http://www.jbtv.co.uk/guide.html ...scroll down a bit till you find Lite Flite...then click hi or lo, has anyone seen this and have a review of it, is the light rechargable, I'm looking at buying one and would appreciate any input.
Thanks
Jester

heres one i found for ya

Lite-Flite

Type: Close-up, parlor

Skill Level: 4

Retail Price: $30

Effect: The magician reaches into his pocket and produces a small illuminated ball. On the magician's command, the ball starts to float in mid-air! The ball floats from one hand to the other! The magician's hands circle around the floating ball, dispelling any theories of how the trick is done. Finally, the floating ball rises up to the magician's pocket. The pocket is opened and the ball floats into the pocket. Lite-Flite was created by Perry Maynard.


Performance Time: depends on the routine....

Reset Time: 2 minutes

Angles:

Quality: Materials are high quality, instructions are clear and concise.

Dr. Mitch: As with most floating effects lighting is extremely important. If the lighting is off, too bright, too direct, people will see the floating gimmick attached to the ball. (You ARE given an ample supply of gimmick, which you have to pull apart yourself...those of you who use a "thread manager" might have an easier time of this) This is a trick that is going to require a lot of practice time to make look mystical. But handled correctly it is truly a miracle. The mechanism and handling are almost the same as "Fearson's Floating Cigarette". Practice this to make it look casual. Remember...it is not a marionette, it is supposed to be floating. I have seen this handled well, and handled poorly. If you are willing to put in the time....then go for it. If you are like some magicians out there and are looking for "push-button" magic, this is NOT for you.

Another problem with this is that there is no way to turn the light on or off in the course of performance. You have to enter with the ball lit, in your pocket, and exit with the ball lit. To turn off the light the ball must be split open and the light disengaged. This would be ideally suited for say...an MC..who could enter, talk, do the float, introduce the next act and exit.

I think this is a strong effect, BUT due to lighting, the fact that you cannot turn it on or off easily, the inherent fragility of the "floating gimmick", and the fact that some of you will not give this the practice time it needs....I have to give this a thumbs down.

Mike Maione: I hate invisible thread. I hate invisible thread. I hate invisible thread. Nevertheless, I bought this one and I'm having some fun playing with it....I'm kinda hoping I'll be able to include it in a D'lite routine.

Know what?...It's NOT too bad for a thread trick. The supplied thread is pretty tough and the handling which is credited in part to Steve Fearson is pretty good. Still, it's invisible thread which takes lots and lots of practice to use and lots and lots of effort to set-up. Here are some other drawbacks: As Mitch mentioned the light has to be on (draining the battery) from the time you set it up until you break it down. Also, because an LED is used to illuminate the ball.....there's a hot spot. Finally, the booklet suggests you can give the ball a spin...but I haven't done it and made it look good yet.

So, I haven't figured out how, or if, I'll be able to incorporate it into my act yet.

Should you get it?...that depends on if you like electronics and if you can stand working with invisible thread.

BTW, did I mention that I hate invisible thread?

WOW what a review very useful and honest
Trevor

The light that is given off in the ball is not evenly distributed which means if you ball stops spinning for some reason or another the light will be strong or weak depending on where you look from.

The set up is ok, but I would get rid of the light and float somehting else. I am having great success with another object at the moment ( which is talked about more thatn any of the big illusions in my show)... but unfortunately can't reveal what it is here..

The video tape is good as it gives two bonus effects as well which do not use the light.

If you use the light I would suggest you change the bulb as I was supplied with a green ball and a red light. I chnaged the buld to white and the effectwas much better. A red light in a white ball would work better for example.

I had the same problem, the LED faces only one way, making the ball bright on one side, and dim on the other,
I also reviewed this product at
http://www.magicbunny.co.uk
Search under the review topic and I reviewed it.
It is a good trick, I must admit, I do use it in my act!
I am lucky as I payed next to nothing for this (£5/ $8 or so)
:)
I was pleased with my purchase,
I also changed the LED, it said it was super bright, I added one of my own and boy, 'I seen the light'
Overall,
I disagree with the difficulty,
If you have never worked with IT before, then it may be difficult, however, if you are familiar with it, it isn't as hard as 4out of 5, I would say 3.
Take care,
Kevin.

I will link you.....
Follow me...


***Kev***'s review of Lite Flight......

Thanks for all your help... it sounds like the biggest problem is with the ball...
Could you rig the Gimmick up to an Areotech Globall (65mm diameter, 190grams http://www.globall.com)?
Jester

You would have to test the weight of the ball, but it seems too heavy for such purposes. You may want to try an "Astrophere" set up with this ( I think thats what it is called - the zombie ball with the foulard but not the zombie gimmick), and perform the necessary on the ball.
The ball of the Lite Flite is split to attach the gimmick, where as your ball needs some place to attch to.

Your ball would make a great B.A type floating effect, as would the other equipment.

