I'd totally watch you solder every one of these, if you ever want to put out a full-form version of these videos. I like playing workshop videos while I work on my own projects, makes me feel less alone.
I am the same way. It is nice to have similar minded people around you plus with Big Clive's laid-back and relaxing voice, I really believe that I could listen to him for days, even on an unrelated hobby. Very ASMR conducive, that Mr. Big Clive guy is! Thank you for another great video fine sir. Fred
Clive. I thank you as you actually taught me how to solder and I am getting alot better at it. I know basicly nothing about electronics but am learning while watch you. So THANK YOU again for your videos
I am still using a reel of RS multicore solder from the 80's with no problem - so I don't think the flux ages that much - its basically rosin or pine tree resin and amber seems to last for millions of years according to Jurassic Park....
I have has the same experience with my early 90s reel from Rapid. The thing (and it is quite _the thing_) has travelled halfway around the UK with me and is now in southern Finland. I suppose the price of love is grief, because it will end one day. Or the lead will end me.
I would expect that some fluxes, specially the low-viscosity stuff you apply with a pen or a brush probably does dry out with age. That stuff must have a solvent in it.
@@gordonlawrence1448 I believe it has as. Our work supplied one in the UK was known to be a potential lung irritant and was changed, possibly 20 years ago. After many years of using it I certainly used to suffer if I breathed some of it in.
I would happily watch you solder every wire and resister and every neon light and listen to you chat about what ever is on your mind, I love it when you do long videos 👍
I just had a flashback to the Radio Shack (Tandy in the UK) "Goofy Lights" Science Fair-branded electronics kit from the 70s. It came with a plastic perfboard box and all the parts needed to assemble a little 5-neon light gadget that could be configured in multiple ways. My preference was the random setting. I could turn out the lights and watch that thing blink all night.
The price went through the roof due to the engineering charge for V gooves less than 20mm apart. For sizes below 20mm use "panel by stamp hole". You can combine the two methods to get 20mm x 10mm boards :) Do not tick any panel options when ordering the std 100 x 100 pcb's ! For solder paste, use a stencil !
I got some PCBs made by Seeed (yes, three 'E's) a couple of years ago on their 10x 100x100mm for $5 plus shipping deal. Individual boards were ~13x25. I didn't do anything beyond placing a grid of lines on the appropriate layer where I wanted the grooves between the individual circuits, and I'm pretty sure I just got charged the regular $5. I've probably had ~25 different orders with them in the last decade, and I've always been happy.
I would very much like to see you video the entire build/soldering process...it is very relaxing and therapeutic...I actually rewatch many of your hour plus build videos...usually multiples. The project is really nice...might be able to make some up for my mum...she loves the little neon bulbs as much as I do :)
Quick tip, and just the tip mind, but popping a sliver, or two, of hot melt glue stick inside regular heat shrink it does a great job at filling in any gaps, reinforcing the heat shrink, and also acting as strain relief. Now that you have these made, you could use a thin nozzle on a hot melt glue gun to pump some melted schmoo inside these, by the leads, to make them a bit more robust.
For safety you could run these from a simple isolated DC supply. I have tried a 48V transformer (2 X 24V windings in series) run through a full wave voltage doubler which gives around 177V driving one neon lamp at 1mA. The voltage will drop with more neon lamps but the transformer (10VA) should be able to drive about 40 at 1mA each and still give sufficient voltage. Obviously you could still get a shock if you touch both poles simultaneously but a floating isolated supply is generally safer. Running then on DC also allows them, with increase in the value of the series resistor and the addition of a capacitor, to be run as flashing relaxation oscillators. Next project is a neon supercomputer.
* Update 2 * They've arrived Clive ! Wow my first printed circuit boards ! 😍 Thank you so much for designing these pcbs and making the files available to hobbiests like myself ! 👍 Very much appreciated!
Just a note about those cheap Chinese rework stations: They often have the fuse connected to neutral rather than live so if you get one it's worth opening it up to rewire it so it's not live even if something causes the fuse to blow.
Yeah, I found out when I bought one from a "UK seller" on eBay and rewired it for my local plug type, using brand new 3x0.75mm² cable instead of the unidentified factory cable that ended in a fake British plug.
I adopted Clive's tricky solder-holding technique (hold part/solder between index and thumb and the other pinched between your other fingers in one hand) demonstrated in this video after seeing him do it a couple years ago, and can heartily recommend it as a convenient time-saving approach. I've been soldering for years and never thought to try this, and it definitely avoids having to get additional tools out for simple stuff.
Yeah, any kind of grooving or routing adds significant cost to cheap PCBs. I usually just panelize them myself and leave room for a bandsaw cut and do it myself, but like you said, sometimes it’s easier to just order them individually for some reason. Great vids. As an electrical engineer, I find your videos well produced, interesting, and very soothing. Keep up the great work. Cheers!
