I wish I could eloquently state how much your channel has added value to my life. Your process, methods, diagrams, explanations, curiosity, etc is all such a thrill to learn from.
@MyTubeSVp Clive I really hope you read this as well as those of us subscribed or not...eloquence is such a rare gift especially amongst those whom endeavour to inform those whom wish to learn...♡
Interesting circuit. The ones I have seen here in NZ have just 3 of those blue MOV's put in a heatshrink sleeve. No fancy thermal fuses. The LED is nice but I doubt it that streetlight repair crews will check that and open the unit from a bucket truck to see if the MOV's have operated. Lamp fail, Complete unit ends up in the skip. I have seen hundreds of newish led streetlights being thrown in the metal recycling skip. I usually salvage the Wago connectors. I see if I can find some of those fancy units. The way you opened the device up to smoothly is awesome. Keep up the great work Clive.
Yeah, the landfill generated by the very expensive "last forever" LED streetlights is appalling. Almost at a fraud level given their cost. Why change a bulb when you can change the entire thing and have the labour drop in a new flex while they're at it.
Reading all the comments of appreciation made me suddenly realize. 20 years ago you couldn't find someone to show you this cool stuff, they'd be a local weirdo that has only 1-2 guests per whenever. Like imagine photonicinduction but there was no youtube. That room would've never seen the light of day. An adventure we could've never had.
TDK has and is involved with metal oxides products a long time. In Shawnee Oklahoma they have a plant that cast and sinter metal oxide powder into various shapes for magnetizing later by the customers to fit their needs.
Congratulations clive. Been here since the early days of your channel..... and im so glad to see you will be hitting a million subscribers. (Probably even by the end of the day I'm guessing.) You definitely deserve the success!
4:13 Yes, it's a fusible resistor, they seem to be somewhat standardized with that black stripe as the last one. That black stripe isn't supposed to be counted, so this would be a 4 stripe resistor. Funnily enough, earlier today I tried to decode one with two gold strips on 3rd and 4th position as a 5 stripe resistor, and every table I was looking at was sure that this resistor can't exist ;)
Hi bigclive Small remarks ... There is a special tin alloy in use in termal fuses that has a defined temperature point to pop up. If you try to repair such parts and solder it with your standard tin you will have undefined switching characteristic depending on the properties of your tin alloy. So don't repair such fuses - only replace. The reason for the 27k resistor is (slowly) discharging of the 3nF capacitor over the themistors in case of defective LED or Diode. regards Hans
Ah, back when Philips was cool. Fun fact: My parents met and fell in love with each other in a Philips PCB factory in Klagenfurt, Austria. My father repairing old 1970/80s computers, my mother being at a soldering station. Later when I did my required summer internship for my engineering degree, I worked in the CAD/CAM department doing Linux and Solaris/SunOS stuff. I saw the place my mother soldered, I saw the factory lines the magnetic tape computers controlled. Love was in the air, everywhere. Philips will always mean "romantique" to me. 😍😍😍😍 Now that factory is gone, replaced by a shared working space for NPC TikTok trend influencers. #IceCreamSoGood
It's always nice to see MOVs backed up with thermal fuses. As an absolute last resort, I've also heard that at least some MOVs are coated in a fireproof material similar to one class of re-entry heat shields on spacecraft. Exciting stuff!
Great component to dissect! The "L" is for inductor, C of course is capacitance. They can be a failure point, although they provide DV/DT control with some fast moving spikes on the line. I designed a 3-phase industrial surge protector once. It had L-C filtering on it. Interesting they chose not to populate those positions.
Thanks to these videos I now open up new surge protectors to see if they are high quality. I recently got an Ethernet surge protector with 4 dual gas discharge tubes inside that shunt to ground. They glow nicely under high voltage.
Interesting device, in special thermal fuses on the MOVs, a very clever solution, remember safety wire resistors used on TV sets to protect power circuits like audio outputs... Thanks to show it...
When I started to specify LED street and parking lot "luminaries " as they are technically called, surge protection was an option to add, which I always picked. I also started to specify a SPD on the circuits coming into the panelboard from underground exterior lighting circuits.
@@xtevesousa I usually chose 4100 Kelvin similar to Metal Halide. A high CRI was also important so CCTV cameras could distinguish vehicle colors. I don't like 5000 K or colder anywhere, inside or outside, too harsh and unnatural IMO. On one project, a military distribution warehouse, I talked the Army Corp into changing the standard spec from HPS to Metal Halide to distinguish green from tan. At a school project I talked them out of 5000K interior lighting by building a mockup and we ended up with 4100K.
