked. I don't get the hate. Could *you* make a better one at that price? I'm actually impressed at how much functionality they got out of so little money.
Didn't the Sega Genesis have RGB outputs on the board and a native resolution of 320x240? There has to be something you can do with that
Genesis has analog RGB off the chip. Can't use that here.
@@BenHeckHacks ah, bummer
This also reveals an upgrade path for this device: if you can find a better LCD module you can upgrade it.
That what I was thinking, you can find a better projector LCD that same size for under $50 off of places like aliexpress. However I don't know if the firmware would accept a LCD with a larger resolution.
I've got a Unic LCD projector with a 5 inch panel in it. Seriously thinking of getting a 1440p 5" with driver board and modding it work. Add in a simple LED driver for the light and a power switch and it'll be good to go
The definition of being built with hopes and dreams! >
Just as you said Haunted Mansion, I was also thinking it might be usable in a Pepper's Ghost diorama or something like that. The pixelization might be cool for MAME games too... Pac-Man is like 224x288, which this would actually be enough for. Honestly, I'm impressed how few components it takes to make an LCD projector. But to make a GOOD one is a different matter... lol
Actually that's a usable gadget for small/home office. Can be useful for some KVM scenarios for server/service status monitoring. Like a whole wall of these. For that price sounds fine if it can be seen without having to be pitch black. The low resolution would not be a problem, but digital input might be in such scenario. A VGA to HDMI convertor would be more expensive then this gadget.
Another use I can think of is cheepo peephole home solution with the analog input and paired with a camera.
What about building this into a historic CRT TV to project a picture on the original glass screen? 240P is be still low for that and the moiré effect would be bad.
That projector is monstrous compared to my Kodak RODPJS75. I bought this tiny 75 Lumen projected for a trip I took to the Philippines some could watch movies. I projected onto the bare wall (light green unfortunately), but it seemed to work great. I did look at the RCA you have in this review, but was scared away by the 15 lumens as well. I believe newer versions of mine come in At 450 lumens around the physical same size and native 1080p. I may need to upgrade.
I bought a VGA one about 8 years ago for slightly more money. It's quite useful and has a lot of inputs, but no USB or SD. 50W. It's nice to fire up some retro consoles since it has both composite and RGB.
I one that is a bit smaller than that one, and it has the HDMI, the NTSC, and the analogue audio inputs, as well as the USB. :)
I wouldn't be a at all surprised if the control board uses a generic chip like the ones on those LCD screen driver/control boards you can buy at your preferred online Chinese electronics website. If it is one of those chip, you can probably find different firmware to flash it with that can enable analog video input and SD card reading.
It would make sense for them to use a readily available, mass produced part that can just be flashed with different firmware depending on what inputs you want to populate and what display you use.
Or not, as the case may be.
Potential improvement. Spray the inside of the case with flat black spray paint.
if they could have sold something like this 30 years ago for this price it would have been epic. (obviously minus the USB / HDMI and replace with composite video)
15 lumen is what the showwx pico laser projectors put out. Difference is RGB laser produces the most vivid colors and is focus free... 🍻
My computer lab in about 1999 had a digital projector when they were very new. It cost thousands of dollars and had a quality similar to this as far as resolution goes.
22:10 Found a similar model at Goodwill a few years that, in addition, has VGA and AV (via 3.5mm jack) for under $5 that I hooked an old Golden Tee plug n play (also sub $5 Goodwill grab) to.. every time a friend brings up the pixelation/low resolution, I think of how it wouldn't be a bad option hooking an NES up to it! Plan is a multi-input portable emulation box in the form factor of a tabletop arcade controller, but with an embedded display via the projector. And as a nod to the 2600, (and to save on weight) I'll be using old wood paneling for the sidewalls.
Don't anyone forget, another part of this story is RCA's name on this thing, another great brand name of a defunct company who's IP is owned by another company that just sells the name to the highest bidder who wants to slap that name on something to sell.
Many, many years ago I got an almost identical but unbranded one of these as a gift. Mine did indeed have composite AV input, so I think yours is either missing a component or two for cost savings, and/or has the input disabled in software.
This thing actually looks like it could be great for building head-up display, just shoot it diagonally at a sheet of acrylic.
Yup. These lowcost projectors aren't that crap at all. They just have great purposes for other things than video projection.
How do you make a projector that weak for that cheap at that size? Is it just like an LCD/OLED with a plastic lens pointed at it?
That's better than I thought. I expected a normal backlight stack instead of a high power LED and a transparent stack in the middle. Also the lens had at least one more group to it (the fresnel) than I expected.
Higher end versions of this do have that RCA plug and up to 720p resolution. Should look into one of those for $15 more Ben. It pales in comparison to my 4k projector, but for the money? It's an ok piece of equipment. Case looks similar to your teardown one btw & the one I got has Bluetooth and came with a case.
That's be a great projector for 240p arcade and console games!
I have a different brand with the same menu, you can change it to do rear projection. It might be useful for that.
Yes this one had flip as well! What do use yours for?
@@BenHeckHacks Mine was the $200 Walmart special, "Vankyo" brand but w/ true native 1080p and about 330 lumens, so it's decent enough to use as a primary media projector. I just noticed the flipping modes in the menu too and have been thinking of how to creatively use that. The fan is loud though, I'd like to replace it but it's one of those ducted fans and most of the noise isn't from the fan itself but the turbulence of the duct.
I have a better version of this, walmart purchase. RCA, looks the same but it's a white casing and remote. it's 800x480 native resolution panel, and has av in, hdmi, the usb port and a SD slot. seems to have more options too, can be used for rear projection as well as 16:9 in 720p.
These cheap projectors are great for effects and lighting for props. I have one behind my monitors pointed at the roof. Use a USB-HDMI and play milk drop visualizations on it. Makes for a cool visual effect.
yup. Anything where resolution definition doesn't really matter.
Thanks! It looks suitable for Halloween and Christmas decorations.
Too bad it can't be a digital clock.
You laugh at this till you realize that with a small 12 battery you can run this in a blackout situation and or take it camping for a low profile entertainment setup with cheap self-powered speakers. This thing rocks in a pinch.