I have one of those but I swapped the solar panel for one out of those death dalek lamps which puts out (I think) 5 Volts, so whenever it gets hit by the sun it goes absolutely mental, it's a lot of fun.
"Usually, when you take these apart..." Everytime i watch your videos, i start wondering how many solar wobble flowers/(insert weird thing here) you took apart to become this experienced ...
My daughter has a small collection of 'flappers' on her windowsill and its always bemused and irritated my as to why the manufacturers insist on putting the solar panel in front of the flapper instead of behind, where it would get more light as it isn't in the shade of the flapper. Some of hers barely move but when turned to face the window, move much quicker.
You may cut the stem from the very base and then glue it back facing the opposite direction. Super Glue or Crazy Glue would work well. Someone with more skills would reposition the solar panel.
I had one of the same flower,I just turn the flower facing opposite direction,leaving the solar behind. But other model can"t .. only flower like this can.. :)
My doctor's assistant has them on every windowsill, patients keep bringing her more for her collection. It's wild to go in there on a sunny day and see dozens of them waving and clicking.
Another interesting thing is the fact that the silicon cells are not your normal crystalline silicon - these devices almost exclusively use an amorphous silicon cell which gives it the characteristic brown color. This is why you can't see each individual cell. This is done for two main reasons; Cost, they are very cheap to manufacture, and efficiency with regard to diffuse light. Although amorphous are poor efficiency in direct light they can have improved performance in the presence of diffuse light. Which is typically what you get indoors.
Actually, all of those brown cells are amorphous devices, and usually you can see the borders between the cells - the whole assembly is simply diffused onto glass as part of manufacture and hence the inherent low-cost of such devices... Usually operating at around 10% efficiency, i've seen them in all shades of brown; with some so thin they are somewhat transparent and other being a thick dark-brown - i've even seen some that are a deep grey, almost black, but were still amorphous cells. My theory for this fascinating solar panel is one of two: 1. The cell could be using a transparent conductor for the current collectors. Those would be invisible, plus a thicker layer of cell material in the panel would absorb more light - effectively rendering the panel as the apparent "black void" that it is. 2. This is a new multi-layer technology; and the panel is one of the latest and greatest in the field...
@@Vilvaran Yeah right! I'd be more likely convinced it was just another bit of brown cardboard than explanation #2. Even though it's somehow powering a flapping flower, as part of Poundland's ongoing quest to turn all the world's resources into useless items of tat that cost less than 99 pence to produce and sell. That will surely end up as landfill, mixed plastics, copper in tiny quantities difficult to recover economically, and silicon chips with one, fixed, useless purpose. And the glass in the PCB, chemicals in the cap, assorted finely-diced shite, basically, and it's not even attractive as an ornament.
@@greenaum I was merely stating a theory, it's likely just an optimized version as I stated in #1, a "good" solar cell if you will. And a "good" cell will power a ultra-low current flippn flapping flower "somehow" better than the cheap-and-shitty panels we see too often... wait what am I even trying to accomplish here? i have better things to do, like build/test/qualify my power supplies which convert at 95% efficiency using only 3 transistors and a MOSFET; because you know... Going green and stuff.
@@Vilvaran I'm only doubting the hypothesis that Poundland would use even a "good" anything, never mind "greatest"! The solar cells in half their stuff are brown cardboard. They sell the shake lights with the bit of black nothing where the magnet should be! Every shitty Chinese trick! Actually I found solar calculators in Asda the other day that work just as well with the "solar panel" covered. Sure there's dual-energy ones, but they make the claim on the packaging, this is just fake solar. It's a shame cos there's no "off" button. They're barely needed, since calculators use almost zero energy. But it likely has a tiny battery, so would be nice to put one on. I suppose they wanted to save on the rubber for one more. Fortunately there is a way! A way I plan to teach the world, that even genuine solar calculators can be switched off, and thereby forfend the day the Sun finally goes out... You press the middle row, 4 5 6, and "On" together. That adds up to "off". I don't know why, something to do with the matrix probably. And it's worked on calculators I've tried over the last 30 years. I suppose once they designed the chip, they stuck with it! Nothing to improve. Tell your friends that, and help save the Sun! We need it for holidays.
@David Daivdson The horrible thing is, all the cunts who chose to live in the countryside, miles away from anything, complaining about power windmills being "eyesores". So what, you fucks? People who dare complain about that, should be forced to live next to a coal-fired power station instead. In fact semi-detached to a cooling tower. I'll give 'em bloody sore eyes! I actually think wind power generators are really nice to look at. They have grace as they tirelessly turn, each one powering thousands of houses. They kill the occasional bird that's daft enough to fly right into a blade. But not so many as die from pollution each year.
Lovely to bump into you last night, walking through the square! Sorry if my random hello was unnerving! Out of the millions of people in Edinburgh, I couldn’t believe our paths might cross. Thanks for humouring me, and taking the time to have a chat! It really made my week complete. See you the same time next year?
I recommend you don't go to the village of Birmingham in the west Midlands. I had far too many 'funny' encounters. One day, I was looking at something for an e-contact. Having finished looking at it, I'd planned to pass on my opinion. Within 3 yards of walking, he was stood right in front of me. Another occasion, work related, I was working at a place where there was another guy. Turned out he happened to go to school with someone else I met in completely different circles ! And thirdly, one of the computery tutors at Aston uni a few years later turned up at a theatre group I was involved with - so we ended up in the same place as each other again !
@Dave Micolichek I went to S France with friends in the 1990s. Got off the coach at our destination and I got my case and folding bike off the coach. A guy stood nearby said "Ooh look, it's a Brompton" (folding bike) - so as he had one we arranged to meet up later and go for a ride together - so we chatted a bit. Turned out we already know each other from a Usenet newsgroup !
My ex girlfriend was American, she had an online facebook friend that lives a long way away that turned out to have a friend a small few miles away from me that she visited a few times every year with her partner, I went the 15 miles and met them (here in the uk) they had been visiting my area for years before that. I have bumped into people abroad and also have walked a different route in a city, went into a small grocery shop and met someone i had not seen for 15 years since university waiting in line. Another person that i had not seen for over 15 years i bumped into on my way to the airport to go to the US, I was walking to a shop quickly before getting the airport shuttle bus and heard a voice i recognised behind me using a phone, turned round and said their name.. I have also had conversations started by random strangers on flights that turned out to know people that I know. Have bumped into movie stars and tv show personalities in random places and have had other ones that i did not notice pointed out to me by a girlfriend who knew celebrities better than me..
How cool! I had one of these fall apart in my car, so I took a look at the electronics. I didn't know what that blob was doing, but now I do! Using the coil as a feedback trigger from the magnet is so smart! I once build a little prototype pulse motor using a Hall Effect sensor to trigger pulses, but now I know I could have just used part of the coil already on there! I'm totally going to try it again using the magnet and coil sense thing!
