Its nice to escape the bullshit of RUclips and just chill watching these kinda videos . Electronics , witty banter and a bit of learning, brilliant!! Only came across your channel today and have watched I'd say 6-7 vids already . Keep it up !
Just happen to see this old video and I must say glad you did it and glad I saw it. I have recently bought 2 of these cables and was really wondering how they worked. Since you were kind enough to destroy your's I won't have to. Well done!!
Many years ago when I worked for BICC developing telecommunications fibres, the management were adamant that our products were optical fibres and most definitely NOT fibre optics! :)
Great stuff, Clive. Every time you pick up a sharp tool or implement I get a flash-back to Reg Prescott from the Kenny Everett show. (older viewers will remember). I love your little investigations from my own point of view as an engineer, but they still make me chuckle. Keep 'em coming!
Hi, I came across this whilst looking for ways to illuminate a usb port. Just a quick question: is the LED/resistor simply wired in parallel to the 5v supply? This is what I'm going to do!
not that i have this exact cable, but i have one that looks REALLY similar. the light level has gone down a little since starting using it, (roughly 5 months now) it is hooked into a USB outlet 24/7 with maximum of 1A running through it to my induction charger. must say that i thought it was surface LED as well. surprised at the fiber down the middle. so far, it is still lit, but yeah, getting dimmer all the time.
* Fiber optic salvage. If you see a copy machine with document feeder and or sorter, there is often a nice long high quality fiber optic line controlling it The earliest fiber optic I ever saw was a Savin /Ricoh from the late 80's. They supplied almost the entire US government so there are still a lot of them someplace.
I have two of the braided-looking RGB gradient cycle ones that the device-side inputs broke on but the outlet side still works. I want to splice them into one long one because they stay on even without charging and make a cool LED light. I wanted to splice one DC side into the others device side, basically one powering to the other. Is that possible?
playdav485 Tried that ages ago. It doesn't work. Real fibre optic is very clear and has an external coating with a different refractive index that creates the effect of a mirrored tube. Like when you place your finger in a glass of water and you can see a refection of your finger off the inside sides of the glass.
Curiosity on how things work is the dogs, you need one of them cheap Chinese USB microscopes. 👍🏼 I bought some Elwire (electro luminescent wire) from Banggood for a couple or 3 quid, it's equally as fascinating how it works.
That's the very same cable I have. Comes in useful for charging my istick 30w mod because of the longer plug without taking my silicone case off it. Which was a useful outcome. Not as bright as I hoped though :)
Maybe you could show us if the light dims if the fiber optic is bent enough in any one direction? I can't imagine the notch to be all that accurate. I'm not sure what frequency the fiber optic module would be using but a big notch should show up on the final projection when the cable is bent to extremes. I think the thingy is called a boot.
It does dim at sharp bend. Was unimpressed initially until I unrolled/ unfolded mine. Otherwise is very nice as Mr Mitchell describes. The heat marks have the advantage of distorting local optics as if one melts an end into a ball or button; very nice effect. The 30pin plugs are large and easy to manage as well. The yellow power bank I have not seen him review. If it is as mine it has a cover that slides off to make easy battery changes
I have also recently seen that style power bank box with a bluetooth shutter control built into the bottom. As well as another toy to play with, the extra length looks like one could easily modify this case to fit the protected cells.
I did slightly impale myself in the video. If you look very carefully you might see traces of blood. Major impalement might change the direction of the video, but it wouldn't stop me putting it up. Fortunately for technical people our hands have an auto-repair function.
if you try stripping one out again, try doing it in a pot of boiling water, might make the outer sheath less "chewy"? ..... but on the other hand, might weaken the fibre-optic cord also? worth a try though. ..
I bought one of these recently and it does more than just glow. When it is plugged into my tablet it cycles the light like little marching ants up the cable from the charger to the tablet. This effect is fast when the tablet needs lots of charging but as it charges the marching ants slows down to a trickle when the tablet is nearly charged. Then when the tablet is fully charged the lights go out then periodically it lights up and the marching ants effect starts again at a reduced brightness which I assume is the tablet internal charging system moderating the tablet charging to a much reduced rate so as to not over charge. Did you check this effect out?
Love your videos Clive. Question: What kind of mat are you using? I'm trying to source one for my home workbench, and would love your suggestion. For the record if you reply "pound land" I will openly cry and have to drown my sorrows with scotch ...
+Richard T That was actually just a painted surface. If you look at the recent videos they are being done on plain MDF. At my other workshop I use black rubber safety matting.
+bigclivedotcom I did notice the plain wood in the new videos, but mine is getting rather spotted with burn marks from solder drips. It is 7pm in western Canada, 3am in the UK...on nights I would presume? Take care and thanks as always!
I bought one of these recently, however it appeared to have a solder bridge between 5v and the shield, causing it to quite quickly destroy one of my usb power banks... beware!
+Marineio Your power bank should have short circuit protection. Sometimes the power bank will appear to die, but will reactivate when a charging lead is connected.