Clive thank you sir for posting this. Really need some mellow relaxing content with all the things going on these days. I really enjoy watching you work. It really is more enjoyable than I think you realize.
Wow ! Clive, I just assembled one Christmas neon light using 4 x 2402/1206 SMDs, the red PCBs I ordered (thanks Clive :)), and a 6 x 13 red neon bulb ! Very, very nice ! 🎄 👍 again thank you for the Gerber files. 😀
I had the same "issue" with small PCB a couple of weeks ago. But the way I designed the PCB, it had 2 holes in it to accommodate standoffs and that helped me to clamp the PCBs together, offset by one and then with a hacksaw I separated them (I was too cheap to pay for the extra cost). It worked for me. Would I do it again? In a pinch yes, but probably not.
Watching you Clive has given me a huge respect for the Chinese girls or women who assemble these in factories and have to turn out huge quantities in a certain amount of time. We complain about Chinese goods but for the price we get a disposable toy for Xmas. In the West we could not make the cardboard box that the lights come in for the price they sell them.
The sound of the air gun in the background almost made me think Clive had taken to background white noise in this video. Wondered what the "celestial chorus" was doing in his video until I noticed it stopped when he was heat shrinking. 😳 Thanks, BigClive. I always love your videos.
Wow Clive that was cool 👍 I will have to give that a go my self . As an electrician I know sod all about electronics apart from ohms law but I do like to tinker with thing like that just for fun I find it a good way of learning. Fantastic video as always mate ❤️👍👍👍
I must say, I greatly enjoy seeing projects like this! They inspire me to want to tinker and solder a few things up for fun, but honestly I'm lost when it comes to ordering from places like JLC. Would you, at some point and time permitting of course, be willing to put together a tutorial on ordering from websites such as that? These days, I'm about at the "electronics project in a bag from eBay" level of electronics skill. Designing a PCB, or even having a design you've provided custom printed, feels overwhelming.
I would start the veroboard type projects next. Simple stuff like LED flashers to start, but you can build almost anything on veroboard and people in the early 80's used to build whole computers on it.
Thank you very much for the suggestion! I've played about with breadboard (the style with the multiple bus bars) but never with veroboard. I'll have to obtain some and see what I come up with.
Drawback is if it touched any conductors, hot glue can become conductive over the years so could be "interesting" at some random point in the future. Then again, who knows the life span of random Chinese heat shrink sleeving.
In the US (~120 VAC), we used 88k - 120k (or ~1k per VAC). 88k for bright and 120k for dimmer neon's. 4 @ 30k will work nicely. Suggestion: put the neon pad on the other side away from the resistor so your leads will not be close to the resistor. A little more trace length, but more room for longer legs.
I have a small tin of paste flux on my bench for jobs like these. I add solder onto the pcb pads, dip the wires or pins on the paste flux then reflow them directly to the solder pool on the pcb. Does a quicker job than tinning the leads before reflowing them on the pcb. The pins or wires should be pretty clean though for the solder to wick around it well for a nice looking joint.
A nice project. I haven't played with any of these little neons, but would like to try making some neat mains decorations with them. Maybe 3d printed candelabra or something. 🤔
With regard to the flux, if I remember correctly the flux in solder changed or started changing in the 1980's from or to resin based. I have still got the odd bit of solder from before I was born.
Thanks again Clive for these videos, makes the evenings less lonely. I like the idea of the shimmering effect, could there not be a way to introduce a simple way to make them flash? I would really like to see a build with various the traditional Neon bulbs from short to very long electrods and even include Green and Blue variations. I am sure many of us in the BCDC Family would mimic the build let that be on 220 or 120VAC mains.
I rather enjoyed this one, you've always got such wonderful ideas for neons. I hope they never go away because LEDs are.. eh.. Neon is just nicer to look at.
Ever considered getting a solder pot for these kind of projects? Like for the wires it would be something like twist, flux, dip, reflow on the pcb, while to pre tin the neons you would just dip them. Don't know just wondering if it's something that would make sense for you
Thank you for a most relaxing video. Is there a away of changing the design for outdoor use? Admittedly, I prefer low voltage for external use. Also, could you not mill the v-groves yourself with a CNC router.
I must say, the neons turned out quite nice. And considering how low current it is, you could probably make it quite a long chain. I was thinking perhaps a black PCB would have been better, but then I realised they're meant to go in a Christmas tree, so green might blend in better.
For so much heat shrinking could you use an oven to do them all at once rather than doing them all individually? Especially if you were doing a full board of them it might be a time saver.
in my experience, flux totally ages. or maybe its the solder? an old roll of solder can be quite stubborn, and when compared to a fresh roll (of the same alloy ratio) it is night and day.
I kinda ran into the opposite problem with panelization once, fab was like we're going to upcharge unless you panelize these because we don't want to deal with routing out and handling every single one. Snapping out like 2000 boards isn't pleasant on the fingers, but it's free.
