Young Clive made this to carry in his toolbox many years ago, when white LEDs were still relatively new.
It's not actually a bad little unit. Although the NiMH battery looks like it's given up the ghost many years ago.
2024-05-27 02:15:14 +0000 UTC View Post
My favourite foaming soap dispenser stopped working, so it seemed a good idea to make a video about it. I was expecting water damage inside, but it turned out to be something less destructive.
2024-05-26 04:00:51 +0000 UTC View Post
Here's the link to the weekend stream:-
https://www.youtube.com/live/LYtEIwRfvQs
2024-05-25 16:10:28 +0000 UTC View Post
Much less popular - with an average view time of 19 minutes for a 2 hour video.
Classic YouTube. The more effort you put into a video, the less popular it is.
2024-05-25 05:28:26 +0000 UTC View Post
That's the title I'd have used on YouTube if it wasn't guaranteed to result in demonetisation of the video. It's actually quite a neat little motor, that would be ideal for some solar powered projects.
2024-05-23 01:55:17 +0000 UTC View Post
A simpler video while I'm travelling. I don't have a printer set up here, so can't really do the more involved reverse engineering videos until I get back.
2024-05-22 18:22:30 +0000 UTC View Post
I'm in Glasgow right now, and saw that ASDA had their George brand summer solar lighting stock in. I got a set of each of the 50, 100, 250 and 500 lights to do a side by side comparison of circuitry and solar panel.
My pick from these is probably the 100 and 250 LED strings, because they have decent panels and NiMH cel...
2024-05-21 03:04:02 +0000 UTC View Post
Here's the link to the stream:-
https://youtube.com/live/_bBpq8txkE4
2024-05-18 17:22:52 +0000 UTC View Post
A look at an old LED project from 20 years ago, while waiting for a new project to finish printing. (A 3D printed ionic cone.)
The LEDs used in these panels were cheap bulk ones from eBay when they still cost several pounds each in the UK. I get the feeling they were either batches of factory rejects. But hey - they ...
2024-05-16 04:07:37 +0000 UTC View Post
I've always been impressed by the Wagobox products. I believe they were originally designed by an electrician who wanted to create a logical enclosure for the new Wago connectors.
They have been very successful here in the UK, as they make wiring very fast and neat.
Here's the link to the weekend stream:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fz0trjEmn_M
2024-05-11 18:07:50 +0000 UTC View Post
I rarely make videos as long as this, as they are much less popular than the shorter ones. But some people do enjoy them as a way to help them relax and get to sleep.
The end result of the build is also a nice custom light with a crazily-small but very simple power supply. The light uses very little power and should l...
2024-05-11 07:14:06 +0000 UTC View Post
At first these solar wall mounting lights with an LED filament bulb looked really stylish. They also had a fairly decent looking solar panel.
Then I dug deeper and discovered some odd circuitry shortcuts that mean that these lights require a little bit of work to make them safer.
If I'd known how dangerous these are I'd have made a video about it sooner.
I wonder how many of these have been sold and are being used by people unaware of the risks.
2024-05-07 04:59:44 +0000 UTC View Post
As featured on the last Patreon live stream - it's the rather cute solar powered animal paw.
The placement of the LEDs inside means the illumination is very even.
2024-05-06 02:26:14 +0000 UTC View Post
Here's a link to the quiet Patreon stream:-
https://youtube.com/live/15TxytXQ1Dg
2024-05-04 15:52:26 +0000 UTC View Post
It looks like these cheaper buttons from AliExpress (about $5 each) are for Otis and other brands of lifts (elevators). They have a nice solid feel to them, and a fairly even peripheral illumination.
These could be nice in some industrial interfaces.
Here's a weird one. A random AliExpress find that counts significant surge arrester incidents and displays the total on an LED display.
Stunningly low power at just 1/10th of a watt. Also keeps the score in non volatile memory, although the PCB design has legacy component positions indicating that it used to need a ba...
2024-05-02 03:35:56 +0000 UTC View Post
Maybe the low voltage panel indicators are OK, but the higher voltage 220V ones are a bit too basic for comfort. You can actually smell the resistors in them getting hot very soon after switch-on.
When I first got these I forgot that I had ordered some 220V and some 12V ones at the same time. I ended up testing a 12V ...
2024-05-01 01:04:31 +0000 UTC View Post
Aside from the robust looking and decent output solar panel, this light has a chunky LiFePO4 cell and unusually minimised circuitry. It was quite fast to reverse engineer, since it seems to be a sensible design.
2024-04-29 01:23:48 +0000 UTC View Post
Here's the link to the weekend stream:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ap8lITaNx6g
2024-04-27 17:16:51 +0000 UTC View Post
I think they've really just thrown the acronym MPPT into the mix as a stunt here, as I don't really see how this chip can actually do that.
I'll have to do some side by side tests between this module and a classic TP4056 one.
2024-04-26 23:58:01 +0000 UTC View Post
Contrary to what you might think, my garden isn't stuffed full of solar lights. In fact I think my elderly neighbour has more lights in her garden than I have.
This planetary colouring theme was an unexpected result of using an ice-blue LED. It's actually quite a nice colour.
Quite an unusual fault that would have been hard to detect during testing.
These units are mass produced, extremely customisable and perfect for off-grid, power failure or apocalypse use. Or just to find your way to the toilet at night.
2024-04-24 00:57:44 +0000 UTC View Post
The most interesting things about this rechargeable light are its physical construction and very low component count.
The charging circuitry is similar to some solar lights and shavers I've looked at, so I'm guessing it may be actual dedicated charge circuitry built into a microcontroller, or perhaps just implemented in...
2024-04-22 02:14:56 +0000 UTC View Post
If all goes to plan I'll be joining scrufdog on his stream afterwards:-
https://youtube.com/live/HDQo0J51iGU?feature=share
2024-04-20 18:50:03 +0000 UTC View Post
With LED progressively replacing neon and other cold cathode tubes, I wonder how long these little CCFL inverters will be around for.
It's one of those things that it might be worth buying one just in case you have a suitable tube in the future.
2024-04-20 05:12:54 +0000 UTC View Post
There's so much weird circuitry in this unit. Notably the strange dual base transistor drive, possibly for feedback of an overcurrent situation on the sensor. Initially I thought it was to detect when it had come up to temperature by a PTC effect, but that would have the opposite result. Unless the heater film has an NTC ...
2024-04-18 16:48:22 +0000 UTC View Post
The trickiest bit about this video is knowing the exact composition of the brass-like alloy used for this connection block.
It's a fairly standard component used in industrial panels for distribution of power to sub circuits. If you get one from a prominent electrical supplier it's reasonable enough to think the brass ...
2024-04-17 16:43:35 +0000 UTC View Post
Another of the retrofit fan control modules. This one is purely remote control (which makes fitting it simpler and safer).
There's a lot to be learned from simple circuitry like this. It's almost a testament to the ruggedness and stability of modern microcontrollers.