Coil is ~500ohms. Heat over cooker ring for 5 seconds and bend plastic to remove. Got 1 of these circuits running as a 24/7 365 motor. 4x magnets on water bottle top rotor and 10F supercap for overnight. Been running for months :)
I think it would have been only fair if Clive would have referred to the like's of yourself and Lidmotor, for the extensive work you've done in the exploration of various implementations of this circuit.
@@johncoops6897 No the original posting guy, but my guess would be that what was meant was an electric motor running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. We'll see what the original posting guy says, though.
A simple rotating magnet motor that runs all the time, day and night. 4 little neo's around a water bottle cap, with a needle through the middle. Usually they are semi-levitated with a magnet above the needle, or magnets can be put on a very free running fidget spinner. I didn't want to hijack Clive's vid with links, but they are fun builds with these amazing waver circuits :)
Sorry for late reply. 2x the Vimun panels that are on the wavers, in series. I'll do an update vid at some point soon, while both similar setups are still running completely fine. The second has a circuit by sMartCreations2010, which also auto starts. Sapphire bits work great as long term bearngs, but have had a lot of success with glazed bathroom tiles. Needle point spins on that, the water bottle cap + 4 magnets goes over it and the top of the needle is suspended by a magnet above. 1 point of friction.
I’d always wondered how these things work! Even in the overcast dreariness of Seattle my little $1 sunflower has been dancing the days away for the last 7 years. I could always tell there was some sort of mechanical resonance going on but for some reason I never thought it’d be so simple.
That simple transistor switch/coil trigger circuit was used in 1960s Junghans Ato-Mat battery wall clocks - the output coil gave a push to a balance wheel with magnets on it - so timing was still controlled by the balance wheel period, but power input was via the drive coil. Nice traditional clockwork tick too :o)
I once had an electromechanical battery operated clock that had a standard oscillating rotary balance wheel escapement with hair springs on jewel bearings like any other small wind up clock but the balance wheel was 2 disks with magnets that were spaced apart with the pancake drive coil between them. I removed the springs and escapement to let the balance wheel spin freely and it was impressive how fast it would spin.
I still have one of those clocks from Bosch. It has been running for probably 30 years now. Accuracy is pretty OK if you take care to tune it, temperature variations seem to be the main source of changes in pace.
My uncle has a few wobbly wavy flappy solar things in his kitchen window, I keep telling him the solar cell needs to be in the sun for them to work properly so the object is "looking out" of the window, but he always turns them back round to face inside the house so they rarely work properly and complains, he never listens... :P
Good disassembly. I have several electric pendulum regulated clocks in my collection of electromechanical devices. One of my favorites is a 1937 French Bulle clock which predates Kundo. The Bulle uses a U-shaped north-south-north 3-pole magnet rod and a coil which swings back and forth coaxially around the magnet rod. There is a butterfly shaped contact flipped by pendulum with one side a dummy contact and the other side a pulse contact. The butterfly rocking in turn moves the time keeping escape wheel. Being French, the Bulle is maddeningly difficult to get adjusted correctly, but once honed in, it is a pretty good time keeper and can run for at least several years on a modern alkaline battery. There was some very interesting electric clock engineering in the years before synchronous motors and mains power with stable frequency.
@@bigclivedotcom Very cool those are beautiful clocks! I’d like to add a Eureka clock to my collection some day, but they are very expensive here in the States. I have a Warren Telechron master clock, the smaller wall mounted model, used in power stations in the 1920s. There is pendulum regulator and Telechron synchronous clock motor which is connected to the dynamo power. The Telechron motor also keeps the spring wound. There is a differential connected to the two clock sections to indicate any difference in seconds between the pendulum time and the time based on dynamo revolutions. The dynamo operator could look at a large hand on the clock face to decide if the dynamo needed a little speed-up or slow-down. I’ve got a couple of Barr / Poole table top Hipp toggle clocks where the pendulum is free swinging until it runs down enough to trip a toggle which drops a weight arm to impulse the pendulum synchronously. The electromagnet is only used to raise the weight arm. When I got my first Barr clock, I thought the mechanism looked like typewriter parts and it turns out Barr had previously been a typewriter designer. The Bar and Poole clocks are 1930s era.
I have one of those inception spinning things that never stops and it's pretty much the same circuit you described for the older flappy ornaments. Lasts for weeks with a 9v battery
Had exactly the same problem with the latest range of Poundland rockers, completely surprised me to find they had glued it together. They probably did it to make your videos more explosive 😆
I took one apart that was cheaper made than that one Clive. It had a 10 v 470 uf capacitor. So I did what any guy would do. I doubled the size of the capacitor, but left it 10 volts. Replaced the pendulum with a wooden pendulum & placed a neodymium magnet on the bottom of it. The thing got to rocking and rolling to where I had to weight the bottom of it down so it would work right! Lol
Wireless World magazine did a great Cardboard Mechanical Clock project back in January 1982 that used a similar circuit to power its pendulum. Well worth a look.
I’d love to see a version of this with a Piranha Plant from Super Mario Bros! The base would be a pipe instead of a pot and you’d replace the sunflower with the piranha plant’s mouth. It would be neat if you could make the mouth open and close too. Hmm, I bet I could 3D print that and transplants the internals from one of these ornaments (the coil, PCB and solar cell). Hmmm...
The trick would be balancing it, so that it acts as a pendulum. That's very important, there must be conservation of energy, between potential and kinetic, at all stages. Also it would need to be well-balanced. There is almost no motive force available on these. That said, the weight wouldn't likely be a problem. As long as it's all balanced. THAT would be the problem!
About 1980 a friend of mine had a "perpetual spinning top" that would run forever! A small top spun between the finger and thumb onto a 5-6 inch plastic base. The top just kept on spinning. The base had a 9v battery and some sort of circuit, and a coil located under the central point of the base. The base was slightly concave so the spinning top tended to move to the centre as it slowed. The top had a magnet. Somehow the coil would add "spin" to the top, sometimes the kick was such that the top would fly off the side of the base. I found some videos of similar tops, ruclips.net/video/1fU1dWEEsHE/видео.html and ruclips.net/video/InWLhPcp9wg/видео.html And how to make your own - ruclips.net/video/sZflO4PQKC4/видео.html
I have a chinese traditional waving cat, had to cover up the solar panel, it starts maxing out in direct solar light and making a rather loud tick noise when hitting the limit. nice to se how they work, I wouldhave guessed the coil part but not the advanced start part.
Your mentioning a pendulum with switch contacts reminded me of the clock system we had in our secondary school, not sure what it was called but there were large single-cell batteries (primary cells?) and a master clock which used to send a hefty pulse of current along a wire which triggered all the other clocks to move on each minute. Best thing about it was when summer time started; all the clocks would click around an hour to catch up with the correct time in one minute!
BIG CLIVE, while this is a fascinating video with basic EM stuff, for me the best part is @1:13 when you finger flick the shattered parts "OVER THERE" Brilliant, mate!
