Mini meteor lights - with schematic
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- Опубликовано: 1 фев 2024
- These are a super-minimalist version of the classic meteor shower Christmas lights. They are very simple and operate from about 3V, meaning you could use these on a costume, or make strings of them.
If running from 5V a series resistor is required. I tested one next to another running at 3V and the resistor value that matched the 3V intensity was 150 ohm. You can use a higher value resistor if you want a more subtle effect or a longer run time on a power bank. 1000 ohms still gives a useful intensity.
The listing I got these from on Aliexpress is:-
www.aliexpress.us/item/325680...
They should work out around $1 each.
Make sure you get polarity correct, as powering microcontrollers with the wrong polarity can damage them. A series resistor will assist in limiting damage from a polarity incident.
If you enjoy these videos you can help support the channel with a dollar for coffee, cookies and random gadgets for disassembly at:- www.bigclive.com/coffee.htm
This also keeps the channel independent of RUclips's algorithm quirks, allowing it to be a bit more dangerous and naughty.
#ElectronicsCreators 
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Ooh, lightsabres for a flea circus!
My thoughts exactly 🤣
Brings to mind ( Flea Circus (1950) on youtube!
Perfect size for LEGO figurines 😂😂
Rgb rectal thermometers
Ha ha :-)
I've used them in props, they run for a whole day on a 2032 battery or 2 in series on 5v for a lower brightness. really useful for confined space.
Props was my first thought. I recall back when Star Trek TNG tricorders were the hot thing and folks went nuts trying to duplicate all of the blinky light effects. Now you can do it with a COB with a built in micro.
I think the lower LED count at the end more give the impression of variable speed, and that last bit where the drop hangs on for a sec before shedding off (drip wise).
It still amazes me how 4 'channels' appear to flow so perfectly...
It's six, but it is unusually smooth.
There must be more to it! It looks like individual LEDs, not LED groups, are switched. Clive, are you sure you didn’t miss anything? Can you do a slow motion recording of it? Then we can see whether it’s individual LEDs or LED groups that get turned on and off
They might PWM them so that one fades out as the other fades in which would make it look smoother.
@kimchristensen2175 But even then, with pwm, how does the controller address individual LEDs, which it obviously does? Or is there some logic in the LED groups, hidden somewhere? If four are connected together with just one pin on the controller... How does it create a fading light effect from one side to the other, like a larson scanner? Clive must have overlooked something.
@@helmutheller1538It's using anti-aliasing. Anti-aliasing can make text much more readable even on a low resolution screen. Same principle here.
Note that, even if this is not the case here, it is possible to individually address up to 30 LEDs with 6 inputs thanks to the "Charliplexing" technique.
Earrings necklace hat brim spiked Mohawk hair etc. Thinking party club cosplay. Really cool ornament. Love the 3V.
It was one of those that killed the LED dinosaurs.
😂😂😂
Diodesaurs..
There are also variants with multiple patterns, triggered by shortly cutting the power to select the next pattern (upto 6 patterns in total)
Those are cute little LEDs. Thank you for showing them. I have seen those used on some car alarm systems here in the US, to make it very obvious the vehicle is armed at night. Personally, a simple single blinking red LED is more than sufficient in my vehicles.
I really like these! They could make for some very fun wearable lights.
For parties, yes.
Outdoors, no. Just another unwanted distraction.
These would probably work well as pilot/indicator lights showing that the operator needs to do something left or right. Or in an arcade machine.
Oh darn you Clive... you got me. I ordered three different colours and then got entranced by all the other LED's on AliExpress.
Mine just arrived and they actually include a surface mount decoupling capacity on the pads below the IC.
0:22 20 mega amps! Great Scott!
60.5 volts might fry them.
Thus the name.
At 230 volts, that's 4.6 jiggawatts!
China don't really bother with caps or lowercase, they figure you know what they mean.
@@keiths8700 - China manufactures a lot of electronics. I'm pretty sure their engineers (and most secondary school students, for that matter) know SI magnitude prefixes, including the difference between "milli" and "Mega".
I've had my eye on these for a while to do a retro future-esque lights on a retro car project
These are cool. Now I want a bag of each colour.
Lighting has become so cool and hackable. Very interesting Clive.
Thanks Big Clive. Those are supper cool.
These were a good find Clive. I like these.
The band gap for blue leds is 2.6 volts so that's amazing it glows on such low voltage.
Oh, these have a wonderful dropping effect. I like them a lot, in fact, I can think of a few modelling projects out of them. Edit: Clive, I saw another listing for these. If you keep the neg attached to the power. Then add the pos by tapping it on the pos tab once each time. The LEDs will flash in 5 different patterns, one tap per flashing sequence, eg, like the KITT car L-R &R-L red strobe effect. This makes them even better for a visual affect.
