@@imark7777777 Clotting material ???? Reminds me of when a friend slipped with a Stanley knife and sliced into my finger leaving a 2" long gash. I used a finger from the other hand to stem the bleeding for 5 minutes, then carefully peeled that finger off the cut one - what a perfect repair I've been left with !
@@millomweb well that's interesting. Yeah you need to slow the bleeding until it can seal itself up, and in some ways it's also there to flush out debris. Not only are cobwebs extremely flammable they can be used for cuts I always left some up in the barn in case I needed them for the animals but not too many. Yes injuries I'm coming off of my second visit in two weeks to the hospital this time for corneal abrasion and the last time was chemical burns from concrete. I've had a busy few months I've also smashed my finger good self treated that and shot a chunk of wood off of a table saw in to my stomach thankfully no mark left.
@@imark7777777 There's nothing better than blood for cleaning wounds (other than saliva) - never mind 'debris' it's a case of flushing out bacteria, fungal spores and the like ! A pathetic cut that fails to bleed can be worse health-wise than a proper bleeding wound ! Cobwebs - extremely flammable ???? Is that a vehicle fuel of the future ? Sounds like you need to wear safety glasses. Chemical concrete burn - interesting. I've picked dried concrete off my fingers and never had a 'burn' from it. I've not had a problem with circular saw benches. Issues usually arise from people pushing wood into the blade. One of my toenails fell off a few years ago. Not really too bothered about it but aware it could get infected. Wearing sandals, I visited a friend - and her dog started nibbling on it - so I knew the dog had found infection. I removed my sandal and let the dog chew my toe end until it was happy the matter had been resolved. It recovered fine after that. - so yes, I've been medically treated by a dog !
i really like your new color-coded reverse-engineering approach, it really makes for a super structured visualisation. thank you for each and every video you do, its really intresting and one can learn a lot.
Decent real HEPA filter units use a replaceable coarse prefilter to remove typical household dust to extend the life of the HEPA filter. True HEPA filters (there are many, many fakes) become more efficient as they load with particles and only need to be replaced when air flow declines. Honestly a good MERV 16 filter is the most you need in a home, especially if combined with an ionizer charging the air before it enters the filter media. If you aren't generating respirable silica (grinding quartz), making pharmaceuticals/silicon wafers, performing surgery, or working with radioactive materials you don't need true HEPA room filtration. Moving a large volume of air through a cheap filter is more effective than a tiny volume of highly filtered air. Figure the volume of your room and the air flow through your filter. If you aren't filtering the volume of the room *at least* every 3 minutes you aren't really accomplishing anything. Regularly using a mop/vacuum cleaner on the floor, dusting, and wiping surfaces is also needed if you truly want clean air.
I've been preaching this for a while now - that a tiny volume of air being sucked through *one* sheet of toilet paper by a weak fan does bugger all whatsoever. Except making the toilet paper slightly dirty before it blocks airflow completely. I suggested before to get a cylindrical automotive (engine intake) air filter and stick two computer fans at each end. This should at least have *some* airflow (though, seeing your comment on filtering the volume of the room at least every 3 minutes, probably not enough).
@@horrovac Axial fans like computer fans or even the big ones used on car radiators simply don't generate enough static pressure to work with high efficiency filtration elements. (yes. they _can_ if equipped with multi-stage fans and properly designed stator vanes, but if those existed you couldn't afford them). There is a reason every A/C unit uses squirrel cage or reverse impeller air movers. They do work at high pressure drop and make far less noise/require less power than axial fans. Filter media is rated at face velocity / static pressure. Higher efficiency filters elements require more pressure and it is cheaper to add more filter element media than to add more powerful blowers. Real HEPA filters have huge internal surface area for this reason and are much thicker (have deeper folds) than typical ventilation filters. Both vehicle engineers and government regulators I have spoken to have a hard time wrapping their head around this concept. It's just so darned easy to say "put a HEPA on it" and not really engage the brain about what that really means. That is especially true in a world overflowing with fake HEPA filters. (sorry for the rant. touched a sore spot.)
My HEPA uses differential pressure readings to determine the load on the filter and the need to change it. It also has a pre-filter, carbon filter then a HEPA as well as ozone injection. I can leave a dead fish on my counter and have company over. No one would smell the fish.
Hahaha!! My Alexa won't respond to any amount of shouting either, mainly because it's shoved in the back of a drawer, and it's fairly good power brick has been kidnapped, 'upcycled' to charge my smartphone.
13:48 - RUclips recommended me the Fanny Flambeau doll video yesterday... This made me realise I've been watching your channel for 7 years now. As a regular viewer, I for one am *not* sick of ionizers. I love watching you explain them to me yet again because I still don't understand how they work 🤣
I have one that is not as noisy as that. I wrap the hepa filter in paper towel and it costs almost zero to change the paper towel very often and it is quite dusty in my place so it gets pretty dirty. It works well to suck up solder smoke. Mine is about 2 years old, pre covy.
The colour coding really helps to follow your explanation! I really never understood the concept of having a HEPA filter on such a small unit. Unless it's an enclosed environment such as a cabinet or a big commercial system, your toilet paper solution will be good enough.
I have a much larger expensive air filter that has a HEPA filter with an electrostatic element and UV bulb in the air stream and an air monitor that indicates how clean the air is and the condition of the filter. The filter doesn’t need to be changed, just cleaned. I’ve checked the functions with smoke from matches and it works really well. No sulphur smell goes through. It moves a lot of air. It has a large squirrel cage fan about 3’ tall. When the forest fire smoke permeated outdoors last summer it cleaned up a 12X24’ room in less than 5 minutes no matter where I moved it in the room. The fan is very quiet. I use a shop vac with a narrow nozzle to blow out the filter and the inside. I have no idea what electromagicry makes it work but it does a really good job. At a couple hundred bucks it costs five times more than a cheapie tabletop model but it’s a hundred times better. Ya’ gets what ya’ pays for.
Maybe the negative ion generator pointed at the LED wiring is a secret self-destruct mechanism; eventually the insulation degrades and allows the high voltage to dump into the microcontroller, killing it... :P
Computer fans are brilliant. 1, They're quiet. 2, They run for years. 3, They have a standard mounting. 4, They're available all over. I use them as extraction fans 😀
Yeah looks very similar. In fact most air filters are made in one of about 8 global factories. Then they're branded. The machinery is quite complex to make them.
