bigclive

Video apocalypse.

Occasionally things go wrong in a video, but not quite as much as this.  However, it all worked out OK in the end when I got the remnants of the lamp working - and it did at least yield one surprise at the end.

https://youtu.be/pu6usLoz2GM

Missing protection circuit from cell.

I thought most of this type of cell had a built in protection circuit on the same PCB as the gold contact pads.

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

I was double checking one to see if the current cut off at about 4.2V plus the internal circuit voltage.  It didn't cut off, so I opened it up to see if the circuitry was missing or just faulty.

Electronic water pipe descaler.

I've always wondered what's in these, so it was nice when a chap called Marc sent me one to look at.

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

I even used the oscilloscope to get a look at what's actually coming out of the antenna ports.  It's intriguing, but the output circuitry is disappointingly simple.  It does have a "computer" and it does sweep the frequency.

Department of Villainy.

The Manx Beard Club (just Kevin, Juan and me) entered a local tree festival at the town hall.  In amongst all the charity trees we installed the Department of Villainy Kryptonite tree which is completely green (apart from the purple lamp holder at the top).  It's got 400 green LEDs with custom 3D printed kryptonite crystals and a huge medley of every other green or clear cap we could find to jam over lots of the other LEDs.  On top is a green LED flame lamp.

2018-12-01 00:00:26 +0000 UTC View Post

Channel strike removed.

Well that's a relief, although I didn't get much sleep last night.

I'm going to delete that video completely as the sales director of the Dutch company involved seems to be detached from reality.

Perhaps I'll make a new video about other eBay switches with any logos blacked out.

Dear bigclivedotcom,

Thank you for submitting your video appeal to YouTube. After further review, we've determined that your video doesn't violate our Community Guidelines. Your video has been reins...

Another YouTube strike.

Really silly reason this time.  A long time ago I showed an industrial roller limit switch bought from eBay and took it to bits.

It appears it was a copy of a Dutch brand and they asked me to take the video down because it had their logo on the switch.

I agreed and made the video private so it couldn't be viewed, but the process has still continued and a strike has been applied.

Good time of year to get a channel strike.

Magnetic orb light.

The description might make this thing sound a lot more sophisticated than it is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSatFTp9sUE

This is a more traditional exploration video without too much technical detail.  The light itself is a good source for the COB, control PCB and a decent magnet.

Udon vending machine in Japan.

I've always loved automated vending equipment.  This video is from a Japanese channel that seems to be dedicated to food vending machines.

To explain what's happening - the pre-made bowls of cooked udon noodles and other items are in a refrigerated section on a spiral track.  When a choice is made a rotating arm pushes the bowls round the track until one slides down into the "cooker".

The cooker fills the bowl with hot water, clamps a perforated lid down on it and then spins it...

The rechargeable flame lamp video.

Here's the video hinted at earlier.  It's quite neat.

I'm also doing a little test.  I used to disable non-skippable adverts at the beginning of my videos and YouTube then removed that option completely.  Recently they enabled them again without warning (their new interface doesn't even show the advert types that will be displayed).

I usually go to the old interface to disable them, but have left them enabled on this video.  I want to see what length they actually are...

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

This is just a picture, so don't click on it yet.  The video is about to be uploaded and will be up later.

This device was lots of fun to explore.  Some of you will recognise what it is instantly and then deduce the interesting twist associated with a lithium cell and USB connector.

Feel free to try and do a bit of reverse engineering from the picture and then compare it to the final schematic that forms part of the video later.

Well that's 5.20am so I guess I should get ...

Making Kryptonite lights.

I've been 3D printing some covers for a random smattering of lights on a Christmas tree that me and some friends (Manx Beard Club) will be contributing as part of the local town hall's festival of trees.  It's themed as the Kryptonite Tree by the Department of Villainy and will be covered completely with green LEDs, some with these crystal covers, and a green flame-effect lamp as a topper.

https://www.youtube....

Rich rebuilds has a bit of an incident.

Just thought I'd share this spectacular battery failure moment from Rich Rebuild's channel.  It's pretty impressive seeing repurposed Tesla cells going nuclear.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdDi1haA71Q

Dodgy rechargeable touch light.

This initially looked like quite a nice little touch sensitive desk light.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbWoBNchV90

Then I discovered that the lithium charge circuitry is "minimalist".  Which is a shame, because otherwise it looks quite a neat unit and performs well.

Totally hackable to people like us though.

