Big Clive, you have a fantastic voice. Your accent and humorous tone are a delightful combination. My father was an electronics engineer and when I was young he bought me simple electronics kits from Tandy and tried to teach me how to solder (an unusual skill to impart to a teenage girl but it has come in useful on occasion!), alas I've forgotten most of what he taught me but your channel makes me feel warmly nostalgic. Thank you!
+jzknuckles Yeah he is Posh Scotch - only the best from Scotland! Sounds a bit like Bryce Curdy except he doesnt have a cucumber shoved up his butt! lol PS. Bryce Curdy was a gay STV news presenter who turned up at a local Glasgow hospital with a cucumber lodged in his rectum - his career after that was all too short unlike the cucumber which according to my pals at the Viccy was a massive 16 incher! lol
***** I was being fascetious with the last comment - notice the lol i should have put a smiley but its a true story! It was a six incher that disappeared up his bum never to see the light of day until the surgeon removed it with his forceps! I just added a 1 for dramatic effect and you fell for it! >;o)
***** I saw a documentary on the tv where a criminal on Rikers Island actually managed to get a revolver pistol up his butt and smuggled it into the jail with him. I also saw a porn clip with a guy pulling a massive salmon out of a girls bumhole. Nasty! Pardon me if i sound a bit anal - lol
A female friend of mine asked me to get her a "plants lamp" for a birthday present and I just searched for that, acquiring a 50ish EUR lamp from a domestic supplier. It came overnight packed just in a plain cardboard box and inside that it was wrapped in a plain clear plastic bag, so there was no much unboxing, and I couldn't help trying it out. I found the hard pink light quite appealing for some reason. So I thought that is what she might have wanted and wrapped it up nice. We had had some incandescent based plant lamps in the 80's when they were "special" and I originally thought this might have an intense white light just as well. I dropped it off at her party with some small gizmo I planned for the surprise effect and thought to become useful, including a touch screen glove, USB Micro/C adapter and tablet pen. Two days later she called me and asked what the deal about it was. I asked if there was something wrong and she said "no... not really but it's just different than I expected". Turns out we both had had the same expectation. So I explained to her that as far as I know this design is made to take into account the low absorption of green wavelengths in chlorophyll and that the red and blue band together make the light appear magenta or hard pink, and if it had a closely matched green light source in it, it would appear like "TV white", which I oruginally expected as well. And while not being designed to make colorful plants look pretty, it must be a growth improving lamp. A week later she called to ask where I had acquired it and how much it cost because two friends of hers had asked her where they could get similar fancy hard pink lamps.
I have opened a few of grow lamps and I believe that the power supplies used are intended for use in LED tube lights where mains isolation isn't necessary. That is why they are long and narrow in design and due to the huge volumes they are very low cost.
The prisons are much more relaxed now. I have a full workshop here and teach the other inmates how to circumvent security systems and cause disruption of electrical systems. We also grow cannabis and distill vodka.
I used to do things like this as a young child, the only problem was I didn't have the skill, the knowledge and/or the correct tools! The outcome was usually quite interesting.
+James Pian Actually we too now rarely have TV on at home. But I do think his delivery and manner would come over really well on TV and there's still a lot of folks watching.
Very educational and entertaining video. I'm going to be growing some vegetables in my base over the Winter. Do you happen to know how area that bulb covers and how close it has to be to the plants to be effective ? Thanks !
A pleasant way to go I suppose! Having your entire crop burn around you whilst you sleep very, very happily! Quite amusing to think of the firemen getting the munchies halfway through the job and rescuing the fridge 😉
About arranging the 21 per sector (around 1:50): If you look at it from a slightly different angle, it's simply 1+2+3+4+5+6 = 21, not "one row of six" plus a random blob of fifteen.
You could include instructions on how to increase the current, not for me, I know how to probably do that by, I suspect, changing a resistor value. If I were the designer of such lights I would, for 220-240 volts, connect 84 LEDs in series supplied from a SMPS constant current circuit and increase the current to at least 30mA. And of course make it safe to touch when live. Also selling them at the correct power rating :) Thanks for putting out these videos, very interresting, keep up the good work!
It's amazing at what gets imported from China now, I recently bought a 240 volt in bridge rectifier. This was supposedly for testing water quality, it has 4 three inch pins which have 240 volt DC output. Scary stuff.
