bigclive

Micro USB spacing.

For Nick Nolte who was asking about the dimensions of the 2-pin micro USB connector I used on the prototype LED coaster.

When I have a component like this I tend to lay it on a 1/10" grid (a standard grid size in electronics) to get a feel for general size and pin/pad spacing.  I'll then do a rough sketch as shown above (the original sketch on a post-it note block) and then build it on the PCB.

The socket fits very conveniently into 1/10" spacing.  The doodle shows a gri...

Uh-oh, It's another OBD turbocharger.

In the last OBD video I mentioned that I had ordered another unit based on the picture of the PCB in the listing.  Well here it is...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PB810U7j77k

This one is pleasing in many ways.  It actually has an accessible reset button, it has a low standby current if it properly detects an inactive canbus network, it does respond to sustained activity on the network ...

Timeguard coolglow nightlight.

This is actually quite a neat little nightlight purely because of the technology it uses to create the light.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmaqagBNsMQ

I think these are discontinued now, so if you want one for your collection of weird light sources then grab one now.

Random Patreon snippet.

Just a short video showing typical fruit machines (slot machines) in a British pub going through their advertising sequence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7A87IKqrf1U

There's more info in the video description.

Electrolytic pipe failure?

The quiet hiss of water escaping from my plumbing wasn't a good thing to return home to.  A bit of floorboard lifting to narrow down the source of the noise revealed a tiny pinhole in a copper pipe spraying water liberally under the floor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDF3qRLw7CM

The interesting bit is the way it's failed.  The pipe appears to be dotted internally with little green dot...

Real shake light vs Nitecore Tube.

This video sounds a bit boomy because of where I filmed it, and I was trying to be quiet as it was late at night and my neighbours were probably in bed.  I can hear their voices, so I'm sure they can hear mine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1BpfpO9BfY

This is a real shake-style torch (probably not an original) with more realistic circuitry than the fake one had.

Inside a vintage disco light.

This "single Derby" light is one of the simplest disco lights of all.  It just projects a flat line of coloured light.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60uGMBp0seg

If it is sequenced to the music it is just turned on and off in amongst a group of lights by a separate power controller.

Efficiency of lights like these is terrible because they only utilise a tiny percentage of the...

50 Watt or not?

It's a while since I've checked out one of the cheap LED floodlights on eBay so I thought I'd get one and see if they're still using a low voltage array inside or of they've switched to a mains voltage COB with onboard driver.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H00ppsLjD_U

Feeling the suspense....

This seems like a huge threshold that I never even considered reaching.

SMD LED BCDC PCB MKII build.

Building the second version of the LED coaster thing with the corner pillars nudged in a little bit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaoeKX1DHa4

Quite a nice PCB to build and it looks pretty good too.

Teleport beacon. (Not a video).

Just to avoid confusion with the other PCB.  This one is the teleport beacon intended to indicate safe materialisation zones.

Can you guess what it is yet? (Not a video).

Slight track loss during processing.  Fine for a prototype though as it's mainly to get a feel for spacing and ease of building.  I always prefer to make a physical prototype or two before getting PCBs manufactured.

China is having its main holiday at the moment, so there's no rush anyway.  I don't like to place orders during their holidays as they deserve a break from work.

USB rechargeable penlight.

This looks like one of the little penlights doctors use to peer into your orifices.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XqxQsWgxv4

It's actually very neat inside.    Much better than I was expecting, and should be fairly easy to customise.

Hand grip strength tester.

This device is called a hand grip dynamometer and to all intents and purposes it's a weighing scale with a hand grip.   It works quite well, although I can't vouch for its accuracy without a suitable test setup.  (A 100 pound weight).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fK6GQVkIpno

The device does seem quite well made, which is reassuring when you are gripping it with extreme force.

Jelly baby explosion fail.

A failed attempt to blow up a jelly baby.  I need some better explodey stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Jzrf_lljkc

The next generation LED chips?

This fairly standard looking COB array was very interesting to explore.

I specifically bought a blue one (no phosphor) so I could take a closer look at the chips.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpF5O0W8Bdg

I've done some extra testing since, so the video description on YouTube contains more info.

I'm intrigued to see how this new style of chip lasts in real life use.  It would be ...

Logo as PCB tracks.

This is an attempt to adapt the channel logo to a PCB compatible format by replicating it as tracks.  It looks a bit weird when you can see all the nodes and arc centre points.

