Making a set of retro neon fairy lights. (100 year anniversary.)
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- Опубликовано: 10 июн 2019
- This turned out really well. It's a set of fairy lights / Christmas lights that are based on neons that run in a parallel circuit with two resistors per neon. It could have been a single resistor per neon, but by using two it spreads the heat dissipation, packs out the base nicely and adds a layer of safety and reliability.
I didn't realise until I started writing this video description that the humble neon indicator lamp is 100 years old this year (2019) having been patented in 1919. Happy 100th birthday lil' neon lamp.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neon_lamp
If you build a string of these then please remember that they operate at mains voltage and extra care must be taken to sleeve and secure connections. I actually missed a heatshrink sleeve from one of the lights leaving live contacts exposed, so take care to double check before powering the string up. The wire should be rated for mains use and ideally would have been double insulated, but it's quite tricky to find double insulated single cores.
A suitable fuse should be used in case of an incident, and a humble 1A fuse will theoretically handle 1000 lights or more if run at less than 1mA per lamp.
I used standard NE2 indicator lamps which I bought from a local mail order electronic supplier, and used two 100K resistors for our 240V supply. If making a set for 120V you can use a lower value resistor like two 47K, but the neons will light fine with higher value resistors. The intensity will reduce with higher value resistors and the glow may become unstable and shimmer about inside (which is a really nice effect). The life of these little neon lamps is rated in tens of thousands of hours of continuous use, with lower currents giving longer life.
This is definitely a project for seasoned electronics tinkerers, since it does involve a lot of mains connections. But it's also a very therapeutic project to build a set as long as you want. You could use green, blue and white (if you can get them) neon indicators too, but they will be a bit dimmer and you definitely want to run them at reduced current to avoid blackening.
The supplier I got the neon lamps from was Rapid Electronics in the UK:-
www.rapidonline.com/electroni...
You can also get them on eBay if you search for things like 100pcs neon indicator with the option of blue and green too. I recommend the 6mm diameter lamps as they are stronger, brighter and longer lasting. If the ones you get have a spot welded resistor on them I recommend replacing it with a higher value one for cooler running and longer lamp life.
The slight alternating of the glow from side to side in the video is due to the way each electrode illuminates alternately at mains frequency. The camera shutter speed makes that visible.
You can deliberately make the glow discharge unstable in the lamps by adding a capacitor in series with the whole string. It causes a slight interaction between the lamps and can make some of them shimmer like little neon flicker-flame lamps. With this short string of 13 lamps I got a good effect with a 47nF or 100nF suppression capacitor. Remember to add a 470K discharge resistor across the capacitor to avoid getting a plug-tingle from residual charge.
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 advertising algorithms allowing it to be a bit more dangerous and naughty. 
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Congratulations Clive, I can't believe you have been doing these videos for 100 years!
Damn, beat me to it. :D
Yes. It's a long time since I released that first video about bakelite rheostats for DC motor control.
Beat me to it too! Sorry i wrote mine before reading down.
i know and he doesnt look a day over 60 :;
Those were the days! Shot on film, then off to the lab for development. Then ship (on a real ship) the whole thing to America, where they uploaded it to projectors. Ah the good old times of YT!
"Sinister phosphor glow," that's why i am addicted to your channel and your pro-jacked collection.
“...get a battery. THAT has potential...” You, sir, are GENIUS!
Dutch being tall - it's an evolutionary benefit if you live below sea level.
:-)
That’s likely true, considering oxygen concentrations
I had a bunch of ten neons in an infinity mirror type box. Started off the mains with a diode and small cap, then resistors to each neon. Each neon had a small cap across it. So it was a relaxation oscillator with each neon firing randomly compared to its neighbor. The effect was kinda cute. I think I threw it out 20 years ago but I might still come across it if I move.
Those neon-lamp relaxation oscillators were popular "desktop amusements" back in the 1970s. There were some being made by an artisan in Toronto that included a 90V battery (still available back then for tube radios). Housed in clear acrylic. I always thought they were super-cool.
I love neons. Speaking of resistor values for them, I've found those little neon nightlights here in the US with resistors ranging from 17k up to 150k. I usually go for 47k mostly because I like yellow violet and orange bands on the resistor.