Speaking of ionizers, yes that _will_ absolutely nuke a power supply. I was generating corona discharge with one of those stun-gun modules and powering it from a 60V adjustable supply. I couldn't figure out what was going on at first but I kept hearing a little tick, kind of like a small static discharge coming from inside the power supply. Before it clicked what was happening, the pass transistors and control IC took a shit, and the output went to an unregulated 70V and the current meter pegged at 8A. WOW WAS THAT IMPRESSIVE!!! That module had no difficulties at all launching sparks over a foot long when running on 70V instead of 3V. Power supply was obliterated by it, but the little module seemed unfazed by its little "excursion". Edit: 19:24 That's exactly what happened. Naturally, afterwards I found the supply was set to be "floating" instead of grounded, with predictable results. Even though there were two leads from the module, some of the current from the corona probably found an alternate path back thru the supply.
Excellent review Mr B.C.!!! (as usual ;-) Must tell you that I used your cheap LED light bulb mod to (hopefully) lengthen the amount of time our carport lights last... (standard cheap LED's only lasted +or- 2 years) We have a 2 car carport with 4 light fixtures, 2 bulbs per fixture, (we're in the USA so 110v). The LED bulb design was quite similar to your designs so I clipped one of the resistors as you suggested and the wattage dropped (nearly) in half as well as the heat was near ambient!! The slight reduction in light wasn't really a problem as 2 bulbs per fixture was really overkill and I had used 60w equivalent bulbs, they gave out roughly the same amount of light as a 40w LED bulb. Hopefully these bulbs will last MANY years and I won't have to get up on that ladder again for a VERY... LONG... TIME!!! Thank you so very much for the tips Mr. B.C.!!! You're the best sir :-)
Today I saw a box fan filter on the clearance aisle and thought of you Big Clive. It might be cheaper and easier to buy a proper air filter for your house.
I'm not tired of ionizer videos yet! I haven't seen any cheap ionizers (rather than ozone generator), especially with carbon fiber needles. I wanna see the potting compound gone!
For the cost of the replacements I'd expect washable! Built a similar system using uPVC pipe and Electrolux / Volta washable vacuum filters. Never need to change them (or even wash them) and the lash-up seems to have stopped The Wife's seasonal hay fever problems.
Just replaced the filter on my unit. It was $5 per HEPA with an additional 2 dust pre-filters that catch most junk. EDIT: The model is HAP9415 from Holmes. The filters are purchased from amazon and are HAPF30AT by isinlive, but any one would work if it says they're compatible.
My Honeywell uses one $15 filter a year and one active carbon prefilter every 3 months that are only a couple bucks a piece when I buy a roll and cut it myself. If I had this, I'd buy a new one everytime the filter needed replaced and tossed the old one. 😂
Filter also looks like what you get for some vacuums. We used shop vacuum HEPA filters and a bathroom vent blower fan to help with the wildfire smoke last year. Worked pretty good. Definitely wasn't quiet though.
The component across the secondary and primary winding came out of a cost reduction exercise intended to replace an expensive air gap discharge junction part. This part bypass the ionizer’s return path to the neutral wire of ac input. That capacitor was chosen with a break down voltage close or less than what exhibit with the air gap.
If you were doing these videos 30+ years ago, you would have saved me getting into trouble when I couldn't resist pulling apart every item I was given. I've never lived down pulling apart my 007 watch when I was young :/ My Mother still brings it up whenever she gets the chance! :(
I’ve been playing with some of those 12v “fridge ionizers” and running them from batteries. If you put a meter in series between the unit’s negative input lead and earth, you can see that it does develop a positive potential referenced to ground. It appears to be limited by the fact the unit has both a positive and negative output. So it seems to be an ozone generator when operated on batteries, and perhaps an ozone generator and negative ion generator if grounded.
I have a very similar "ProBreeze" branded unit. It does have a filter replace alarm which lights up after x hours of use, but doesn't disable the unit, and you can dismiss it by pushing down the top of the light-pipe with a pen. It also has a very similar ionizer, though the brushes are actually in the air path. It has a fairly large 12V squirrel cage fan, but it's rigidly fastened to the case, causing a very annoying buzz in the cheap plastic, which is probably my only complaint about it. I managed to get a pack of 2 filters on Amazon for £10 or something, which wasn't too bad, but yes from their own website the filter cartridges are almost as expensive as the unit itself. Draws about .5A from the 12V PSU on high fan so probably has a fair bit more airflow than this thing.
If after a good filter, maybe cobble up a box that uses a common/cheap big box store HVAC filter with a little quiet fan to draw air through? If you wish the inside could contain all manner of ionizer/s, UV misc, granulated charcoal etc...
My mates use in line filters available as kits (in line fan, massive carbon filter, duct tape, and big jubilee clips) - all available from £35 from Amazon , which are very noisy but last about 18 month+. I notice that most of my friends dispense with ducting and mount the fans direct to filter and pointing the whole lot out of the grow tent as it's quieter. So with the bedroom fan ( I made one yesterday drunk - its great) it suggests mounting the filter (filter paper) as close to the fan as possible. Maybe using filters at both ends? Or using a hoover HEPA? If I could make a small filter like this for my pals they could use it in a grow tent and run the in line fans as extracters of heat and humidity when needed instead of all the time.
I'm now thinking about building an air purifier like the one you did for the tissue paper filters, but designing it either around a car cabin air filter or a vacuum cleaner filter. Smallest and cheapest HEPA filters of these types can be found for around 2 pounds. This might be a viable option for cheap and long lasting filters.
I just changed the cabin air filter on my truck and it seems like that would make a nice filter element for something. $15 for two rectangular panels. Don't know what the rating on them is but the ones in my truck really do make a difference with my pollen allergies - and last for years. Lots of different sizes to choose from on Amazon.
The good thing about putting the ioniser brush there is that it can just spark directly onto the low voltage wiring without going through the transforner.
Personally I've only ever bought air purifiers with filters you can clean yourself. I assume it's really not the same as putting in a whole new filter, but it's good enough considering the insane price of the replacements. You pay about twice as much up-front for the unit but know there won't be any sneaky costs down the line (until it dies).