Inside the humble glue gun.

A nice down to earth video showing the super-simple heating system in a hot melt glue gun.  An absolutely cost optimised device due to the high volume used in hobbies and industrial applications.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obMjAoMoESE

Bonus glitter glue and a moulded glue-pebble with integrated LED.

The mould is made from sealant silicone mixed with corn starch (we call it cornflour...

Tonights mini lab explosion.

Well that's made a mess.  Tonight's lab (kitchen) incident involved quite a loud bang, broken glass and a mixture of water and wax loaded with solvent spreading itself over quite a large area.

Can you guess what I was making?  (I really shouldn't get distracted while "accelerated" things are in progress.)

Did I go too far? Mummy-story.

Did I go too far by dropping the Family Guy inspired "period joke" (since seeing that episode I can't say "period furniture" without thinking of it.) and relating my mummy story on the stove fan video?  It was one of lots of similar weird things that happened while me and my brother nursed my fiercely independent mum over many years.  But I sometimes forget that people who have never cared for someone in a similar way might not understand the reality of the situation and think it's ...

Teardown of a heat powered stove fan.

This unit is designed to derive its power from a heat gradient and blow the hot air surrounding the stove into the room.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H7SZO4okXk

Since making the video earlier today I've deduced what all the components are and listed them in the description.  I've ordered new motors, a peltier plate and some silicone insulated wire to try and get the thing running again. &n...

Wall light with interesting internal design.

When I got this I was expecting it to just have a 1W or 3W LED firing into the side of the plastic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X--Y-pvRgRo

But it turns out it's really quite cleverly designed inside to give all round illumination while also facilitating easy manufacture.

The series parallel LED system is particularly neat since it is optimised for the fixed current power supplies with a ...

Stylish work light with interesting circuit.

There are two interesting things about this rather stylish combined work-light and power bank.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAoISQaA5jY

The first is the polarity protection and the second is the way they've nudged the voltage to allow the option of using two 18650 cells or four AA cells.  You can only recharge the 18650s in situ though.

Waterproof socket with bonus rant.

I try not to rant much, nut some things really get on my wick.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqOzWunmKdE

This is a nicely designed socket.  I wonder how many seasons it would last in a location exposed to intense sun and winter ice.

Bogus OBD2 car tuners.

I've featured one of these before, but this time I'm wiser to the stuff going on with the OBD2 port in cars.  (You should find yours.  They're great.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zx8fywphQp0

So the first attempt at ordering one of each colour "just because" didn't end well with non-delivery from China of anything from that order after over 2 months, resulting in an eBay refund.

...

Free video wall test software.

It turns out that the video wall panel supplied in the Project MC2 "handbag" is a standard module.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dB1w99AwGE

I amused myself by reverse engineering it and then writing a piece of software to do a full panel test with nothing more than a PIC16F627A microcontroller driving the RGB, clock, latch and output enable pins.

I've included a link to the software in the...

Full clock kit build.

It's a while since I've built a kit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOgddrIXNkY

This kit is reported to have timekeeping issues, which is odd, since it uses a real time clock chip.  I'll get a battery for it and test it.

The resistors are all 10K, so nothing to do with the display, which seems to be driven directly by the chip relying on output impedance to limit current.  I'd gues...

Another video wall panel test.

Just a bit of fun to see what sort of refresh rate I could achieve using a low end processor generating a pattern in real time as the display is multiplexed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRZ2ECHl5FQ

It looks a lot more colourful than the video has picked up.  The difficulty of filming a moving light source.

It's using an LFSR (linear feedback shift register) implemented in software so...

Rabid quack comments.

Sometimes I get some really rabid comments on my quack product debunking videos.  Do you remember the one where you put your feet in a tub of water with an electrode and it "detoxified" your body by drawing impurities out of you into the water?  It was actually just accelerated corrosion of the electrodes that turned the water brown.

Here's a rather splendid comment involving PhDs and all manner of cures for everything including "reversal of autism".  Basically anything t...

Fake-shake LED "eco" light.

There are real versions of this and there are fakes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ujio2shR7Lg

The best way to tell is that the fakes are really bright out of the box, whereas the real ones often need shaken for a long time before the capacitor or cell voltage is high enough to make the LED glow dimly.  And glowing dimly is pretty much all you're going to get.

This was a flawed idea fr...