I have a lot of old Russian clocks that have something similar just a coil , transistor and capacitor you have to give them a little kick to start them !
This along with David Watts video on wireless power transmission make for interesting notes in my log book. Thanks bigclive, I now have so many reason to go to a dollar store.
I looked up this video and watched it again because I've actually got two of the old analogue electronic clocks you refer to, theyve got hands which turn clockwise!. They use a single 1.5v cell and a coil and a mini pendulum and a small circuit of discrete components which is inaccessible, no quartz crystal. They keep good time but tend to run faster as the voltage reduces after a year. There is a rate adjustment control which might be resistance or capacitor. Made by Metamec.
Aha! that's how these work. Mine ( flower) was from a cheap store also, thought 'cheap chinese crap' but still going strong after 4 years. :)) Recently bought a dancing owl, had the hawaian dancing girls but they drove me nuts. Too fanatical. ;))
The first time I encountered this principle was in the late 70's, one of my teachers designed and sold kits for 'The Cardboard Clock' which was, as the name suggest, largely constructed from cardboard including the escapement wheel and the gears
I picked up several of these in Hong Kong about 11 years ago and they are still going strong! I also have that clock too...it takes a single AA battery. Always wondered how it was able to run on just one battery and swing that pendulum!
Thanks fot that Clive, I hoped you would check them out. We now have 24 on the kitchen windowsill, not all different but most are. Some need a bit of TLC but not bad for £1.
I remember animated advertising in the grocery store (and elsewhere) with some type of "wig-wag" sign. There was the wire triangle with the curved bottom that moved back and forth through the coil and there was a cylindrical magnet in the middle of that curved piece. There were mechanical contacts that blipped the coil when the magnet was in the proper position. It ran off one or two D cells and required an initial push to start it moving - but the battery lasted for days... I got that mechanism from some piece of discarded advertising when I was a kid, back in the Dark Ages BC (before computers).
A long time ago I heard that John Logie Baird (one of your fellow Scotsmen) invented the electric pendulum before he invented mechanical television. You wouldn't be related to him by any chance?
In the '70s, I had a little moving sculpture shaped like an atom symbol that used a 9 volt battery.. There were also animated displays in stores that used the electronic pendulum. Both had to be pushed to get them going. In high school ('70s) , I had a "transistor alarm clock" in a clear case. As I recall, it had two coils, one transistor, two resistors and one capacitor for what amounted to an electronic escapement. The alarm was a Sonalert type noise maker. The clock ran on a C size battery, the alarm on a 9 volt. It wasn't all that accurate-about like a typical Windup clock..
I've got an old Gents (Synchronome) clock. It has a free pendulum that swings every second and kicks an escapement wheel and after every 30 seconds it drops a contact that drops a lever which gives the pendulum a kick go keep it going. You'll probably remember seeing one at school. All the slave clocks were wired in series so they moved the minute hand every thirty seconds. If you're old enough you probably remember one from school. There was also the gadget that rang the school bells as well. It was a big brass wheel with pins in that tipped mercury switches at the right time. I recycled this but I still have the mercury switches!
These things don't actually exist in stores. They've just been materializing in homes and cars over the last few years. I've never seen them for sale anywhere but they're everywhere!
The place I work at got these as customer gifts from a mobile video transmitter company and they are basically everywhere in offices in the building :P. I actually quite like them, especially since I do not get nervous from them when they are in my field of view or in my peripheral view, and they do not make a sound like some really loud analog clocks :P.
As a child in the 50s I used to be fascinated by quite large rocking advertising displays in I think electrical shops. After getting behind to see how they worked I saw they had a coil, a bent arm supported at one end and passed through the coil. This was only powered by one U2 ever ready battery. But as a child younger than ten I never worked out how it switched as I new it must be, the man in the shop just told me it was manic, which frustrated me.
A similar kind of mechanism as the Kundo clock one was used in oscillating shop window displays back in the 60s, running from a single U2 cell as it would have been called back then.
Kinetic art predates the electromagnetic ornaments. The first kinetic art, as far as I'm aware, was Alexander Calder's mobiles, which were moved by random air currents, and very beautiful they can be too. In my 1970s childhood "mobile" still meant a structure like this, not a pocket telephone.
Wow - flashback. We had one of those kinetic art things when I was a kid - it was a big ring with a magnet on the bottom and a free-spinning bar in the middle that had another cross-bar attached to two counter-weights in the shape of Saturn and the Space Shuttle. So the ring would swing back and forth and the Space Shuttle / Saturn would randomly spin inside. As mentioned it was powered by a 9V battery, which my parents never replaced after the first one went flat because the toy made an annoying "tick tick tick" sound as it swung back and forth.
There's also a spinning top version of the magnetic pendulum thing. Same principle only the top continuously rotates and due to how the base is sloped it moves towards th middle then gets shot out in a random direction. I once had a clock that used the same principle only a wheel had two magnets on it next to each other then a coil in the middle followed by another wheel with two magnets on the other side of a coil. A spring was used to make the wheel move like an escapement wheel in a wind up clock. Ran on 1.5 volts. I took it once removed the spring then took one wheel and turned it to where the magnets were on the opposite side from the bottom magnets. I then had a motor that would spin either direction.
My mum has an old wooden painted Budgie clock that has a combined clock and pendulum mechanism in it. it makes the budgies tail swing at a moderate speed, both fed from one AA battery. The swing mech has a curved bottom but its all housed in a plastic case and my mum wont let me take it to bits to look at it lol. I do give it a sinister 'rubbing my hands together' look when I visit her as its on a wall between the front and back room lol.
My theory for this fascinating solar panel is one of two: 1. The cell could be using a transparent conductor for the current collectors. Those would be invisible, plus a thicker layer of cell material in the panel would absorb more light - effectively rendering the panel as the apparent "black void" that it is. 2. This is a new multi-layer technology; and the panel is one of the latest and greatest in the field... The first being most likely; the manufacturer actually silkscreened their name and the part number - not something you usually find on the cheap nasty stuff. That and conductive films and interconnect already exists in LCD manufacture...
Coolshows101 Possible, but difficult. It involves a microscope and some nasty solvents. Easier to skip to knowing the circuit already unless you really need to check a particular production run (you'll be destroying specimens, so the point would be to know if the rest of the batch is OK).
these things are great, could you please do a teardown of the '4 panel solar display turntables' off ebay....the motors in them have utterly amazing torque....i had a full pint of beer turning on it....and they auto reverse too when nudged...brilliant solar thingies...cheers :)
So in this middle thing where the flower is attached to. Is the counterweight somehow magnetic? Or ferromagnetic? Because I lately repaired a broken Flappy Flower which was exposed to excessive sunlight and heat during the warm days this summer. I put everything together again, the mechanic swings freely, but the thing in the middle barley moves at all. Could it be that somehow the magnet or so lost its magnetism?