For what it's worth a dab of hot glue prior to adding heat shrink is actually a pretty good substitute for the adhesive lined heat shrink tubing if you are shrinking it with a heat gun ... doesn't work quite as well with a flame.
Additional protection would be some resistors in serial with the bis wire, since lower part of all pcbs would be unprotected in case they pierce through. Also maybe a second black sleeve to hide Pcb?
I just got some panels made too, although I did panelise them myself. The original design was for 4 modules with 3 sides routed and the 4th vscored, so they were effectively hanging on tabs. But they didn't like it, so instead I just made two modules back to back with vscores between (and an extra spacer section to make up the minimum width for the vscoring process). They turned out the same price ordering twice as many smaller boards. It wouldn't have been that expensive, except for the fact that I wanted them gold plated for the edge connector. Even so it still only worked out to less than $2 Aussie Dollary Doos per-module. EDIT: I just checked and they don't have the option for the 40 modules I wanted, so I would've had to order 50. That would've made it only $0.10 more expensive per-module, but added a total of about a third more to the cost. Which is the cheap part. Now I need to suck it up and buy a big batch of vintage ICs from the US.
Nice job Clive! Those are quite nifty. I am always amazed how fast and easy your solder works. I am a noob at soldering and I always have trouble with it flowing. I may need to research the proper equipment more.
It's reassuring to know that BigClive can also forget to heatshrink a wire, or totally miss a pad on a surface mount resistor! Like how did I manage to solder 10 identical boards, yet one is not working, and then see an SMD resistor with only one pad with solder, do we have brain farts while in robotic solder mode!?
Hi Clive, I just finished soldering some NEON BULBS to wires and I must say they're very very nice ! Especially the beautiful azule blue ones. I'm still waiting for my pcbs from pcbway. Maybe they're stuck at customs ? I checked the logistics on PCBWays website. No phone number ?? Why no number did I screw up? Hmm. 🤔 I clearly added my number. Anyway we shall see soon ...
How many panels did you buy ? its a minimum of 5 so you did get 260 PCB's and if you look at the price in the right hand panel it changes in 'real time' and its immediately obvious if you select something that is not covered by the offer, there is no excuse for not being aware what your being charged for and I'm not sponsored either but its a very good deal...cheers.
Squirt a little hot melt glue on the circuit board and let it cool. Slide over the heat shrink tubing. When you shrink the tubing the glue will re-melt and squish all over. Edit: I'd also round over the square ends of the circuit board to prevent the sharp corners from cutting through the tubing.
Yeah the Yihua stations are alright. The biggest problem with them that can easily be fixed is the loose tolerance between the heating element and the tip. When soldering large connections, the thermal resistance of that air gap means the heating element is kept at the set temperature, but the tip is not. You can bridge that gap by stuffing some material in between. Some people pour graphite powder into the tip. What I did was wrap an aluminium shim around the heating element, which I cut from a beverage can. If you were to put the circuit boards of a Yihua and the equivalent genuine Hakko side by side I've been told the Hakko one is more complex. I guess they might be doing some feed-forward logic to compensate for this air gap, which in their product is much smaller anyway, but the Yihua has no such feature. Hence the mod works so well.
Flux very much does age... but only the liquid stuff! If it's in a multi-core solid solder it should be stable for decades. (I had a glass jar of "pro" grade solder flux, opened and then stored for years. When I can back to it, the vapour had corroded the metal screw lid to the glass and the flux was black and gloopy. Didn't put it near my PCBs! I now only use flux pens, especially for SMT.)
I'm an ultra-amateur here.. random repairs, sporadic projects, and occasionally soldering my eyeglasses back together... but I really like mine. I recovered the value in one piece of equipment from our business (actually about 5x that) but it heats quick, holds well, and I have ZERO complaints. My next step is to replace the tips with some good'uns.
Hot air gun - I use a B&Q Titan paint stripper, electronic temp and speed control and about 1/4 the price of a heat shrink gun. Very controllable and the larger amount of cooler air works very well
This type of project seems to be right for me, but is it economical? I'd be happy to hand solder all the lights for my home decorations but it would be a hard sell to the missus if it meant was going to be more expensive than buying from a local box store.
Looks like the complete panel was over the jlcpcb special offer size of 100mm by 100mm? I use Fritzing PCB design software which doesn't support vscores unfortunately. Seems cheaper to buy multiple PCBs than to pay for the panelisation.
I've thought about the flux aging, but I buy the .030 solder in the 1lb spool that lasts for well over 5 years and it still works fine. [I think I bought my current spool 8 years ago and still have 30% left.] With the spool I just grab the end and pull out 2 feet or so, use it and when done just wind it back onto the spool. That way I never run out or end up with little tidbits of solder.
Unless in contact with gasoline etc., EDPM wire is better still as it is more resistant to damage from sharp edges and points. Not as easy to find tho.