+bigclivedotcom indeed Clive! completely dead to the world (hot burning smell initially) but attaching the charging cable did actually bring it back to life (God knows why I didn't think about that when I was swapping cells and getting annoyed!)
+Marineio Hopefully the hot burning smell was the lead being punished for its inadequacy. I have accidentally shorted out some of my power banks by putting those bare PCB LED lights in back to front. It seems to reset the control chip to its inactive factory mode so that it only boots up when a charging voltage is detected.
I got refunded and bought another - hopefully this one will not have the excess solder this one had. They do look quite nice and at 99p who can say no!
I found some 3 meter (9.8ft) of TOSLINK normally used for audio patching. It is on an Amazon site but you could get the specs to find it on BangGood or GearBest or E-Bay. www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00L3KO3YU/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_11?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER
You should get some EL wire (electro-luminescent wire), it has a similar effect to this, and i kind of want to know how it works. you can get some on ebay for around £3 for 9ft.
+Jack Knaggs (Electricguy2442) Inner core and outer conductive layer around a phosphor loaded dielectric. When AC is applied it stimulates the phosphors. Not very bright though.
I managed to skin 4 without breaking them. I guess it just depends on how clumsy you are with your booger hooks and how much patience you have. cool idea. thanks.
Its nice to escape the bullshit of RUclips and just chill watching these kinda videos . Electronics , witty banter and a bit of learning, brilliant!! Only came across your channel today and have watched I'd say 6-7 vids already . Keep it up !
The longer I watch your videos, the more I sense a perfect mixture of Scott Manley and Ashens.
I bought the last one at my dollar store the other day, in pink even! Thanks for taking yours apart, I'm going to try and repurpose mine carefully!
One helluva great video! You risked thumb and forefinger to bring us this! Bravo!
Magnificent teardown video!
Just happen to see this old video and I must say glad you did it and glad I saw it. I have recently bought 2 of these cables and was really wondering how they worked. Since you were kind enough to destroy your's I won't have to. Well done!!
Could be worth grabbing a cheap usb microscope for future videos. Or maybe get 2 since you will inevitably try to disassemble one of them
David Fletcher Try? "Things must come to bits" No doubt he would disassemble one to see (and to show!) how it ticks. Got to love this channel :)
+ilaril --> "Things must come to bits...as these things happen." LOL
Many years ago when I worked for BICC developing telecommunications fibres, the management were adamant that our products were optical fibres and most definitely NOT fibre optics! :)
Great stuff, Clive. Every time you pick up a sharp tool or implement I get a flash-back to Reg Prescott from the Kenny Everett show. (older viewers will remember). I love your little investigations from my own point of view as an engineer, but they still make me chuckle. Keep 'em coming!
Thank you! I always wondered what's inside the cable that makes it glow!
I've seen ones that actually use smd leds(maybe) and lights them up in an animation from usb port to the micro usb/30 pin connector/lightning
Come on BigClive!
Hi,
I came across this whilst looking for ways to illuminate a usb port. Just a quick question: is the LED/resistor simply wired in parallel to the 5v supply? This is what I'm going to do!
For the next one, try putting it in hot water, before tearing it up, to make the plastic a bit softer.
not that i have this exact cable, but i have one that looks REALLY similar. the light level has gone down a little since starting using it, (roughly 5 months now) it is hooked into a USB outlet 24/7 with maximum of 1A running through it to my induction charger. must say that i thought it was surface LED as well. surprised at the fiber down the middle. so far, it is still lit, but yeah, getting dimmer all the time.
"Knife of certain impalement" that's funny. I do feel like impaling myself when doing things like this.
* Fiber optic salvage. If you see a copy machine with document feeder and or sorter, there is often a nice long high quality fiber optic line controlling it The earliest fiber optic I ever saw was a Savin /Ricoh from the late 80's. They supplied almost the entire US government so there are still a lot of them someplace.
I have two of the braided-looking RGB gradient cycle ones that the device-side inputs broke on but the outlet side still works. I want to splice them into one long one because they stay on even without charging and make a cool LED light.
I wanted to splice one DC side into the others device side, basically one powering to the other.
Is that possible?
hi you could try and use fishing line to replace the fiber optic
playdav485 Tried that ages ago. It doesn't work. Real fibre optic is very clear and has an external coating with a different refractive index that creates the effect of a mirrored tube. Like when you place your finger in a glass of water and you can see a refection of your finger off the inside sides of the glass.
Curiosity on how things work is the dogs, you need one of them cheap Chinese USB microscopes. 👍🏼
I bought some Elwire (electro luminescent wire) from Banggood for a couple or 3 quid, it's equally as fascinating how it works.
That's the very same cable I have. Comes in useful for charging my istick 30w mod because of the longer plug without taking my silicone case off it. Which was a useful outcome. Not as bright as I hoped though :)
Maybe you could show us if the light dims if the fiber optic is bent enough in any one direction? I can't imagine the notch to be all that accurate. I'm not sure what frequency the fiber optic module would be using but a big notch should show up on the final projection when the cable is bent to extremes.
I think the thingy is called a boot.