@@curtw8827 I hate 4000K lighting. I'm not a fan of that metal halide look. With LED lighting we can do better. I prefer 3000K for parking lots, just beautiful in the evening. I've noticed all the cheap parking lot luminaires are 4000K. I find it sad, but I know it is cheap. For indoor commercial lighting, lots of 3500K. For residential, 2700K or 3000K.
@@whiggins101 In my Architect/Engineering company offices, I outfitted different offices with each of the color temperature fluorescent lamps, the architects were amazed on how the lamp selection affected the wall color. What annoys me is going into an establishment where the replacement fluorescent lamps are different color temperatures. Unfortunately, LED luminaries are now throwaway E-waste when they can't be relamped.
@@curtw8827I am a 5000k lover. I absolutely HATE any color temp less than that. One color can't please all of the people all of the time. Keep that in mind.
Cliiiiiiive. Don't you think we haven't noticed the big 999. What are the plans for the giant 1? Burning something and making art? Cooking with bare electricity? Making an explosion-proof-pie-dish controlled battery explosion? Catching the table on fire? Lots of things that haven't been done for a while. Waiting for the celebration.
Always interesting to see how different types of mains surge protectors configure the failure indicator. On this side of the pond I don't thing gas tubes are used to isolate safety ground from live and neutral but I could be wrong. The thermal fuse was pretty clever.
Congratulations on 1M subscribers!!!!!! I've been following you since you had 550k, man your videos and live stream always have been so nice and relaxing to watch, well explained and detailed. I've been enjoying them a lot. Road to 2M! 🎉
The wire and sink EDM machines that I fix for a living have used TDK-Lambda switching regulators in them for the last 20+ years or so. They're quite robust and I find very rarely fail. Though, I've still got piles of old ones that I have to scavenge for parts to fix others. Their supply lines have been problematic for the last 3 years due to shortages.
This summer we had quite a few thunderstorms, and quite amazing how many LED streetlights were taken out by lightning strikes hundreds of metres away..
I can understand that LED street lighting is more energy efficient, but whilst driving, I actually prefer the light from low pressure sodium lamps. Plus the night sky light pollution seems worse now with the widespread use of LED street lighting, despite the illumination spread supposedly designed to be completely downward. Why don't they use Yellow LEDs? Semi conductor devices (like LEDs) are definitely more prone to damage from voltage spikes, especially from nearby lightning- I have had to repair some of my fried equipment following a near strike.
A few sources seem to indicate the black band is, at best, to indicate the orientation of the resistor color bands - though it's superfluous in this case with a gold tolerance band. It would be useful to have those black bands on my cheap 1% resistors that CAN be completely ambiguous to read!
Gas discharge tube!! For years I've been trying to identify a small glass component (looks like a diode but not quite) which I see fitted to some TV PSUs marked with a "G" prefix. That's it!!
the last black line is temperature coefficient and black stands for 250 ppm/C (the relative change of a physical property that is associated with a given change in temperature)
Great video, I would add that the installation requires the earth connection to true ground also and needs careful consideration and not relying on the mains earth to carry the surge away. In places like Edinburgh castle where the earth is poor due to the local geology, connecting the surge protector to the mains earth will do little to protect a system as the surge will travel around the earthed devices and do damage elsewhere.
phillips makes good stuff, I have a pair of their expensive-ish headphones and they're great. wouldn't be surprised if the same quality and attention even went into this little doohickey.
Yes, I pretend to understand most things, but struggle with this one. Presumably the second surge (during the lightning storm) sets fire to the lamppost, cabling, lamp fitting etc so you would know to check the device.
Slight add: 7:25 The function of the reverse diode is not only capacitor discharge, but also if not there, the LED could get ~40 V on its cathode. Can't see why they used that 27K resistor, that limits it down to that 40V, in stead of 350V. A bit odd I think.
you have to watch out with some of those resistors with extra bands, some had 4 bands for the value, the maplin ones did but was stated in the catalogue they were 3 band value plus tolerance and one for temp. coefficient,
This device seems to be able to absorb minor transient pulses but anything that triggers any of the fuse links renders the device useless and the transients still get passed to the lamp. Surely the lamp should be wired to disconnect if the the suppressor fails to cope with a large transient.