Green Silver As in, a fully packaged product designed to be handled and in contact with water? All the bare bridge rectifiers I buy have 4 terminals for connecting the AC input and DC output (PCB pins and spade terminals are common on the smaller modules, whereas you'll find screw terminals on larger industrial modules). Perhaps they sent you a regular bridge rectifier that's designed to be installed in a circuit, as opposed to a finished water tester. It could even be a replacement bridge rectifier for repairing a water tester (since ebay stores rarely label things correctly). Look up the part number on the case. If you find a datasheet for a generic bridge rectifier (and/or it has a hole for mounting), then you have accidentally bought a 4-pin part designed to be bolted to a heatsink and soldered to a circuit board. It's probably due to mislabelling or sending the wrong part.
Grant E This is the little beast, it's certainly NOT a tester in my book. www.banggood.com/220V-Water-Electrolyzer-Heavy-Metal-Tester-Water-Filter-Instrument-p-953035.html
Green Silver Whoa, mate, that's extremely shoddy. At first I didn't think any manufacturer was dumb enough to just stuff a BR into a case with a plug, but that's exactly what they've done. Deadly stuff. 230V AC will produce about 325V DC with the appropriate smoothing capacitor on the output, excluding the 0.7 - 2V drops of the diodes. Without any capacitance you will get roughly 230V DC (100 or 120Hz pulsed DC with a peak of 325V). Hopefully they've at least included a resistor and fuse to limit the fire hazard, but it's still insane.
When I saw it I figured that something this bad I had to buy and see if it really put out the voltage I was thinking, needless to say it dose. It's the most dangerous thing I've seen on Banggood, a potential killer.
I have that meter. My dad bought 2 one for him one for me, for the princely sum of $7 total back in the days of parity with the greenback. It hasn't missed a beat.
Dear Clive: Thanks for potentially saving a life or two. I made some very bad assumptions about the design of this lamp. Took all of them to bits and put them in the electronics waste disposal point at a store that takes e-waste.
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There are a great many different types of these low power grow lights now ...They ARE worth considering because they use small chips , these are much more efficient than 3W chips commonly used in big unit's , will cut your power bill by a quarter for the same light output but you will need about 80 of these lamps per square meter of grow space
very fascinating if you was growing foods and you went to go get your plants for harvest and you got the good old voltage hit hehe would wake you up in the morning
Depends on what you are growing with them. I dont like them because it is hard to inspect a plant when they are turned on. Also they are inefficient when compared to white LEDs.
That's what I'm saying. To test lamps you should use lumens not watts as the density of light is what you want from lamp to be high and power to be low. So if you compare watts you do not know if low watt lamp gives same lumens as the high watt lamp.
I guess the solution is to put a droplet of glue or silicone in the middle, so the mains connection is not touchable. After the first led the thing isn't really a danger any more.
Good video ! Those lamps are not only a waste of money but also a waste of time and more money if you bet a crop on them. You need, at least 1W diodes, being 3 and 5 W the best. 20-25W per square foot would the optimal led lights potency to grow something. With this lamps only the leaves on top will get anything, and still, what they get might not be enough. The plant will be very small and/or wither when trying to mature.
Nice methodology... for a hypothesis/guess, then test it. A good example for the noobies. Sorry to have a little moan but I find "mill-amps" grates a tad, I'm used to milli- amps.Thanks for your time.
I did skip through the video, so I might have missed it, but did you test to see if it actually is isolated or not? To me, it looks like one of those designs with built in PFC.
dmak2 The 50V DC is referenced to the mains, so if you touched a solder connection on the front of the lamp while referenced to ground you would get a full mains shock.
dmak2 The easiest way to describe it is as the scenario of a 9V battery being connected to a live wire. You'll still measure 9V across the battery itself, but if you touched either of the terminals you'd get a mains shock.
Is it that there is no resistance to what the mains is supplying? I assume that the RCD in the consumer unit would trip? Either that or you'd have to rely on the fuse in the plug. So is it DC with mains "power"?
dmak2 Whether the RCD tripped would depend on which part you touched, as although you may get a mains shock it may limit the current enough to cause a severe shock without passing enough current to trip the RCD. That could be very unpleasant.
LED lights usually only put out a fraction of what there rated to output manufacturers claim its so the product lasts longer. Takes the biscuit really almost bought a 300w mars hydro a while back until I realised it was wired or programmed or whatever to output 120w
very old gardener here; hydroponics lights are design like fishing lures: to catch gardeners no plants; plants will grow with any light if there is enough of it. remember how we used HP sodium and then metal halide? before that we used daylight fluorescents; worry only about cost and lumens, cri is important for our pleasure not the plants.
