He applies maximum 'Dexterosity'. Defined as "The free use of ones skillful hands, particularly in the area of (insert preference) underwear". Not to be confused with 'Denterosity' which is the same skill but using your teeth.
Every time you do one of these "adapt LEDs power source" videos I'm reminded of how hard it used to be to light up props and costumes. These days it's so nice to have so many options including dirt-cheap portable USB supplies.
Watching Clive work, while also listening to his walkthroughs in that calming voice, makes everything he is doing so clearly and easily understandable. This is so important when trying to recreate something that he made by yourself, because it gives you much more confidence in your work. At least to me it does. Thank you for that, Clive! Keep up with your great uploads!
I've had good experiences with JLC, and for the cost, have been impressed. sometimes there are imperfections, but we're not making Ipads or space-shuttle bits are we? I've never had a functional problem with them though. but I wasn't paying $2 for them, I suspect they will cut EVERY corner possible with the promotional deals. My (then 9 year-old) son designed his first PCB last year (a reading-light with sleep timer) and thoroughly enjoyed it! after he watched the delightful videos made by JLCPCB that describe the process, he can't believe it costs as little as it does to get a complex thing like a PCB made for you on the other side of the world and then shipped to your door. (and he's right, even without the silly $2 promotion)
It's pretty great that people can now discuss/complain/speculate about different fees that raise the total price of PCBs by a few bucks here and there. Not too long ago, getting professionally made PCBs just wasn't something you would ever consider as a hobbyist due to the high cost.
I had a PCB made for a project I was working on with several people about 25 years back, it was roughly 100mmx120mm and I think the best price we could get for prototypes was a ~£60 setup fee and around £10 a board, plus shipping, from a company in Germany. There were not many PCB manufacturers who would deal with you if you weren't a commercial organisation or wouldn't be wanting quantities in the hundreds.
@@IanSlothieRolfe The cost for prototypes was so high, my boss would tell me to try my best not to make any mistakes and just order 200. This wasn't high-volume stuff though.
Great little board :) Neat idea having the battery to USB power all on the one board and not having to chop up cables and mess around with heatshrink anymore, not that it was especially hard to do. I guess the ultimate evolution of this idea could be some sort of little board that physically fits inside the battery pack and attaches to the two wired terminals, keeping the option there to used the lights with AAs should you want to in the future. Then all that would be needed is to make a microUSB sided hole in the cover of the battery pack to attach to the adapter board, or just not bother clipping the cover back on. I've found JLC getting quite arsey and dodgy lately... The last order I placed with them, after taking my money and waiting 2 weeks, they emailed saying that because I lived in Vietnam (?? I'm in Scotland), that their cheapo airmail didn't ship there and to choose (and pay more for) a different carrier. Then after telling them it's a UK address they then changed their excuse to the cheap shipping (4PX, the same one the Aliexpress and Ebay sellers use) don't ship to the UK now because of "covid" - choose a more expensive shipping option... When I explained that what they were telling me was lies (as I had gotten several 4PX handled packages from Ali that week) they insisted that they were telling the truth and to "please choose more expensive shipping method"... I ended the back and forth with an ultimatum, either send me my already paid for boards immediately or just cancel the whole thing, refund me or I'll just call my credit card supplier to issue a chargeback. After another couple of weeks standoff, they eventually replied that they will send out my order "this time" but in future, "choose more expensive shipping". I think that JLC are now trying to cash in on their status as the go-to place for getting custom circuit boards done but this whole episode reeks of fish and extortion. I think I might be trying an alternative to JLC next time. Its a shame as they used to be pretty much faultless.
You're pretty much describing a battery eliminator, though I've not seen one with a socket on; they all tend to have a flying lead, either to a barrel jack or USB plug.
You could always 3d print a box with the extra room for the components. Also maybe upgrade to 18650 batteries and have it able to charge the battery as well(of course this would require additional chips, but would be a fun project).
JLC works but Oshpark is really the way to go (at least in the US) honestly. Yeah you might pay a buck or two more but they're fair, honest, great quality, and great service. One time USPS lost or mis-delivered my package of some boards for a project and the Oshpark support guy immediately put in a new order for me with express shipping, all free of charge. Doesn't get better than that.
I like them, too. Also Ainsler in Europe is really good (cheaper than OSHpark to Canada, for some reason, and Ainsler handles milling in Eagle better in my experience). My concern with Chinese fabs, aside from China's price manipulation of fabbing materials which drives domestic fabs out of business, is the Intelectual Property theft. If your circuit is promising or can be sold, they will take it and make a product from it without licensing it.
@@nyetlokibut in the US and EU, should that happen, you have legal recourse for a price. In China you have nothing. Stop pretending China is, in any way, the same. It isn't.
I tried JLC a while back. At the time the $2 was a promotional price for your first design and then any others were a higher regular price. I sent in 4 designs. They came back and claimed my first design "requires ENIG" and not only refused to honor the promotional price but also demanded I pay another $45 plus other fees on top of the non-promotional price, also refusing to honor the promotional price on one of the other designs instead. This was after they had tried to convince me to authorize them to blindly charge me (which I refused, luckily). I won't touch them. The boards I've seen people get via sponsorship look higher quality than what I see people get from paying the promotional pricing, though hard to tell for sure. Would be interesting to see someone get similar PCBs both from sponsorship and (secretly) by paying for them, and compare quality.
@@Alacritous I'm not sure what you are suggesting. My design did not in any way violate their terms and it definitely did NOT require ENIG. They merely used the claim their "engineers say it requires ENIG" as the excuse to charge more. They also claimed I should just pay the full price (including extra fees) and after I received the order to ask them to refund some of the charges. FWIW the design in question was an OSH design many others have ordered from various fabs, including JLC, with no issue.
Most people I find can't read. They know their ABC's and those letters form words but have zero comprehension skills. Comprehension (Understanding what a sentance means) is 90% of the reading skill.
This is Bullshit, you simply made a mistake somewhere and now you have something fun to tell Clive, how can a JLC engineer tell you you need ENIG ? it just didn't happen that way your missing some thing out, they don't need you extra money they need your custom their engineers wouldn't say you have to have ENIG there's no justification for that so I bet you ticked the box thinking it was free, and like an idiot you found out it's not and got 'sour grapes' I've paid for hundreds of boards and never had this problem but I can see how the order page my be tricky for some people with a limited skill set ...stick to perf board.
Our shops experience with jlc has been good. But their smd parts have always come installed backwards and random. We now use Oshpark, made in USA so no more exorbitant customs charges, which I recommend everyone, and they come in a pretty purple!
Electronics was always a hobby for me, but recently I had to rewire an RV/caravan and learned a lot about crimping twelve volt connections. You quickly learn which tools work well or not at all.
Yeah, I noticed that about the whole 2 buck deal, though I forgot what the price was at the time. But I had designed some diode boards for the motors on one of my 3D printers. Nothing fancy, just singe sided boards that held a couple of connector sockets and 2 surface mount diodes. Their 2 dollar/delivered in less than a week deal ended up being closer to 40 bucks and to be delivered a month later. Needless to say, I was less than impressed and chose not to go ahead with the order.
Thanks Clive, I enjoyed that. Sometimes you need 3 hands for a soldering task. (Last time for me was lying on my back underneath a machine I was repairing in a factory with one hand holding the parts together and my iron in the other.) When you absolutely have to use the deprecated "pool of solder on the iron tip" method, you also need to invest in a small dispenser bottle of liquid flux and put a few drops on the items you are soldering before applying the iron. My "get out of jail card" for soldering in an industrial environment.