Patreon only Poundland delights.

There's a reason they call it Poundland.  In a different aisle from the condoms, vibrators, nooky pills and other sex enhancement products they have this....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVHI5_7FUmY

Should I get some of these items and make a full video about them?

Cheap eBay dimmer.

I thought it would be interesting if we compared the circuit of a cheap eBay dimmer to one compliant with local regulations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w71Qr1ygB_Y

The most interesting thing turned out to be the potentiometer on the compliant dimmer, which is engineered specifically for the task to remove a couple of resistors from the PCB and add what I'm guessing is some form of triac drive pre-fil...

Really impressive Xmas LED panel.

I have to admit I took a real shine to this panel when I saw it in a big B&Q DIY store on the Isle of Man.  The construction is very streamlined, but also very rugged.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yCgRsYXD6I

Despite being mass produced, this is a really impressive panel.

Power consumption is 25W, 105mA with good power factor (0.995) due to the resistive current limiting.

American exit sign.

Another video for this weekend.  It's a look at an interesting battery backed American style emergency exit sign that was generously sent to me by a chap called Andy.

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

The design is a lot simpler than a typical UK version, but actually probably more rugged as a result.

Flammable tire repair foam.

I've always wondered what's in these tins of foaming emergency tire repair and reinflation cans.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeE2cL_mCdA

Combustible stuff apparently.

Comments disappearing.

If any of you have left comments on Patreon and they have disappeared it seems to be an issue with a third party spam filtering system used by Patreon.  I've never ever removed a comment for any reason here, so if you try posting something and it disappears then try again and change the wording if needed to get it to stick.

Poundland light USB mod.

Another look at the rather pleasing Poundland retro-look LED strings with an unexpected extra feature.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJKy20wfIvg

I also hacked this set to run from any USB supply with a couple of resistors and a spare charge lead.

Poundland "disposable" charger.

Yet another of these apocalyptic single use chargers that actually contain a fully rechargeable lithium cell.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lflk6iY56w

It's worse though.  It's just missing a few components to make it into a fully rechargeable unit.

New 3D printer (Not a video).

This is just a text post with an image and not a link to a video (yet).

I've finally succumbed to temptation and bought a Cetus 2 3D printer.

With clear PLA filament it makes great hollow crystals that take light from the base very well.  The layers actually work to spread the light fairly evenly over the whole crystal.

Random LED conversion.

I have a slim striplight mounted above my laptop so I can see the keyboard and surrounding stuff.  It failed and I didn't have a new tube, so I decided to adapt it to LED with a bit of 12V tape and a bodged power supply using a standard 3W LED driver.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_ds5XFJvPs

It's a current regulated supply which means it relies on enough LED circuits on the tape to keep the curren...

Poundland LED xmas stuff.

It's that time of year to go and grab all the good bits from Poundland before anyone else gets to them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-Qn5NkYnz4

This video does involve licking the queens face momentarily.

Self testing emergency light.

The most interesting feature about this emergency light is that it tests itself routinely once a week, with a full three hour test once a year, and if it fails it beeps and flashes a red light.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VQXTsjTe9k

Weird lead acid LED lamp.

This has to be the simplest and cheapest version of the rechargeable emergency LED lamps yet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sax9unx76Kg

The circuitry is amazingly simple to the point is was quite tricky to get my head round at first.  But when it all clicks it's incredibly clever.  Especially the use of a single capacitor to provide a layer of noise filtering to the trigger current and also nu...

Taking fireworks apart for fun.

There's something particularly exciting about dismembering explosive devices without suitable protection.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6y76pthXGV8

Here's a look inside some fireworks and how they work.

Interesting Xiaomi insect repeller.

One of the most interesting things about this unit is the way it monitors the cartridges.  In hindsight I should really add a couple of wires and measure the current drawn from the cartridge monitoring cell in the standby and running states.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP7j-TqPshI

For some reason I've just gone into hibernation mode and am struggling to stay awake in the evenings.  It may sh...

Interesting emergency lamp circuitry.

I should have taken one of these apart sooner, but with the module out of the emergency light that ended up being recalled it gave me an excuse to dismantle one completely for closer analysis.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnXkQmswNJ4

It's very interesting circuitry.  They've used some clever tricks to keep the cost and component count down.

Halloween image projector.

This turned out to be quite basic, but interesting with two decent quality modules.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5--HfI6s6E

The power supply is rated 3V at 1A and the LED module projects a fairly sharp image.