Trashy and a bit dangerous, but a clever design
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- Опубликовано: 20 апр 2024
- Just about every penny has been pinched on this design. From the undersized resistors to the wiring of the LEDs themselves, which seems to be plain aluminium wire. I couldn't solder to it at all, so had to crimp connections on. That probably means it's relying on the high open circuit voltage to break down oxide formation in the crimped joints when in use. While playing with another string of sockets I had fitted with RGB colour changing LEDs, I had one socket with an intermittent open circuit in it. Either a fractured connection where the wire exits the sleeving, or a bad crimp connection. Very hard to find, as the slightest disturbance of the whole set fixed the problem briefly.
Update - it's NOT using phase angle control. It's pulse width modulating the LEDs on unsmoothed DC and when I shook the lights violently back and forth I was able to see around six distinct dots of light where it was visibly lit in each half wave. Based on the DC humps being at 100Hz and some of the PWM not being illuminated near the zero crossing point, it suggests a possible PWM frequency approaching 1kHz, but modulated at 100Hz. What I thought was a zero crossing point detector for timing is actually just sensing when power is cycled briefly to change mode.
With a longer string of LEDs they will be lit for less time on the unsmoothed DC and shimmer may be more visible.
When I first saw these in huge ornamental lights in the UK I was really surprised to see what appeared to be a long series string of LEDs, clearly running at a fairly high voltage. But literally just stuffed in amongst a mass of coiled aluminium wire forming a plant-like sculpture. It looked good, and it was nice that someone technically inclined could potentially swap in a new LED if desired. But it also meant there were exposed (but slightly recessed) live contacts on each LED's socket.
If an LED was nudged out a bit (easy to do) then there was also the risk of the live leads coming into contact with the metal frame. I'm guessing there may have been some incidents, as they later switched to a low voltage version with the classic heatshrink sleeved LED strings.
The circuitry is very neat though. The tying of pin four of the microcontroller to the positive rail has strong PIC12 vibes to it, as that is the master clear pin when pulled low, and it also doubles as the programming voltage pin, which means it usually needs tied to a supply rail.
The H-bridge for polarity reversal is also a classic design, with the NPN transistor also turning the opposite rails PNP transistor on. In this application the capacitive dropper limits the fault current if things do go wrong.
If you enjoy these videos you can help support the channel with a dollar for coffee, cookies and random gadgets for disassembly at:- www.bigclive.com/coffee.htm
This also keeps the channel independent of RUclips's algorithm quirks, allowing it to be a bit more dangerous and naughty.
#ElectronicsCreators 
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"Trashy and a bit dangerous but clever."
Swipe right.
ROFL. Thats a keeper
I remember girls like that in high school.
@@wherami mmmmmmm no. that's a walking talking collection of red flags.
@@cho4d oh that explains my two divorces lol
@@cho4d you have to speculate to ejaculate.
When you said about old ladies using them in potentially deadly scenarios, I was reminded of a moment in either "Sound on Sound" or "Future Music" magazine from the 1990s. A power supply for a piece of music kit had a lot of big open vent holes on it, and the author of the review said "It wouldn't pass the "Granny with a Hat Pin" test".
This phrase has lived rent free in my mind for the past almost 30 years.
Another review described a piece of equipment (Syntechno TeeBee) as having "more holes than a communal love toy".
Those were the days!
"It wouldn't pass the "Granny with a Hat Pin" test"
The IP3X test.
"Trashy and a bit dangerous, but clever" describes so many people I know.
"I like my circuits, a little on the trashy side".
He'd have loved some of the suff coming from China in the 70s-80s then.
Thank you clive for distracting me through my tireless night. Currently 1:40am
Perhaps you should Sodastream some alcohol?
@@AndrewJens Or get in a trashy woman.
Very clever little chip. We do love a good Granny zapper product, I hope ebay never stop selling bit of tat like this. Interesting video 2x👍
This one came from AliExpress.
Granny Zapper; is she any relation to Frank?
The wavy track of the plastic repair vid always catches my eyes :D
Some things, having been seen, cannot be unseen.
Always something new and interesting on Clive's channel
It must be safe because it has a CE mark!😃
100% safe when not switched on!
Another great video Clive, have a great day👍
CE only means "China Export" in that case.
I thought it meant "Crap Electronics" or "Causes Electrocution".
Of course, thanks to Brexit, we Brits now proudly display UK CA on all the stuff we import from China.
