Kikkerland Solar-Powered Double Rainbow Maker
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Tools and Hardware Reviews of Kikkerland Solar-Powered Double Rainbow Maker
Customer Review: Double Rainbow Maker
Summary: 5 Stars
Amazing and fun! It sends out twice as many rainbows as the original. My cats love chasing them around the room.Customer Review: Double Rainbow Maker
Summary: 5 Stars
I am really thrilled with this double rainbow maker in every way! It is great fun seeing the colors bounce all over the room for the better part of the morning when the sun is shining outside.
To prevent it getting broken if the suction cup would come loose, my husband attached some clear fishing line to the rainbow maker and the curtain rod above it on the window. It barely shows and now I don't have to worry about it falling to the floor and no longer working.
If you love colorful rainbows in constant motion all over your walls, I highly encourage you to get the double rainbow maker for double the beauty and enjoyment! The colors brighten every morning!Kikkerland Solar-Powered Double Rainbow Maker
Customer Review: Everyone needs rainbows!
Summary: 5 Stars
Let me start by saying this is the 2nd one I have purchased! I absolutely love the effect shown all over my home, rainbows everywhere! The best part is watching my American Bulldog watch them..it seems to lull her in some way. I have an open floorplan allowing the rainbows to venture into rooms that are otherwise less sunny!Customer Review: Fun solar toy
Summary: 5 Stars
This joins the radiometer and 4" prism as one of the basic sun toys that everyone should have. It's a fun design with a transparent case, exposed motor, different colored gears, and counter rotating crystals. It looks to be quite well made, and I was pleased to find that its large built-in suction cup does a good job. Up close you hear a little whirring sound (not objectionable) from the motor and high speed gear, but from across the room it runs silently. Its speed doesn't vary with the intensity of the light, it either runs or it doesn't run. Occasionally it will click for a few seconds as the shadow of the sun passes over it.
I saw one reviewer who said the single crystal unit worked fine, but the double unit was underpowered and would barely rotate in bright sunlight. I don't find that to be the case at all, mine rotates even when the sun is partial obscured by clouds. As I write, it is late on a winter afternoon in New England with the sun low in the sky at 60 degrees off perpendicular, and my double unit is still running. I experimented and found it would even run when the solar cells were illuminated from the back!
Minor negatives --- Compared to the one big bright solar spectrum a 4" prism will throw on the wall, the spectrums from this thing are pretty small and dim, though the compensation is that there are many of them and they sweep around the room. When the sun is at the right angle, you have to expect that some of these 'rainbows' are going to pass over your eye, so you get a little flash now and then. It's more complicated than a prism or radiometer, so it's probably not going to live as long.
For those interested technically its solar panel is 4 cm x 2.5 cm = 10^-3 m^2 and looks to be five (1/2 V) cells in series. Since the power of bright sunlight is 1,000 w/m^2, if inexpensive solar cells with efficiency in the 5% to 10% range are used, the output power available to drive the DC motor would be 50 to 100 mw, or 20 to 40 ma @ 2.5V.
update --- It's now nine months since I put this on a window using the vacuum sucker and it's never fallen off! Still works fine too.
update2 --- Well after two years, it's showing its age. One crystal broke off when it fell and the gears are now sticking. I just ordered a replacement.
More technical--- When my new one arrived, I took apart my old one to look at the motor, which still works. (I am a motor control engineer.) The motor is not a DC motor with brushes, which is good as brushes wear out. It is a brushless AC PM (permanent magnet) motor that a finger test shows will spin in either direction (at roughly 200 RPM). The 2.5V from the solar cell is converted to AC by a tiny circuit board mounted above the coil. The board's active component(s) is covered by glop, but it is probably a single IC clocked by an external crystal, which seems like overkill.
Customer Review: Fun!
Summary: 5 Stars
We love the double rainbow maker. It goes on when the sun shines and there are rainbows floating around our house. The cat loves to chase them! This was a gift for my six year old daughter on her birthday and she loves it.