At least it appears that the direct connection is only from the screw part of the base to the ground of the lamp since the screw side of a lamp socket is neutral and thus tied to ground in the US. With the bayonet style base and 230-240VAC I would be a bit more concerned. It does seem dubious that they didn't go to the extra length of completely isolating the lamp.
Not sure how this saved you 100+ dollars or prevented a house fire. The 2 main concerns in this video were that the terminals on the front of the unit could become live depending on the type of socket you plug it into (in the US it would likely be less of an issue since the screw of a light socket base is required to be tied to neutral which is also tied to ground) and that they are not really putting out the full brightness. This review was also done over 1.5 years ago and you will likely not find the exact same construction in bulbs you would buy today. The only way you really know is to take one apart. One other thing to remember is that you can find LED and compact fluorescent bulbs of dubious build quality even from name brands on the store shelves at your local big box store in some cases.
Glad to test my grow light, and it is not connected directly to mains from the front of the light at all. And it has a giant heatsink on the base for cooling or something. (Probably for looks only)
36 and 90, what a fun king coincidence. If you can understand 369, you will understand everything. Nikola Tesla 126=9 15=6 49.5=9 Red is for bloom, whiter light is for vegetative growth. The harvest moon thing. The star is not random nor is it decorative.
I thought that's what LEDs do. I have a 45w that draws a little less power but has the light equivalent of a light higher than 45. Been growing plants with it for years now, weed, dandelions. Right now I'm growing cactus.
once again, cool video! I must ask, how can you just grab the base of the bulb with almost an 1/8 of an inch or so of one of the bulbs contact exposed?
Thanks for sharing this. What do you thing about using red & blue cold cathode lights for growing? Do you have any experience with cold cathode lights? I only ever see them in crappy teenage ricer cars lol.
Egad, all that would have had to be done is conformable coat the LED array as a cheap way to add some protection. Perhaps conformal coating acts as a UV filter?
Is there any particular reason you don't use a clamp-on current probe for projects like this? I know this is a very old vid, but I'm reminded that I think I've never seen you use a clamp-on current probe instead of having to cut a wire/connection and insert the current meter in-circuit, thus as you point out in this video, changing the circuit's operation.
A bit of clear coat painted over the live bits would solve the problem. That's nail polish, if anyone didn't know, it's almost as good as duct tape. :P
+Eric Taylor With a route to ground it's possible a plant could be damaged by current. Especially DC biased. But the highest risk would be a shock to a person touching the plant
This is why I love your videos. There are always interesting. I especially enjoyed the electric butt plug thing. Why would ANYONE want that? In the words of Sweet Brown, "Ain't nobody got time for that!"
I often wonder how people use these low power grow lights ... plants need about 500W per square meter of growing area ( thats the electrical power delivered to the led's) so a lamp like this gives enough light for an area 10cm by 10cm ... that's roughly the area of the lamp itself ... to get decent growth the lamps would have to be stacked close together. Don't worry about shocks ... they help keep you awake.
+oz93666 I think your figures are a little off, a 400 w MH will handle the area you stated and it's not anywhere as efficient at delivering usable light per watt as leds. But you are right that these are a joke for sun lovers . Be fine for a 6' geranium to over winter .
It said that a 400W metal halide is equivalent to 150W led (that's 150W electrical input to led's) . Also , for flowering (weed) max 500W.led per sq meter ...veg growth 250W
+oz93666 It said 400w MH =150 w LED ??? Where ? I didn't hear him mention a metal halide in this video at all . First watts isn't the right unit to measure light in but to simplify and make rough comparisons it is passably adequate (with minor adjustments occasionally needed). Not even sure if your most recent reply was agreement or not. Are you disputing the 400 watt MH will handle a square meter of grow area? Where did you get your 500w LED max figures? (not that I'm disputing them just curious) Why go for max W/m when you really want optimum watts/meter? And twice now you've said virtually the same thing 1 "thats the electrical power delivered to the led's" 2 "that's 150W electrical input to led's" I cant help but point out that watts is actually power consumed by the device and depends on the devices needs. Inputs would be voltage and amperage and in most home circuits can supply up to about 1500 watts (this is why all small plug in the wall space heaters max out at 1500 watts) but you can still plug in your cell phone and draw only 3 or4 watts. Not trying to be picky just specific. That watt rating is the amount of electric energy converted to some other energy like light or heat.