The fourth light from the end of your strip has no heat-shrink insulation!
That's so he can have an exciting moment later on!
He realised after - check description
Spoiler Alert!! ACKK!! ;-)
@1:00:57 i watched wide-eyed as he damn-near grabs the unprotected one while live O_O;
I must be quite observant too as I was grimacing as he was nearly getting close to those live contacts with bare fingers.
The project videos are my personal favorites. I live with depression and they inspire me to spend time at my work bench. Thanks Clive.
You are not alone. Clive definitely helps with inspiration, to us, that can make and repair devices. And for some reason, find it difficult to get motivated. Hang in there James.
Yes James, yet another with depression. Clive has been a massive help to my wellbeing, dread the day he finally decides to gives it away. All the best mate
I’m starting to believe that having depression and back problems is what makes us human
Man, this is like the best talk radio with soothing electronic construction imagery added in.. Keep it up Big Clive
As a teenager, I remember borrowing a HeNe laser from my part time job, and a friend and I having great fun entertaining the neighbourhood cats. Interesting side note; chickens also like to chase lasers.
Ther's no such thing as hoarding. There's only a shortage of storage space problem.
In case anyone was wondering, 6.4mm heatshrink sleeving is a thing because that's approximately 1/4" and our USA cousins like things imperial :-)
anyone else stop breathing in as the solder smoke travels towards the camera out of habit???? haha great video Clive as always
16:00 I knew someone who brought a "small" lazer to party. 5 foot long. We were doing the aim it out the window and hit buildings down the street. One person noticed lots of drivers running a STOP sign, so when the car showed no signs of stopping...hit the STOP sign with the lazer. It lite up super bright. The driver must have slammed on the brakes , by the way the car suddenly stopped.
I remember playing around with neons, 90v batteries, resistors and capacitors, and building a novelty light set. The basics were, the battery charged the capacitor via the resistor. The neon was in parallel with the capacitor, and would only strike once the voltage across the cap was high enough to ignite the neon, this discharged the cap, and the neon would extinguish. Because the resistor was of sufficiently high value, the neon wasn't able to light directly from the battery, and so the cycle repeated ad infinitum, so the end effect was a flashing neon. Connect several of these simple flasher circuits in parallel, and you had the basis of a novelty 'light field' that flashed/flickered in a random manner. In a box, in a fireplace, it gave the impression of a fire slowly shimmering. However, if you were to run them out in a string, you would have a random flashing chain of neon lights. You could run them from a 90v radio battery (these were still easily available in the early '70s) or could build a simple PSU to deliver the required voltage. The true subtlety was in the random variance of component value tolerances - this gave rise to the random flashing of the neons, and you could fiddle around with component values to fine tune the rate of flash to suit your own preference.
I'm sure you can figure out the circuit for yourselves, but I could send it to Clive, if he is interested, but I can assure you, it is such a simple, rookie level, circuit that anyone could make it.
Whatever happenedto EverReady 90V HT batteries? Or those 'combi' ones that had the HT and LT combined, with a four pin socket in the top?
Happy days in my corner of Dad's shed...
@@duncanx99 We got transistors and a PP9 ! Sadly, the older generation of portable radios were made redundant by a technology that only needed one battery, and no need to warm up, and were more resilient to knock 'n' shock damage. In short, people stopped using them and opted for transistor radios instead, so there was no demand for the batteries, ergo, the supply dried up.
Those are really sweet! Neon and low pressure sodium lamps have to be my favourites
If your house is spotless, you need to get a hoard😂😂 that made me feel alot better about my work station😂
I'm that tinkerer like you said and life so makes sense now, ever since my diy'er has came out although I've been mechanically and technically enclosed all my life but just recently got more into pcbs,circuits and what not. I'm learning and I know that in no time everything will come together As u mentioned, I love soldering as well, I find that very therepuotic, I'm happy that someone out there is into this stuff just as I am and not feel like a weirdo I guess lol, thanks for your services God Bless
As a kid, i wired a mains voltage lamp to a plug myself, because i've seen my dad do it, but i used very thin wire. Plugged it in and the wire 'exploded'. Gave me a good scare, but i survived. :)
Tinkering is the way to learn about stuff. My sister was very clear that none of her devices were to be tinkered with. Haha.