00:32 - Oops, did you have to use brute force again...? Oh I see, it's the Factory Glue Bandit striking again. They can't get this thing to be outwardly simpler than that. That's simply NOT possible.
Hello BigClive, back in the 1960s I remember an simple electromagnetic pendulum mechanism that just had a contact at a certain position to make the device swing that was used in shop product advertising displays. I had a couple to play with from my parents confectionary and tobacconist shop. Sadly, I can't remember what the products were.
I've seen half-size versions of these, but only sold at Dollar General in the US, I haven't found them anywhere else. One leaf is molded as part of the center flower stem but it would be interesting to know if the electronics had to be changed to fit in a smaller space or if it's all the same mechanics.
The first function of this circuit I know was in so called "ATO"-Clocks. Coming from its inventor Léon Hartot (pronounced "ato"). Before the transistor was invented they used a mechanical switch in the movement (Around 1920-1940) In the 60's then, they used a transistor-circuit. As you say, Kundo was very known. But there was Junghans as well. And the older clocks were produced by Haller&Benzing.
I am confused. Big Clive has a different woodgrained tabletop / base board. I am not sure whether the woodgrain is to reassure sensitive viewers that (possibly) violent disassembly will occur off screen or whether it is an insurance replacement from a lithium battery disassembly that I have missed. Insomnia beckons while I check history. HELP!
If you really want to go down this rabbit hole, Google (et al) search for "phototropic BEAM robot". These are simulated lifeforms that have some form of movement and survive by "eating" light. Usually the robot/life-form will move in order to maximize the light input. A commercialized version of this phototropic characteristic is the single or 2-axis solar tracking systems used with solar cells. The BEAM robot is a design of a very simple circuit and electro-mechanical transducer (relay, motor, etc.) that stores up energy in a capacitor until a threshold is reached then it "fires" the transducer, causing physical motion. The last time I looked at this stuff was in the late 90's... I don't think there is much new material out on this... Cheers,
I'm guessing the reason they only need three pins might be because of the high output impedance of the solar panel. Soon as the coil starts drawing current the voltage would drop by a measurable amount, which could trigger the circuit.
A friend of mine have an electromagnetic wristwatch where the balance wheel is driven by a similar circuit. It is not working well, the timekeeping is not working OK. It goes too fast with a fresh battery...
6:30 It appears that many cheap battery powered pendulum clock movements have a circuit like this (or maybe with the cob blob) for the pendulum, which is only there for the show. The rest of the movement has no attachment to the pendulum, which will oscillate out of sync and at a frequency that depends on its weight and length.
I thought those things were called "Solar Dancers" or is that just a particular brand name? Anyhow my mom has a small collection of different ones going.
About this time last year in the US, the 'Dollar Tree' bumped everything up to $1.25. Then started adding items that are $3 or $5. The thing is they had a few years previously merged with another chain of stores called 'Family Dollar' who never limited themselves to any particular price. The Family Dollar carries some items from the Dollar Tree since the merger. Occasionally I'll find one that is still priced at $1.00. LOL
I have a Bulle electric clock which works in a similar way to the Kundo, except that the curved magnet is fixed and the coil swings. The Kundo sounds a more sensible design : no need for lightweight flexible wires - but I don't know which came first. Maybe one was done to evade a patent on the other.
I was considering buying one of these to place in the windowsill, but then I remembered that I have a kitten that likes to go mental on everthing that moves. Would these work outdoors? They don't have a lot of components in them that could die from rain, probably from corrosion after years but not immediately.
Another commenter here ( Luc Peeters, replying to Andrew Ballard's comment, above. ) says, in part, "I even keep most of them outside in the rain, sun, snow etc ... they seem to survive almost everything."
We are now up to 27 due to the new batch of Halloween figures. I'm waiting for the obscene ones. I thought you might like to know that these are not 'Flappy' but 'Wobblers' , I think that's on the pig one's cardboard. It has wings and the usual head bobbing. The witch looks like she might be having an organism. (?)
I have one of those but I swapped the solar panel for one out of those death dalek lamps which puts out (I think) 5 Volts, so whenever it gets hit by the sun it goes absolutely mental, it's a lot of fun.
Lol. I just had visions of a little flower pot and the petals flapping so hard it was trying to take off.
I just had a vision of a little plastic flower flapping and screaming "EXTERMINATE!" That would be relaxing!
@@TheAllMightyGodofCod The Daleks had evil pet guard plants forget what the called them....
post a video pls
More info plz
"Usually, when you take these apart..."
Everytime i watch your videos, i start wondering how many solar wobble flowers/(insert weird thing here) you took apart to become this experienced ...
Aw come on ! Dis-assembly was off screen. Clive was still getting the hang of this one!
@@Deepthought-42 I like it better when he shows us the whole disassembly.
My daughter has a small collection of 'flappers' on her windowsill and its always bemused and irritated my as to why the manufacturers insist on putting the solar panel in front of the flapper instead of behind, where it would get more light as it isn't in the shade of the flapper. Some of hers barely move but when turned to face the window, move much quicker.
Guess the manufacturers expect you to turn them outwards to wave at passers by
You may cut the stem from the very base and then glue it back facing the opposite direction. Super Glue or Crazy Glue would work well. Someone with more skills would reposition the solar panel.
I had one of the same flower,I just turn the flower facing opposite direction,leaving the solar behind. But other model can"t .. only flower like this can.. :)
My doctor's assistant has them on every windowsill, patients keep bringing her more for her collection. It's wild to go in there on a sunny day and see dozens of them waving and clicking.
Another interesting thing is the fact that the silicon cells are not your normal crystalline silicon - these devices almost exclusively use an amorphous silicon cell which gives it the characteristic brown color. This is why you can't see each individual cell. This is done for two main reasons; Cost, they are very cheap to manufacture, and efficiency with regard to diffuse light. Although amorphous are poor efficiency in direct light they can have improved performance in the presence of diffuse light. Which is typically what you get indoors.
Actually, all of those brown cells are amorphous devices, and usually you can see the borders between the cells - the whole assembly is simply diffused onto glass as part of manufacture and hence the inherent low-cost of such devices...
Usually operating at around 10% efficiency, i've seen them in all shades of brown; with some so thin they are somewhat transparent and other being a thick dark-brown - i've even seen some that are a deep grey, almost black, but were still amorphous cells.
My theory for this fascinating solar panel is one of two:
1. The cell could be using a transparent conductor for the current collectors. Those would be invisible, plus a thicker layer of cell material in the panel would absorb more light - effectively rendering the panel as the apparent "black void" that it is.
2. This is a new multi-layer technology; and the panel is one of the latest and greatest in the field...
@@Vilvaran Yeah right! I'd be more likely convinced it was just another bit of brown cardboard than explanation #2. Even though it's somehow powering a flapping flower, as part of Poundland's ongoing quest to turn all the world's resources into useless items of tat that cost less than 99 pence to produce and sell. That will surely end up as landfill, mixed plastics, copper in tiny quantities difficult to recover economically, and silicon chips with one, fixed, useless purpose. And the glass in the PCB, chemicals in the cap, assorted finely-diced shite, basically, and it's not even attractive as an ornament.