Nice going, I have a soft spot for Ne2 lamps. Did you know that neon lamps have this tendency to react to light itself? I discovered this with an outlet strip that had a neon lamp as a power indicator. The light would go from a state of flickering to steady and I am quite sure it had nothing to do with the voltage. Fun times
A clever design for a PCB project and a simple soldering method to mount the components. You've designed it as a Fairy Light chain, but the Neon's will look great hung around anything for a room display for ambient lighting. I love your HOPI unit for the various displayed results and easy connection to input the cables. I must get myself one from somewhere. If you know of a place and/or recommend a make, please leave a link below Clive in the reply section.
Big Clive, one of the things I really like about you is your integrity. It's great that you reject sponsorship by companies like JLC. When a youtuber becomes a corporate shill, he loses the trust of his viewers. I have much more respect for you than I do for Julian - or for Ralph Bacon - simply because I know that you are not a corporate mouthpiece. Incidentally....do your Patreon streams remain accessible to Patrons for watching at a later time, or do you delete them? I prefer to catch up later, rather than watching live, and it can sometimes be a few weeks later.
Panelizing does make the cost go up, but its still cheaper than if you tried to buy all those as individual pcbs. Also I don't think you can get individual circuit boards that small. The minimum dimensions for a pcb (whether it's a one circuit board or many circuits in a panel) is larger than the minimum dimensions for the individual circuit boards that can be v-cut into a panel.
I didn't have this issue with JLC. Did you use the website to panelize or did you do it yourself in the design software. When I ordered panelized PCBs I made the panel myself in EasyEDA before importing to JLC. were double sided and had 6 duplicate designs with v-cuts in between each, in total with expedited shipping it was $11 US.
I'd totally watch you solder every one of these, if you ever want to put out a full-form version of these videos. I like playing workshop videos while I work on my own projects, makes me feel less alone.
Time lapse of the repetitive steps would look cool!
Same. The irony, we all talk online yet still feel alone.
I am the same way. It is nice to have similar minded people around you plus with Big Clive's laid-back and relaxing voice, I really believe that I could listen to him for days, even on an unrelated hobby. Very ASMR conducive, that Mr. Big Clive guy is! Thank you for another great video fine sir. Fred
@@amazingfungi Clive has no time for editing!
Yeah. Clive could do a Twitch stream of that. You don't want to do it on RUclips as it really trashes the algorithm.
I love the way the camera picks up the AC neon flicker where it goes from one side to the other.
Clive. I thank you as you actually taught me how to solder and I am getting alot better at it. I know basicly nothing about electronics but am learning while watch you. So THANK YOU again for your videos
He's incredibly amazing at explaining things, and his channel is a great legacy full of videos you can watch for eons and never get tired of.
I am still using a reel of RS multicore solder from the 80's with no problem - so I don't think the flux ages that much - its basically rosin or pine tree resin and amber seems to last for millions of years
according to Jurassic Park....
I think the flux changed at some point.
I have has the same experience with my early 90s reel from Rapid. The thing (and it is quite _the thing_) has travelled halfway around the UK with me and is now in southern Finland. I suppose the price of love is grief, because it will end one day. Or the lead will end me.
Was just thinking the same thing a few days ago. Still have a roll of the thicker stuff and it worked perfectly.
I would expect that some fluxes, specially the low-viscosity stuff you apply with a pen or a brush probably does dry out with age. That stuff must have a solvent in it.
@@gordonlawrence1448 I believe it has as. Our work supplied one in the UK was known to be a potential lung irritant and was changed, possibly 20 years ago. After many years of using it I certainly used to suffer if I breathed some of it in.
I would happily watch you solder every wire and resister and every neon light and listen to you chat about what ever is on your mind, I love it when you do long videos 👍
Yes!!! I love watching people solder registers...
I just had a flashback to the Radio Shack (Tandy in the UK) "Goofy Lights" Science Fair-branded electronics kit from the 70s. It came with a plastic perfboard box and all the parts needed to assemble a little 5-neon light gadget that could be configured in multiple ways. My preference was the random setting. I could turn out the lights and watch that thing blink all night.
I had that too. But I wired mine for sequential, looked like a police scanner of the era.
same here I remember it well wish I still had it I rebuilt it onto veroboard and put it in a fireplace for a dolls house
@@thehappylittlefoxakabenji8154 It sounds like you came up with an excellent way to repurpose it, though!
That was the first electronics DIY kit I got for Christmas.
@@paulgrant421 yes it looked very realistic !
just wish I still had the schematic for it !
The price went through the roof due to the engineering charge for V gooves less than 20mm apart. For sizes below 20mm use "panel by stamp hole". You can combine the two methods to get 20mm x 10mm boards :) Do not tick any panel options when ordering the std 100 x 100 pcb's !
For solder paste, use a stencil !