B.A type floating gimmick? I haven't heard of this... how easy/effective is it and roughly how much does it cost?
Thanks again,
Jester

Jester, you could possibly connect it too that,
As LeeAlexx said, it may be too heavy,
I doubt it could support such a large ball,
I float a ping pong ball with it, there is a small hole for the hook up in it,
LeeAlex, I would love to know what you use!
please.........


lmao,
I just checked out the link you gave, and the ball is HUGE
I really doubt the gimmick would support it, I am sure you could incorporate something else so it would....
I will help you if you wish!
Take care,

(PM Me if you want any help!)
Kevin,

This is one of those effects that I bought because I saw it demo'd in a shop and was puzzled by how the hook-up could work. I knew it had to be I.T. but could not figure out the rigging.
After I bought it, I was actually pleased with the purchase even though it's not much of a prop.
I got quite a bit of fun out of learning to do the trick. It is definitely a manipulation bit. It takes real grace and form to create the illusion of levitation.
This is based on Steve Fearson's floating cigarette. It excel's over the cigarette because it's not a cigarette! You can do this trick anywhere; cigarette's are not welcome in many places.
Also, when the ball is spinning it has a gyroscopic effect that gives it a more stable appearance and helps mask the gimmick.
While I really enjoy this piece and love it's appearance, there are several reason's it's not in my regular line-up:
1) the gimmick is dicey, you just can't count on this stuff to ALWAYS work. In my practice with it, it always breaks - ALWAYS! To be fair, it works more than long enough for a perfectly fine routine. But in practicing the effect, I always would outlast the mechanism. Part of learning it for me was learning how long the gimmick would last for and then building my routine into a safe time limit.
2) there's no easy way into this bit. you have to enter set-up to perform it. This is fine if it's the only trick you are going to do, but in my act, the free floating levitation of self-illuminated object is just too much eye-candy to try to follow with anything else!
3) unless you do a very subdued presentation it is very hard to get the audience to think they are seeing something other than what they are really seeing. - in other words, this is somewhat of a magician's trick. We know what the secret is, we just don't know the exact application.
It's somewhat like Copperfield's flying - no one leaves the theater thinking he actually flew. They think, "wow, he's got some kind of cable system I can't see that has amazingly fine control and he's worked out some beautiful choreography for it!"

Don't know if any one has mention the same thing as I am about to mention but you do get evenly lit balls thet can be turn off with a very small turn switch at the bottom. the guys who do juggling use them.

yea mamba, that would be the globall... but it isn't a switch, they light up when you take the jack plug out (or tap them 3 times if you're rich enough to own the pro version). I have some of these (being a juggler) and they are far too heavy to float.
Jester
:clownjuggling:

Scott has some very sobering points. I own lite flite, and I would be afraid of performing it, simply for the fear of breaking the gimmick; It could happen at any time. The instructions tell you to spin the ball in opposite directions to balance the tension on the gimmick. Secondly, if you are following up this effect, which I think has to be an opener, what do you do when you are done with the effect as far as ditching the gimmick? Overall, I love the effect, but you are taking some chances.

I do not own the Lite Flite, but I love to see the video and I love to perform the floating dollar bill. I just wonder if I can perform the lite flite everywhere or if I have to prepare it in the room I show it afterwards.

I used Lite Flight for a while in a platform routine. I dealt with some of these problems by having the set up on a poster picture on an easel. I used "Starry Night" (both song and picture). The lite ball was hid behind picture with hook up over top. I got into set up while "plucking" stars from picture using d'lite. In course of action, set up and palmed ball from behind picture...produced and went into routine...then vanished by "putting it back" into to picture.

Well, I think even if its so breakable, I am gonna get it.
If it really doeasnt work out, I still might take a pingpong-ball, put some glowing stick liquid to it and use some wax.
What do you think about this idea?

Hey, now a little thought just popped into my head, what about UV? you could use a ping-pong ball 'cos they're so light weight, (maybe if you can get hold of a larger one it'd be even more impressive...), coat it in UV paint, put under UV (Black light) and it'd glow... great if you already work with UV... but I don't... Still, It'd be sooo easy to rig a ping pong ball up to float... mmmm.... trouble is, ping pong balls are far to light to juggle
Still an interesting thought though, I wonder why we don't see more UV in magic?
Paul
:clownjuggling:

Make a slit in a sponge ball, and wrap the invisible thread around a peice of tape and stick inside the ball and begin your float. That's the way we do it in our shop in the Riviera Casino Magic Shop.

I like Daytona's method as it eliminates the problem of the uneven light etc. It is a nice effect is done correctly. I just personally never had much luck setting it up or working with invisible thread. To someone who can handle it well, this is a nice effect.

Theres no need to make a slit in the sponge ball, just thread a needle with IT (be patient guys!) and push it through the sponge ball, it achieves the same job.

Kevin