@@greenaum I was merely stating a theory, it's likely just an optimized version as I stated in #1, a "good" solar cell if you will.
And a "good" cell will power a ultra-low current flippn flapping flower "somehow" better than the cheap-and-shitty panels we see too often...
wait what am I even trying to accomplish here? i have better things to do, like build/test/qualify my power supplies which convert at 95% efficiency using only 3 transistors and a MOSFET; because you know...
Going green and stuff.
@@Vilvaran I'm only doubting the hypothesis that Poundland would use even a "good" anything, never mind "greatest"! The solar cells in half their stuff are brown cardboard. They sell the shake lights with the bit of black nothing where the magnet should be! Every shitty Chinese trick!
Actually I found solar calculators in Asda the other day that work just as well with the "solar panel" covered. Sure there's dual-energy ones, but they make the claim on the packaging, this is just fake solar.
It's a shame cos there's no "off" button. They're barely needed, since calculators use almost zero energy. But it likely has a tiny battery, so would be nice to put one on. I suppose they wanted to save on the rubber for one more.
Fortunately there is a way! A way I plan to teach the world, that even genuine solar calculators can be switched off, and thereby forfend the day the Sun finally goes out...
You press the middle row, 4 5 6, and "On" together. That adds up to "off". I don't know why, something to do with the matrix probably. And it's worked on calculators I've tried over the last 30 years. I suppose once they designed the chip, they stuck with it! Nothing to improve.
Tell your friends that, and help save the Sun! We need it for holidays.
@David Daivdson The horrible thing is, all the cunts who chose to live in the countryside, miles away from anything, complaining about power windmills being "eyesores". So what, you fucks?
People who dare complain about that, should be forced to live next to a coal-fired power station instead. In fact semi-detached to a cooling tower. I'll give 'em bloody sore eyes!
I actually think wind power generators are really nice to look at. They have grace as they tirelessly turn, each one powering thousands of houses. They kill the occasional bird that's daft enough to fly right into a blade. But not so many as die from pollution each year.
Lovely to bump into you last night, walking through the square! Sorry if my random hello was unnerving!
Out of the millions of people in Edinburgh, I couldn’t believe our paths might cross.
Thanks for humouring me, and taking the time to have a chat! It really made my week complete.
See you the same time next year?
I recommend you don't go to the village of Birmingham in the west Midlands. I had far too many 'funny' encounters.
One day, I was looking at something for an e-contact. Having finished looking at it, I'd planned to pass on my opinion. Within 3 yards of walking, he was stood right in front of me.
Another occasion, work related, I was working at a place where there was another guy. Turned out he happened to go to school with someone else I met in completely different circles !
And thirdly, one of the computery tutors at Aston uni a few years later turned up at a theatre group I was involved with - so we ended up in the same place as each other again !
@Dave Micolichek I went to S France with friends in the 1990s. Got off the coach at our destination and I got my case and folding bike off the coach. A guy stood nearby said "Ooh look, it's a Brompton" (folding bike) - so as he had one we arranged to meet up later and go for a ride together - so we chatted a bit. Turned out we already know each other from a Usenet newsgroup !
James, don't scare Clive at night next time, please! ;D
We need him alive, r-r-r-right?
Bet he's a real gentleman 👜👍💡
My ex girlfriend was American, she had an online facebook friend that lives a long way away that turned out to have a friend a small few miles away from me that she visited a few times every year with her partner, I went the 15 miles and met them (here in the uk) they had been visiting my area for years before that.
I have bumped into people abroad and also have walked a different route in a city, went into a small grocery shop and met someone i had not seen for 15 years since university waiting in line.
Another person that i had not seen for over 15 years i bumped into on my way to the airport to go to the US, I was walking to a shop quickly before getting the airport shuttle bus and heard a voice i recognised behind me using a phone, turned round and said their name..
I have also had conversations started by random strangers on flights that turned out to know people that I know.
Have bumped into movie stars and tv show personalities in random places and have had other ones that i did not notice pointed out to me by a girlfriend who knew celebrities better than me..
The subtle removal of the small red piece of plastic felt oddly satisfying... @1:08
I was about to comment the same, that finger kick was so smooth and in flow with the rest...
Maybe a Subbuteo champ in his younger days!!
Thwang!!!
One word:
YEET
Would love to see the oscilloscope looking at the voltages on cap and coil...
Was thinking the same. Might have to make a video on this.
How cool! I had one of these fall apart in my car, so I took a look at the electronics. I didn't know what that blob was doing, but now I do!
Using the coil as a feedback trigger from the magnet is so smart! I once build a little prototype pulse motor using a Hall Effect sensor to trigger pulses, but now I know I could have just used part of the coil already on there!
I'm totally going to try it again using the magnet and coil sense thing!
You shouldnt edit all of the breakage. We enjoy watching that part.
Coil is ~500ohms. Heat over cooker ring for 5 seconds and bend plastic to remove. Got 1 of these circuits running as a 24/7 365 motor. 4x magnets on water bottle top rotor and 10F supercap for overnight. Been running for months :)
I think it would have been only fair if Clive would have referred to the like's of yourself and Lidmotor, for the extensive work you've done in the exploration of various implementations of this circuit.
@@johncoops6897 No the original posting guy, but my guess would be that what was meant was an electric motor running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. We'll see what the original posting guy says, though.
A simple rotating magnet motor that runs all the time, day and night. 4 little neo's around a water bottle cap, with a needle through the middle. Usually they are semi-levitated with a magnet above the needle, or magnets can be put on a very free running fidget spinner.
I didn't want to hijack Clive's vid with links, but they are fun builds with these amazing waver circuits :)
And the power source is a solar panel or something else?
Sorry for late reply. 2x the Vimun panels that are on the wavers, in series. I'll do an update vid at some point soon, while both similar setups are still running completely fine. The second has a circuit by sMartCreations2010, which also auto starts. Sapphire bits work great as long term bearngs, but have had a lot of success with glazed bathroom tiles. Needle point spins on that, the water bottle cap + 4 magnets goes over it and the top of the needle is suspended by a magnet above. 1 point of friction.
I’d always wondered how these things work! Even in the overcast dreariness of Seattle my little $1 sunflower has been dancing the days away for the last 7 years.
I could always tell there was some sort of mechanical resonance going on but for some reason I never thought it’d be so simple.