I like this one: honeywell 50250; 13$ prefilter lasts 3-6 months and 100$ HEPA 1-3 years All analog all the time. 3-5 air changes per hour in a small to medium room Fairly durable and big, but pricy.
I think I have one of those. Great big cylindrical Hepa filter and the Charcoal impregnated pre-filter that you can buy. Great simple design but slightly noisy for a bedroom because it’s using a huge squirrel cage fan.
@@stephen1r2 I also have another brand for my bedroom. Blueair made in Sweden. I have the older model that is a folded rectangular box of mild steel. Very sturdy and heavy. The best thing about them is they are very quiet on the low speed setting. You can get the normal Hepa filter or upgrade to the Hepa+VOC filters. The larger models also come with the electro-static discharge function to capture more particulates.
Imagine turning Clive loose on say, ... An F-35... I'm not even sure it would be safe to leave your cell phone at his place... His curiosity is our entertainment and education. Thanks, Clive. I enjoy your vids very much. Have you ever seen an IC with a window in it? I believe it is out of a color laser printer, but not sure how it is utilized.
USUALLY, an IC with a window is an EPROM. But since it is from a laser printer, and the window's not covered, a far more exciting option presents itself: a digital micromirror device(DMD). TI makes them, and they use thousands of itty-bitty mirrors on itty-bitty hinges to make a picture with reflected light. No, really. Swear I'm not lying. They are also used in digital projectors. The laser printer would use the DMD to reflect the laser light onto the print drum, painting the image to be transferred to the paper.
The unpopulated UV circuit with inductor and diode is a boost voltage converter. It is probably intended to step up the 5V from the USB to 12V for a standard UV LED strip (like what Odd Tinkering uses to retrobrite plastics). You corrected yourself saying switched mode power instead of PWM, but they are the same thing. A buck converter sets its duty cycle at the ratio of the output to input voltages. The only difference is in the power rating of components and the requirement to use at least a second order output filter. Lastly, you mentioned about the incorrect placement of capacitors on the USB input (the microprocessor should have close decoupling). You are right in principle, but it doesn't matter for such a small board. Most important is to stop noise generated by the microcontroller getting back out over the USB cable. That is best done at the connector. The only reason you'd want capacitance at the micro is if the power supplies were struggling to keep up with demand. While this circuit could have been laid out better, the dimensions were so short that supply impedance is extremely low. They get away with it. The question is whether they know that they get away with it...
Well, at least they put a large-value resistor in line with the blue LED, otherwise the end user would not get much sleep at night from the brightness!
I keep a roll of the silver, metal HVAC tape handy. It blocks any and all LED distractions in our sleeping quarters. It's amazing how disruptive even the faintest light can be.
@@TechGorilla1987 I discovered my 25 year old Columbia hat lets IR remote signals through but blocks the blue light. I am not sure if it is something the way it is built or if its just so threadbare that it lets the IR through. The thing is if it was just thin the blue LED light would not make it through. It's really rather an interesting anomaly.
Also, was surprised to hear people sell these used.... not something I've come across in Oz. I'd have thought ppl would just buy another one, or chuck it out since its cheap. .
Had the same cost issue at school with the projectors. the lamps were so close to the cost of a new unit, they'd just pay an extra 20 to get a new projector with it's lamp included. Unrelated note: I have had very bad experiences with those type of button on circuit boards, as they rely solely on the strength of the solder joint and pads to not move. Those bastards break of the board really easily if the solder/board is cheaply made, or if you exert too much force on a thing that exists to be pressed. I now have an irrational fear of those things in any equipment I own that has those.
Just a heads up. China makes and sells really good air purifiers for their domestic market. They are constantly battling smog and chemical fumes in their big cities. So their home or commercial air purifiers are really big, like man-size. They are used in lobbies and restaurants etc. They are packed with all the latest technology and are not cheap.
I have the xiaomi air purifier. I wash the filter every few months. It might be not as effective as new filter but it still removes a lot of dust. I do not have a need to remove ultra fine particles.
2:16 yeah, I'm always looking for better solutions to small fans. Maybe using chambers with different pressure to create the wind could be a quieter approach. I really wish electric wind were safe to use, because that stuff is cool
I’m going to hang myself out there and break the illusion: Clive, is an agent of c.h.a.o.s. (California housing authority omnibus systems) ... Amazon & E-bay are using him to move b-spec product ... he gets the “no questions asked” product extended warranties with out cost to him on everything he “purchases” ... if you, the consumer, purchase warehouse or renewed products ... 100% Clive ... he is a “fixer” , actually “the fixer” ...(scurries away back to the bunker)
The cylindrical air filter looks like ones on AliBaba that sell for a couple dollars. You might find a supplier of those HEPA drums that are close enough in size as replacements. Or buy the cheapest ones you can find, 3D print a case and stuff those bits into it. BONUS you can use BigClive pink filament!
Apart from the lack of a ground reference the ioniser mauy not be as bad as all that.. It looks like it is in the filtered airstream rather than the unfiltered at the bottom of the "chimney". Could do with being a bit higher up though
Great tear down with your usual excellent deep dive on how it works. How about using your 3D printing skills to make a roller to concertina up tissue or some other cheap filtery type paper. Print out a round filter holder and make your own replacements?
The whine problem is not due to just PWM, it is due to the crap fan or not enough filtering on VCC, if they had used a Delta or Sunon or Nidec it would have been fine
I recently bought a HEPA room filter, but when I got it, every single reference in the manual said “HEPA-like filter”. No explanation.... could explain the price of yours?
In regard to the 510 vs 1000 ohm resistors, I tink it has to do with the load each transistor has to switch. When a typical transistor has higher collector emitter voltage (beacuse of lower impedance load driven from the same power rail), it needs less base current to saturate. hence the higer base resistor on the higher load transistor. Anyway I gess in this case the effect is probably negligible
I've actually (coincidentally) grown my goatee just after i started watching your videos. And i just recently learned you too are wearing a goatee (or something similar)
If you could ground the filter, I can see a design with the ioniser in the input air stream working well - any dust will get an extra incentive to adhere to the filter
Ionised content is good content too, Dr.Clive. By the looks of the case and filter, the manufacturer spent all of the money on the design and machining of the injection moulding tools.
hey Clive, I think we could do with a video or two about calcium carbide and/or carbide lamps. It looks like fun stuff and I'd like to know more about it before I blow my fingers off.