Literally what i was looking for! i nearly clicked "buy" on 40 piece battery set, but then i realised i have couple 5V chargers that can replace that! and now i know that there is no reason to make complicated constant current sources, just two resistors work fine!
My 2¢ / suggestions for a later revision, I'd definitely go with the right angle connector, and maybe do a 2 sided PCB with the resisters on the reverse as surface mount, that way you could create a slimmer profile that would almost align with the USB connector, perfect for a short length of heat shrink if you wanted to give things a little protection. A tiny side mounted switch (or option for one) could also be handy.
Just a little tip: when you separate panelized boards you can rub the two edges together (like it's stereotypically done with chopsticks) to smooth the rough texture which I find really unpleasant to handle otherwise. For a single board you can use the edge of some scissors or similar blade (or just sandpaper of course) to smooth it
I bought some abrasive boards of the type used by persons of a feminine persuasion for their nails for general sanding tasks like this or tidying 3D prints, they don't require a sanding block because they're rather like using a fine file, you can throw them away if they get clogged and are incredibly cheap.
@@IanSlothieRolfe Yeah I actually have some of those single use nail files it's just that typically the closest thing when I'm handling boards are scissors or things like that so...
I like JLC, but you do have to keep in mind they nudge the price at every opportunity. :) I got 5x PiStorm PCBs which ended up at about $5 each, which is still good value IMO.
yeah they raise the price for a lot of reasons, but every time I ordered something, they were still the cheapest option anyway. Other PCB manufacturers basically do the same thing, they just dont stress their cheapest possible price as much. It's also all written out on their website what adds the extra charges.
I have used JLCPCB for a bunch of different boards, and I ran into the same "extra charge" for V-scores less than 15mm. Of course, in their defense, they do state that 15mm is the minimum side for v-scores. I have found over time that all the extra charges they have ever added was because I was asking them to do something extra. I have never figured out why they won't v-score boards that they assemble - you have to use routed cuts with mouse-bites to break apart. But, I just had some 3x7 panels done on 100x100mm boards , so I got 105 small boards for $2
Clive - you need some ‘crop & bend’ cutters They’re what we had as a standard tool for hand fitted components at Plessey- that were fitted after the surface mount and wave solder process- after removing rubbery solder resist After ‘crop & bend’ the components remain in the board when you flip it. Avoiding the need to burn your fingers. Although having bent leads does make them harder to desolder if you need to do further work We also had a ‘stylus’ tool custom made in the factory too shop from a stick of circuit board with a track that went around the ‘nib’ edge - it was used to bend over pre-cut component leads on things like I.C.s etc
Seems like one-hand crop/bend tools all seem to be discontinued and pretty much unavailable. Plenty of the jig-types and plastic bend-only though - ughhh.
my mom bought a set of lights at ikea and i recently saw them in action. they were plugged into a wall-wart with a very broad plug and I was delighted to see a USB-A interface upon inspection. nice touch. on the other hand i think ikea is quite a greenwash, talking about sustainability while on the next rack selling dozens of battery powered gizmos :(
@@davetreadwell Here in Germany, I've recently been in and still saw some single-use battery. The website says, they will gone soon. but I also noticed, that the rechargeable batteries are more prominent on display than when they firstly introduced them. In the beginning they also they just had a crappy charger. they things they got now seem a bit smarter, which is good.
The little resistor board definitely makes these neater. Can go ahead and get a little plastic box, or print one, and have a really good looking adaptor. Excellent soldering made me chuckle, but then it is perfect compared to some I see from certain cheaper markets.
Of course if you don't mind it being less tidy, you could always solder the components directly to each other, insulating them with some electrical tape. Saves the cost of the PCB. (those long leads on the resistors, when clipped, make great extra wires if needed.)
I can't afford the outrageous costs of PCB software but I at least etch my own copper clad boards. Copper stripboard is also a good option. Eagle wanted £1200 when I last checked, how can a hobbyist afford such prices?
Thanks for getting out the very near calipers! I've have a pack of new batteries sitting on my work bench for a month, totally forgotten why I bought them. My caliper died the very moment I need it the most :P
But $30 for a card with so many v-cuts is a really good price. 20 years ago I paid over $350 for one board that wasn't much bigger. The price development for those of us who now have electronics for home and hobby, Thanks for a nice channel.
The minimum between V scores is 20mm, any less and you have to pay an Engineering fee. For paneling below 20mm use stamp hole / mouse bites. You can indeed get 25 20mm x 20mm boards from the offer size of 100mm x 100mm with no aditional fee ! Thiner pcb material is an extra charge ! When paneling the 100mm x 100mm size, do not check any panel options when ordering !
You could wire them directly to the board and solder the strand right to it. Use heat-shrink to enclose the board and back fill the wire end using silicon rubber or potting compound.
i thought that was what he was going to do, the USB bit is so cheap it makes the snap in connector redundant, unless you are using it only to test. I like the use of batteries really, must fit up the lights for this year though I can barely get to the window
@@Okurka. I assumed it was to allow different power capabilities. With the USB connector, you can power off of anything, batteries, powerpacks, vehicles, etc, that has a USB-A connector.
My tip for soldering without burning my fingers would be to bend the resistor leads (either acute or obtuse, but don't keep the straight angle) so they stay in place without having to hold them. Sorry for my bad english, hope this does make sense to you
you forgot to mention that to get an accurate current reading you should measure the actual resistance first - since resistors typically have wide tolerantes (unless you’re using high precision, which you did not mention) Otherwise awesome video
Bought myself such side cutter from China for like a pound with shipping after watching your videos, can only agree they're very useful and convenient. They usually list them as cutters for 3D printer plastic filaments, I got «Plato 170» clone (I guess). Thanks for recommending!
A bit like Ryanair. But I suppose it's better that they have all the optional extras and a low base price, rather than charging $30 for all boards even if you don't require all the options.
One potential addition you could make to the design would be to allow you to daisy-chain the boards from a single usb connector. Potentially you could then have a strip of boards you didn't break apart act as one big PCB.
I just paid 15€ shipped for a stack of 5 PCBs very similar to what you got, a lot cheaper than any German service that's for sure, and a lot more convenient (and cheaper if you don't do it often) than trying to do it yourself somehow.
"not sponsored by JLPCB" happy that you disclose this, but I doubt anyone would care if you did do a sponsorship with them though. I don't mind sponsored videos if it's a product that x influencer *actually* uses and is willing to put their name behind. And hey, got to pay for those expensive liquors to carbonate somehow :p
Allpcb has 150mm^2 free pcbs once a month, havent sent panelized boards but my simple boards come out great. They were how I got started with pcb making and I love them for it.
I've used JLC after some shopping around when making an attempt at making a lily58, Which came out around 30CAD for 5 boards (Which makes about 2 keyboards and 1 extra). While I blew up my pro-micro's due to my poor soldering work, the PCB's were great for the price (and i got a couple nice little extra's which was cute). While I wouldn't ever believe advertising like 2$ boards, JLC has at least come out as the best option for myself as a Canadian, Especially since i tried my hardest to find a Canadian PCB provider, but finding a Prototyping PCB manufacturer that doesn't charge an arm and a leg, and also provides Gerber checking and stuff is tough, and well... Yea JLC does all of that. I do plan on using them again for future projects so long as that price comparison stays the same
I think if I wanted 3 sig figs of current measurement, I'd want to measure both the voltage and resistor to 4 sig figs; the variance measured could be accounted for by the tolerance of the resistor
I'm surprised he didn't use the first meter to continue measuring across the resistor when the second meter was in circuit. That would have shown the true effect of the second meter as a percentage, without needing to know the exact value of the resistor.