My dad brought home an old Cash register once from a friend's lumber supply shop. This was one of the best things I got as a child. I remember tinkering with it to no end and sometimes forgetting to unplug it first. To this day I think I shocked myself somehow and made myself pass out, but never told my parents so they wouldn't take the thing away. I was also gifted a reel-to-reel (not working), and other things like printer tape calculators, tape players etc. I still love tearing gear down, and fixing it a lot of the time. Thanks for the great video Clive
Good job on keeping quiet about the shock. It's still standard practice at work.
@@bigclivedotcom This made my day Clive, thanks for reading the comments!
That was nice , at the end with the neons providing the only light the Hopi stopped flashing . Neon Lights only for ever LOL
Well, you just 100% justified my, ahem, "collecting" of electronic & electrical stuff that really is not junk at all because it still has a use, as I do just that, because it's all fascinating and interesting... :D
i have a bright pink cnc router "sticker maker" in pieces on my floor right now, it needs a new brain and slightly less pink(but i am going to make a build video and leave SOME pink on, just for clive)
I remember growing up in the 1960s the Christmas lights we had were just a string of twenty 12v lamps in series on a twisted wire. The colour of the bulbs was just from the manufacturer dipping them in some sort colouring to colour the outside of the glass. Whenever a lamp blew the whole string of lights went out and you had to get a spare lamp and replace the first bulb in the string to see if they lit up again, if not you would take the bulb that you removed from the first bulb holder and replace the second bulb with it, and so on until the string of lights lit up again.
Yeah, but that tree with those 20 dull olive shaped lamps was magical. If anything, modern trees are over decorated.
Like you, I was forever taking things apart as a child from an early age, gradually evolving to building and fixing stuff. I got my first mains voltage electrical shock at around seven, which was a very surprising, unpleasant but valuable learning experience - although it still happened occasionally if I lost track of what I was doing or got distracted, etc. My parents trusted me completely because they both had zero technical understanding of anything and so it was easy to convince them I knew exactly what I was doing! I think they also understood I'd be very frustrated and unhappy if they interfered, so they let me get on with it. Also, it made me very easy to look after because I kept myself occupied and was never bored.
Sometimes I'm watching the video, and Clive says something and I think I need to give him a thumbs up, and damn it, I've already given him one. Where is the double thumbs up button.
I remember when I was around 5 in the mid seventys my dad messing with CBs. I think at ten besides taking apart everything that was broke and a few things that weren't, lol. I made a working dv motor out of a piece of wood nails and telephone wire. My dad was a electrician and going to work with him. I got back into electronics since I was disabled at 40 ten years ago.
Who remembers treading on one of those spikey covers that had fallen off the Christmas lights and lay hidden amongst the presents?
Nice Makers Knife. I love how you're always supporting other RUclipsrs. You're a good man Clive.
That was a very generous gift from a channel supporter when I mentioned that I missed the boat on the original kickstarter.
Sweet!!!!!
63+ Minutes of Big Clive, I’m in Electronic/Electrical Heaven for the next Hour!!!!!
I think part of the reason why you make these live streams so late is that we often have those bedtime ideas, if you get what I mean. You'll either be contemplating bed or be actually in bed, and start thinking about the day that has passed and things you'd like to do and then... BAM! An idea has stuck and now you must execute it! Haha. I'm unsure how much that applies to you, but it certainly does to me. Thanks for another great video, Clive. It's always interesting to watch you build something and listen to your rambling. :) Take care and all the best, mate.
I just made a string of 20 for the Mrs. I found some "TWIST 2 Core 3 AMP Braided Fabric Cable Lighting Lamp Flex Vintage - 40+ Colours" on ebay and combined a dark green flex with red heatshink over the resistors to give it a christmas holly kind of look. The upside to this wire (besides the nice retro look) is that you can just untwist for assembly and it's about the same thickness as a good set of ordinary lights. The downside is dealing with the fabric braiding which is a complete nightmare. It's actual natural fibre fabric so you can't just blast it with a bit of heat to stop the end fraying. I also added some little cable ties to act as extra strain relief on the cables (and to stop that damn braid unravelling).