It's just a disposable unit. If you really like/want it then when the time comes to change the filter just throw it away and buy a new one for 1/2 the cost of the filter alone.
Personally I'm an air filter fanatic because I suffer from dust sensitivities I own laser particle counters many different kinds of air purifiers most expensive cost £800. Actually This little device has merit, because if you're in a relatively clean air environment such as a house the filters take a very long time to clog up. On all my air purifiers I try to put a course pre-filter over the top of the filter. If it's a powerful fan full size machine I will use something like G4 filter media that's about an inch thick. For something like this little device just putting a couple of layers off ladies stocking around the outside would preserve the life of the filter enormously because it is the large particles that clog up the header filter not the small. This sort of device would be helpful in a car or when sleeping having the exiting air blowing across one's face. If something looks relatively well made I will often buy a machine with no intention of never changing the filter. Drum filters have a much larger surface area than flat panels filters so you can buy one pretty much never worry about replacing it. I can't stress the importance of putting of some sort of course pre-filter the three categories are something like ladies tights material, and then two mil thick filter foam and then some fibre media like extractor fan pre-filter or G4 filter media. Good luck
Clive... No way to use a Paper Towel Filter on the Round Filter by removing the corrugated white material only and wrapping the Paper towel filter around the original filter cage held by some tape ?
If the two caps are like two buckets next to each other, in the rain then small one would fill first, it must a be a shrorter bucket in this case,so it’s the bigger bucket that would better absorb spikes. Ahhhhhhh!
You could d.i.y with a small 4' inline grow tent fan and a cheap car air filter, just block the open end of the car filter with some plastic circle & gorilla tape, just a thought 👍
The best quality and cost for a airpurifier is to use a square box fan ($20) and a 20x20x1 furnace filter (3M purple version- $15). Uses a large volume of air and very quiet. Just tape the filter to the outside of the box fan.
From my experience with these cheap "hepa" filters, is that they are not really hepa filters, and don't have anywhere near enough airflow to create any useful filtration in any space larger than a cupboard.
So if a negatively charged ion generator makes dust collect on surfaces, wouldn't you want a positively charged ion generator so the dust stays airborne so it can be filtered?
Was that vid delivered with lighning? Was sleeping until 5 minutes ago lightning struck very loud. Now I can't sleep, guess I'll watch this one fresh of the press. 😆
I would just bypass the circuit, maybe with the addition of diodes to drop the voltage, you could include a bypass switch for full power. I wonder if you can wrap TP arouund it instead of the filter to save the cost of new ones
Im pretty sure the biggest Filter now is the "new" Ikea filter. was it called Förnuftig? i think so... 50 bucks or something, 10 bucks for a filter replacment
Hepa filters are really for semiconductor manufacturing. I wonder why anyone would want or need such clean air? They work in a particular way, using lamellar air flow. Filtering air will not stop dust or particules or viruses being disturbed from "unclean" rooms.
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
If you shove a whole toilet paper roll in there, it could be 500x ply filtration!
Much better than the LEPA (Low Efficiency) filter included :p
@@patrickglaser1560 depending solely upon brand the answer can be largely whittled down to “many” 🤣🤣🤣
BigClive screwing around at the test bench is more informative than a serious discussion with many engineers.
As someone who's seen every single one of your videos, I can say that I'll never get tired of watching you tearing down cheap shitty ionizers.
Our house has 'automatic air filtration system'. To change the cobwebs, we just vacuum up the full ones.
Also handy if you need a clotting material in an emergency, although try and peck the cleaner ones.
@@imark7777777 Clotting material ????
Reminds me of when a friend slipped with a Stanley knife and sliced into my finger leaving a 2" long gash. I used a finger from the other hand to stem the bleeding for 5 minutes, then carefully peeled that finger off the cut one - what a perfect repair I've been left with !
@@millomweb well that's interesting. Yeah you need to slow the bleeding until it can seal itself up, and in some ways it's also there to flush out debris.
Not only are cobwebs extremely flammable they can be used for cuts I always left some up in the barn in case I needed them for the animals but not too many.
Yes injuries I'm coming off of my second visit in two weeks to the hospital this time for corneal abrasion and the last time was chemical burns from concrete. I've had a busy few months I've also smashed my finger good self treated that and shot a chunk of wood off of a table saw in to my stomach thankfully no mark left.
@@imark7777777 There's nothing better than blood for cleaning wounds (other than saliva) - never mind 'debris' it's a case of flushing out bacteria, fungal spores and the like ! A pathetic cut that fails to bleed can be worse health-wise than a proper bleeding wound !
Cobwebs - extremely flammable ???? Is that a vehicle fuel of the future ?
Sounds like you need to wear safety glasses. Chemical concrete burn - interesting. I've picked dried concrete off my fingers and never had a 'burn' from it.
I've not had a problem with circular saw benches. Issues usually arise from people pushing wood into the blade.
One of my toenails fell off a few years ago. Not really too bothered about it but aware it could get infected. Wearing sandals, I visited a friend - and her dog started nibbling on it - so I knew the dog had found infection. I removed my sandal and let the dog chew my toe end until it was happy the matter had been resolved. It recovered fine after that. - so yes, I've been medically treated by a dog !
i really like your new color-coded reverse-engineering approach, it really makes for a super structured visualisation.
thank you for each and every video you do, its really intresting and one can learn a lot.
Decent real HEPA filter units use a replaceable coarse prefilter to remove typical household dust to extend the life of the HEPA filter. True HEPA filters (there are many, many fakes) become more efficient as they load with particles and only need to be replaced when air flow declines. Honestly a good MERV 16 filter is the most you need in a home, especially if combined with an ionizer charging the air before it enters the filter media.
If you aren't generating respirable silica (grinding quartz), making pharmaceuticals/silicon wafers, performing surgery, or working with radioactive materials you don't need true HEPA room filtration. Moving a large volume of air through a cheap filter is more effective than a tiny volume of highly filtered air. Figure the volume of your room and the air flow through your filter. If you aren't filtering the volume of the room *at least* every 3 minutes you aren't really accomplishing anything. Regularly using a mop/vacuum cleaner on the floor, dusting, and wiping surfaces is also needed if you truly want clean air.