I bought a pair of those flush cutters awhile back because I’d seen them in your videos so often and I use them for just about everything. I’m honestly surprised they’re still sharp at this point. They’ve definitely cut some stuff they probably shouldn’t have...
They're remarkable resilient. They have no issues chopping things all the way up to a normal wire coat hanger. My wife uses them from wire ties (flush and no scratches) and for trimming candle wicks. They will flush-cut brad nails too seemingly without nicking.
EasyEDA designer lets you choose whether use v-cut (they really don't like to do it for small boards) and "stamp hole" as a panelizing method. They're much happier with the latter.
I turn the straight male to 90 degree male by pulling the pin down about 1mm-1.5mm and bending it. You have a little less on top but with practice, you can minimize the amount you need.
Could we possibly have a video where you go through the design process of some type of simple PCB. I have some ideas but don't really know where to start.
My last jlcpcb order was delivered to the kerb along the road. Thankfully a neighbour picked it up and delivered to my door. Thanks yodel. I'd pay slightly more for slow shipping as long as last mile was via royal mail. Would choose DHL, ups etc as heard too many stories of extra handling fees.
Maybe use one of those little two pin, through hole surface mount terminal blocks, with screw down connectors for connecting the wiring on the lights? Would be loads easier and take up almost as small of a footprint as the two pin connector you're using.
That is really neat, I was thinking of how to make up a board or three and what would be needed, so thank you for saving me having to work it out, while still trying to learn all the basics you and many others leant years and years ago and don't really think about it. It would be nice if there was a book that would provide electrical noobs with the basics of what things do and why they are needed, but so far haven't come across anything as simple (electronically) as I want, that all start by assuming the reader understands what passive components do and what they are used for 😔 I'll find something one day.
The Nord VPN sponsorships are relentless. Almost as relentless as the hackers and surveillance agencies that can't steal my data because I use Nord VPN
Nice lille board :) Will definetly not steal the idea for my own batterypowered christmas lights :D Also the through hole USB sockets are also better mechanical wise than the surface mount ones. They don shear that easily off nor get their solder joints easily cracked.
Happy to see you we use the same soldering technique - flux breathing, finger burning, lead poisoning !!! At our age, why bother with this modern namby-pamby nonsense - it didn't kill us yet ;)
The $2 panelised boards used to be a thing, but people started abusing it and ordered many boards for $2, so they've nerfed it. For larger boards, say 5x5 cm or so, panelising them up to the maximum allowed $2 size of 10x10 cm actually doesn't give any advantage. 4 panels on a 10x10 board, times 5 boards gives you 20 smaller boards, but it costs exactly the same as if you'd just order 20 5x5 cm boards. Obviously they had to make that change, if a lot of people aren't paying for 20 boards, but still ordering them.
Hey Clive I love your videos in fact 3 years ago you were the first electronic channel I watched, you did a test on some "stun gun" modules along with some kinda alcohol so you were a favourite straight away. I use those little batt charge boards but this is a better idea I might try this on xmas time. I was messing with some 3mmRGB flashing LEDs on a supa computer sort of ting and the 2 lead ones just cycle thru the sequence as I expected but then the length and frequency of the flash changes
Nice to see a real bug in the hardware, a 90° connector would have made it low profile and easy to cover in heatsrink. Remember JLCPCB are a prototype PCB manufacture hence the price, for a production PCB I'd expect to pay a lot more to cover the quality control and repeatability and the stack of paper work.
Absolutely love it :) Always been interested in having some PCBs done but I haven't designed any since I was 17 years old. I still have a couple of projects I did on my YTS scheme. A 4 channel Disco light sequencer using 2 555 timers, Binary up/down counter, and Binary to Decimal 16 output chip fed through a board of diodes to make the pattern then fed to 4 opto isolated relays to drive traditional PAR36 pinspots. It still works but the wires could do with a re-solder as some have dropped off in the last 30 years lol. It did have a snazzy Audio beat pulse generator I made on it too as a switchable option but I have lost that circuit board :( I have to say that in the years I have come across sound to light in devices, that old project from Everyday Electronics back in the 90's was the best sound to light project I ever built. It never wavered from only reacting to bass beats. Trebble sounds would never trigger it. I wish I could get it back. The original project was to build a touch switch programmable lighting controller using EPROMS and friggin tons of PCBs and chips of all sorts. I just singled out the Beat Detection circuit and built that. Back then I wasn't educated enough to understand track width but glad to say I did it right with wide tracks on the mains side and used gap and antitrack techniques. Nowdays I guess you would use an Arduino but back then it was old school and made you think about what you were doing. The second 555 was for adjustable reverse pattern by switching the up/down pin of the binary counter. My other project is a 6 digit 7seg display using switches as binary input to a 7seg driver to just make a cheap display of any numbers you switch in, the clever part being it is multiplexed with a variable strobe drive to speed up or slow down the digits as they are displayed. That way only 1 7seg driver is needed and I used a decade counter for the strobing, reset at 9 as it counted 1 to 8. 3 and 6 were just led pips between the pairs of 7seg displays. The switches were fed by diodes to prevent cross contamination to the other digits as each set of 4 switches were fed a signal by the decade counter and the 4 outputs fed to the ABCD inputs of the seg driver. The most recent thing I did (and is related to this video of yours lol) was buy a USB powered white LED strip from poundland. I snipped the + wire and soldered in a 10 ohm 1/2 watt resistor on a switch. Mounted in a length of narrow plastic trunking as a housing. I'v slipped in some colour by using sweet wrappers from Quality Street for a nice rainbow effect lol
It's definitely really cool to get your own design made into reality in your grubby hands. I'd recommend giving it a go, hobby-level design software is dirt cheap also.
As a long-time (mostly happy) user of jlcpcb, I wonder why someone would make those claims. Seems irresponsible. The terms on the website are pretty straightforward. The only part that's ever surprised me was the occasional $4 "engineering fee" (which has usually been due to something I've done).
I say "mostly happy" because I had one set where the soldermask adhesion was a little low. Just a little too easy to scrape through. Other than that batch, I've had fantastic results. (I don't want to overstate the adhesion issue--it wasn't like it was peeling off or anything. It's just that I'm so accustomed to flawless results that I was surprised when it was only "ok.")
It's mostly that, as usual, support is absolute dogshit on budget sites, and you have to argue for weeks with them to get anything done. Edit: have also one got a PCB with leaded HASL when I paid for lead-free, which is annoying to even detect - I don't exactly lick them out of habit.
1% tolerance of 10 ohm can be quite significant when you're measuring the current through using the voltage across... It's important to know what the actual resistance of the resistor is. Note that measuring voltage is always going to be more accurate because to measure current, the meter does the same thing -- introducing it's own resistor in circuit and skewing the result. It's compensated for, but it can't do that across the whole range, it's the main reason that there are multiple ranges for current measurement in your meter...
I have a board design similar to this, but it's a breakout for the MCP2221A USB to UART/I2C/GPIO controller. I only had 5 made, but I did use some surplus space to have ordinary +5v and 0v connections. I did stick a power LED on as well because...well... it would look better to know when it's live! :P What I tend to do is size my boards in such a way so that mounting holes are either pitched 0.5" (for boards smaller than 1" on either axis) or 0.1" apart so that it's easier to mount them.