It does dim at sharp bend. Was unimpressed initially until I unrolled/ unfolded mine. Otherwise is very nice as Mr Mitchell describes. The heat marks have the advantage of distorting local optics as if one melts an end into a ball or button; very nice effect. The 30pin plugs are large and easy to manage as well. The yellow power bank I have not seen him review. If it is as mine it has a cover that slides off to make easy battery changes
I have also recently seen that style power bank box with a bluetooth shutter control built into the bottom. As well as another toy to play with, the extra length looks like one could easily modify this case to fit the protected cells.
Magic knife = chib. :D
The question is: if you did -chib- impale yourself, would you remove it from the video?
I did slightly impale myself in the video. If you look very carefully you might see traces of blood. Major impalement might change the direction of the video, but it wouldn't stop me putting it up. Fortunately for technical people our hands have an auto-repair function.
A bit of Detol and a plaster. Right as rain in no time. :D
Fantastic channel!!
The red one's burn out after about 3 months use. The blue last awhile longer. None lasted a year.
Does the lighting affect the charge rate though?
Had one of these. It stopped charging (pins bent) And I tore it to shreds bigclive style.
if you try stripping one out again, try doing it in a pot of boiling water, might make the outer sheath less "chewy"? ..... but on the other hand, might weaken the fibre-optic cord also? worth a try though. ..
I bought one of these recently and it does more than just glow. When it is plugged into my tablet it cycles the light like little marching ants up the cable from the charger to the tablet. This effect is fast when the tablet needs lots of charging but as it charges the marching ants slows down to a trickle when the tablet is nearly charged. Then when the tablet is fully charged the lights go out then periodically it lights up and the marching ants effect starts again at a reduced brightness which I assume is the tablet internal charging system moderating the tablet charging to a much reduced rate so as to not over charge. Did you check this effect out?
+Mike Rhodes It might be the chasing electroluminescent wire?
ruclips.net/video/W507C1qfXGM/видео.html
Love your videos Clive. Question: What kind of mat are you using? I'm trying to source one for my home workbench, and would love your suggestion. For the record if you reply "pound land" I will openly cry and have to drown my sorrows with scotch ...
+Richard T That was actually just a painted surface. If you look at the recent videos they are being done on plain MDF.
At my other workshop I use black rubber safety matting.
+bigclivedotcom I did notice the plain wood in the new videos, but mine is getting rather spotted with burn marks from solder drips. It is 7pm in western Canada, 3am in the UK...on nights I would presume? Take care and thanks as always!
I got one of these before and within a week the LEDs started to flicker when they'd turn red (they had different colours)
07:25 "quite a fragile fiberoptic" lol they normally always are
in an obviously almost indestructable cover
Does the fiber cable transfer data?
+Mac MashPotato No. It's just for visual effect.
Ah, well thats a selling point for me.
Hilarious as ever the impaling video!
Luvv it Clive your humour is sooooo uniquely droll Scottish sarcasm!
@0:56 Oh my eyes! I was not warned!
+bigclivedotcom what is that black microscope called and where could you buy one?
+thelaserman1000 It's a common microscope from eBay.
+bigclivedotcom Found it. Thanks
Nice
EBay purchased just now. 4 colors, about $2 AUD each. Supposedly for iPhone, but now prepared to butcher it for normal USB ...
Dear Clive please do not attempt surgery for the nhs!
I bought one of these recently, however it appeared to have a solder bridge between 5v and the shield, causing it to quite quickly destroy one of my usb power banks... beware!
+Marineio Your power bank should have short circuit protection. Sometimes the power bank will appear to die, but will reactivate when a charging lead is connected.
+bigclivedotcom indeed Clive! completely dead to the world (hot burning smell initially) but attaching the charging cable did actually bring it back to life (God knows why I didn't think about that when I was swapping cells and getting annoyed!)
+Marineio Hopefully the hot burning smell was the lead being punished for its inadequacy. I have accidentally shorted out some of my power banks by putting those bare PCB LED lights in back to front. It seems to reset the control chip to its inactive factory mode so that it only boots up when a charging voltage is detected.
I got refunded and bought another - hopefully this one will not have the excess solder this one had. They do look quite nice and at 99p who can say no!
I found some 3 meter (9.8ft) of TOSLINK normally used for audio patching.
It is on an Amazon site but you could get the specs to find it on BangGood or GearBest or E-Bay.
www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00L3KO3YU/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_11?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER
You should get some EL wire (electro-luminescent wire), it has a similar effect to this, and i kind of want to know how it works. you can get some on ebay for around £3 for 9ft.
+Jack Knaggs (Electricguy2442) Inner core and outer conductive layer around a phosphor loaded dielectric. When AC is applied it stimulates the phosphors. Not very bright though.
bigclivedotcom thanks for telling me.
14:24 = LED condom.
I managed to skin 4 without breaking them. I guess it just depends on how clumsy you are with your booger hooks and how much patience you have. cool idea. thanks.
Cut towards your Chum, not your Thumb.
Please can i come to your house
Get a proper utility knife not those detachable blade of pain deals.