I've been preaching this for a while now - that a tiny volume of air being sucked through *one* sheet of toilet paper by a weak fan does bugger all whatsoever. Except making the toilet paper slightly dirty before it blocks airflow completely. I suggested before to get a cylindrical automotive (engine intake) air filter and stick two computer fans at each end. This should at least have *some* airflow (though, seeing your comment on filtering the volume of the room at least every 3 minutes, probably not enough).
@@horrovac Axial fans like computer fans or even the big ones used on car radiators simply don't generate enough static pressure to work with high efficiency filtration elements. (yes. they _can_ if equipped with multi-stage fans and properly designed stator vanes, but if those existed you couldn't afford them).
There is a reason every A/C unit uses squirrel cage or reverse impeller air movers. They do work at high pressure drop and make far less noise/require less power than axial fans. Filter media is rated at face velocity / static pressure. Higher efficiency filters elements require more pressure and it is cheaper to add more filter element media than to add more powerful blowers. Real HEPA filters have huge internal surface area for this reason and are much thicker (have deeper folds) than typical ventilation filters.
Both vehicle engineers and government regulators I have spoken to have a hard time wrapping their head around this concept. It's just so darned easy to say "put a HEPA on it" and not really engage the brain about what that really means. That is especially true in a world overflowing with fake HEPA filters.
(sorry for the rant. touched a sore spot.)
My HEPA uses differential pressure readings to determine the load on the filter and the need to change it. It also has a pre-filter, carbon filter then a HEPA as well as ozone injection. I can leave a dead fish on my counter and have company over. No one would smell the fish.
@@TechGorilla1987 That's just how it should be done.
The filter, not the fish :-)
@@Miata822 What about "ger-filter fish"
I'll see myself out.
13:47 there are never enough ionizer tear downs. there are so many "creative" concepts in cutting cost corners, it never gets old!
I can picture my mum shouting "ALEXA!" at it for 20 minutes, wondering why it's not working...
Hahaha!! My Alexa won't respond to any amount of shouting either, mainly because it's shoved in the back of a drawer, and it's fairly good power brick has been kidnapped, 'upcycled' to charge my smartphone.
13:48 - RUclips recommended me the Fanny Flambeau doll video yesterday... This made me realise I've been watching your channel for 7 years now. As a regular viewer, I for one am *not* sick of ionizers. I love watching you explain them to me yet again because I still don't understand how they work 🤣
It's voodoo
The explanation is simple: electricity go brrr
I have one that is not as noisy as that. I wrap the hepa filter in paper towel and it costs almost zero to change the paper towel very often and it is quite dusty in my place so it gets pretty dirty. It works well to suck up solder smoke. Mine is about 2 years old, pre covy.
The colour coding really helps to follow your explanation! I really never understood the concept of having a HEPA filter on such a small unit. Unless it's an enclosed environment such as a cabinet or a big commercial system, your toilet paper solution will be good enough.
I have a much larger expensive air filter that has a HEPA filter with an electrostatic element and UV bulb in the air stream and an air monitor that indicates how clean the air is and the condition of the filter. The filter doesn’t need to be changed, just cleaned. I’ve checked the functions with smoke from matches and it works really well. No sulphur smell goes through. It moves a lot of air. It has a large squirrel cage fan about 3’ tall. When the forest fire smoke permeated outdoors last summer it cleaned up a 12X24’ room in less than 5 minutes no matter where I moved it in the room. The fan is very quiet. I use a shop vac with a narrow nozzle to blow out the filter and the inside. I have no idea what electromagicry makes it work but it does a really good job. At a couple hundred bucks it costs five times more than a cheapie tabletop model but it’s a hundred times better. Ya’ gets what ya’ pays for.
Maybe the negative ion generator pointed at the LED wiring is a secret self-destruct mechanism; eventually the insulation degrades and allows the high voltage to dump into the microcontroller, killing it... :P
“Your mission, Clive, should you choose to accept it...”
Yeah.. thats planned obsolescence for the ecosystem.
Computer fans are brilliant.
1, They're quiet.
2, They run for years.
3, They have a standard mounting.
4, They're available all over.
I use them as extraction fans 😀
The filter looks exactly as the air filter of my BMW motorcycle.
Motor vehicle filters are different filter material, much more open and less filtery. But yes, pleated filters are common all over the place.
Yeah looks very similar. In fact most air filters are made in one of about 8 global factories. Then they're branded. The machinery is quite complex to make them.
Tell me I am not the only Baboon who watches this channel. Taking things to bits is so much fun!
I don't know about baboons.... but this is a popular place for bears to hang out.
Tigers, bears, baboons and domestic cats.
Disassembling vicariously.
@@Peter_S_ You freaking got me with that one! XD
Ebay: "The filter still has life in it" should be read read as: "Used the filter in damp room and it's now full of mold" 👍
Speaking of ionizers, yes that _will_ absolutely nuke a power supply. I was generating corona discharge with one of those stun-gun modules and powering it from a 60V adjustable supply. I couldn't figure out what was going on at first but I kept hearing a little tick, kind of like a small static discharge coming from inside the power supply. Before it clicked what was happening, the pass transistors and control IC took a shit, and the output went to an unregulated 70V and the current meter pegged at 8A. WOW WAS THAT IMPRESSIVE!!! That module had no difficulties at all launching sparks over a foot long when running on 70V instead of 3V. Power supply was obliterated by it, but the little module seemed unfazed by its little "excursion". Edit: 19:24 That's exactly what happened. Naturally, afterwards I found the supply was set to be "floating" instead of grounded, with predictable results. Even though there were two leads from the module, some of the current from the corona probably found an alternate path back thru the supply.
Excellent review Mr B.C.!!! (as usual ;-)
Must tell you that I used your cheap LED light bulb mod to (hopefully) lengthen the amount of time our carport lights last... (standard cheap LED's only lasted +or- 2 years) We have a 2 car carport with 4 light fixtures, 2 bulbs per fixture, (we're in the USA so 110v). The LED bulb design was quite similar to your designs so I clipped one of the resistors as you suggested and the wattage dropped (nearly) in half as well as the heat was near ambient!! The slight reduction in light wasn't really a problem as 2 bulbs per fixture was really overkill and I had used 60w equivalent bulbs, they gave out roughly the same amount of light as a 40w LED bulb. Hopefully these bulbs will last MANY years and I won't have to get up on that ladder again for a VERY... LONG... TIME!!! Thank you so very much for the tips Mr. B.C.!!! You're the best sir :-)
Today I saw a box fan filter on the clearance aisle and thought of you Big Clive. It might be cheaper and easier to buy a proper air filter for your house.