I was planning to do the same with a Poundland %) LED Christmas strip so that I can power it from the socket on the tree, but I'll probably go with strip the wire and solder the wire to the battery contacts as that way I keep the flash function. Also, about JLC, to be honest I can't believe how people haven't already figured out that promotions have always caveats and that it is usually difficult to be within them, I always look for the caveats in any promotion as it is most of the time not what I need and that just makes it not worth it. And not only for PCBs, but for everything.
Gave JLC a go recently on some small PWM filter boards for pi zeroes. 10 days before they left the country. Still waiting for them now. Didn't figure out how to panelize so think I've ended up paying near $9 for just 5 boards about the size of each of those snap off boards you have!
Oh no! Spotted this video _after_ I'd taken some melatonin before bed, but obviously I needed to watch it. Only a few minutes in and the eyelids are already starting to feel heavy.
This is just what I've been looking for for my first soldering project. I know you don't ship internationally now but I'd be interested in getting about 5 kits and I'm just down the road. A second class stamp would do. Will not be offended if you say no :-)
Clive, I've recently found myself bingeing a variety of your vjo's involving PCB assembly and soldering work and have discovered that we are rather kindred spirits. Most of my work has been fairly solitary, so seeing someone else perform not only some of the same work, but in the same manner is compelling. When I have been working around others who can see what I'm doing, they are either; A)Uninterested in the skills used by lowly workers, or 2)Gobsmacked a mere mortal can fabricate magic from grains of sand and metal "glue" - I might as well be conjuring spirits from the æther! The highly dexterous left hand clamping & solder feed system which we both employ also tends to spin heads. Greatly look forward to catching a live chat sometime soon. (I have a solar light with what may be an odd circuit design I'm modifying, and would sometime like your opinion on whether there's a better way to do it.)
I think I'll get some of those made then. For future revisions I might like the option to just solder the leads of the leds directly on, instead of having to crimp on a connector. Though I see the advantages of having a connector as well. Same goes for the boards with a PIR sensor.
If you want to calculate the current, I would suggest to measure the resister frist to have a more accurate divider value. The resistance is so where between plus/minus the tolerance % after all.
Two questions. 1) You didn't ground the housing of the plug. I do that for all my projects. Is that something I should be doing? 2) you computed the current by taking the voltage across the 10 ohm resistor. But it's 10 ohms +/- some percentage. Even at 2%, that would still give a current range of 88.3 mA to 132.5 mA. That makes all the readings that you got possibly correct. Wouldn't it be better to measure the resistance when using this method, especially at such low values for a resistor?
Can you go through the decision-making process (or maths) for a novice please? The battery box is for 2x AA batteries, so the leds are expecting 3V and I guess they are all in parallel? You are supplying them with 5V from the USB, but I know the current is 'more' important... What makes you say "this voltage will be fine" (ie what about a 9V PP3 battery, or two or more, would that still be fine?) and what makes you choose 2x10ohm resistors? Are you calculating for 1mA through each led? In which case do you need to adjust for how many LEDs there are in the string?
Isn't it a better option to go for plated holes instead of single sided PCBs? The price will still be the same, but you don't have to worry about lead length, joints will flow anyway.
Maybe already said in a comment. I think you should do a test. Order the same exact PCB designs from a few places to compare and/or buy from just one company that you buy one set yourself and get the other set supplied on a sponsor spot.
Weird - a couple days prior to this I made a similar thing on a smaller scale (like 3 of them) mounted to cardboard and hot glued together (safety all the way!) except I had 2 sets of resistors on a switch as some strings use 3v and others like the big lighting up musical ornaments like their 4.5v so I can switch between them - only useful for these applications of course as resistors for varying the voltage is a bit unreliable.
How was the required current figured? 106mA was measured, but that seems a lot for normal little LEDs, these days 10mA can be a lot, and less than that can be normal. I assume the LEDs in the string are in some kind of series/parallel arrangement; if they were all in series then the 5V USB supply would be too low, so....maybe they are all simply in parallel instead? It would have been good to mention this, otherwise the whole thing is just a tiny PCB soldering video.
I just ordered from JLC earlier today (first time... yay!) and it turns out if you want it RoHS compliant it's more expensive. Weird. I agree that using leaded solder is more pleasant but for a business it's kind of a faux-pas nowadays. By the way, I own very similar side cutters, but they come with a notch in the jaws to facilitate using them as wire strippers. That has occasionally come in handy I must say. Mine are from Velleman but I can't imagine they're the only brand that sells them like that I can't imagine it'd be very hard to grind a notch yourself if you really wanted to either.
No need to grind the notch, just use something hard like a bit of piano wire or a sewing needle to dent the jaws at the position you want the wire stripping notch. Been doing this for years after accidentally notching my dads favourite pliers as a kid and finding the 'damage' useful...
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Can we admire Clive's dexterity holding that board and components still while soldering and talking? :)
He applies maximum 'Dexterosity'. Defined as "The free use of ones skillful hands, particularly in the area of (insert preference) underwear". Not to be confused with 'Denterosity' which is the same skill but using your teeth.
@@twotone3070 Clive's beautiful beardy must come into play somewhere?
Every time you do one of these "adapt LEDs power source" videos I'm reminded of how hard it used to be to light up props and costumes.
These days it's so nice to have so many options including dirt-cheap portable USB supplies.
thats a clever idea for them.
Watching Clive work, while also listening to his walkthroughs in that calming voice, makes everything he is doing so clearly and easily understandable. This is so important when trying to recreate something that he made by yourself, because it gives you much more confidence in your work. At least to me it does. Thank you for that, Clive! Keep up with your great uploads!
I've had good experiences with JLC, and for the cost, have been impressed. sometimes there are imperfections, but we're not making Ipads or space-shuttle bits are we? I've never had a functional problem with them though. but I wasn't paying $2 for them, I suspect they will cut EVERY corner possible with the promotional deals.
My (then 9 year-old) son designed his first PCB last year (a reading-light with sleep timer) and thoroughly enjoyed it! after he watched the delightful videos made by JLCPCB that describe the process, he can't believe it costs as little as it does to get a complex thing like a PCB made for you on the other side of the world and then shipped to your door. (and he's right, even without the silly $2 promotion)
The complete lack of shilling is just one of many reasons why this is the best channel on RUclips.
It's pretty great that people can now discuss/complain/speculate about different fees that raise the total price of PCBs by a few bucks here and there. Not too long ago, getting professionally made PCBs just wasn't something you would ever consider as a hobbyist due to the high cost.
I had a PCB made for a project I was working on with several people about 25 years back, it was roughly 100mmx120mm and I think the best price we could get for prototypes was a ~£60 setup fee and around £10 a board, plus shipping, from a company in Germany. There were not many PCB manufacturers who would deal with you if you weren't a commercial organisation or wouldn't be wanting quantities in the hundreds.
@@IanSlothieRolfe The cost for prototypes was so high, my boss would tell me to try my best not to make any mistakes and just order 200. This wasn't high-volume stuff though.
Great little board :) Neat idea having the battery to USB power all on the one board and not having to chop up cables and mess around with heatshrink anymore, not that it was especially hard to do.
I guess the ultimate evolution of this idea could be some sort of little board that physically fits inside the battery pack and attaches to the two wired terminals, keeping the option there to used the lights with AAs should you want to in the future. Then all that would be needed is to make a microUSB sided hole in the cover of the battery pack to attach to the adapter board, or just not bother clipping the cover back on.