The LED driver may be a similar design to the one I found in an LED tube (a fluoro replacement tube). Tube: ruclips.net/video/FcPiiDuyZFs/видео.html Driver: ruclips.net/video/52bDBKlbtms/видео.html I think it might be a switching regulator rather than a full switching power supply.
Had something like this fall apart in my cloner due to really cheap plastic. Had a few others the LED would go out and I"d have to jump past them. They're really shitty. I've changed to using security light LED bulbs they're better guarded against moisture. You don't need that weird purple spectrum. Actually most plants hate that shit. Use the closest thing to 6500k daylight spectrum. Full spec LED grow bulbs (purps) are junk.
Big Clive, you have a fantastic voice. Your accent and humorous tone are a delightful combination. My father was an electronics engineer and when I was young he bought me simple electronics kits from Tandy and tried to teach me how to solder (an unusual skill to impart to a teenage girl but it has come in useful on occasion!), alas I've forgotten most of what he taught me but your channel makes me feel warmly nostalgic. Thank you!
😃😃
+jzknuckles Yeah he is Posh Scotch - only the best from Scotland!
Sounds a bit like Bryce Curdy except he doesnt have a cucumber shoved up his butt!
lol
PS. Bryce Curdy was a gay STV news presenter who turned up at a local Glasgow hospital with a cucumber lodged in his rectum - his career after that was all too short unlike the cucumber which according to my pals at the Viccy was a massive 16 incher! lol
***** I was being fascetious with the last comment - notice the lol i should have put a smiley but its a true story! It was a six incher that disappeared up his bum never to see the light of day until the surgeon removed it with his forceps! I just added a 1 for dramatic effect and you fell for it! >;o)
***** I saw a documentary on the tv where a criminal on Rikers Island actually managed to get a revolver pistol up his butt and smuggled it into the jail with him. I also saw a porn clip with a guy pulling a massive salmon out of a girls bumhole. Nasty!
Pardon me if i sound a bit anal - lol
NEVER as in ever ever ever?
Gosh I am ashamed of myself.
>)
Chinese safety certification - it doesn't explode after plugging in = PASS
+Adam Dąbrowski They have new standards now... 100 operating hours before somebody has a 50% chance of being killed. Previously it was 50 hours. ;)
+Adam Dąbrowski You DO know the CE certification means "Can Electrocute". lol
Quantum Leap certain electrocution or chinese export
Everything no killing us make us stronger ...
If it's not blowing up it's good enough for me
I work in PCB manufacturing and I really enjoy your videos, been watching them every night for the past 2 weeks lol
I thought the whole point of a grow light was to make your plants live ;)
Think the idea is to smoke em
This lamp will make it live once it grows high enough
@@julianshepherd2038 thats to skip a few steps, you can instantly inhale the weed q:
Son, ya don't grow weed with this. YA FKN SMOKE IT!
A female friend of mine asked me to get her a "plants lamp" for a birthday present and I just searched for that, acquiring a 50ish EUR lamp from a domestic supplier. It came overnight packed just in a plain cardboard box and inside that it was wrapped in a plain clear plastic bag, so there was no much unboxing, and I couldn't help trying it out. I found the hard pink light quite appealing for some reason. So I thought that is what she might have wanted and wrapped it up nice. We had had some incandescent based plant lamps in the 80's when they were "special" and I originally thought this might have an intense white light just as well.
I dropped it off at her party with some small gizmo I planned for the surprise effect and thought to become useful, including a touch screen glove, USB Micro/C adapter and tablet pen.
Two days later she called me and asked what the deal about it was. I asked if there was something wrong and she said "no... not really but it's just different than I expected". Turns out we both had had the same expectation. So I explained to her that as far as I know this design is made to take into account the low absorption of green wavelengths in chlorophyll and that the red and blue band together make the light appear magenta or hard pink, and if it had a closely matched green light source in it, it would appear like "TV white", which I oruginally expected as well. And while not being designed to make colorful plants look pretty, it must be a growth improving lamp.
A week later she called to ask where I had acquired it and how much it cost because two friends of hers had asked her where they could get similar fancy hard pink lamps.
"Weed dealer found dead in grow room, foul play suspected, eventually proven to be zapped by an ELECTRIFIED PLANT" would be an amazing episode of CSI.
Clive, you can make anything interesting! The most gifted teacher I have ever heard.
I have opened a few of grow lamps and I believe that the power supplies used are intended for use in LED tube lights where mains isolation isn't necessary. That is why they are long and narrow in design and due to the huge volumes they are very low cost.
you are one of the most likeable guys on youtube. i really like that your videos have some knowledge in them
Amazing they let you do this from your Jail Cell.