Total build time... 8 hours ;(
I did have to double sleeve everything in heatshrink and that braid was very fiddly, that's my excuse for being so much slower than Clive.
Thanks for the video!
My advice for anyone attempting a similar set would be to get more flex than you think you need. I only got 3m, intending to have a plug, 1 meter of flex then 2 meters of the string. However that means only 10cm bits of wire between the lights which, by the time you've stripped the ends and added some strain relief, just isn't enough. With my 3 meter starting length the whole string and tail only came to about 2 meters. A 4 meter length (1 meter tail and 15cm wires between lamps) would have been much better.
I like the adhesive lined heatshrink. It locks the wires in better and stiffens the whole thing so the solder joints are less likely to break. And sometimes I squirt some hot glue in before shrinking, so it expels all the air and looks nicer and makes it all solid.
I've cut glue sticks into strips and inserted them into sleeves in the past to make extra gluey heatshrink.
Clive, your Hopi doesn't flicker with the lights off
Because the exposure time increases to compensate for the darkness
Nah, it all has to do with Schrodingers Hopi.
Bloody legend, Clive. Keeping the tinkering spirit alive!
❤ Your project builds!
Good Job! 😉👍
Blessings: James...
clive uploaded a video about neon on my birthday
my life is now complete
A Cat happy birthday mate!,
Finally, a nice warm glowing feeling that isn't nuclear radiation!
@FRIENDLY JAPANESE BUSINESSMAN oof
The Fanny Flambeaux doll video literally changed my life. I found your channel because of the video, then spend several weeks watching your entire channel in reverse chronological order. It revivified my passion for electronics, and inspired me to start doing videos of my own. So thank you, Clive, for bring me back into this world.
45:39 - Thats quite literally on point, When I was a young like probably 8 or 9 I use to just spend as much time as I could watching how its made, mythbusters or any kind of information I could shovel into my brain.
Been doing that since I was probably 7 or 8 as well... I'm 18 now and pursuing a career in the electrical field thanks to channels like BigClive.
I now feel the overwhelming urge to go on ebay and buy in bulk neon indicators and make my own sets.
i only finally got round to making a set haha.
@@deltalambda3864 how did they turn out?
@@drunkkmachine4511 rather well, I made a video of them on my channel. I can also tell you the coloured ones have faired well being on since that video was uploaded, a few of the normal red neon lamps have blackened due to the resistors being too low a value but those resistors came with the neons when I bought them so didn’t think about it too much.
Makes me think of Christmas.
HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!
🖕🏻Baaaahumbug. 🤣
Mary new year
thanks Clive ! that was really enjoyable.
I find a wire clipping at least once a week in shoes, socks, bed, door mat...
It's a frikken minefield around here.
I have to screen my floor with a canister type vacuum cleaner before I use my good bag type vacuum cleaner so I don't accidentally throw away useful components from the floor
I find them more often than toenail clippings
Hi Clive. Like your good self, I have been a 'tinkerer' from an early age. I used to love taking things to bits, to see how they worked and then (sometimes) putting them back together.
Now approaching retirement from a life in electrical engineering, I am still reminded by my elderly Mother that she always knew that I would get a job involving electricity. Apparently, when I was a toddler, I was discovered in a state of distress, with a blister on the end of my index finger. This was back in the days when the UK employed 15A, un-shuttered sockets. As I was found to be in close proximity to one of these electrical outlets, Mother put two and two together and assumed that I had shoved my little digit into the live socket...
Ah using the croc clip as a heat sink.
I remember the first Antex soldering kit I had included a pair of aluminium tweezers to clamp onto transistor leads so they survived the process. Amazing to see OC42 still available for £5, "ROHS: no" what a surprise :) I can't remember what hte black coated plastic enclosed transistors were, but itwas great fun to scratch the paint off and discover they were photosensitive - reault !
I started out with a Philips Electronic Engineer kit that I got for my birthday while on holiday in Cornwall. I remember a few wet days in late August looking out towards Gribbin Head waiting for the sun so I could go surfing again, then going back to assembling the radio. When we got home i built the organ and was disappointed it was out of tune, looking back I'm surprised I didn't fiddle with it to try to tune it... Surprised to see an EE20 on ebay for £100 today :o
Oh, hey! Nice to see Bobby Duke lingers around these parts also. Very interesting video, as always.