Like Aisle of Man...to Ion Man....yes Yes YES YES YES YES👉👀👈
I've never really seen box fans here in the UK. They always come across as an American thing.
I'm not tired of ionizer videos yet! I haven't seen any cheap ionizers (rather than ozone generator), especially with carbon fiber needles. I wanna see the potting compound gone!
I just took another tiny module apart. Not on video though.
We will never be sick of ionizers
We have got sick them several times, they were all the rage in the late 70s and then again in the early 90s, it's a 20 year cycle thing.
For the cost of the replacements I'd expect washable! Built a similar system using uPVC pipe and Electrolux / Volta washable vacuum filters. Never need to change them (or even wash them) and the lash-up seems to have stopped The Wife's seasonal hay fever problems.
Just replaced the filter on my unit. It was $5 per HEPA with an additional 2 dust pre-filters that catch most junk.
EDIT: The model is HAP9415 from Holmes. The filters are purchased from amazon and are HAPF30AT by isinlive, but any one would work if it says they're compatible.
From where?
My Honeywell uses one $15 filter a year and one active carbon prefilter every 3 months that are only a couple bucks a piece when I buy a roll and cut it myself.
If I had this, I'd buy a new one everytime the filter needed replaced and tossed the old one. 😂
Yeah, from where?
@@McFlyOrPie wasteful
@@McFlyOrPie What model Honeywell and where did you get the filter. Is it an off brand or an actual Honeywell filter?
Filter also looks like what you get for some vacuums.
We used shop vacuum HEPA filters and a bathroom vent blower fan to help with the wildfire smoke last year. Worked pretty good. Definitely wasn't quiet though.
Fantastic invention (sorry bout the pun). You can also use damp woven material for smoke/ash. Hope you never need to use it though.
The component across the secondary and primary winding came out of a cost reduction exercise intended to replace an expensive air gap discharge junction part. This part bypass the ionizer’s return path to the neutral wire of ac input. That capacitor was chosen with a break down voltage close or less than what exhibit with the air gap.
9:47 BigClive has reached the level where he explains the working of the parts of the PCB which are not even populated.
Your mistake is in thinking that he reverse engineers Chinese devices on this channel. An easy mistake. He reverse engineers Chinese engineers.
If you were doing these videos 30+ years ago, you would have saved me getting into trouble when I couldn't resist pulling apart every item I was given. I've never lived down pulling apart my 007 watch when I was young :/ My Mother still brings it up whenever she gets the chance! :(
When you first turned it on by accident I thought I was being abducted by aliens
The truth is out there.
I’ve been playing with some of those 12v “fridge ionizers” and running them from batteries. If you put a meter in series between the unit’s negative input lead and earth, you can see that it does develop a positive potential referenced to ground. It appears to be limited by the fact the unit has both a positive and negative output.
So it seems to be an ozone generator when operated on batteries, and perhaps an ozone generator and negative ion generator if grounded.
I'm a fan...of the show!
...I wonder if you could wrap it with a piece of paper towel as a filter media?
I tried that. It stuck on OK but the airflow was notably lower.
I have a very similar "ProBreeze" branded unit. It does have a filter replace alarm which lights up after x hours of use, but doesn't disable the unit, and you can dismiss it by pushing down the top of the light-pipe with a pen. It also has a very similar ionizer, though the brushes are actually in the air path. It has a fairly large 12V squirrel cage fan, but it's rigidly fastened to the case, causing a very annoying buzz in the cheap plastic, which is probably my only complaint about it. I managed to get a pack of 2 filters on Amazon for £10 or something, which wasn't too bad, but yes from their own website the filter cartridges are almost as expensive as the unit itself. Draws about .5A from the 12V PSU on high fan so probably has a fair bit more airflow than this thing.
I've been using a 20-inch box fan with a 20-inch furnace filter taped to the back as an air filter.
If after a good filter, maybe cobble up a box that uses a common/cheap big box store HVAC filter with a little quiet fan to draw air through? If you wish the inside could contain all manner of ionizer/s, UV misc, granulated charcoal etc...
My mates use in line filters available as kits (in line fan, massive carbon filter, duct tape, and big jubilee clips) - all available from £35 from Amazon , which are very noisy but last about 18 month+. I notice that most of my friends dispense with ducting and mount the fans direct to filter and pointing the whole lot out of the grow tent as it's quieter. So with the bedroom fan ( I made one yesterday drunk - its great) it suggests mounting the filter (filter paper) as close to the fan as possible. Maybe using filters at both ends? Or using a hoover HEPA? If I could make a small filter like this for my pals they could use it in a grow tent and run the in line fans as extracters of heat and humidity when needed instead of all the time.
I'm now thinking about building an air purifier like the one you did for the tissue paper filters, but designing it either around a car cabin air filter or a vacuum cleaner filter. Smallest and cheapest HEPA filters of these types can be found for around 2 pounds. This might be a viable option for cheap and long lasting filters.
I wonder what the cheapest car cabin air filter would cost. Decent manufacturers have hepa filter layers built in.
I just changed the cabin air filter on my truck and it seems like that would make a nice filter element for something. $15 for two rectangular panels. Don't know what the rating on them is but the ones in my truck really do make a difference with my pollen allergies - and last for years. Lots of different sizes to choose from on Amazon.
The good thing about putting the ioniser brush there is that it can just spark directly onto the low voltage wiring without going through the transforner.
The best air purifier was the Hunter 30055. Easy to adapt any filter to & very powerful.
Thanks for the reference! That unit looks ideal and it's reasonably priced. 👍
Personally I've only ever bought air purifiers with filters you can clean yourself. I assume it's really not the same as putting in a whole new filter, but it's good enough considering the insane price of the replacements. You pay about twice as much up-front for the unit but know there won't be any sneaky costs down the line (until it dies).
I like this one: honeywell 50250; 13$ prefilter lasts 3-6 months and 100$ HEPA 1-3 years
All analog all the time. 3-5 air changes per hour in a small to medium room
Fairly durable and big, but pricy.
I think I have one of those. Great big cylindrical Hepa filter and the Charcoal impregnated pre-filter that you can buy. Great simple design but slightly noisy for a bedroom because it’s using a huge squirrel cage fan.