Maybe that the EU will adopt a New safety rules/stamp like the Nederland UK approval UKCA that put up on New (electrical) products and not confusing about the 2 CE stamp approval markings
@@hansoverbeeke5442 I only remeber seeing UK CA on fluorescent lamps that I collect.
Clive, there is a mystery you might be interested in. Apparently computer RAM sticks with RGB lights are bleaching the back panels of some graphic cards. People are noticing a ghost image on the back of graphics cards that lines up with were there ram sticks are. Blue LED's putting out UV?
Blue light is at the end of the spectrum that can have a bleaching effect on some materials. Even classic 470nm blue.
Where? Their?
Blue LEDs are that evil. Was giving me cringe when I saw 470mn blinding LEDs used as signal lamps on handsfree devices. Bloo tooth sinking into your eyeballs
I have seen royal blue LEDs being used a lot lately that is close to UV and does bleach plastic._
@@thomasmleahy6218Who? Cares?
Very nice unit should be called “ light up your granny “ 😊 thanks Clive
I can't remember the last time I saw a commercial pcb that didn't use surface mount devices!
Yes it's nice to see a single layer board with real components.
That tester seemed somehow rather appropriate for demonstrating the device. Though I have to say, the innards of the control box do hit those nostalgia notes right on the nose. Kinda gives me those warm and fuzzies I get whenever I crack open older RF stuff. For all the wonders of the digital age, they do tend to be colossally boring to look at internally even if there is a lot more going on in there. Yeah, it's a silly thing to whine about, but whatever. I'm weird that way.
You got me at trashy and dangerous.
The rest was icing on the cake...
I still remember the fiber optic flowers with a 3 light setup that used a wheel that turned a shutter above the lights, causing the color to change. Modern stuff now days.....goodness!
If there's room in the case, would it be a good idea to insert a momentary push-to-break switch on the supply to switch modes?
That is sketchy and cool both. I like the LED that works both ways. I read the description that's interesting.
Nice color print that you were using. It helps to follow your discussion
I'm not even 60 seconds in and I want to see those LEDs in a chaos board.
interesting little device. is there anyway to run it on DC power ? other than the mains power. would be an interesting thing to use but I don't want to run it on mains power.
great description. havent done proper discrete electronics on 20 years ( because i now work in IT ) i got it. this would be a great A leve / btec national circuit for theory and fault finding tests because its a basic circuit with a bit of everything in it.
"Delightfully trashy but also actually quite clever at the same time." As someone cursed with being just intelligent enough to be painfully aware of the blissful ignorance enjoyed by the majority of humanity, but not intelligent or capable enough to really achieve something great, your description of this gismo immediately inspired a strong kinship. Me too.
That describes my programming skills.
Very much miss the debauchery (and I use that in a very respectable meaning) of the international food and drink reviews, 'focusing on the drink'. Last one I remembered, the fellows and fellettes enjoyed themselves as I did watching along with a libation in hand. Cheers, Mark
OK, grab some snacks and drinks and cohorts and get-to-it !
Mmm, tingly flowers
Thank you, keep working.
Aaaaagh - no "One moment please" !!!!!
"Trashy" you say, Big Clive? ... Perfect for your channel, then? 🤣 And if it was pink, it'd be even better!
You know I love you, Big Clive! ❤️
"Old ladies liked them" Yup, my great-aunts had what basically looked like a big duster of glass fibers in a flower vase, with a colour changing light in the base, so the ends of the fibers would cycle through the colours.
Is it experience that gives you the idea to cycle the power rapidly or do these units come with instructions? I've often wondered the process. Decades of curiosity or chip data sheets?
In any case, I love the videos.....Thank you.
@SwimCoach8 Another useful option, if a device has a momentary push button, is to push and hold this to access "hidden" features. A greater than 3 second hold is the most common here, but some other devices have a further option that's accessed by holding for more than 8 to 10 seconds. Have fun!
@@theonlywoody2shoes Since watching Clive, I always press, double press, try resets, press and hold. I was just curious if he expects these functions or if he stumbled on their availability. My first find (after watching Big Clive) was getting Christmas light to remain a constant color and not flash. Nothing in the instructions about that function! hehehehehe
The listing indicated modes.
I had a hard time watching this video... I couldn't stop imagining little old ladies with a blue rinse manically toggling switches and getting a short sharp shock to get the LEDs to match their hair...