I've found JLC getting quite arsey and dodgy lately... The last order I placed with them, after taking my money and waiting 2 weeks, they emailed saying that because I lived in Vietnam (?? I'm in Scotland), that their cheapo airmail didn't ship there and to choose (and pay more for) a different carrier. Then after telling them it's a UK address they then changed their excuse to the cheap shipping (4PX, the same one the Aliexpress and Ebay sellers use) don't ship to the UK now because of "covid" - choose a more expensive shipping option...
When I explained that what they were telling me was lies (as I had gotten several 4PX handled packages from Ali that week) they insisted that they were telling the truth and to "please choose more expensive shipping method"...
I ended the back and forth with an ultimatum, either send me my already paid for boards immediately or just cancel the whole thing, refund me or I'll just call my credit card supplier to issue a chargeback.
After another couple of weeks standoff, they eventually replied that they will send out my order "this time" but in future, "choose more expensive shipping".
I think that JLC are now trying to cash in on their status as the go-to place for getting custom circuit boards done but this whole episode reeks of fish and extortion. I think I might be trying an alternative to JLC next time.
Its a shame as they used to be pretty much faultless.
You're pretty much describing a battery eliminator, though I've not seen one with a socket on; they all tend to have a flying lead, either to a barrel jack or USB plug.
Consumer electronics can be standardized A LOT more and be made WAY MORE interoperable when it comes to supplying with power.
You could always 3d print a box with the extra room for the components. Also maybe upgrade to 18650 batteries and have it able to charge the battery as well(of course this would require additional chips, but would be a fun project).
JLC works but Oshpark is really the way to go (at least in the US) honestly. Yeah you might pay a buck or two more but they're fair, honest, great quality, and great service. One time USPS lost or mis-delivered my package of some boards for a project and the Oshpark support guy immediately put in a new order for me with express shipping, all free of charge. Doesn't get better than that.
Their flat rate $5USD/Square Inch includes worldwide shipping, as I recall.
I like them, too. Also Ainsler in Europe is really good (cheaper than OSHpark to Canada, for some reason, and Ainsler handles milling in Eagle better in my experience).
My concern with Chinese fabs, aside from China's price manipulation of fabbing materials which drives domestic fabs out of business, is the Intelectual Property theft. If your circuit is promising or can be sold, they will take it and make a product from it without licensing it.
@@kgchrome you think that doesn't happen in other countries? Hell in the US they probably steal your design through terms of service clauses legally
@@nyetlokibut in the US and EU, should that happen, you have legal recourse for a price. In China you have nothing. Stop pretending China is, in any way, the same. It isn't.
I am surprised he didn't pull out his inline USB power meter to compare against that. I was actually expecting him to do that!
I tried JLC a while back. At the time the $2 was a promotional price for your first design and then any others were a higher regular price. I sent in 4 designs. They came back and claimed my first design "requires ENIG" and not only refused to honor the promotional price but also demanded I pay another $45 plus other fees on top of the non-promotional price, also refusing to honor the promotional price on one of the other designs instead. This was after they had tried to convince me to authorize them to blindly charge me (which I refused, luckily). I won't touch them.
The boards I've seen people get via sponsorship look higher quality than what I see people get from paying the promotional pricing, though hard to tell for sure. Would be interesting to see someone get similar PCBs both from sponsorship and (secretly) by paying for them, and compare quality.
So you didn't read their terms and conditions is what you're saying.
@@Alacritous I'm not sure what you are suggesting. My design did not in any way violate their terms and it definitely did NOT require ENIG. They merely used the claim their "engineers say it requires ENIG" as the excuse to charge more. They also claimed I should just pay the full price (including extra fees) and after I received the order to ask them to refund some of the charges.
FWIW the design in question was an OSH design many others have ordered from various fabs, including JLC, with no issue.
@@Alacritous So you didn't comprehend his comment is what you are saying.
Most people I find can't read. They know their ABC's and those letters form words but have zero comprehension skills. Comprehension (Understanding what a sentance means) is 90% of the reading skill.
This is Bullshit, you simply made a mistake somewhere and now you have something fun to tell Clive, how can a JLC engineer tell you you need ENIG ? it just didn't happen that way your missing some thing out, they don't need you extra money they need your custom their engineers wouldn't say you have to have ENIG there's no justification for that so I bet you ticked the box thinking it was free, and like an idiot you found out it's not and got 'sour grapes' I've paid for hundreds of boards and never had this problem but I can see how the order page my be tricky for some people with a limited skill set ...stick to perf board.
Our shops experience with jlc has been good. But their smd parts have always come installed backwards and random. We now use Oshpark, made in USA so no more exorbitant customs charges, which I recommend everyone, and they come in a pretty purple!
Their clear mask is pretty cool, you can see the routing and ground planes right on your boards.
Electronics was always a hobby for me, but recently I had to rewire an RV/caravan and learned a lot about crimping twelve volt connections. You quickly learn which tools work well or not at all.
Yeah, I noticed that about the whole 2 buck deal, though I forgot what the price was at the time. But I had designed some diode boards for the motors on one of my 3D printers. Nothing fancy, just singe sided boards that held a couple of connector sockets and 2 surface mount diodes. Their 2 dollar/delivered in less than a week deal ended up being closer to 40 bucks and to be delivered a month later. Needless to say, I was less than impressed and chose not to go ahead with the order.
Thanks Clive, I enjoyed that.
Sometimes you need 3 hands for a soldering task. (Last time for me was lying on my back underneath a machine I was repairing in a factory with one hand holding the parts together and my iron in the other.) When you absolutely have to use the deprecated "pool of solder on the iron tip" method, you also need to invest in a small dispenser bottle of liquid flux and put a few drops on the items you are soldering before applying the iron. My "get out of jail card" for soldering in an industrial environment.
Literally what i was looking for! i nearly clicked "buy" on 40 piece battery set, but then i realised i have couple 5V chargers that can replace that! and now i know that there is no reason to make complicated constant current sources, just two resistors work fine!
It's lovely to see lights that aren't the usual red, yellow, green, blue!
I don't understand how it can be so satisfying and relaxing to see a man make the world's simplest circuit, but it is. 🙂
My 2¢ / suggestions for a later revision, I'd definitely go with the right angle connector, and maybe do a 2 sided PCB with the resisters on the reverse as surface mount, that way you could create a slimmer profile that would almost align with the USB connector, perfect for a short length of heat shrink if you wanted to give things a little protection. A tiny side mounted switch (or option for one) could also be handy.
You can buy solderable USB plugs that have enough room inside for a resistor. That way you could solder it directly on to the light string.
Just a little tip: when you separate panelized boards you can rub the two edges together (like it's stereotypically done with chopsticks) to smooth the rough texture which I find really unpleasant to handle otherwise.
For a single board you can use the edge of some scissors or similar blade (or just sandpaper of course) to smooth it
I bought some abrasive boards of the type used by persons of a feminine persuasion for their nails for general sanding tasks like this or tidying 3D prints, they don't require a sanding block because they're rather like using a fine file, you can throw them away if they get clogged and are incredibly cheap.
@@IanSlothieRolfe Yeah I actually have some of those single use nail files it's just that typically the closest thing when I'm handling boards are scissors or things like that so...
@@IanSlothieRolfe you can get the metal sanding boards, which presumably last longer
It's mind boggling just how little a diamond-dust abrasive tool costs nowadays
@@IanSlothieRolfe For those actually looking for these at the local shop, they're usually called emery boards, at least in my neck of the woods.