@@Adscam On low speed it was fine; just the rushing wind noise. I bought the big unit for a small room to allow that.
@@stephen1r2 I also have another brand for my bedroom. Blueair made in Sweden. I have the older model that is a folded rectangular box of mild steel. Very sturdy and heavy. The best thing about them is they are very quiet on the low speed setting. You can get the normal Hepa filter or upgrade to the Hepa+VOC filters. The larger models also come with the electro-static discharge function to capture more particulates.
Maybe you could make one that uses coffee filters as an air filter? Coffee filters are dirt cheap after all.
Nice idea, they're even pleated!
Imagine turning Clive loose on say, ... An F-35... I'm not even sure it would be safe to leave your cell phone at his place... His curiosity is our entertainment and education. Thanks, Clive. I enjoy your vids very much. Have you ever seen an IC with a window in it? I believe it is out of a color laser printer, but not sure how it is utilized.
USUALLY, an IC with a window is an EPROM. But since it is from a laser printer, and the window's not covered, a far more exciting option presents itself: a digital micromirror device(DMD). TI makes them, and they use thousands of itty-bitty mirrors on itty-bitty hinges to make a picture with reflected light. No, really. Swear I'm not lying.
They are also used in digital projectors.
The laser printer would use the DMD to reflect the laser light onto the print drum, painting the image to be transferred to the paper.
Burning the midnight oil again I see sir. Thanks for the videos, Reace, in North Yorkshire
I love that band!
The unpopulated UV circuit with inductor and diode is a boost voltage converter. It is probably intended to step up the 5V from the USB to 12V for a standard UV LED strip (like what Odd Tinkering uses to retrobrite plastics).
You corrected yourself saying switched mode power instead of PWM, but they are the same thing. A buck converter sets its duty cycle at the ratio of the output to input voltages. The only difference is in the power rating of components and the requirement to use at least a second order output filter.
Lastly, you mentioned about the incorrect placement of capacitors on the USB input (the microprocessor should have close decoupling). You are right in principle, but it doesn't matter for such a small board. Most important is to stop noise generated by the microcontroller getting back out over the USB cable. That is best done at the connector. The only reason you'd want capacitance at the micro is if the power supplies were struggling to keep up with demand. While this circuit could have been laid out better, the dimensions were so short that supply impedance is extremely low.
They get away with it. The question is whether they know that they get away with it...
Well, at least they put a large-value resistor in line with the blue LED, otherwise the end user would not get much sleep at night from the brightness!
Wouldnt be a problem as very quickly either the led or usb supply would die
I keep a roll of the silver, metal HVAC tape handy. It blocks any and all LED distractions in our sleeping quarters. It's amazing how disruptive even the faintest light can be.
@@TechGorilla1987 I discovered my 25 year old Columbia hat lets IR remote signals through but blocks the blue light. I am not sure if it is something the way it is built or if its just so threadbare that it lets the IR through. The thing is if it was just thin the blue LED light would not make it through. It's really rather an interesting anomaly.
@@TechGorilla1987 black electrical tape is my weapon of choice. ...though the fact that it is still on bugs me so I then take out my side cutters.
@@johnpossum556 some kinds of plastic are opaque to visible light, but pass IR.
It must be quality, the weight is shiny...OMG you snuck in an ionizer video! :-))))))
An accidental ioniser video.
@@bigclivedotcom occidental ?
lol!
That’s the best 22 minute promo for a toilet paper hepa ever!
Just replace the filter with a filter mat.
You can cut them to size and wrap them around.
We use those mats as intake filters for industrial motors.
Also, was surprised to hear people sell these used.... not something I've come across in Oz. I'd have thought ppl would just buy another one, or chuck it out since its cheap. .
I miss the days of pubs with yellow walls in Lanarkshire! I almost miss the horizontal rain!
Had the same cost issue at school with the projectors. the lamps were so close to the cost of a new unit, they'd just pay an extra 20 to get a new projector with it's lamp included.
Unrelated note: I have had very bad experiences with those type of button on circuit boards, as they rely solely on the strength of the solder joint and pads to not move. Those bastards break of the board really easily if the solder/board is cheaply made, or if you exert too much force on a thing that exists to be pressed. I now have an irrational fear of those things in any equipment I own that has those.
Just a heads up. China makes and sells really good air purifiers for their domestic market. They are constantly battling smog and chemical fumes in their big cities. So their home or commercial air purifiers are really big, like man-size. They are used in lobbies and restaurants etc. They are packed with all the latest technology and are not cheap.
I featured a plasmacluster purifier in a video.
Have a look at the new one from IKEA, on the lowest sttting it’s really quiet and has a much cheaper and bigger filter
Ikea just opened in my country (Mexico) and the air filter is one of the few products they dont have yet :(
Clive, any ideas about jury-rigging a DIY filter replacement?
And I wonder about that missing middle switch.
You can get loose sheet filter material that could be wrapped around it, but I'm not sure how effective it would be.
Can you please do a video of explaining the HFSSTC circuit
I have the xiaomi air purifier. I wash the filter every few months. It might be not as effective as new filter but it still removes a lot of dust. I do not have a need to remove ultra fine particles.
2:16 yeah, I'm always looking for better solutions to small fans. Maybe using chambers with different pressure to create the wind could be a quieter approach. I really wish electric wind were safe to use, because that stuff is cool
Thanks for that , you should sell yours or make someone sell it. Keep up the good work.
big clive buys something, voids warranty within 5 minutes 😎👍
I’m going to hang myself out there and break the illusion: Clive, is an agent of c.h.a.o.s. (California housing authority omnibus systems) ... Amazon & E-bay are using him to move b-spec product ... he gets the “no questions asked” product extended warranties with out cost to him on everything he “purchases”
... if you, the consumer, purchase warehouse or renewed products ... 100% Clive ... he is a “fixer” , actually “the fixer” ...(scurries away back to the bunker)
PS this is why he is not seen with Apple products in public.
Where we’re going, we don’t need warranties...
What's the point in a warranty if you can't void it?
@@CptJistuce 🤣
The cylindrical air filter looks like ones on AliBaba that sell for a couple dollars. You might find a supplier of those HEPA drums that are close enough in size as replacements. Or buy the cheapest ones you can find, 3D print a case and stuff those bits into it. BONUS you can use BigClive pink filament!