That simple transistor switch/coil trigger circuit was used in 1960s Junghans Ato-Mat battery wall clocks - the output coil gave a push to a balance wheel with magnets on it - so timing was still controlled by the balance wheel period, but power input was via the drive coil. Nice traditional clockwork tick too :o)
I once had an electromechanical battery operated clock that had a standard oscillating rotary balance wheel escapement with hair springs on jewel bearings like any other small wind up clock but the balance wheel was 2 disks with magnets that were spaced apart with the pancake drive coil between them. I removed the springs and escapement to let the balance wheel spin freely and it was impressive how fast it would spin.
I still have one of those clocks from Bosch. It has been running for probably 30 years now. Accuracy is pretty OK if you take care to tune it, temperature variations seem to be the main source of changes in pace.
My uncle has a few wobbly wavy flappy solar things in his kitchen window, I keep telling him the solar cell needs to be in the sun for them to work properly so the object is "looking out" of the window, but he always turns them back round to face inside the house so they rarely work properly and complains, he never listens... :P
I always loved these toys for being so simple and yet happy.
Good disassembly. I have several electric pendulum regulated clocks in my collection of electromechanical devices. One of my favorites is a 1937 French Bulle clock which predates Kundo. The Bulle uses a U-shaped north-south-north 3-pole magnet rod and a coil which swings back and forth coaxially around the magnet rod. There is a butterfly shaped contact flipped by pendulum with one side a dummy contact and the other side a pulse contact. The butterfly rocking in turn moves the time keeping escape wheel. Being French, the Bulle is maddeningly difficult to get adjusted correctly, but once honed in, it is a pretty good time keeper and can run for at least several years on a modern alkaline battery. There was some very interesting electric clock engineering in the years before synchronous motors and mains power with stable frequency.
I have a gents master clock.
@@bigclivedotcom Very cool those are beautiful clocks! I’d like to add a Eureka clock to my collection some day, but they are very expensive here in the States. I have a Warren Telechron master clock, the smaller wall mounted model, used in power stations in the 1920s. There is pendulum regulator and Telechron synchronous clock motor which is connected to the dynamo power. The Telechron motor also keeps the spring wound. There is a differential connected to the two clock sections to indicate any difference in seconds between the pendulum time and the time based on dynamo revolutions. The dynamo operator could look at a large hand on the clock face to decide if the dynamo needed a little speed-up or slow-down.
I’ve got a couple of Barr / Poole table top Hipp toggle clocks where the pendulum is free swinging until it runs down enough to trip a toggle which drops a weight arm to impulse the pendulum synchronously. The electromagnet is only used to raise the weight arm. When I got my first Barr clock, I thought the mechanism looked like typewriter parts and it turns out Barr had previously been a typewriter designer. The Bar and Poole clocks are 1930s era.
I have one of those inception spinning things that never stops and it's pretty much the same circuit you described for the older flappy ornaments. Lasts for weeks with a 9v battery
1:30 - Your Star Trek communicator is calling you in the background.
The way you describe the resonant effect of the circuit is how I imagine the perfect engine would work.
Had exactly the same problem with the latest range of Poundland rockers, completely surprised me to find they had glued it together. They probably did it to make your videos more explosive 😆
I took one apart that was cheaper made than that one Clive. It had a 10 v 470 uf capacitor. So I did what any guy would do. I doubled the size of the capacitor, but left it 10 volts. Replaced the pendulum with a wooden pendulum & placed a neodymium magnet on the bottom of it. The thing got to rocking and rolling to where I had to weight the bottom of it down so it would work right! Lol
"Tim the Toolman" ("Home Improvement" tv show) would be proud of you. "More power!" :p :)
Would love to see a video of that😅
Wireless World magazine did a great Cardboard Mechanical Clock project back in January 1982 that used a similar circuit to power its pendulum. Well worth a look.
That 1982 clock sounds like one for the Fran Blanchet channel 👍
I have but one question regarding these things - Why is it that everyone else's work perfectly, and none of mine ever do? 😣
I've always liked these little flippy things
I’d love to see a version of this with a Piranha Plant from Super Mario Bros! The base would be a pipe instead of a pot and you’d replace the sunflower with the piranha plant’s mouth. It would be neat if you could make the mouth open and close too. Hmm, I bet I could 3D print that and transplants the internals from one of these ornaments (the coil, PCB and solar cell). Hmmm...
That would be cool! Maybe the parts could be scavenged from the McDonald’s toy.
The trick would be balancing it, so that it acts as a pendulum. That's very important, there must be conservation of energy, between potential and kinetic, at all stages. Also it would need to be well-balanced. There is almost no motive force available on these.
That said, the weight wouldn't likely be a problem. As long as it's all balanced. THAT would be the problem!
About 1980 a friend of mine had a "perpetual spinning top" that would run forever! A small top spun between the finger and thumb onto a 5-6 inch plastic base. The top just kept on spinning.
The base had a 9v battery and some sort of circuit, and a coil located under the central point of the base. The base was slightly concave so the spinning top tended to move to the centre as it slowed. The top had a magnet. Somehow the coil would add "spin" to the top, sometimes the kick was such that the top would fly off the side of the base.
I found some videos of similar tops,
ruclips.net/video/1fU1dWEEsHE/видео.html and
ruclips.net/video/InWLhPcp9wg/видео.html
And how to make your own -
ruclips.net/video/sZflO4PQKC4/видео.html
AWESOME!
I have a chinese traditional waving cat, had to cover up the solar panel, it starts maxing out in direct solar light and making a rather loud tick noise when hitting the limit. nice to se how they work, I wouldhave guessed the coil part but not the advanced start part.
Chinese?!! Search Maneki-neko, u will knew the idea.
@@ChungshanStory as with most things in Japanese culture it's based on Chinese traditions, also made in China ;)
Your mentioning a pendulum with switch contacts reminded me of the clock system we had in our secondary school, not sure what it was called but there were large single-cell batteries (primary cells?) and a master clock which used to send a hefty pulse of current along a wire which triggered all the other clocks to move on each minute. Best thing about it was when summer time started; all the clocks would click around an hour to catch up with the correct time in one minute!
I liked the old school clock so much I bought one. ruclips.net/video/H3xbNfVGRVI/видео.html
I own a Flip Flap! 14 years old and its still flapping its little leaves! 🌱
BIG CLIVE, while this is a fascinating video with basic EM stuff, for me the best part is @1:13 when you finger flick the shattered parts "OVER THERE" Brilliant, mate!
gotta love the black blob of magical pixies doing the thinking on circuits
Just don't let their magic smoke escape!
I have a lot of old Russian clocks that have something similar just a coil , transistor and capacitor you have to give them a little kick to start them !
Yes that's a deep rabbit hole. Some of the motors people have built based on this circuit are brilliant.
Do you have any links to those brilliant motors?
@@kirenirevesyoutuber slider2732 ruclips.net/video/QH_NQQGUkr8/видео.html
This along with David Watts video on wireless power transmission make for interesting notes in my log book. Thanks bigclive, I now have so many reason to go to a dollar store.
BLOB - black lump on board
My dancing devil is too far from the window so I use a spherical glass ornament as a collimator. It works
The"pound shop" sounds like a good name for a brothel.