The prisons are much more relaxed now. I have a full workshop here and teach the other inmates how to circumvent security systems and cause disruption of electrical systems. We also grow cannabis and distill vodka.
+bigclivedotcom youre in jail?
+Nicholas Ruiz Yes. I was jailed for mis-wiring an orphanage and killing all its occupants with electricity.
bigclivedotcom D,:
+bigclivedotcom lol.
if the plants become live you may be dealing with a day of the triffids scenario! :0
I used to do things like this as a young child, the only problem was I didn't have the skill, the knowledge and/or the correct tools! The outcome was usually quite interesting.
Bradbury Robinson aka boom boom happenned
Most of the LED grow lights will state x watts equivalent. What they like to compare to is HID grow lights which are very energy intensive.
These vids are great! You should have a TV series of taking stuff apart & seeing just what's really being sold :-)
+Choppington Otter He does! It is on the RUclips channel.
Mike (o\!/o)
+Choppington Otter
"TV" is on it's way out. To me, it's already un-watchable.
RUclips is the future.
+James Pian Actually we too now rarely have TV on at home. But I do think his delivery and manner would come over really well on TV and there's still a lot of folks watching.
+Choppington Otter
The fame would go to his head!.LOL
We would lose the bigclive we know and love.
Very educational and entertaining video. I'm going to be growing some vegetables in my base over the Winter. Do you happen to know how area that bulb covers and how close it has to be to the plants to be effective ?
Thanks !
A pleasant way to go I suppose! Having your entire crop burn around you whilst you sleep very, very happily! Quite amusing to think of the firemen getting the munchies halfway through the job and rescuing the fridge 😉
So Clive, you don't recommend it's use in my log cabin in the coniferous forest?
About arranging the 21 per sector (around 1:50): If you look at it from a slightly different angle, it's simply 1+2+3+4+5+6 = 21, not "one row of six" plus a random blob of fifteen.
Holy crap! I'm watching this at 3:41 AM while doing a teardown of a digital timer. Night owls of a feather...
"hydroponic death lamp" Weren't they on John Peel once?
Martin King Far, far too few people appreciated this joke.
I hear they're doing a set on 6 music next week
I have their first album.
I'm amazed at how close your guesses for the voltage and currents are to the real thing! haha
This is a great man.... His current and voltage assumption is very precise........
I love so much your videos!
the light is running a standard Edison plug but I am not familiar with the plug that you are using an adapter to connect with
+Skye Renard Standard British bayonet cap (B22).
You could include instructions on how to increase the current, not for me, I know how to probably do that by, I suspect, changing a resistor value. If I were the designer of such lights I would, for 220-240 volts, connect 84 LEDs in series supplied from a SMPS constant current circuit and increase the current to at least 30mA. And of course make it safe to touch when live. Also selling them at the correct power rating :)
Thanks for putting out these videos, very interresting, keep up the good work!
So your only quip is fixable by a dab of hot glue or if they had put contacts on the back with epoxy on the front...
It's amazing at what gets imported from China now, I recently bought a 240 volt in bridge rectifier. This was supposedly for testing water quality, it has 4 three inch pins which have 240 volt DC output.
Scary stuff.
Green Silver As in, a fully packaged product designed to be handled and in contact with water? All the bare bridge rectifiers I buy have 4 terminals for connecting the AC input and DC output (PCB pins and spade terminals are common on the smaller modules, whereas you'll find screw terminals on larger industrial modules). Perhaps they sent you a regular bridge rectifier that's designed to be installed in a circuit, as opposed to a finished water tester. It could even be a replacement bridge rectifier for repairing a water tester (since ebay stores rarely label things correctly).
Look up the part number on the case. If you find a datasheet for a generic bridge rectifier (and/or it has a hole for mounting), then you have accidentally bought a 4-pin part designed to be bolted to a heatsink and soldered to a circuit board. It's probably due to mislabelling or sending the wrong part.
Grant E
This is the little beast, it's certainly NOT a tester in my book.
www.banggood.com/220V-Water-Electrolyzer-Heavy-Metal-Tester-Water-Filter-Instrument-p-953035.html
Green Silver Whoa, mate, that's extremely shoddy. At first I didn't think any manufacturer was dumb enough to just stuff a BR into a case with a plug, but that's exactly what they've done. Deadly stuff. 230V AC will produce about 325V DC with the appropriate smoothing capacitor on the output, excluding the 0.7 - 2V drops of the diodes. Without any capacitance you will get roughly 230V DC (100 or 120Hz pulsed DC with a peak of 325V). Hopefully they've at least included a resistor and fuse to limit the fire hazard, but it's still insane.