I like JLC, but you do have to keep in mind they nudge the price at every opportunity. :)
I got 5x PiStorm PCBs which ended up at about $5 each, which is still good value IMO.
yeah they raise the price for a lot of reasons, but every time I ordered something, they were still the cheapest option anyway. Other PCB manufacturers basically do the same thing, they just dont stress their cheapest possible price as much. It's also all written out on their website what adds the extra charges.
What software are you using to make the Berber file
I have used JLCPCB for a bunch of different boards, and I ran into the same "extra charge" for V-scores less than 15mm. Of course, in their defense, they do state that 15mm is the minimum side for v-scores. I have found over time that all the extra charges they have ever added was because I was asking them to do something extra. I have never figured out why they won't v-score boards that they assemble - you have to use routed cuts with mouse-bites to break apart. But, I just had some 3x7 panels done on 100x100mm boards , so I got 105 small boards for $2
How to build the most power efficient LED powering module? Thank you for your time and I appreciate all of your videos, always. ❤️👍
That would depend on the application.
Clive - you need some ‘crop & bend’ cutters
They’re what we had as a standard tool for hand fitted components at Plessey- that were fitted after the surface mount and wave solder process- after removing rubbery solder resist
After ‘crop & bend’ the components remain in the board when you flip it. Avoiding the need to burn your fingers.
Although having bent leads does make them harder to desolder if you need to do further work
We also had a ‘stylus’ tool custom made in the factory too shop from a stick of circuit board with a track that went around the ‘nib’ edge - it was used to bend over pre-cut component leads on things like I.C.s etc
Seems like one-hand crop/bend tools all seem to be discontinued and pretty much unavailable. Plenty of the jig-types and plastic bend-only though - ughhh.
Desoldering those components is always quite tricky due to the bent leads.
my mom bought a set of lights at ikea and i recently saw them in action. they were plugged into a wall-wart with a very broad plug and I was delighted to see a USB-A interface upon inspection. nice touch. on the other hand i think ikea is quite a greenwash, talking about sustainability while on the next rack selling dozens of battery powered gizmos :(
They have recently discontinued all single use batteries, and now only sell rechargeable batteries
@@davetreadwell Here in Germany, I've recently been in and still saw some single-use battery. The website says, they will gone soon. but I also noticed, that the rechargeable batteries are more prominent on display than when they firstly introduced them. In the beginning they also they just had a crappy charger. they things they got now seem a bit smarter, which is good.
The little resistor board definitely makes these neater. Can go ahead and get a little plastic box, or print one, and have a really good looking adaptor.
Excellent soldering made me chuckle, but then it is perfect compared to some I see from certain cheaper markets.
Of course if you don't mind it being less tidy, you could always solder the components directly to each other, insulating them with some electrical tape. Saves the cost of the PCB. (those long leads on the resistors, when clipped, make great extra wires if needed.)
I can't afford the outrageous costs of PCB software but I at least etch my own copper clad boards. Copper stripboard is also a good option. Eagle wanted £1200 when I last checked, how can a hobbyist afford such prices?
There is USB female connector that has wires at output
@@ianhosier4042 there's free software now. And eagle does a few square inches last time I checked like 7 years ago
@@nyetloki all of them now require a license which is very sad for the hobbyist. I am now looking for a pirate version but no luck so far.
Thanks for getting out the very near calipers! I've have a pack of new batteries sitting on my work bench for a month, totally forgotten why I bought them. My caliper died the very moment I need it the most :P
But $30 for a card with so many v-cuts is a really good price. 20 years ago I paid over $350 for one board that wasn't much bigger. The price development for those of us who now have electronics for home and hobby, Thanks for a nice channel.
my dad taught me to splay or twist the leads together before soldering. no need to hold them in place and experience THE BURN.
I use blue tack :)
I was laughing at him juggling the board and components. Just splay the leads and sit it flush on the bench. 🤦♂️
The minimum between V scores is 20mm, any less and you have to pay an Engineering fee. For paneling below 20mm use stamp hole / mouse bites. You can indeed get 25 20mm x 20mm boards from the offer size of 100mm x 100mm with no aditional fee ! Thiner pcb material is an extra charge ! When paneling the 100mm x 100mm size, do not check any panel options when ordering !
You could wire them directly to the board and solder the strand right to it. Use heat-shrink to enclose the board and back fill the wire end using silicon rubber or potting compound.
i thought that was what he was going to do, the USB bit is so cheap it makes the snap in connector redundant, unless you are using it only to test. I like the use of batteries really, must fit up the lights for this year though I can barely get to the window
@@Okurka. I assumed it was to allow different power capabilities. With the USB connector, you can power off of anything, batteries, powerpacks, vehicles, etc, that has a USB-A connector.
Smart little project! That color combination on that string is very nice.
Yes, the Poundland Christmas offering is a choice of warm white or red, green, yellow, blue. The Asda pinks and purples look really nice.
This is awesome! My christmas lights i have up in my apartment are this style of "dollarstore led's" Would be so nice not needing to use batteries
My tip for soldering without burning my fingers would be to bend the resistor leads (either acute or obtuse, but don't keep the straight angle) so they stay in place without having to hold them. Sorry for my bad english, hope this does make sense to you
You freak me out with how you hold/solder boards. Incredible skill
you forgot to mention that to get an accurate current reading you should measure the actual resistance first - since resistors typically have wide tolerantes (unless you’re using high precision, which you did not mention)
Otherwise awesome video
"The tip should be shiny, not matte"
*Me nervously looking at my soldering iron's blue/purple/black tip*
Bought myself such side cutter from China for like a pound with shipping after watching your videos, can only agree they're very useful and convenient.
They usually list them as cutters for 3D printer plastic filaments, I got «Plato 170» clone (I guess).
Thanks for recommending!
A bit like Ryanair. But I suppose it's better that they have all the optional extras and a low base price, rather than charging $30 for all boards even if you don't require all the options.
One potential addition you could make to the design would be to allow you to daisy-chain the boards from a single usb connector. Potentially you could then have a strip of boards you didn't break apart act as one big PCB.
I just paid 15€ shipped for a stack of 5 PCBs very similar to what you got, a lot cheaper than any German service that's for sure, and a lot more convenient (and cheaper if you don't do it often) than trying to do it yourself somehow.
"not sponsored by JLPCB" happy that you disclose this, but I doubt anyone would care if you did do a sponsorship with them though. I don't mind sponsored videos if it's a product that x influencer *actually* uses and is willing to put their name behind. And hey, got to pay for those expensive liquors to carbonate somehow :p
I’m a simple man. I see a bigclive video, I watch, I fall in love 😍 and I HIT LIKE 👍.
Allpcb has 150mm^2 free pcbs once a month, havent sent panelized boards but my simple boards come out great. They were how I got started with pcb making and I love them for it.
I've used JLC after some shopping around when making an attempt at making a lily58, Which came out around 30CAD for 5 boards (Which makes about 2 keyboards and 1 extra). While I blew up my pro-micro's due to my poor soldering work, the PCB's were great for the price (and i got a couple nice little extra's which was cute).
While I wouldn't ever believe advertising like 2$ boards, JLC has at least come out as the best option for myself as a Canadian, Especially since i tried my hardest to find a Canadian PCB provider, but finding a Prototyping PCB manufacturer that doesn't charge an arm and a leg, and also provides Gerber checking and stuff is tough, and well... Yea JLC does all of that.