That's the same way that I got into Electronics messing around with batteries and lights, granted I'm in a different generation but it's cool to see that it's such a simple way to get interested in electronics
Thank you Clive
From: The born to fix things neuro-tribe.
Watching members of the different Neuro-tribes try to figure out what’s going on is fascinating.
You, helping other fixers to accept themselves for what they are is most honorable.
6.4mm ~= 1/4inch. I love it when metric has to bend to imperial :3
5/32 ~= 4mm, 15/64 ~= 6mm, not sure what your point is?
@@nurgle11 6.4mm is about 1/4inch. If the heat shrink tube was actually metric, it would be a round number, not 6.4mm.
MadMan Machinations - in real life in nature, nothing is the only round number 😀
Not even started the video yet but I liked it as I am so excited at an hour and 3 mins with Clive!
27:03 the foregoing was very DEEP indeed and all I can say is that I appreciated it. Thanks Clive.
In this video, Clive channels Bob Ross. I expected to hear him say, "Happy little resistors," at any moment.
Drunken greetings from Finland! That's the only kind of greetings we have over here. :D
I'm glad someone mentioned Fanny Flambeaux, I would never have found it otherwise!
Hooray!! More neon projects!. They used to make neons here in Paul's Valley, Oklahoma at the Glo Lite plant. I've got several production books from the engineering department. They were bought by Chicago Miniature back in the 80's.
Very nice indeed, well done sir!
Have Fun,
Joe
Really enjoyed watching your videos
I think you missed the heat shrink tube on one lamp. 1:00:51 top middle one
My grandfather used his fingers as a voltage tester.. licked thumb and index, then grabbed live wires..
In the very first electricians guide it actually suggested touching wires to test if they were live. Strangely enough they removed that bit when it was discovered that in the right conditions (usually involving water) the results were a bit dramatic.
@@bigclivedotcom "The results were a bit dramatic"
*Thinks about the hotdogger
love the custom stuff, cheers
Clive, I know what you mean about technical types and what we do for recreation. When I was a student learning computer science, I would spend a lot of off-hours programming in BASIC on my Tandy desktop. Games, graphics, just fun stuff. It was very relaxing.
You and Julian Ilett are my favorite electronics RUclipsrs. :)
A thanks to your mother. A random thing to keep you busy, turned into a lifelong career and hobby.
I loved neons. My Van degraff kit I got around 9 had a loose ne2. You would use it for many experiments. Later a story called the ubiquitous neon lamp or similar ran in popular electronics or similar rag.
Much fun was had when in 1969 I put 2 rows of neons poking out of a small box, each a relaxation oscillator at random. Put it on the dash of my 64 corvair turbo car.
Others, even police thought it was anything from a spy device to a radar detector. Ran off a 90 volt radio battery.
Good ne2s had a radioactive element in them to give reliable indication in the dark.
If you have a blinking neon in any kind of power indicator of old, aim a laser pointer at it. It will light up solid.
I will leave it up as a student exercise to see why.
Many of my Tektronics gear is loaded with the things.
Technical and outdoors people are usually the biggest orders I know. It all has some kind of real value.
And remember Clive, never trust a man with a clean desk, so no worries show it off and be proud.
Amazing how you use your fingers to push the solder into the iron.
Also, colours do disrupt your sleep pattern. A research study in theatre found that technicians working under blue light (common colour to mask working light during tech rehearsals etc) had poorer sleep cycles. There is now a growing movement to remove blue gel lights from working areas. The long working hours don't help mind and the lack of sunlight also has an effect!!
There are MANY reasons theatre technicians have disrupted sleep cycles. Very weird working hours often followed by a trip to the pub.
Clive I could see just fine watching on galaxy s8 w/ small screen. Never miss a video, thanks for the entertainment.
Build, maintain, not breed, create infinitely superior 'specials'. Thank you for the mellow moment in time ~- *
As a kid I took all my toys to bits and learning how they worked and I wired up all kinds of stuff. Also went to work with my dad who is a contractor since I can remember so I was working and building on things from a young age.
Oh Clive, a full hour of content, you spoil us.