Ha never seen a bridge switched like that. That's pretty clever.. 😃
Danger Will Robinson ..⚡⚡⚡
What is it about the dark-green capactitor sleeves with yellow script that screams: "cheap and soon to blow out its guts", I wonder??
it is my 50th birthday today. i became old whilst not paying attention. lol
Happy Birthday - time to get some fancy led lights
welcome to the club 😅😮😢
Have a great birthday. 50 is still young these days.
I've never been a fan of doing H bridges that way, I much prefer the more conventional 4 wire control so that you can have a guaranteed all off state between phases and avoid shoot through.
Is shoot through an issue with bipolar transistors? I know it is with MOSFETs.
In this case, dead time where the two uC pins are both low will guarantee off state also.
Without seeing the other side Im guessing that’s probably why the 470 ohm resistor is there. But, it’s on a low current supply so probably not a huge deal. Plus it’s China. If it was actually right, it would be wrong 😂
@@flapjack9495 it’s really a product of the driver itself if there is not sufficient dead time between transitions.
@@flapjack9495yes. If both channels were turned on at the same time, current would flow through the PNP transistor, then through the undrawn 470R + NPN + diode of the second channel, which must be connected to ‘B’ (with the undrawn PNP collector connected to ‘A’). If I understood correctly.
I guess the 470R resistors value was chosen for LED current limiting.
I love your test unit. Let's put 230v through speaker terminals.🤣
that is very common in china. I have seen entire production lines with these things. you can buy in little shops what looks like a power strip but its just flimsy plastic like hat you would use to conceal wiring along a wall with a bunch of these speaker terminals glued to it. Inside you will find bare "Copper maybe?" wire connecting line and neutral directly to the speaker terminals with no fuse and about half of the solder joints actually connected. I actually bought a couple just because I love this sort of trashy stuff and its great that you can just buy it off the shelf here.
The amazon cheap LED lights I replaced in my swimming pool / spa work like that. There is an included remote control but it doesn't work through the water at all, so quickly powering them off and on is how I switch their colors / patterns.
Off-topic, but I know you're interested in street lighting, and I just watched a crew replace the street lights outside my building. Originally I got a message from the grid operator advising me that they were going to temporarily switch off the power to my place, then they sent me a message saying it was cancelled. That was supposed to happen last week, and then tonight I heard the sound of a hydraulic motor running outside and popped my head out to see a cherry picker and a guy working on the street light. The building's power wire is also connected to that pole, so evidently they worked out that they don't need to disconnect it to work on the street light. Interestingly, the first thing the guy did was switch off the light across the road, which I guess means it's fed from the pole outside my place, and evidently he had to disconnect that before he could disconnect the one he was working on. It looked like he had to replace the cable running from the junction box on the side of the pole to the light, because he did stuff around with a cable for a while before he replaced the light, then he had to feed a new piece of conduit on to cover the wire from the junction box to the base of the light arm (or whatever you call it), and then he finally reconnected it and it lit up. I also noted they replaced the orange tinted presumably fog lights for regular white lights. Not sure why they'd do that, unless the new LED lights somehow don't have issues in fog? Also weirdly, the new lights have a lid on top that flips up. I wouldn't have thought that would be good for water ingress, but I guess it depends how it's implemented.
Sounds like the usual first visit to a new job: "Who the #### did that and what were they thinking?"
Depending on the tint of the old lights they might have just been sodium lamps. Sodium lamps are the most efficient old-school lighting technology but put out orange light.
Very nice information Great work for you Sir ji and Good wark Good morning Sir ji
Gloriously pleasingly trashu
That's pretty cool.
The photo of the top of the circuit board looks like a magazine ad for hard candies, from the 60s!
Good thing it has all the agency approvals... Phew.
Thru hole... How quaint ! Must have had to dug into the 70's parts bin.
I had Xmas tree light thread working on same principle. Some LED died and can't find replacement
Nice one Clive 👍
Think I would have gone with opamps over an mcu.
Very clever
I swear I read GRANNY ZIPPERS in the title and was wondering what kind of zipper it must be for only grannies to use them...damn I need some coffee :)
A really big chunky Zipper for the arthritic hands of Grandad to fumble with. 🤣
I'm 70 years old and can still undo a young woman's bra with just one hand😊
(While she's still wearing it)
😂😂😂😂
Love it 😉
Proves that years of practice does indeed make perfect
I have a bathroom ceiling light which changes modes when it is switched off and on within a certain time - it's very annoying when you switch it on and it is in brothel mode and you have to find the remote control to put it in boring bathroom light mode. I wish there was a way to disable this 'feature' and just use the remote control.