I do plan on using them again for future projects so long as that price comparison stays the same
I think if I wanted 3 sig figs of current measurement, I'd want to measure both the voltage and resistor to 4 sig figs; the variance measured could be accounted for by the tolerance of the resistor
I'm surprised he didn't use the first meter to continue measuring across the resistor when the second meter was in circuit. That would have shown the true effect of the second meter as a percentage, without needing to know the exact value of the resistor.
@@KevinT3141 maybe we shall get a demonstration of that.
Great little project Clive. Loved the colour combination of the lights; just like a Tanzanite Gemstone. 😀👍
When soldering thru hole components, it's easier to bend the leads after inserting to hold it is place instead of holding in place with finger.
I bought a pair of those flush cutters awhile back because I’d seen them in your videos so often and I use them for just about everything. I’m honestly surprised they’re still sharp at this point. They’ve definitely cut some stuff they probably shouldn’t have...
They're remarkable resilient. They have no issues chopping things all the way up to a normal wire coat hanger. My wife uses them from wire ties (flush and no scratches) and for trimming candle wicks. They will flush-cut brad nails too seemingly without nicking.
EasyEDA designer lets you choose whether use v-cut (they really don't like to do it for small boards) and "stamp hole" as a panelizing method. They're much happier with the latter.
I turn the straight male to 90 degree male by pulling the pin down about 1mm-1.5mm and bending it. You have a little less on top but with practice, you can minimize the amount you need.
I thought you had a wee UNI-T 210E clamp meter, would have been interesting to see how the hall effect sensor worked on measuring the current.
Could we possibly have a video where you go through the design process of some type of simple PCB. I have some ideas but don't really know where to start.
My last jlcpcb order was delivered to the kerb along the road. Thankfully a neighbour picked it up and delivered to my door. Thanks yodel. I'd pay slightly more for slow shipping as long as last mile was via royal mail. Would choose DHL, ups etc as heard too many stories of extra handling fees.
None of them are innocent sadly
DHL delivered my pinephone to the guy that lives behind me...
Maybe use one of those little two pin, through hole surface mount terminal blocks, with screw down connectors for connecting the wiring on the lights? Would be loads easier and take up almost as small of a footprint as the two pin connector you're using.
That is really neat, I was thinking of how to make up a board or three and what would be needed, so thank you for saving me having to work it out, while still trying to learn all the basics you and many others leant years and years ago and don't really think about it.
It would be nice if there was a book that would provide electrical noobs with the basics of what things do and why they are needed, but so far haven't come across anything as simple (electronically) as I want, that all start by assuming the reader understands what passive components do and what they are used for 😔 I'll find something one day.
I made a video about components. These days the most useful educational resources is RUclips.
Thank you Clive. 🐻. 😊
Better them shilling for JLCPCB than NORD VPN! :D
Why?
Yeah. Makes more sense since its an electronics channel.
Marginally 👍
The Nord VPN sponsorships are relentless. Almost as relentless as the hackers and surveillance agencies that can't steal my data because I use Nord VPN
@@mech2159 But doesn't a vpn service also contain electronics?
Nice lille board :)
Will definetly not steal the idea for my own batterypowered christmas lights :D
Also the through hole USB sockets are also better mechanical wise than the surface mount ones. They don shear that easily off nor get their solder joints easily cracked.
Happy to see you we use the same soldering technique - flux breathing, finger burning, lead poisoning !!! At our age, why bother with this modern namby-pamby nonsense - it didn't kill us yet ;)
The $2 panelised boards used to be a thing, but people started abusing it and ordered many boards for $2, so they've nerfed it. For larger boards, say 5x5 cm or so, panelising them up to the maximum allowed $2 size of 10x10 cm actually doesn't give any advantage. 4 panels on a 10x10 board, times 5 boards gives you 20 smaller boards, but it costs exactly the same as if you'd just order 20 5x5 cm boards. Obviously they had to make that change, if a lot of people aren't paying for 20 boards, but still ordering them.
Hey Clive I love your videos in fact 3 years ago you were the first electronic channel I watched, you did a test on some "stun gun" modules along with some kinda alcohol so you were a favourite straight away. I use those little batt charge boards but this is a better idea I might try this on xmas time. I was messing with some 3mmRGB flashing LEDs on a supa computer sort of ting and the 2 lead ones just cycle thru the sequence as I expected but then the length and frequency of the flash changes
Nice to see a real bug in the hardware, a 90° connector would have made it low profile and easy to cover in heatsrink. Remember JLCPCB are a prototype PCB manufacture hence the price, for a production PCB I'd expect to pay a lot more to cover the quality control and repeatability and the stack of paper work.
My soldering iron has an amazing feature of randomly not being able to melt solder after a period of melting it spectacularly
Absolutely love it :) Always been interested in having some PCBs done but I haven't designed any since I was 17 years old. I still have a couple of projects I did on my YTS scheme. A 4 channel Disco light sequencer using 2 555 timers, Binary up/down counter, and Binary to Decimal 16 output chip fed through a board of diodes to make the pattern then fed to 4 opto isolated relays to drive traditional PAR36 pinspots. It still works but the wires could do with a re-solder as some have dropped off in the last 30 years lol.
It did have a snazzy Audio beat pulse generator I made on it too as a switchable option but I have lost that circuit board :( I have to say that in the years I have come across sound to light in devices, that old project from Everyday Electronics back in the 90's was the best sound to light project I ever built. It never wavered from only reacting to bass beats. Trebble sounds would never trigger it. I wish I could get it back. The original project was to build a touch switch programmable lighting controller using EPROMS and friggin tons of PCBs and chips of all sorts. I just singled out the Beat Detection circuit and built that.
Back then I wasn't educated enough to understand track width but glad to say I did it right with wide tracks on the mains side and used gap and antitrack techniques.
Nowdays I guess you would use an Arduino but back then it was old school and made you think about what you were doing.
The second 555 was for adjustable reverse pattern by switching the up/down pin of the binary counter.
My other project is a 6 digit 7seg display using switches as binary input to a 7seg driver to just make a cheap display of any numbers you switch in, the clever part being it is multiplexed with a variable strobe drive to speed up or slow down the digits as they are displayed. That way only 1 7seg driver is needed and I used a decade counter for the strobing, reset at 9 as it counted 1 to 8. 3 and 6 were just led pips between the pairs of 7seg displays. The switches were fed by diodes to prevent cross contamination to the other digits as each set of 4 switches were fed a signal by the decade counter and the 4 outputs fed to the ABCD inputs of the seg driver.
The most recent thing I did (and is related to this video of yours lol) was buy a USB powered white LED strip from poundland. I snipped the + wire and soldered in a 10 ohm 1/2 watt resistor on a switch. Mounted in a length of narrow plastic trunking as a housing. I'v slipped in some colour by using sweet wrappers from Quality Street for a nice rainbow effect lol
It's definitely really cool to get your own design made into reality in your grubby hands. I'd recommend giving it a go, hobby-level design software is dirt cheap also.
I enjoyed the habitual use of the calculator for dividing by 10 in this instance. (-:
As a long-time (mostly happy) user of jlcpcb, I wonder why someone would make those claims. Seems irresponsible. The terms on the website are pretty straightforward. The only part that's ever surprised me was the occasional $4 "engineering fee" (which has usually been due to something I've done).
I say "mostly happy" because I had one set where the soldermask adhesion was a little low. Just a little too easy to scrape through. Other than that batch, I've had fantastic results.
(I don't want to overstate the adhesion issue--it wasn't like it was peeling off or anything. It's just that I'm so accustomed to flawless results that I was surprised when it was only "ok.")
It's mostly that, as usual, support is absolute dogshit on budget sites, and you have to argue for weeks with them to get anything done.