When I saw it I figured that something this bad I had to buy and see if it really put out the voltage I was thinking, needless to say it dose.
It's the most dangerous thing I've seen on Banggood, a potential killer.
+Grant E Yes there is a fuse, a reviewer says to take it out so your children won't kill themselves lol
I have that meter. My dad bought 2 one for him one for me, for the princely sum of $7 total back in the days of parity with the greenback. It hasn't missed a beat.
Dear Clive: Thanks for potentially saving a life or two. I made some very bad assumptions about the design of this lamp. Took all of them to bits and put them in the electronics waste disposal point at a store that takes e-waste.
This 126 LED Hydroponic Death Lamp will make your plants live! What a great way to revive some dead plants.
IRFZ44 Have you tried connecting your plants to the mains🤔
yes
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There are a great many different types of these low power grow lights now ...They ARE worth considering because they use small chips , these are much more efficient than 3W chips commonly used in big unit's , will cut your power bill by a quarter for the same light output but you will need about 80 of these lamps per square meter of grow space
You could place a spot of hot glue over the mains so they're not completely exposed...
+Mike Hawk All the solder points on the LEDs though..
Some silicone over it would help to insulate against shock.
glue gun :D
He's the Sean Connery of LED lighting.
very fascinating if you was growing foods and you went to go get your plants for harvest and you got the good old voltage hit hehe would wake you up in the morning
I had a few of these for a hydroponic system I had. Despite them being low power they were great!
Depends on what you are growing with them. I dont like them because it is hard to inspect a plant when they are turned on. Also they are inefficient when compared to white LEDs.
nice accent, and your flow of information is spot on,,, thank you
oh I think they relate the 15W to the comparison lumen output compared to a usual incandescent. Amazing videos dude, I love watching your features :D
That's what I'm saying. To test lamps you should use lumens not watts as the density of light is what you want from lamp to be high and power to be low. So if you compare watts you do not know if low watt lamp gives same lumens as the high watt lamp.
I guess the solution is to put a droplet of glue or silicone in the middle, so the mains connection is not touchable. After the first led the thing isn't really a danger any more.
I'd be more interested to see the light output of it vs cfl or hps
The blue ones are flickering. I would test to see if the blues are powered by AC.
Good video !
Those lamps are not only a waste of money but also a waste of time and more money if you bet a crop on them. You need, at least 1W diodes, being 3 and 5 W the best. 20-25W per square foot would the optimal led lights potency to grow something.
With this lamps only the leaves on top will get anything, and still, what they get might not be enough. The plant will be very small and/or wither when trying to mature.
Mr Clive , excellent video !!
Does it shock the plants into growing?
Nice methodology... for a hypothesis/guess, then test it. A good example for the noobies. Sorry to have a little moan but I find "mill-amps" grates a tad, I'm used to milli- amps.Thanks for your time.
Well, that's one way to deter slugs I suppose
I would like to see you push these lamps on a bench with a power supply. you could see how far you could push them, until they popped.
No worries as plants probably won't grow tall enough to reach a 5Watt grow light.
Decent enough, A couple of coats of spray varnish or lacquer should render it safe enough. Possibly a blob of epoxy over the input wires as well?
I did skip through the video, so I might have missed it, but did you test to see if it actually is isolated or not? To me, it looks like one of those designs with built in PFC.
Benjamin Esposti It's not isolated.
might it be that the brightness of the lamp is equivalent to a normal 15W incandescent lightbulb? seen that on some LEDs
So is 50v DC as harmful as 240v AC? I like your channel, subscribed. You have quite a calming accent.
dmak2 The 50V DC is referenced to the mains, so if you touched a solder connection on the front of the lamp while referenced to ground you would get a full mains shock.
What do you mean by "referenced" to the mains? I apologize, my knowledge of electronics is somewhat lacking.
dmak2 The easiest way to describe it is as the scenario of a 9V battery being connected to a live wire. You'll still measure 9V across the battery itself, but if you touched either of the terminals you'd get a mains shock.