I set up an IFTTT applet to turn on a set of white LED fairy lights in my lair in rural Nevada, USA whenever Big Clive posts a new RUclips video.
Seemed appropriate!
Even better if they were pink and dangerous fairy lights.
My father and I disassembled a broken washing machine together out of curiosity when I was little. I still have some enameled copper wire from it, which I unwound from the pump motor.
The issue with the machine was probably the synchronous motor from the mechanical timer/program wheel, which I saved but never got running.
I too started my electronics career with that 4.5V battery and a light bulb. I also started my pyrotechnics interest with a candle stump and a match on a fireproof platter my mother prepared. She couldn't have known, but once I'm intrigued by something it just keeps growing and never really stops.
First thing I ever built was a torch. Fuse wire wrapped round the threaded sheath of bulb, bent so the tit hovered over +. Tape wire to 2 x D cells stacked in series and tail bent over -. Lots of tape to make it all secure then poke and bend the two ends of the wire till the bulb and wire makes contact and bulb glows. voilla - disposable torch. I always had a torch as a kid.
When torch batteries die - cut wire out of sticky mess ... and you have a test lamp, add batt - and it becomes a continuity tester.
I dismantled any and everything ... proudest day of my life was first time I managed to reassemble an old alarm clock and it ran all night (lost 2 hours by morning!).
Electrics in the early 60s, it was difficult for an 8 year old to scrounge much more than a battery and bulb or an odd cat's whisker - not so many low voltage things to harvest, most (broken) things were 240v and had valves - difficult to persuade adults to trust you!
Good morn, didn't get to finish all the video but I will later. From swampland ks. Well done
Fuckin love that neon glow. Just.. monocromatic orange of "mood"
I was taught as a PC tech that monitors are designed to keep you awake this is why windows has what is called the night light setting. You set it for a certain time of night mine starts around 11pm and runs until 10 am and all it does is warm the light up and move it away from the blue light and since I use my computer for everything the nightlight setting helps ready me for bed, I don't have cable tv. I think you were talking about when tv and radios started to change from tubes to what we called solid-state circuitry.
thanks so much for making me feel better about hoarding
We call the windows transoms. From Wikipedia: "In architecture, a transom is a transverse horizontal structural beam or bar, or a crosspiece separating a door from a window above it. This contrasts with a mullion, a vertical structural member. Transom or transom window is also the customary U.S. word used for a transom light, the window over this crosspiece. Wikipedia"
Thanks, Clive!
No flicker from the hopi when lights off. Must change camera scan rate enough with that exposure
something to do with the hopi refresh rate and the 50hz of his lights i suppose
Yup, as exposure increases, flicker decreases. If you have a fully adjustable camera, closing down the aperture will reduce flicker.
I think he already knows that and had it mentioned, but he doesn't because it would mess with the regular settings (?).
Cool now I have a use for all those Russian Neon Bulbs I bought years ago !
I made something like this too! But slightly simpeler (because you don't have to cut and solder your own string).
I took a string of 10 incandescent lamps. Cut off the mains plug. Pulled out the lamps from the little socket, and replace them with red, green and blue neon lamps (the green phosphors go dim VERY quickly though!).
Next, hook it up to a CCFL tube driver. With 10-15 lamps this will work perfectly, with the bulbs running at 30-60 degrees depending on how many of them you put in series.
Ingenious... although sounds slightly zappy :-)
@@theskett I power it with batteries. It has no reference to ground. So if you touch only one part, you won't be zapped.
Aside from that, double insulated cable can resist 4kv or something like it. Wouldn't trust the super cheap christmas lights with 4kv at serious current, but the CCFL driver can supply only 2mA so even if it goes wrong, it doesn't go badly wrong.
Good calls, and thanks for the info :-)
If you used the self sealing heatshrink, it would maybe add a bit of strain relief, as would a drop of CA in each tube. A low current high freq power supply would add to the "safety" if you wish. Line isolation is always a good thing. Been a long time since I bought Neon bulbs, and last time All I could get was the NE-2H high brightness version. A few years back (30 maybe) the green ones with the phosphor in them were popular, but I havn't seen them for a while now, they'd make a nice set as well, or maybe a mix. Back when we said "if we ever get LEDS in any color besides red, we can make fairy lights with them, now we long for the old neon, and soon, probably incad lights.... So goes technology. Now where did I put my fil-check-r,? it's got a neon in it.....