I got some PCBs made by Seeed (yes, three 'E's) a couple of years ago on their 10x 100x100mm for $5 plus shipping deal.
Individual boards were ~13x25. I didn't do anything beyond placing a grid of lines on the appropriate layer where I wanted the grooves between the individual circuits, and I'm pretty sure I just got charged the regular $5.
I've probably had ~25 different orders with them in the last decade, and I've always been happy.
@@davewilson4493 I was thinking something similar. Print where I wanted them scored, then score with a hobby knife/box cutter by hand.
@@markfergerson2145 Looking back, I didn't write very clearly - with a grid of inter-board lines on the Dimension layer , they did cut the grooves in.
So refreshing hearing a person soldering and not soddering. Cheers.
Best solder I've ever used was this random bundled up solder that my dad had from the 70s, I still have it and only use it for 'important' soldering
I love build videos, especially when they are of clever custom lighting.
I would very much like to see you video the entire build/soldering process...it is very relaxing and therapeutic...I actually rewatch many of your hour plus build videos...usually multiples.
The project is really nice...might be able to make some up for my mum...she loves the little neon bulbs as much as I do :)
I've always loved that faint flicker neon mini lights make. I guess it reminds me of my childhood in a way.
Quick tip, and just the tip mind, but popping a sliver, or two, of hot melt glue stick inside regular heat shrink it does a great job at filling in any gaps, reinforcing the heat shrink, and also acting as strain relief. Now that you have these made, you could use a thin nozzle on a hot melt glue gun to pump some melted schmoo inside these, by the leads, to make them a bit more robust.
What a nice doggie pic General Disarray. Yours ?
@@ilovepuppies3507 I wish, but sadly not mine
For safety you could run these from a simple isolated DC supply. I have tried a 48V transformer (2 X 24V windings in series) run through a full wave voltage doubler which gives around 177V driving one neon lamp at 1mA. The voltage will drop with more neon lamps but the transformer (10VA) should be able to drive about 40 at 1mA each and still give sufficient voltage.
Obviously you could still get a shock if you touch both poles simultaneously but a floating isolated supply is generally safer.
Running then on DC also allows them, with increase in the value of the series resistor and the addition of a capacitor, to be run as flashing relaxation oscillators.
Next project is a neon supercomputer.
* Update 2 * They've arrived Clive ! Wow my first printed circuit boards ! 😍 Thank you so much for designing these pcbs and making the files available to hobbiests like myself ! 👍 Very much appreciated!
Just a note about those cheap Chinese rework stations: They often have the fuse connected to neutral rather than live so if you get one it's worth opening it up to rewire it so it's not live even if something causes the fuse to blow.
Yeah, I found out when I bought one from a "UK seller" on eBay and rewired it for my local plug type, using brand new 3x0.75mm² cable instead of the unidentified factory cable that ended in a fake British plug.
🤭⚠️ - 😠, Chineseum crap
Only possible in the UK, the schuko plug version can be plunged in either way so you have to add another fuse on the casing rear to have in every line
Demonstrating my ignorance here I'm sure, but given it's AC, why does it matter that live is fused?
Man, it seems that "cheap Chinese" anything is frequently corner cut just as Clive sussed out.
The dexterity of you left hand always amazes me
I adopted Clive's tricky solder-holding technique (hold part/solder between index and thumb and the other pinched between your other fingers in one hand) demonstrated in this video after seeing him do it a couple years ago, and can heartily recommend it as a convenient time-saving approach. I've been soldering for years and never thought to try this, and it definitely avoids having to get additional tools out for simple stuff.
Yeah, any kind of grooving or routing adds significant cost to cheap PCBs. I usually just panelize them myself and leave room for a bandsaw cut and do it myself, but like you said, sometimes it’s easier to just order them individually for some reason. Great vids. As an electrical engineer, I find your videos well produced, interesting, and very soothing. Keep up the great work. Cheers!
Clive thank you sir for posting this. Really need some mellow relaxing content with all the things going on these days. I really enjoy watching you work. It really is more enjoyable than I think you realize.
This is the greatest thing I have seen in a long time! I love the old neon lights!
Wow ! Clive, I just assembled one Christmas neon light using 4 x 2402/1206 SMDs, the red PCBs I ordered (thanks Clive :)), and a 6 x 13 red neon bulb ! Very, very nice ! 🎄 👍 again thank you for the Gerber files. 😀
I do so miss old neon bulbs.
The LED of the 20th century!😄
Oh man I wish Christmas lights like this would still be just for sale, it is darn nice. Well done Clive.
Best way to start the Saturday morning, Coffee and big Clive.
Still have a box of NOS soviet neons - sounds like a good project for those!
Those neons look really cool, like Id use them in my computer.
Nice a light related Video ! Merry Christmas light Clive I learn so much with you I knew so much but I love to learn more in the life.
I had the same "issue" with small PCB a couple of weeks ago.
