I was sent the weirdest thing the other day, a levitating Death Star speaker.
With the new Star Wars movie coming out, I feel like now would be a good time to take
this thing apart, unbox it, and see what kind of force it uses to levitate.
Let's get started.
[Intro]
And peel off the top, and inside we probably have some kind of instruction books, a little
bit of foam padding, and....oh boy...the Death Star, the Bluetooth speaker inside of this
set.
And I think at the very bottom we have this – this should be the base.
Whoa.
Got a little bit of a force there.
Here in the center it wants to pull the base off to the side like that.
Okay, let's see what happens.
I'm not sure what this thing is.
Maybe those instructions were important after all.
“When you feel a strong force, which is holding the Death Star from the base, this
position is the levitation point.
Release the speaker gently and take out the floating stand vertically without any impact
on the Death Star.”
Okay, let's try that out.
So I'm going to take both hands...trying to find the floating point here in the center.
Oh boy.
I think I got it, I think I got it.
Nice.
Woo!
Okay, the Death Star is now levitating.
Come take a look at this.
It is spinning all by itself, and there is nothing below it.
That's pretty sweet.
List of available devices right here is the Death Star.
We'll go ahead and pair with that.
The only way to properly start off a Bluetooth Star Wars speaker is with 10 hours of the
Cantina Band.
[Music playing]
That's not bad!
I mean, it's a small speaker so it's not going to have the big base of a big speaker, but
it's pretty unique.
It's not bad at all.
[More Star Wars music playing]
Alright, alright.
It's very unique.
It's a small Bluetooth speaker.
If you're going to buy this, you're going to buy this because of Star Wars and not because
of the impeccable sound quality.
As far as like the levitation goes, it's holding itself pretty well in the air above anything.
So there's nothing supporting it.
It's rocking around a little bit.
I'm curious to see where the mounting points are inside this thing – like where the force
is that's holding it up.
And there's only one way to do that.
Let's take it apart.
Now destroying the Death Star is actually a pretty big pain.
It's almost like it's not designed to come apart.
There are no clasps that come undone.
Excessive force might be necessary.
After analyzing the construction, I have detected a weakness in the battle station, but the
approach will not be easy.
I will maneuver my saw blade straight down this trench, right between the power button
and this antique micro USB port.
Since the Death Star existed a long time ago in a galaxy far far away, we can let the micro
USB slide for now, but any future Death Stars will need to be equipped with USB-C.
These little metal windows can pop out once the plastic surrounding them is cut.
You can see how strong the attracting magnetic force is below the Death Star.
Finally, I was able to chop through a few support channels which are about the size
of a small womp rat.
We get a glimpse of the main speaker at this point.
It's a small little guy, but it does get the job done.
There are a few more screws holding down the speaker to the base.
I'll pop those out and continue onto the reactor core.
The speaker has 3 connections: one for the charging port, one for the power button, and
one for the black and red speaker wires themselves.
The circuit board has it's own four screws.
I'll take out those.
And finally the board and battery can come loose from the super weapon.
The battery is about 1,000 milliamp hours.
The magical force that supports the Death Star is, well, a magnet.
It's big, circular, and very tightly glued to the bottom plastic.
Pretty interesting.
And now it's time to inspect the Empire's foundation.
This large circular platform is protected by a thick rubber mat.
I imagine this is to keep the whole thing from moving around.
There are 4 screws under that mat holding the base together.
There has to be something super important in here to help keep the Death Star stable.
The balancing free floating magnets is not an easy task.
There are some interesting circuits inside the base with 4 screws holding it all down
to the plastic.
After removing these, I can lift p the circuits and flip over the whole contraption exposing
the electromagnets.
Electromagnetic levitation is complex, but essentially provides a balance to the Force.
The large exterior circle you see is a magnet, and the 4 circles in the center are the electromagnets
– usually oriented in the opposite directions because opposite poles attract.
The magnet inside the Death Star is attracted to the large circle shaped magnet, which makes
it kind of hard to place.
But the opposite oriented electromagnets are doing the calculated repelling as needed,
turning off or on or adjusting the power to keep the Death Star stable.
Remember, this base is plugged into the wall and needs power to keep functioning.
Magnets aren't going to float by themselves.
Pretty fun stuff, and a major thumbs up to whoever designed this Death Star.
I'll leave a link for this contraption in the video description and now you won't need
to take apart your speaker to find out how it floats or how it works.
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Thank you a ton for watching, and may the Force be with you.