Maybe next time do the relaxation oscillator flashing neon circuit for a flashing set....
During my time in the 'previously enjoyed merchandise' trade, I learned never to use the word 'junk'. Our preferred term was 'quality merchandise'.
Even if we didn't know what the hell it was.
When the lights went out, and the exposure lock was on, the Hopi flickering wasn't really noticeable.
I agree with the bit about judging focus on small screens, I was in London a short while ago and the autofocus on my camera doesn't work in video mode and when viewed on my computer all but one were blurry.
At 9 years old I fitted a pipe into a Goblin cylinder vacuum cleaner. This lead to a petrol can on the shed roof. Combustion was caused by the armature and with the rear cap off the was nearly external. Quite exciting at night. I eventially pushed this cleaner into the flooded sunken lawn. It did not go like a torpedo but the green sparks off the armature before it failed were pretty.
The 6.4mm heat shrink tubing may be designed to accommodate something up to 6.4mm in diameter with the 7mm being 0.3mm of clearance on each side. Makes sense to someone!
6.4mm is 1/4 inch, its probably just an approximation.
Great Video
a thing of beauty :)
I remember seeing a design for a 'neon brick' that cast a number of neons inside an acrylic block. I don't recall the circuit details but I think it used capacitors and resistors in a relaxation oscillator configuration to flicker the neons, and it also took advantage of the voltage drop that occurs when the neons strike to ensure only one neon was lit at a time. The result was a block of neons of which one struck randomly, went out as the capacitance discharged, and then repeated for another random neon.
It would make an interesting variant on Clive's string of gentle flickerings.
When I was near being a "tween" (9 or 10), I made some contraption (a wooden box with naugahyde{sp?} faceplate that spelled something out (perhaps my name?) in flashing neon lamps. Each bulb connected to its own relaxation oscillator; and the whole thing was just plugged up to mains power.
Your project here reminded me of that. :-)
That really nice transparent green wire Pifco used to use wasn’t double-insulated!
Ah, but that was acceptable in the 80's.
Nice idea!
Just when my twig lights were starting to fail again! Thank you
out of all the YT channels , yours was one of the first i subbed to, maybe 8 yrs ago? i remember a lot of your videos back then were a lot shorter, less than one minute. And the Fanny Flambeaux , Ive probably shared 2-3x a yr since it was made, everybody loves Fanny flambeaux! And i think you had another with fireworks bursting into flames on your table. so i guess i owe you a couple pots of coffee for all this educational entertainment. Lol
The short videos were out of necessity to be uploadable on the even slower Internet back then. I should relive those days with some new short videos. They seem to have evolved into 20 minute monsters every second day.
Sometimes shorter videos are fun, quick n dirty. And i remember those day when internet was a snails pace. You've came a long way since then and Im glad i found your channel when i did. Keep up the good work man! cheers !
Your little neon doodle looked just like a small Johnny. LOL
For good theme parks, you should go to Carowinds, on the North Carolina/South Carolina border. As you probably know, South Carolina has tons of fireworks shops just inside it's borders, because they're very unregulated compared to most neighbouring states, including NC. As I understand, this means the fireworks they do every night are required to be in the SC side of the park!
They have an awesome halloween event each year, but also, each night in general, once it goes dark they have some lights synced to music, in an area with Peanuts characters, the lights are all wrapped around trees, you might like it, though it's technically nothing too exciting, as far as I'm aware.
Good video Clive
Hi Clive, I watch your videos since I was 5 years old
Clive a few years ago I purchased an educational “game” called Hot Wires and it’s basically a big peg board with over 30 experiments that make a fan that takes off or a radio or a trip alarm ect.
We had hours of fun and I even learned quite a bit from it.
I hoard old meters, hardware that can be repurposed and I have a craving for leds and cmos logic chips the likes of which are obscene. I have just shy of 20 thousand leds of all types. I can't find solid 5mm pink ones and it's driving me nuts haha. I am very generous with sharing my hoard with other tinkering friends