But the way I designed the PCB, it had 2 holes in it to accommodate standoffs and that helped me to clamp the PCBs together, offset by one and then with a hacksaw I separated them (I was too cheap to pay for the extra cost).
It worked for me.
Would I do it again? In a pinch yes, but probably not.
Ahhh, the flicker of Neon and the smell of hot transformers. The good old days! 👍
Watching you Clive has given me a huge respect for the Chinese girls or women who assemble these in factories and have to turn out huge quantities in a certain amount of time. We complain about Chinese goods but for the price we get a disposable toy for Xmas. In the West we could not make the cardboard box that the lights come in for the price they sell them.
The sound of the air gun in the background almost made me think Clive had taken to background white noise in this video. Wondered what the "celestial chorus" was doing in his video until I noticed it stopped when he was heat shrinking. 😳
Thanks, BigClive. I always love your videos.
Flackery Hopi- Flopi, this interesting, I'd totally sit and do strings of these for hours on end.
Great stuff, very soothing.
Great work as always and I admire your knowledge. Great streams and I've been 'on board' since you started
Wow Clive that was cool 👍
I will have to give that a go my self . As an electrician I know sod all about electronics apart from ohms law but I do like to tinker with thing like that just for fun I find it a good way of learning.
Fantastic video as always mate ❤️👍👍👍
I must say, I greatly enjoy seeing projects like this! They inspire me to want to tinker and solder a few things up for fun, but honestly I'm lost when it comes to ordering from places like JLC.
Would you, at some point and time permitting of course, be willing to put together a tutorial on ordering from websites such as that? These days, I'm about at the "electronics project in a bag from eBay" level of electronics skill. Designing a PCB, or even having a design you've provided custom printed, feels overwhelming.
I would start the veroboard type projects next. Simple stuff like LED flashers to start, but you can build almost anything on veroboard and people in the early 80's used to build whole computers on it.
Thank you very much for the suggestion! I've played about with breadboard (the style with the multiple bus bars) but never with veroboard. I'll have to obtain some and see what I come up with.
For a project in the past i added a small blob of hot glue as cable restraint the heat shrink tube squeezed it out perfectly making it quite rigid.
Drawback is if it touched any conductors, hot glue can become conductive over the years so could be "interesting" at some random point in the future. Then again, who knows the life span of random Chinese heat shrink sleeving.
@@alexatkin that could indeed become interresting with 240V, I usually do most of the work on the 5-24V range and I have not yet had any issues.
In the US (~120 VAC), we used 88k - 120k (or ~1k per VAC). 88k for bright and 120k for dimmer neon's. 4 @ 30k will work nicely.
Suggestion: put the neon pad on the other side away from the resistor so your leads will not be close to the resistor.
A little more trace length, but more room for longer legs.
That was one thing I did pick up from the prototype.
Bloody hell Clive, you're amazing.
This is therapeutic to watch
I have a small tin of paste flux on my bench for jobs like these. I add solder onto the pcb pads, dip the wires or pins on the paste flux then reflow them directly to the solder pool on the pcb. Does a quicker job than tinning the leads before reflowing them on the pcb. The pins or wires should be pretty clean though for the solder to wick around it well for a nice looking joint.
Kynar shrink wrap is very hard and strong and would wrap the boards quite safely.
A nice project. I haven't played with any of these little neons, but would like to try making some neat mains decorations with them. Maybe 3d printed candelabra or something. 🤔
Just beautiful, Clive.
With regard to the flux, if I remember correctly the flux in solder changed or started changing in the 1980's from or to resin based. I have still got the odd bit of solder from before I was born.
That's a very nice end result.
Not surprised that the PCB's were expensive when produced like that but it did make the assembly easy!
I was going to make one of the original sets, think this may be even better!
Consider adding a capacitor to each board to make relaxation oscillators for a twinkling effect.
With modern MLCC caps or a small electrolytic that's viable.
You can get 'reasonably' priced glue-lined heatshrink at auto parts stores now Clive, at least it is the real stuff :)
Nice and simple. This project could also act as a pilot light for devices/appliances, if you make a plastic enclosure for the neon lamp & PCB.
Thanks again Clive for these videos, makes the evenings less lonely.
I like the idea of the shimmering effect, could there not be a way to introduce a simple way to make them flash?
I would really like to see a build with various the traditional Neon bulbs from short to very long electrods and even include Green and Blue variations.
I am sure many of us in the BCDC Family would mimic the build let that be on 220 or 120VAC mains.
I rather enjoyed this one, you've always got such wonderful ideas for neons. I hope they never go away because LEDs are.. eh.. Neon is just nicer to look at.
❤ Great project, I think I will be having a go at this. smashing video 2x👍
Ever considered getting a solder pot for these kind of projects? Like for the wires it would be something like twist, flux, dip, reflow on the pcb, while to pre tin the neons you would just dip them.