Is it that there is no resistance to what the mains is supplying? I assume that the RCD in the consumer unit would trip? Either that or you'd have to rely on the fuse in the plug. So is it DC with mains "power"?
dmak2 Whether the RCD tripped would depend on which part you touched, as although you may get a mains shock it may limit the current enough to cause a severe shock without passing enough current to trip the RCD. That could be very unpleasant.
LED lights usually only put out a fraction of what there rated to output manufacturers claim its so the product lasts longer. Takes the biscuit really almost bought a 300w mars hydro a while back until I realised it was wired or programmed or whatever to output 120w
So is it good to grow MJ?
Is your wattmeter accurate when there is a PFC circuit in the system rather than a load that keeps the voltage and current in phase?
I totally expected the power supply when you opened it. Not sure how else they would have powered it. Most seem to need a boost converter.
very old gardener here; hydroponics lights are design like fishing lures: to catch gardeners no plants; plants will grow with any light if there is enough of it. remember how we used HP sodium and then metal halide? before that we used daylight fluorescents; worry only about cost and lumens, cri is important for our pleasure not the plants.
At least it appears that the direct connection is only from the screw part of the base to the ground of the lamp since the screw side of a lamp socket is neutral and thus tied to ground in the US. With the bayonet style base and 230-240VAC I would be a bit more concerned. It does seem dubious that they didn't go to the extra length of completely isolating the lamp.
Would a borosilicate or quartz screen prevent shock effectively enough?
this video saved me $100+, a house fire, and possibly my life.. THANK YOU
Not sure how this saved you 100+ dollars or prevented a house fire. The 2 main concerns in this video were that the terminals on the front of the unit could become live depending on the type of socket you plug it into (in the US it would likely be less of an issue since the screw of a light socket base is required to be tied to neutral which is also tied to ground) and that they are not really putting out the full brightness. This review was also done over 1.5 years ago and you will likely not find the exact same construction in bulbs you would buy today. The only way you really know is to take one apart.
One other thing to remember is that you can find LED and compact fluorescent bulbs of dubious build quality even from name brands on the store shelves at your local big box store in some cases.
What brings perspective is that ANYONE downvotes bigclive. It makes me feel differently about people who don't like me. Thanks!
i know nothing about electricity but i watch ur vids anyway o-o
i wonder how often someone can screw on and off power socket adapters before going insane
Glad to test my grow light, and it is not connected directly to mains from the front of the light at all. And it has a giant heatsink on the base for cooling or something. (Probably for looks only)
36 and 90, what a fun king coincidence.
If you can understand 369, you will understand everything. Nikola Tesla
126=9
15=6
49.5=9
Red is for bloom, whiter light is for vegetative growth. The harvest moon thing.
The star is not random nor is it decorative.
I thought that's what LEDs do. I have a 45w that draws a little less power but has the light equivalent of a light higher than 45. Been growing plants with it for years now, weed, dandelions. Right now I'm growing cactus.
Given the obvious component bill of materials for the circuit I find it absurd that it doesn't generate isolated DC.
once again, cool video!
I must ask, how can you just grab the base of the bulb with almost an 1/8 of an inch or so of one of the bulbs contact exposed?
The base that is exposed is a bayonet cap base. It uses two contacts on the end, and the exposed bit is not connected at all.
Ah, okie dokie.
Could you pot the front of it in resin somehow to limit the chance of a shock?
Thanks for sharing this. What do you thing about using red & blue cold cathode lights for growing? Do you have any experience with cold cathode lights? I only ever see them in crappy teenage ricer cars lol.
Egad, all that would have had to be done is conformable coat the LED array as a cheap way to add some protection. Perhaps conformal coating acts as a UV filter?
Is there any particular reason you don't use a clamp-on current probe for projects like this?
I know this is a very old vid, but I'm reminded that I think I've never seen you use a clamp-on current probe instead of having to cut a wire/connection and insert the current meter in-circuit, thus as you point out in this video, changing the circuit's operation.
This circuitry is using a current regulated supply. It's easy to tap into it by bridging the meter across an LED.
Can you just put a blob oh hot glue on the live wires?
You should get an infrared thermometer gun, they can be found quite cheaply on your favourite website, might be useful in videos like these
+camtheham13 I have one. I use it in the videos from time to time.
Careful which plants you pick - some of them can leave you seeing stars! And whatever you do, don't go for the ones that are already smoking!!!
and would set the series theme of Battery Charging?
My knowledge in this area is improving
John Bedini overvolting seems interesting
A bit of clear coat painted over the live bits would solve the problem. That's nail polish, if anyone didn't know, it's almost as good as duct tape. :P
No schematic analysis? Yay for later videos though!