I love them, so many uses
Very cool little objects, I can definitely see some uses for them and pretty cheap for what you get. I was thinking maybe in a computer case, but that might just be me.
Very cool, I love little things like this
I'm very surprised at how well the groups LEDs simulate a finer grained meteor effect. Watching them I would have expected single LED resolution, but stepping through the video seems to show changes only in larger groups.
Very cool little lights. I may have to order some too.
I love meteor lights! Especially in trees
Quite nice, very hypnotic.. I`m imagining them in the brake lights of my car..
Always fascinating, entertaining and educational. Thanks, Clive! 🔵🔵🔵🔵
Thanks. Much appreciated.
Beautiful, thinking they'd be excellent for my taillight on a custom bike, and lots of other things.
Well done Clive, the best little light show yet.
Thank you 😊
✌💚🇬🇧
Oh, those animated 'designer' lights on vehicles are very annoying.
They look like dynamic indicators for cars 🚗
One area of my city used dangling string light versions of this same effect as part of their outdoor Christmas lighting displays this year.
I was speculating that it might have been charlieplexing the LEDs. This is an even simpler method than I imagined.
Yeah they had those large ones in my city too. I thought Charlieplexing initially. It would actually be nice to have a Charlieplexed version, then they could drip or maybe sparkle instead as each of the 30 LEDs could be independent with 6 GPIOs.
Many of the longer ones do Charlieplex the LEDs.
Those are good. If they made even more-near UV leds in that form it would be even better.
runs to the store...ive needed exactly this for a project,,,thank you so much
Excellent video as always. Thank you sir!
Thanks. Much appreciated.
These are really cute...going to have to get some now :)
They would look really cool on city Christmas trees.
🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄
They seem to be selling these with an attached battery pack for rear bike lights. It's exactly the same PCB with the same IC soldered into the little LiPo pack.
I gained new knowledge after watching your video!!
They would be fun to stick in an auto-reverse tape deck to show direction of the tape. LOL.
Brilliant idea 💡 👏
@@lesallison9047 I just thought it would look cool. 👍
Tape deck?? I thought they were all gone! Kidding 😅
@@PinePondCTDevilsHopyard-fy3hj LOL.
@@PinePondCTDevilsHopyard-fy3hj Not so long ago I decided to compile a playlist of music I had had as a child.
Done that and had listened to that all day.
But something was missing, could not understand what... _Spinning reels!_
Basically as simple as possible, just a microcontroller and some LEDs! Neat. 🙂
I build miniatures for all kinds of stuff. but right now this has me thinking about using something like this for a landing lights on a landing pad. arranged so the light all cascades towards a center point would look epic.
I love these little lights. Must get my hands on some :D
If it could be guaranteed not to break, one as a house key might be interesting
They're what car keys of the future were supposed to look like.
I made a bunch of these at 3x the length with an AVR ATTINY some years ago and 3d printed several spiral icicles variants in clear PETG. Came out very nice.
Super! Thank you very much!
My cobra furry costume is now complete, I found the eyes.
My neighbor's got a bunch of these but they are larger, individual stakes you put in the ground and they charge from a solar cell. He's got them all along his driveway and the effect at night is very nice. (His are blue also)
These are rad. Would look really cool in a sci-fi or Gundam model.
Interesting little circuits! Lots of ideas. I think the gel is all around because they probably dip the pcbs after assembly (simpler and faster).
Oh wow never seen these, very cool 😎👍
Awesome Video Big Clive 😊
Very nice! Thanks for another great video. When you said “About 20 LEDs…”, I immediately thought, “Oh cool! a 5 pin Charlie-plex”, so I was a little saddened to see it was just four discrete channels. Could have been random access! :D
Yep, I have seen the falling snow effest many times when going out during the Christmas season during the last decade if not even a bit more.
Although it was always longer and wider lights than the tiny ones you just shown here.
Just received mine - note - they have different modes! Comet, flickering flame, blinking, steady on - just quick off on press to change mode!
Rad. Now, imagine an entire Rosco tassel ("slit") drape made out of those. Incredibly tedious to build, awesome to view!
Those are cool! 👍
Nice little module. 😎
I can see making a lot if little cool sci-fi props with these.
These would be perfect for SciFi table top terrain and various War Gaming models.
that looks nice
Oooh cute. *must resist
That's so cool, I still remember the first time I saw the giant "snowfall" light tubes in a boutique Christmas store (for hundreds of dollars) as a kid. Now we've got these 😀.
I would have thought the leds were charlieplexed but this version seems much simpler.
I had the same thought.
The pattern somewhat reminds me of the lights before airport runways to mark the approach path.