I have 3 of them but one is a bit lethargic so I set it next to one of the working ones to help the movement work. Thanks
I looked up this video and watched it again because I've actually got two of the old analogue electronic clocks you refer to, theyve got hands which turn clockwise!. They use a single 1.5v cell and a coil and a mini pendulum and a small circuit of discrete components which is inaccessible, no quartz crystal. They keep good time but tend to run faster as the voltage reduces after a year. There is a rate adjustment control which might be resistance or capacitor. Made by Metamec.
Aha! that's how these work.
Mine ( flower) was from a cheap store also, thought 'cheap chinese crap' but still going strong after 4 years. :))
Recently bought a dancing owl, had the hawaian dancing girls but they drove me nuts. Too fanatical. ;))
The first time I encountered this principle was in the late 70's, one of my teachers designed and sold kits for 'The Cardboard Clock' which was, as the name suggest, largely constructed from cardboard including the escapement wheel and the gears
I was literally in the store yesterday and saw one of these and wondered what was inside! Thank you for saving me money!
Ok nevermind, you may have made me want to buy some!
Cheapskate 👍😀
One of my support workers has 5 different dancing beings on her cars dashboard. It's fun.
It's not. (;
I picked up several of these in Hong Kong about 11 years ago and they are still going strong! I also have that clock too...it takes a single AA battery. Always wondered how it was able to run on just one battery and swing that pendulum!
Thanks fot that Clive, I hoped you would check them out. We now have 24 on the kitchen windowsill, not all different but most are. Some need a bit of TLC but not bad for £1.
I remember animated advertising in the grocery store (and elsewhere) with some type of "wig-wag" sign. There was the wire triangle with the curved bottom that moved back and forth through the coil and there was a cylindrical magnet in the middle of that curved piece. There were mechanical contacts that blipped the coil when the magnet was in the proper position. It ran off one or two D cells and required an initial push to start it moving - but the battery lasted for days... I got that mechanism from some piece of discarded advertising when I was a kid, back in the Dark Ages BC (before computers).
great info mr clive
i broke mine a few weeks ago
was trying to see how it works
great info dude
A long time ago I heard that John Logie Baird (one of your fellow Scotsmen) invented the electric pendulum before he invented mechanical television. You wouldn't be related to him by any chance?
In the '70s, I had a little moving sculpture shaped like an atom symbol that used a 9 volt battery.. There were also animated displays in stores that used the electronic pendulum. Both had to be pushed to get them going.
In high school ('70s) , I had a "transistor alarm clock" in a clear case. As I recall, it had two coils, one transistor, two resistors and one capacitor for what amounted to an electronic escapement. The alarm was a Sonalert type noise maker. The clock ran on a C size battery, the alarm on a 9 volt. It wasn't all that accurate-about like a typical Windup clock..
It immediately reminded me of that "badger, badger" song xD
I've got an old Gents (Synchronome) clock. It has a free pendulum that swings every second and kicks an escapement wheel and after every 30 seconds it drops a contact that drops a lever which gives the pendulum a kick go keep it going. You'll probably remember seeing one at school. All the slave clocks were wired in series so they moved the minute hand every thirty seconds. If you're old enough you probably remember one from school. There was also the gadget that rang the school bells as well. It was a big brass wheel with pins in that tipped mercury switches at the right time. I recycled this but I still have the mercury switches!
I've got a gents master clock.
These things don't actually exist in stores. They've just been materializing in homes and cars over the last few years. I've never seen them for sale anywhere but they're everywhere!
is this the same way those winking cats work?
Almost certainly. Without taking one to bits I couldn't tell you conclusively. But I'd bet you 500 quid to a tenner, yes.
The place I work at got these as customer gifts from a mobile video transmitter company and they are basically everywhere in offices in the building :P. I actually quite like them, especially since I do not get nervous from them when they are in my field of view or in my peripheral view, and they do not make a sound like some really loud analog clocks :P.
My grandma used to collect these and put them in the kitchen window 😭
Too many now , eh 😅😁
@@lsudan2670 she passed away and I dont know where they went they're just a friendly reminder of her
As a child in the 50s I used to be fascinated by quite large rocking advertising displays in I think electrical shops. After getting behind to see how they worked I saw they had a coil, a bent arm supported at one end and passed through the coil. This was only powered by one U2 ever ready battery. But as a child younger than ten I never worked out how it switched as I new it must be, the man in the shop just told me it was manic, which frustrated me.
A similar kind of mechanism as the Kundo clock one was used in oscillating shop window displays back in the 60s, running from a single U2 cell as it would have been called back then.
Kinetic art predates the electromagnetic ornaments. The first kinetic art, as far as I'm aware, was Alexander Calder's mobiles, which were moved by random air currents, and very beautiful they can be too. In my 1970s childhood "mobile" still meant a structure like this, not a pocket telephone.
Yep, I remember when 'mobiles' were hung above babies cots to keep them stimulated and occupied.
@@Shaun.Stephens (smart)mobiles are still held up in bed to keep adults stimulated and occupied.
Can you give me the link to order this particular model on ebay?
Thanks.
I think it senses the current pulled by the coil. and switches the transistor off when at maximum current.
Wow - flashback. We had one of those kinetic art things when I was a kid - it was a big ring with a magnet on the bottom and a free-spinning bar in the middle that had another cross-bar attached to two counter-weights in the shape of Saturn and the Space Shuttle. So the ring would swing back and forth and the Space Shuttle / Saturn would randomly spin inside. As mentioned it was powered by a 9V battery, which my parents never replaced after the first one went flat because the toy made an annoying "tick tick tick" sound as it swung back and forth.
I featured that type in another video. Just a single transistor.
There's also a spinning top version of the magnetic pendulum thing.
Same principle only the top continuously rotates and due to how the base is sloped it moves towards th middle then gets shot out in a random direction.
I once had a clock that used the same principle only a wheel had two magnets on it next to each other then a coil in the middle followed by another wheel with two magnets on the other side of a coil.
A spring was used to make the wheel move like an escapement wheel in a wind up clock.
Ran on 1.5 volts.
I took it once removed the spring then took one wheel and turned it to where the magnets were on the opposite side from the bottom magnets.
I then had a motor that would spin either direction.
Great video!
My mum has an old wooden painted Budgie clock that has a combined clock and pendulum mechanism in it. it makes the budgies tail swing at a moderate speed, both fed from one AA battery. The swing mech has a curved bottom but its all housed in a plastic case and my mum wont let me take it to bits to look at it lol. I do give it a sinister 'rubbing my hands together' look when I visit her as its on a wall between the front and back room lol.
You should put a gag real at the end with all the bloopers
Nicely explained...Thanks...Vic
Just wondering if it's worth the price for the solar panel.
Totally love your channel. Could you please start a new project which takes longer than just a couple of minutes, please?