Edit: have also one got a PCB with leaded HASL when I paid for lead-free, which is annoying to even detect - I don't exactly lick them out of habit.
1% tolerance of 10 ohm can be quite significant when you're measuring the current through using the voltage across... It's important to know what the actual resistance of the resistor is. Note that measuring voltage is always going to be more accurate because to measure current, the meter does the same thing -- introducing it's own resistor in circuit and skewing the result. It's compensated for, but it can't do that across the whole range, it's the main reason that there are multiple ranges for current measurement in your meter...
I have a board design similar to this, but it's a breakout for the MCP2221A USB to UART/I2C/GPIO controller. I only had 5 made, but I did use some surplus space to have ordinary +5v and 0v connections. I did stick a power LED on as well because...well... it would look better to know when it's live! :P
What I tend to do is size my boards in such a way so that mounting holes are either pitched 0.5" (for boards smaller than 1" on either axis) or 0.1" apart so that it's easier to mount them.
7:25 I didn't expect there would be debugging involved with a PCB design this simple ;)
So many projects, so many ideas .Glad to see someone doing them .Keep up the great work
I was planning to do the same with a Poundland %) LED Christmas strip so that I can power it from the socket on the tree, but I'll probably go with strip the wire and solder the wire to the battery contacts as that way I keep the flash function.
Also, about JLC, to be honest I can't believe how people haven't already figured out that promotions have always caveats and that it is usually difficult to be within them, I always look for the caveats in any promotion as it is most of the time not what I need and that just makes it not worth it. And not only for PCBs, but for everything.
Gave JLC a go recently on some small PWM filter boards for pi zeroes. 10 days before they left the country. Still waiting for them now. Didn't figure out how to panelize so think I've ended up paying near $9 for just 5 boards about the size of each of those snap off boards you have!
I sent a board out last week. The only shipping available to the US way DHL for $18. OSHPark was $6.10 total with shipping.
For soldering I put solder on the iron, then add more when I'm actually on the joint.
I'm sure many would love to have this very soon. perhaps aliexpress sellers can be inspired and start selling this little project.
Oh no! Spotted this video _after_ I'd taken some melatonin before bed, but obviously I needed to watch it. Only a few minutes in and the eyelids are already starting to feel heavy.
I love these useful circuits as well as your explanations and demonstrations!
The pro way of using a crimping tool ahha
Support Clive!
Once again as I was laying in bed, your video showed up and now I want to go sniff some lead based flux core solider for the 4D reality show. lol
@@Okurka. yep, thanks for correcting me. That's the flux but the solder which I also spelled wrong needs to be 100% lead no tin involved.
Hey Clive, I'd love to see a similar example but with a relay for remote control.
This is just what I've been looking for for my first soldering project. I know you don't ship internationally now but I'd be interested in getting about 5 kits and I'm just down the road. A second class stamp would do. Will not be offended if you say no :-)
Clive,
I've recently found myself bingeing a variety of your vjo's involving PCB assembly and soldering work and have discovered that we are rather kindred spirits. Most of my work has been fairly solitary, so seeing someone else perform not only some of the same work, but in the same manner is compelling. When I have been working around others who can see what I'm doing, they are either; A)Uninterested in the skills used by lowly workers, or 2)Gobsmacked a mere mortal can fabricate magic from grains of sand and metal "glue" - I might as well be conjuring spirits from the æther! The highly dexterous left hand clamping & solder feed system which we both employ also tends to spin heads.
Greatly look forward to catching a live chat sometime soon. (I have a solar light with what may be an odd circuit design I'm modifying, and would sometime like your opinion on whether there's a better way to do it.)
Having a "dextrous left hand" is actually something quite sinister!
@@johnm2012 I do use a very right handed trackball for navigating my computer. I'm sure it's only a coincidence.
I think I'll get some of those made then. For future revisions I might like the option to just solder the leads of the leds directly on, instead of having to crimp on a connector. Though I see the advantages of having a connector as well. Same goes for the boards with a PIR sensor.
The linked file has additional solder pads and strain relief holes.
If you want to calculate the current, I would suggest to measure the resister frist to have a more accurate divider value. The resistance is so where between plus/minus the tolerance % after all.
Two questions. 1) You didn't ground the housing of the plug. I do that for all my projects. Is that something I should be doing? 2) you computed the current by taking the voltage across the 10 ohm resistor. But it's 10 ohms +/- some percentage. Even at 2%, that would still give a current range of 88.3 mA to 132.5 mA. That makes all the readings that you got possibly correct. Wouldn't it be better to measure the resistance when using this method, especially at such low values for a resistor?
how about converting old bulb->led strings..?
Oh dear. Big Clive's been bugged. Guess it was only a matter of time before GCHQ found your RUclips channel. 😁
Clive, you have given me an excellent idea for a project. Thanks for this, I needed this kick this morning :) Have a great day yourself :)
Can you go through the decision-making process (or maths) for a novice please? The battery box is for 2x AA batteries, so the leds are expecting 3V and I guess they are all in parallel?
You are supplying them with 5V from the USB, but I know the current is 'more' important... What makes you say "this voltage will be fine" (ie what about a 9V PP3 battery, or two or more, would that still be fine?) and what makes you choose 2x10ohm resistors? Are you calculating for 1mA through each led? In which case do you need to adjust for how many LEDs there are in the string?
Isn't it a better option to go for plated holes instead of single sided PCBs? The price will still be the same, but you don't have to worry about lead length, joints will flow anyway.
I hear BigClive I feel quiet. Watch you soon!
Maybe already said in a comment. I think you should do a test. Order the same exact PCB designs from a few places to compare and/or buy from just one company that you buy one set yourself and get the other set supplied on a sponsor spot.
Weird - a couple days prior to this I made a similar thing on a smaller scale (like 3 of them) mounted to cardboard and hot glued together (safety all the way!) except I had 2 sets of resistors on a switch as some strings use 3v and others like the big lighting up musical ornaments like their 4.5v so I can switch between them - only useful for these applications of course as resistors for varying the voltage is a bit unreliable.
"Burden Voltage", you should be using Dave's meter... Cheers Clive ;-)
Can't sleep somthing to concentrate on cool Clive
Aren't these little LED projects a lot of fun? To avoid reinventing the wheel, I wish your boards were available.
How was the required current figured? 106mA was measured, but that seems a lot for normal little LEDs, these days 10mA can be a lot, and less than that can be normal. I assume the LEDs in the string are in some kind of series/parallel arrangement; if they were all in series then the 5V USB supply would be too low, so....maybe they are all simply in parallel instead? It would have been good to mention this, otherwise the whole thing is just a tiny PCB soldering video.
106mA shared between 20 LEDs.
I just solder directly to the contacts inside the battery box to retain on/off switch, where I have it installed permanently.
I just ordered from JLC earlier today (first time... yay!) and it turns out if you want it RoHS compliant it's more expensive. Weird. I agree that using leaded solder is more pleasant but for a business it's kind of a faux-pas nowadays. By the way, I own very similar side cutters, but they come with a notch in the jaws to facilitate using them as wire strippers. That has occasionally come in handy I must say. Mine are from Velleman but I can't imagine they're the only brand that sells them like that I can't imagine it'd be very hard to grind a notch yourself if you really wanted to either.
No need to grind the notch, just use something hard like a bit of piano wire or a sewing needle to dent the jaws at the position you want the wire stripping notch. Been doing this for years after accidentally notching my dads favourite pliers as a kid and finding the 'damage' useful...