What’s Inside A Super-Cheap Projector? Not A Lot!

[Raymond Ma] has a penchant for browsing Aliexpress and acquiring curious items of components that are as high on claims as they are minimal on price. This is a course of action he aptly sums up with his opening line of “I ought to have recognized much better, but…” Thankfully, these units all get torn down and analyzed so we can each enjoy and share a little slice of disappointment.

A single these kinds of item is the $30 USD YT200 mini projector, which at 320×180 is pretty much as small on pixels as it is on charge. However, [Raymond] seems to be inside of to come across out if there is perhaps a lot more hacking likely than there is image resolution.

The YT200 lacks any sort of typical movie input, and the anemic 15 lumen output is openly branded as a aspect to guard children’s eyes from excessive brightness.

Light-weight from the solitary LED is collimated with some Fresnel lenses. That light passes via an Lcd panel, and from there the graphic bounces off a mirror and by means of a focusing lens housed in a spiral guidebook. Focal changes are created with a compact lever, and the full assembly delivers just enough friction to prevent the lens from relocating out of aim on its personal.

The unit really does operate reasonably nicely for what it is: a way to play a range of unique media sorts off a related USB storage unit. As long as a single is in a dim room, in any case.

[Raymond] hopes to locate some alternate use for the system. Could possibly we propose projecting into a frosted glass world to generate a form of spherical screen? A spooky eye animation on a USB adhere could possibly pair properly with that.