Don't know just wondering if it's something that would make sense for you
I have one, but rarely use it.
Hmm interesting Clive. I bet they look pretty with the lights off.😀👍
Thank you for a most relaxing video. Is there a away of changing the design for outdoor use? Admittedly, I prefer low voltage for external use. Also, could you not mill the v-groves yourself with a CNC router.
I would only recommend low voltage for outdoor use.
Your fine motor finger skills when soldering are amazing 🖖🤙 (Sorry, i unfortunately couldn't find an appropriate icon) 😁
You can panelize using routed slots and drilled holes in your design directly for PCBs that small, this way you avoid the v-slot charge
I must say, the neons turned out quite nice. And considering how low current it is, you could probably make it quite a long chain. I was thinking perhaps a black PCB would have been better, but then I realised they're meant to go in a Christmas tree, so green might blend in better.
For so much heat shrinking could you use an oven to do them all at once rather than doing them all individually? Especially if you were doing a full board of them it might be a time saver.
in my experience, flux totally ages. or maybe its the solder? an old roll of solder can be quite stubborn, and when compared to a fresh roll (of the same alloy ratio) it is night and day.
Pretty fancy capacitors 😆
Good job Clive ;)
Awesome lights big Clive
We love watching shrinking tube 'shrink'... 👍
I kinda ran into the opposite problem with panelization once, fab was like we're going to upcharge unless you panelize these because we don't want to deal with routing out and handling every single one. Snapping out like 2000 boards isn't pleasant on the fingers, but it's free.
For what it's worth a dab of hot glue prior to adding heat shrink is actually a pretty good substitute for the adhesive lined heat shrink tubing if you are shrinking it with a heat gun ... doesn't work quite as well with a flame.
Additional protection would be some resistors in serial with the bis wire, since lower part of all pcbs would be unprotected in case they pierce through. Also maybe a second black sleeve to hide Pcb?
I just got some panels made too, although I did panelise them myself. The original design was for 4 modules with 3 sides routed and the 4th vscored, so they were effectively hanging on tabs. But they didn't like it, so instead I just made two modules back to back with vscores between (and an extra spacer section to make up the minimum width for the vscoring process).
They turned out the same price ordering twice as many smaller boards. It wouldn't have been that expensive, except for the fact that I wanted them gold plated for the edge connector. Even so it still only worked out to less than $2 Aussie Dollary Doos per-module. EDIT: I just checked and they don't have the option for the 40 modules I wanted, so I would've had to order 50. That would've made it only $0.10 more expensive per-module, but added a total of about a third more to the cost.
Which is the cheap part. Now I need to suck it up and buy a big batch of vintage ICs from the US.
Now all there needs to be is a version with the coloured lamps, cos those would look pretty nice too... :D
Nice job Clive! Those are quite nifty. I am always amazed how fast and easy your solder works. I am a noob at soldering and I always have trouble with it flowing. I may need to research the proper equipment more.
It's reassuring to know that BigClive can also forget to heatshrink a wire, or totally miss a pad on a surface mount resistor! Like how did I manage to solder 10 identical boards, yet one is not working, and then see an SMD resistor with only one pad with solder, do we have brain farts while in robotic solder mode!?
Hi Clive,
I just finished soldering some NEON BULBS to wires and I must say they're very very nice !
Especially the beautiful azule blue ones.
I'm still waiting for my pcbs from pcbway.
Maybe they're stuck at customs ? I checked the logistics on PCBWays website.
No phone number ?? Why no number did I screw up? Hmm. 🤔 I clearly added my number.
Anyway we shall see soon ...
I quite like these. Really fun idea.
Now I have to buy some neon indicator lights for next christmas, lol.
How many panels did you buy ? its a minimum of 5 so you did get 260 PCB's and if you look at the price in the right hand panel it changes in 'real time' and its immediately obvious if you select something that is not covered by the offer, there is no excuse for not being aware what your being charged for and I'm not sponsored either but its a very good deal...cheers.
The resistors I've seen for 120V in Canada, have always been 120K
I like your light. It's built to outlast us all.
Squirt a little hot melt glue on the circuit board and let it cool. Slide over the heat shrink tubing. When you shrink the tubing the glue will re-melt and squish all over.
Edit: I'd also round over the square ends of the circuit board to prevent the sharp corners from cutting through the tubing.
A very good Friday evening to you all from Wellington Somerset
Watching it after 6 min of posting. Another good video
If you were a patron you'd see them even sooner..
Yeah the Yihua stations are alright. The biggest problem with them that can easily be fixed is the loose tolerance between the heating element and the tip. When soldering large connections, the thermal resistance of that air gap means the heating element is kept at the set temperature, but the tip is not. You can bridge that gap by stuffing some material in between. Some people pour graphite powder into the tip. What I did was wrap an aluminium shim around the heating element, which I cut from a beverage can.