My theory for this fascinating solar panel is one of two:
1. The cell could be using a transparent conductor for the current collectors. Those would be invisible, plus a thicker layer of cell material in the panel would absorb more light - effectively rendering the panel as the apparent "black void" that it is.
2. This is a new multi-layer technology; and the panel is one of the latest and greatest in the field...
The first being most likely; the manufacturer actually silkscreened their name and the part number - not something you usually find on the cheap nasty stuff. That and conductive films and interconnect already exists in LCD manufacture...
I know it would be hard, but is it possible at all to open the blob and see what is inside?
Coolshows101 Possible, but difficult. It involves a microscope and some nasty solvents. Easier to skip to knowing the circuit already unless you really need to check a particular production run (you'll be destroying specimens, so the point would be to know if the rest of the batch is OK).
I see a lot of these sort of things in cars. and seen many in my local Poundland store over the years.
I remember buying a dancing flower when they first came to England around 1980. I clearly remember that I paid £25!! Expensive in 1980.
these things are great, could you please do a teardown of the '4 panel solar display turntables' off ebay....the motors in them have utterly amazing torque....i had a full pint of beer turning on it....and they auto reverse too when nudged...brilliant solar thingies...cheers :)
If you search my videos for the keyword lighthouse you should find a teardown of one.
@@bigclivedotcom cool. Cheers .
So in this middle thing where the flower is attached to. Is the counterweight somehow magnetic? Or ferromagnetic? Because I lately repaired a broken Flappy Flower which was exposed to excessive sunlight and heat during the warm days this summer. I put everything together again, the mechanic swings freely, but the thing in the middle barley moves at all. Could it be that somehow the magnet or so lost its magnetism?
Never seen one before. Interesting.
00:32 - Oops, did you have to use brute force again...? Oh I see, it's the Factory Glue Bandit striking again.
They can't get this thing to be outwardly simpler than that. That's simply NOT possible.
Hello BigClive, back in the 1960s I remember an simple electromagnetic pendulum mechanism that just had a contact at a certain position to make the device swing that was used in shop product advertising displays. I had a couple to play with from my parents confectionary and tobacconist shop. Sadly, I can't remember what the products were.
Early battery operated clocks had a very simple pendulum contact system that would give the coil a tiny pulse of current in one direction.
I've seen half-size versions of these, but only sold at Dollar General in the US, I haven't found them anywhere else. One leaf is molded as part of the center flower stem but it would be interesting to know if the electronics had to be changed to fit in a smaller space or if it's all the same mechanics.
That was very interesting... Thank You...
A good explanation Clive.
The first function of this circuit I know was in so called "ATO"-Clocks. Coming from its inventor Léon Hartot (pronounced "ato").
Before the transistor was invented they used a mechanical switch in the movement (Around 1920-1940)
In the 60's then, they used a transistor-circuit. As you say, Kundo was very known. But there was Junghans as well.
And the older clocks were produced by Haller&Benzing.
I am confused.
Big Clive has a different woodgrained tabletop / base board.
I am not sure whether the woodgrain is to reassure sensitive viewers that (possibly) violent disassembly will occur off screen or whether it is an insurance replacement from a lithium battery disassembly that I have missed.
Insomnia beckons while I check history.
HELP!
Oh good old Solar Pendulum MM-12ST
What is the actual name of the "blob chip" how is it generally referred to in electronics?
COB, Chip On Board
Wow, thanks for showing, I would never guess how they did it...
Okay, why do I get the strange urge to make a flappy, pivoting, Death-Dalek, ornamental, solar garden lamp? 😃
If you really want to go down this rabbit hole, Google (et al) search for "phototropic BEAM robot". These are simulated lifeforms that have some form of movement and survive by "eating" light. Usually the robot/life-form will move in order to maximize the light input.
A commercialized version of this phototropic characteristic is the single or 2-axis solar tracking systems used with solar cells.
The BEAM robot is a design of a very simple circuit and electro-mechanical transducer (relay, motor, etc.) that stores up energy in a capacitor until a threshold is reached then it "fires" the transducer, causing physical motion.
The last time I looked at this stuff was in the late 90's... I don't think there is much new material out on this...
Cheers,
I went through a spell of designing and building BEAM bots.
@@bigclivedotcom I built a couple... then forgot about them for 20 years. Life is funny sometimes.
Cheers
Ah yes, I do remember far-too-full-of-himself-for-what-he-came-up-with Hat Guy...
I'm guessing the reason they only need three pins might be because of the high output impedance of the solar panel. Soon as the coil starts drawing current the voltage would drop by a measurable amount, which could trigger the circuit.
Was half expecting a blowtorch to destroy the flower then i realised this isnt Ashens' channel
A friend of mine have an electromagnetic wristwatch where the balance wheel is driven by a similar circuit. It is not working well, the timekeeping is not working OK. It goes too fast with a fresh battery...
6:30 It appears that many cheap battery powered pendulum clock movements have a circuit like this (or maybe with the cob blob) for the pendulum, which is only there for the show. The rest of the movement has no attachment to the pendulum, which will oscillate out of sync and at a frequency that depends on its weight and length.
I thought those things were called "Solar Dancers" or is that just a particular brand name? Anyhow my mom has a small collection of different ones going.
About this time last year in the US, the 'Dollar Tree' bumped everything up to $1.25. Then started adding items that are $3 or $5.
The thing is they had a few years previously merged with another chain of stores called 'Family Dollar' who never limited themselves to any particular price. The Family Dollar carries some items from the Dollar Tree since the merger. Occasionally I'll find one that is still priced at $1.00. LOL
I have a Bulle electric clock which works in a similar way to the Kundo, except that the curved magnet is fixed and the coil swings. The Kundo sounds a more sensible design : no need for lightweight flexible wires - but I don't know which came first. Maybe one was done to evade a patent on the other.
Very cool ! Thanx.
I was considering buying one of these to place in the windowsill, but then I remembered that I have a kitten that likes to go mental on everthing that moves. Would these work outdoors? They don't have a lot of components in them that could die from rain, probably from corrosion after years but not immediately.
Another commenter here ( Luc Peeters, replying to Andrew Ballard's comment, above. ) says, in part, "I even keep most of them outside in the rain, sun, snow etc ... they seem to survive almost everything."
@@maintoc That's neat to hear, thanks!
@@Autunite You're very welcome. :)
Last night of the Edinburgh tattoo. Clive's head is going to be banging tomorrow. Haha ;)
No. Load-out starts tomorrow, so not too much to drink.
We are now up to 27 due to the new batch of Halloween figures. I'm waiting for the obscene ones. I thought you might like to know that these are not 'Flappy' but 'Wobblers' , I think that's on the pig one's cardboard. It has wings and the usual head bobbing. The witch looks like she might be having an organism. (?)
I found mine- didn't pay a cent. If I'd have known you needed one that could be easily disassembled, I'd have found a way to ship it.
the single transistor one is great for making motors