They're designed to attract moths that went to flight school.
Perfect miniature laser cannons for model spaceships
Very cool, I have not come across these on my Ali surfing
Very neat
I saw much larger 'tube' lights which have a similar effect at the end of Newsnight, Friday 2/2/24.
Stage props for a singer. Very cool.
As a kid, I used to lie on my back out on a hill in the countryside for hours at night, watching those little meteor lights flash through the sky. They don't look so exciting any more now that I'm older...
I wonder if they'll push into a T10 bulb holder?
cheers Clive :)
Oh! Include them in a wire sculpture of a bonsai tree….disco weeping willow!!!!
so cool
I do miss the long videos
We have an art/fashion show thing (World of Wearable Arts) here in Wellington I was involved in a few years ago and they had full sized ones of these in the auditorium as part of the show. It's a really nice effect.
This gives me some ideas.
Oooh...love to see a project where you built them into a spiral or circle or something cool...is that a possibility? Thanks again for the video and as usual the very easy to understand explanations on what is happening with all those little electrons! Love your videos and commentary!! looking forward to the next!
These would go great with your 3d printed bulb covers.
I wonder how many LEDs can be run on each leg without damaging the chip. I could see this chip being useful for controlling direction pointers, particularly if it can handle considerably more current than the stated 20mA. If not, it could still be used to drive a mosfet on each leg and that would have the advantage of being able to switch higher voltages too, perhaps 3 LEDs in series to run off a 12v supply.
The listing states 20MA not 20mA. See 0:22 seconds into the video. You have plenty of current😂
These are great, I didn't see any meteor lights this Xmas in any of my local towns - seems to have gone out of fashion? Don't know why - I still like them.
Same as them flame LED's you showed months ago.....I ordered those a month ago, because they dropped significantly in price .
And ordered a bunch of these with them.....
Damn Clive. You just cost me money. Again.
Nifty little lights! How about building up an idea of your own, and making an episode out of it?! I for one would like to see it.. .
I made a version of the meteor lights with software for a PIC microcontroller than can be downloaded.
Thanks :)
Wake up everyone, Big Clive just uploaded!!
On video they actually show more purple than blue. Does that make them... burple?
...
I'll see myself out.
PUPP-ULE
Ah I’ve recently seen these in a video for a "Bike light" and I said to my self that these have to be pre made modules xD. I have to say they’re pretty cool. Probably gonna buy some.
In Tunbridge Wells last Christmas there was LEDs Christmas lights strung up in the trees and they were doing the same thing has your LEDs lights but they were about 30cm long and I wonder how they work and now I know. Thanks Clive
quick questions for you.Do they do the meteor thing when first turned on? I got some of these to play with, I am powering mine from CR2032 and when they turn on all the LED's are lit, I have to turn them off and on again to get the meteor effect. Oh, and mine have a tiny capacitor between the +/- terminals.
These are the simple version. Others have multiple effects.
Would be really interesting to see a graphic eq/visualizer made from these.
Can I be the first to request a Techmoan/BigClive collaboration?!?!?
I wonder if the microcontroller is one of those cheap PADAUK thingies that go for like three cents per piece in bulk.
I wonder what it would take to make a 2 channel, 20 segment audio spectrum analyzer out of these?
Clive, will these run off of 3x NiMH cells without regulation? Might work nicely for garden illumination, fill some of the solar garden lights with clusters of meteor lights, the average power looks to be low enough that they'd probably last a good bit through the night.
Might require a resistor.
If you want to smooth out the current reading, go power-source --> meter --> 470uF cap --> doodad.
Charge the cap and measure if there's any significant leakage current to subtract out later.
Let the doodad draw off the cap. It supplies current to the doodad even with spikes, and the meter reads smoothed-out current readings.
I had to do that for a "beacon" light, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, huge current spike, nothing, nothing, nothing, etc. Only it needed something like a 20,000uF soup-can of a capacitor.
i love the effect, really very nice :) .It would be desireable for two or maybe three enhancements; 1. speed control 2. dim control and ..in a dream world perhaps being able to reverse the pattern so that they could be placed 'upside'down'.
Just bought a few, they look very nice 2x👍
My Patreon email was missing the link to this but someone posted it as a reply for me. So not sure why it was missing. 🤷♂ Thanks Clive great video 2x👍
Same. The photo in the email was a link to the post on Patreon, and on there was a link to the RUclips video.
I wonder what a chandelier would look like if there is one of these in place or behind of every crystal !
What happened to the smartmeter upload, I wanted to see that especially since they're dodgy.
It should still be there.
I need this for my rc hobby
These would be sweet for Nerf Modding.
i bought these, they never sent them... reordering them now lol