I have one of those power units on its own--bought it nearly ten years ago now. It is exactly the same as yours there--the lowest LED count version. Never used it. Do they still sell them alone?
They do still sell them on AliExpress. The lowest count LED one will still drive much longer strings with reduced intensity. I have a few connected to strings of traditional tungsten lights with all the bulbs replaced with LEDs.
It's amazing how they manage to eliminate the very last button to safe a penny. It's similar like with today's electric cars. If the touch screen (as your only interface to everything in your car) fails you literally cannot operate a single thing.
And if you try and operate a touch screen at Autobahn speeds, trying to find the damn wiper speed setting, it might be the last thing you do …
@@rolfs2165 What's also cool: I have my car now for over 7 years, and I still manage to find new features when digging into the 10th sub-menu of another sub-menu. I also found out, how I can watch DVDs while driving 😎 📺 👀 Sound is like being in the movie theater 🎶 Endless options after jail-break of the entertainment system.
At least they didn't use SMD. Makes repair or alteration considerably easier (for those of us with not quite so good vision as we used to have!) Nevertheless a neat little device and something I might have an immediate use for!
Why would there be a 4148 right next to the CPU? Where the 5.6 resistor is? Thanks for what you do!
Yeah, that's an odd marking on the PCB.
Inverse parallel led, how do you not blow up one side? Because one always had a path for current to flow? I've not seen those before
Each LED clamps the voltage across the unlit one to 3V max.
@@bigclivedotcom so it's still being actively damaged?
@@bigclivedotcomso if one goes they both go pop?
had this kinda thing in a pool in Chile...
Thanks :)
Mrs Bucket's lights 😂🍻✌️
It's perfectly safe though, so long as you don't plug it in... :P
Very safe if you don't even buy it 😅
Hello Clive I'm looking for a usb tester with usb C and micro connectors.
Havent found any yet, do you havre one or any idea's.
Thanks for your videos, great technical break down and sarcastic comments.
I think they do exist. You may have to try and decipher the magic keywords on AliExpress.
Fun lighting effects out of a tiny module
how old is that? looks like a circuit board from 40 years ago.
There's nothing particularly old looking here, i mean this is how cheapest stuff was constructed 25 years ago and once you start cranking out stuff by the tonnes, it can be counter productive to upgrade. It could have been manufactured last month.
Except deep brown PCB colour, that's a little unusual. Paper phenolic PCBs lean brownish, but usually not quite as much. Unclean raw ingredients or copious BFR to make it less likely to catch fire, who knows. At some point in the last 20 years, several of the BFRs were phased out due to potential environmental risks and whatnot.
aah the MPSA42 and 92, good for driving Nixie tubes.
Wow - all through hole!
Is it too common to apply resistors to the grounding phase?
There's no actual ground connection in this circuit.
It's like a mini disco. 😀
Hiya Clifford 😊
I've actually missed your "Bearded Ass"😉😋😘
This....genuinely, is the 1st time I've been "AWOL" from 'BIG CLIFFORD' & your tremendously dedicated Content.
I just felt that I needed to share my voice, as I've been very quiet......And as Clive knows😮...I'm NEVER Quiet.....😂
.....ALWAYS DAFT..😂
But NEVER 'Closed Lipped' ❤
This product proves the old adage that just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.
I see 4 transistors on the board... Could you coinnect another set of leds?
I only showed half of the H-bridge in the schematic. All the transistors are needed for a single string.
@@bigclivedotcom
Would have been interesting too. For me, not beeing an electronics expert.
Anvil? Thats what it’s really called? I thought I made that up. Idk where i would have heard or seen it called that. I always knew it was called that. I always look for it because i can never remember the polarity and the flat side or lead length doesn’t help me
I would not bother with detecting when the power is removed. I would simply, at each power up, read the nvm used to store the state to use, and immediately write the next value into it. so that on next power up, it has advanced. it would be simple to test if this is how it works, but turning it off for more time and seeing if it resets to the initial state again or continues with the setting cycle.
That would require non volatile memory. This unit uses a capacitor as persistence memory and a very cheap microcontroller.