If you were to put the circuit boards of a Yihua and the equivalent genuine Hakko side by side I've been told the Hakko one is more complex. I guess they might be doing some feed-forward logic to compensate for this air gap, which in their product is much smaller anyway, but the Yihua has no such feature. Hence the mod works so well.
Flux very much does age... but only the liquid stuff! If it's in a multi-core solid solder it should be stable for decades.
(I had a glass jar of "pro" grade solder flux, opened and then stored for years. When I can back to it, the vapour had corroded the metal screw lid to the glass and the flux was black and gloopy. Didn't put it near my PCBs! I now only use flux pens, especially for SMT.)
Apparently in USA they use two phases a lot - 220V. They have mixed boards. So they can use the same equipment that we do.
We got a yahua rework station recently and I am impressed, for the price they can't be beaten.
I'm an ultra-amateur here.. random repairs, sporadic projects, and occasionally soldering my eyeglasses back together... but I really like mine. I recovered the value in one piece of equipment from our business (actually about 5x that) but it heats quick, holds well, and I have ZERO complaints.
My next step is to replace the tips with some good'uns.
Hot air gun - I use a B&Q Titan paint stripper, electronic temp and speed control and about 1/4 the price of a heat shrink gun. Very controllable and the larger amount of cooler air works very well
If one double shrink-wraps these beauties, make the inner wrap an opaque white and under-run the neons for the flicker effect. Mini Noel candles.
Cool project sir!
This type of project seems to be right for me, but is it economical? I'd be happy to hand solder all the lights for my home decorations but it would be a hard sell to the missus if it meant was going to be more expensive than buying from a local box store.
What you'd get is a custom set of lights of which very few exist in the world.
Looks like the complete panel was over the jlcpcb special offer size of 100mm by 100mm? I use Fritzing PCB design software which doesn't support vscores unfortunately. Seems cheaper to buy multiple PCBs than to pay for the panelisation.
It was within their size. In hindsight I'll compare panelization vs loose.
I've thought about the flux aging, but I buy the .030 solder in the 1lb spool that lasts for well over 5 years and it still works fine. [I think I bought my current spool 8 years ago and still have 30% left.] With the spool I just grab the end and pull out 2 feet or so, use it and when done just wind it back onto the spool. That way I never run out or end up with little tidbits of solder.
I did something similar but with silicone wire - Heat resistant as well as flexible. Makes stringing it up way easier
Unless in contact with gasoline etc., EDPM wire is better still as it is more resistant to damage from sharp edges and points. Not as easy to find tho.
@@plemli I'm so glad you posted that because so many people throw gasoline on their Christmas tree
@@pleasecho2 Yeah, and it's nice that at least the wiring won't be affected 😛
Very Cool Clive Do you like that heatgun I need to order one so when I am doing surface mount repairs and builds .
It's fine. But made to Chinese standards.
Nice going, I have a soft spot for Ne2 lamps. Did you know that neon lamps have this tendency to react to light itself? I discovered this with an outlet strip that had a neon lamp as a power indicator. The light would go from a state of flickering to steady and I am quite sure it had nothing to do with the voltage. Fun times
A clever design for a PCB project and a simple soldering method to mount the components. You've designed it as a Fairy Light chain, but the Neon's will look great hung around anything for a room display for ambient lighting. I love your HOPI unit for the various displayed results and easy connection to input the cables. I must get myself one from somewhere. If you know of a place and/or recommend a make, please leave a link below Clive in the reply section.
The Hopi came from eBay.
@@bigclivedotcomCheers Clive.
Big Clive, one of the things I really like about you is your integrity. It's great that you reject sponsorship by companies like JLC.
When a youtuber becomes a corporate shill, he loses the trust of his viewers. I have much more respect for you than I do for Julian - or for Ralph Bacon - simply because I know that you are not a corporate mouthpiece.
Incidentally....do your Patreon streams remain accessible to Patrons for watching at a later time, or do you delete them? I prefer to catch up later, rather than watching live, and it can sometimes be a few weeks later.
Love this! Gonna order some and do the same
Panelizing does make the cost go up, but its still cheaper than if you tried to buy all those as individual pcbs.
Also I don't think you can get individual circuit boards that small. The minimum dimensions for a pcb (whether it's a one circuit board or many circuits in a panel) is larger than the minimum dimensions for the individual circuit boards that can be v-cut into a panel.
I can't believe you're using 56k resistors! Get with it old man, FTTP resistors are here now!
I didn't have this issue with JLC. Did you use the website to panelize or did you do it yourself in the design software. When I ordered panelized PCBs I made the panel myself in EasyEDA before importing to JLC. were double sided and had 6 duplicate designs with v-cuts in between each, in total with expedited shipping it was $11 US.
It was due to the small PCBs and high number of close vee cuts.
I totally read this as "PCP based..." and thought I was in for a significantly wilder ride, LOL.