3:20 am is already a morning so more like an early bird 😁
Are these items really really really cheap on ebay?
Can a plant be electrocuted? Or is it just a risk of shock from touching the plant?
+Eric Taylor With a route to ground it's possible a plant could be damaged by current. Especially DC biased. But the highest risk would be a shock to a person touching the plant
This is why I love your videos. There are always interesting. I especially enjoyed the electric butt plug thing. Why would ANYONE want that?
In the words of Sweet Brown, "Ain't nobody got time for that!"
did anybody notice that a few leds were misplaced?
Would the wattage be lower if it was rated for 115vac?
If it was used with 115VAC it may just regulate to run at the same power.
aww you called my personal multimeter a 'trash meter'!!! That hurt my heart but i know it's crappy anyways lol. Great vid
The trash meters are perfect for most applications.
@@bigclivedotcom They sure are!! I can't believe they cost around AR$400, which is the cost of 2 street vendor burgers haha
I often wonder how people use these low power grow lights ... plants need about 500W per square meter of growing area ( thats the electrical power delivered to the led's) so a lamp like this gives enough light for an area 10cm by 10cm ... that's roughly the area of the lamp itself ... to get decent growth the lamps would have to be stacked close together.
Don't worry about shocks ... they help keep you awake.
+oz93666 I think your figures are a little off, a 400 w MH will handle the area you stated and it's not anywhere as efficient at delivering usable light per watt as leds.
But you are right that these are a joke for sun lovers . Be fine for a 6' geranium to over winter .
It said that a 400W metal halide is equivalent to 150W led (that's 150W electrical input to led's) . Also , for flowering (weed) max 500W.led per sq meter ...veg growth 250W
+oz93666 It said 400w MH =150 w LED ???
Where ? I didn't hear him mention a metal halide in this video at all .
First watts isn't the right unit to measure light in but to simplify and make rough comparisons it is passably adequate (with minor adjustments occasionally needed).
Not even sure if your most recent reply was agreement or not.
Are you disputing the 400 watt MH will handle a square meter of grow area?
Where did you get your 500w LED max figures?
(not that I'm disputing them just curious)
Why go for max W/m when you really want optimum watts/meter?
And twice now you've said virtually the same thing
1 "thats the electrical power delivered to the led's"
2 "that's 150W electrical input to led's"
I cant help but point out that watts is actually power consumed by the device and depends on the devices needs.
Inputs would be voltage and amperage and in most home circuits can supply up to about 1500 watts (this is why all small plug in the wall space heaters max out at 1500 watts) but you can still plug in your cell phone and draw only 3 or4 watts.
Not trying to be picky just specific.
That watt rating is the amount of electric energy converted to some other energy like light or heat.
absolutely shocking! these are grow lamps and are always in contact with over spray from watering
with a grow light I would think there would be more 56K and less 10k
If the claim is 15W, but your powermeter showing just 5W... is it safe to assume the Powerfactor is 0.3?
It's just an exaggerated power.
The LED driver may be a similar design to the one I found in an LED tube (a fluoro replacement tube).
Tube: ruclips.net/video/FcPiiDuyZFs/видео.html
Driver: ruclips.net/video/52bDBKlbtms/видео.html
I think it might be a switching regulator rather than a full switching power supply.
That title had me chuckling for a while, lol
Are you modeling a waterproof sleeved fisherman's smock clive
I think it was a thermal coverall.
I wanted to see him measure from a.c. neutral to one of the wires on front to see if there is a.c. leakage
What Soldering Iron do you use?
Had something like this fall apart in my cloner due to really cheap plastic. Had a few others the LED would go out and I"d have to jump past them. They're really shitty. I've changed to using security light LED bulbs they're better guarded against moisture. You don't need that weird purple spectrum. Actually most plants hate that shit. Use the closest thing to 6500k daylight spectrum. Full spec LED grow bulbs (purps) are junk.
A light to grow a new product dubbed "electric weed".
when you really just want a good buzz
I too wanted to assemble a weapon of mass illumination myself with a meal tray from Wendy's. It was crazy 120v insanity.
I love tearing things apart late at night too- fair enough
3:20 AM? should have waited till 4:20
Damn! I just saw your video after I bought it!. Is there an easy way for me to modify it to make it safe?
You could possibly find an isolated LED driver that matched the current and voltage specification but was isolated.
Throw it away
Possible too put in isolating transformer ?
You could fit a locally compliant driver.