This is, of course, just begging for a new and improved design of the supercomputer!
Do Chinese manufacturers have Research and Development or is it Trial and error?
Probably both, plus stealing software and ideas from others.
It's called Chopped Vegetables Soup Development.
They translate to the same.
Interesting circuit, kinda reminds me of a half baked kids rc car controller. Maybe that's where they got the inspiration?
Thumbs up if you understood less than 10% of Clive's description of the schematic. (I need to know I'm not alone)
Still an awesome video, BTW!
Dunno why, but I want one
Inuoyasha!. What are you doing out of the Demon World?.😳
what is called ? how much and can you get it on ebay?
AliExpress, and hard to find.
Poundland is selling an Eveready branded RGB smart bulb for £5. It's rated at 8.5W (equivalent to 60W) 806 lumen, adjustable white (2700 - 6500K), 16 million colours, dimmable, controlled by the free Energizer smart app. Worth a look?
Already done.
I wonder how that microcontroller is remembering the setting? It'll be something ridiculously cheap, maybe one of those incredibly simple Padauk jobs --- you can get them for $0.03 a pop (or at least, you could). They start with 64 bytes of RAM and 1kW of program, but no non-volatile storage. Surely this thing isn't using a flash part. Could it be getting away with using the big capacitor to keep the RAM alive for thirty seconds or so and then relying on the user remembering what setting it was on last time once the RAM dies?
Exactly, it stays on for some time and detects there is no ac with a pin.
Now I have a valid excuse not to send flowers to young ladies.
Odd way to configure an H bridge. I'd expect the bases to be connected together as the input, and the collectors tied together for one side of the output. This looks like they both turn on at the same time, which really isn't what you want.
I think that they avoid dead time problems this way. With same command on the bases the two types of transistors have different switching times and a short could be possible.
I think it looks odd because a lot is being dealt with in software.
@@robegatt Both transistors are active at the same time in this arrangement. That's the odd part. If A and B are cross-connected for the second pair, i. e. A1 & B2 are connected to one side of the LEDs and A2 & B1 are connected to the other side, i think it would work ok, but you'd still have the potential for a short.
@@PaulSteMarie I think that's the reason for the 470R resistor. Just incase the chip loses it's mind and turns all the transistors on at once. The 470R will limit the brief surge current.
OK as long as the output transistors dont short out, Then Bang !
Not really, since the capacitive dropper limits the current.
“Here’s the schematic, fairly logical”!
Think of the disco possibilities.
It’s proper disco tech, that!
Disco inferno if some of those components get a bit hot.
So how do they get the multiple colours? RGB with one H bridge? Surely its just R and B leds only? Unfortunately I'm somewhat colour blind, so couldn't tell from the Video.
Just red and blue.
😎
Ladykillers' favorite?
Dangerous? Dangerous my 12VDC homemade H-bridge with a LM2596 (40VDC max) whose input was a 28 VAC 180W TRANSFORMER. To this day it hasn't busted in flames (as far as I know).
"Trashy, a bit dangerous, but clever". I wouldn't expect anything more.
Good thing about the capacitor dropper, is that any current draw will limit the DC voltage out, so those MPSA42s and MPSA92s will only a short time, when there's very little current draw. Max current for 240V, 50Hz is ~35mA peak. But at that draw the DC voltage will be low. So extra trashy voltage statistical gambling here. No blinky lights in the shower, please.
What would Dan say? Super dodgy!
I wonder what caused the burned squiggle on the desk? 🙃
I believe it was a 1600 watt squiggle maker...
Some kind of contraption gone rogue 😊
It was a test of a temu heated staple gun for repairing plastic. If you search clives vids you'll find it.
No "one moment please"?!
I feel cheated.
SMASH LIKE!
642 views in 14 minutes? That pretty good
"They maybe had some incidents". Ok then.
Only a "bit" dangerous? With no isolation between the mains and the LED wiring and sockets, I wouldn't touch it with the proverbial barge pole.
Dodgy constant current driver!
No smd components. Is this a 1990 video?
I think this circuit it's kinda of old, what the data code on the capacitor? Now this circuit it's much simpler and the microcontroler it's a blob!
That's why my wife throw away these lights after use. They always spark and catches fire after a while. Cheap lights never last after a Christmas season.🎄
Your Christmas’s sound fun
Snort... snort... wha...?