This is how excited Clive sounds…
High voltage needs to be kept away from low voltage? Will you please tell that to the good folks over at Apple? Louis Rossmann will thank you. :-)
Apart from the lack of a ground reference the ioniser mauy not be as bad as all that.. It looks like it is in the filtered airstream rather than the unfiltered at the bottom of the "chimney". Could do with being a bit higher up though
The placement of the ionizer sounds like a long term auto destruct.
Great tear down with your usual excellent deep dive on how it works. How about using your 3D printing skills to make a roller to concertina up tissue or some other cheap filtery type paper. Print out a round filter holder and make your own replacements?
The whine problem is not due to just PWM, it is due to the crap fan or not enough filtering on VCC, if they had used a Delta or Sunon or Nidec it would have been fine
I recently bought a HEPA room filter, but when I got it, every single reference in the manual said “HEPA-like filter”. No explanation.... could explain the price of yours?
In regard to the 510 vs 1000 ohm resistors, I tink it has to do with the load each transistor has to switch. When a typical transistor has higher collector emitter voltage (beacuse of lower impedance load driven from the same power rail), it needs less base current to saturate. hence the higer base resistor on the higher load transistor. Anyway I gess in this case the effect is probably negligible
Many of those paper filters can be washed out in a sink and left to dry. You could also blow them out with a compressor if you have one.
Cleaning the filter with a vacuum cleaner is easier.
@@MetalheadAndNerd hope that vac features a hepa filter 😂
I've actually (coincidentally) grown my goatee just after i started watching your videos. And i just recently learned you too are wearing a goatee (or something similar)
If you could ground the filter, I can see a design with the ioniser in the input air stream working well - any dust will get an extra incentive to adhere to the filter
Ionised content is good content too, Dr.Clive.
By the looks of the case and filter, the manufacturer spent all of the money on the design and machining of the injection moulding tools.
hey Clive, I think we could do with a video or two about calcium carbide and/or carbide lamps. It looks like fun stuff and I'd like to know more about it before I blow my fingers off.
Very good remark of bad design coupling beetweeen ionizers and isolated power supply
It's just a disposable unit. If you really like/want it then when the time comes to change the filter just throw it away and buy a new one for 1/2 the cost of the filter alone.
Personally I'm an air filter fanatic because I suffer from dust sensitivities I own laser particle counters many different kinds of air purifiers most expensive cost £800. Actually This little device has merit, because if you're in a relatively clean air environment such as a house the filters take a very long time to clog up. On all my air purifiers I try to put a course pre-filter over the top of the filter. If it's a powerful fan full size machine I will use something like G4 filter media that's about an inch thick. For something like this little device just putting a couple of layers off ladies stocking around the outside would preserve the life of the filter enormously because it is the large particles that clog up the header filter not the small. This sort of device would be helpful in a car or when sleeping having the exiting air blowing across one's face. If something looks relatively well made I will often buy a machine with no intention of never changing the filter. Drum filters have a much larger surface area than flat panels filters so you can buy one pretty much never worry about replacing it. I can't stress the importance of putting of some sort of course pre-filter the three categories are something like ladies tights material, and then two mil thick filter foam and then some fibre media like extractor fan pre-filter or G4 filter media. Good luck
Do you think maybe the ionizer works with the weight plate as a ground?
Not really. It needs an actual ground reference.
I was waiting for you to wrap it in your patented super duper filter
Hey c
BC, just saw an advert for a sonic mosquito repeller, you need to buy one and disect it in your usual professional manner 😉
Clive... No way to use a Paper Towel Filter on the Round Filter by removing the corrugated white material only and wrapping the Paper towel filter around the original filter cage held by some tape ?
At 12:30 in the vid, I don't agree the small cap will help soak up transients and spikes.
But,if so, why is it there..? I have to cogitate further.
So why is it their.?
If the two caps are like two buckets next to each other, in the rain then small one would fill first, it must a be a shrorter bucket in this case,so it’s the bigger bucket that would better absorb spikes. Ahhhhhhh!
I like the Clive patented toilet paper filter!
You could d.i.y with a small 4' inline grow tent fan and a cheap car air filter, just block the open end of the car filter with some plastic circle & gorilla tape, just a thought 👍
The best quality and cost for a airpurifier is to use a square box fan ($20) and a 20x20x1 furnace filter (3M purple version- $15). Uses a large volume of air and very quiet. Just tape the filter to the outside of the box fan.
I'm like 90% sure my dad used to do that. I had a sudden flash of childhood memories when reading your comment.
As always.....informative breakdown 👍
I wonder if the 4.5W power figure they quoted is the stall current?
From my experience with these cheap "hepa" filters, is that they are not really hepa filters, and don't have anywhere near enough airflow to create any useful filtration in any space larger than a cupboard.
So if a negatively charged ion generator makes dust collect on surfaces, wouldn't you want a positively charged ion generator so the dust stays airborne so it can be filtered?
For diy filtration, an automotive filter can be had for well under £5 shipped e.g. look for CA5308
My computer does excellent job scrubbing dust off the room air, lol. No need for that kind of thingy.
Why did they bother putting an LED on it when you can tell its running by the shriek?
I have had a air filter fan for several years. Just vaccum out the filter every few months and it will last for YEARS.
Was that vid delivered with lighning? Was sleeping until 5 minutes ago lightning struck very loud. Now I can't sleep, guess I'll watch this one fresh of the press. 😆
I would just bypass the circuit, maybe with the addition of diodes to drop the voltage, you could include a bypass switch for full power.
I wonder if you can wrap TP arouund it instead of the filter to save the cost of new ones
Great video Clive Thanks. Maybe you could modify it to work better.
Im pretty sure the biggest Filter now is the "new" Ikea filter. was it called Förnuftig? i think so...
50 bucks or something, 10 bucks for a filter replacment
Hepa filters are really for semiconductor manufacturing. I wonder why anyone would want or need such clean air? They work in a particular way, using lamellar air flow. Filtering air will not stop dust or particules or viruses being disturbed from "unclean" rooms.
I am so happy that BigClive is taking care of his lungs. Now you can test a PM2.5 meter device please ✅
Yeah. Will it filter out his vaping glycols?
I rarely vape, and the glycol droplets aren't in the same league as particulate dust and smoke.