Nice! You should do a video on the old Sox lights and how they work with the ballast, capacitor and igniter. I do miss when streetlights were golden yellow, better than these horrible LEDs that like to go disco mode for no reason lol
Since being a small child, I've had a fascination with all things electrical! ... In fact, I was born with a 13 amp plug in my hand! ... It was very painful for my mother! 🤣 EDIT: I've lost count of the number of times I've told this gag, but it never gets old!
I've bought a fair amount of TDK components from Digikey, but i don't remember exactly what. Inductors or perhaps MLC capacitors, I think, although Murata also comes to mind with inductors. I shall have to poke through my parts bins.
For the resistor with 5 bands, the first 3 colours is the value, 4th is the multiplier and 5th is tolerance, so 224 x 0.1 Ohm, not sure what the black tolerance band signifies.
My understanding on 5-band resistor is that the first, second AND third stripes are the value, fourth stripe the multiplier and fifth is the tolerance. But why would there be a gold 4th band in that case? Puzzling.
@@bigclivedotcom Thanks Big Clive, I figured you had. The gold percentage band followed by the black decibel band had me puzzled though, maybe reversed?
Why is there now such a big requirement for surge protection?? Could it be if the supply is switched off by the supplier and subsequently the re_energising of supply ( through smart meter control ) we will get more and larger spikes ??????
A black band at the end means bifilliar winding (to annulate inductance) meaning it is non inductive. The common 5 band (usually used for low value of high precision resistors) does not work here because this usually means 3 significant digits a multiplicator and a tolerance but there is no black for tolerance and it would made the resistor have 22.4 Ohm what would make no sense for this voltage divider for driving a LED. This makes sense because an inductive resistor of high value would be too inductive and could cause the discharge tube conduct when turned on.
In solar they recommend a lightning rod separate from the surge protection with another ground. I havent, and cross my fingers alot when it gets cloudy but my panels are lower than the rooftops so I take my chances.
An interesting design and well-made - what we'd expect from Philips anyway. I imagine that this protects the lamp from the first lightning strike, then the next one takes out the lamp anyway - at least Philips have their money and will continue to produce them "because that's what commerce is"!
The hope is the first strike takes out the 16A fuse in the supply line, so that the one who fixes it will look in the fixture, see the black skid marks, and replace the SPD device. Though normally they just switch the breaker on again, and the SPD now is only a fancy wire junction.There is a reason that lighting suppliers make the interior wire all from thin enamelled copper wire, with a woven fibreglass sleeve slipped over them, as all the wiring from the input connector now is a fuse. It will blow open, and never short the power supply for long, so the rest of the lighting will work properly. Seen plenty of lights where the SPD is blown apart, generally those with wound ballasts will not even notice high voltage applied to them , even for a few weeks, though the lamp sure will notice, as the 95W mercury capsule will light up brighter than a 400W capsule, at least till it explodes, and the 400W metal halide or sodium will simply light up brighter, and start to cycle.
I've seen on aliexpress laser range finder units (Control board and range laser unit and recivers only) that claim to go out to well over a kilometer with less than a +- 1m accruacy. These range finders also use arduinos and USB connections and are dirt cheap. The sellers all say they will provide softwear and that they will help set them up. Would you be intrested in doing a breakdown on one?
From my livingroom I see the Dutch Philips Headquarters tower, less than half mile away, and I will tell them.tomorrow that you approve this little device . They probably know you already and I guess they are subscribed to your channel too
3:52 hmmm u wrong my component calc from saulawa displays it as a 22.4ohm resistor. the 5th stripe only is use for the %s but black dosnt exist. app says only 2-4 can have black. Red is 2 yellow is 4 Gold says it xx.x Ohm
@@Aitch-Two-Oh Nope Bc the 4th strip is Multiplier. and Gold is x0.1 the 5th Band is Tolerance. so if black is usally equal 0 would mean 22.4ohm +-0% resistors with temperature coefficient are 6 band Resitors
As you wrote yourself, black is not a tolerance, so the 5 band color code does not apply. It is 4 band with an extra black band which according to some is just an end marker (since it cannot be the start) or according to others it signifies wire wound.
I found this (my bolding): "In a four-color band resistor, the first three color bands are used to decide the resistance. The fourth color band will represent the tolerance value. In this color-coding system, the type of resistor can be determined based on the color band. In a resistor, IF AN ADDITIONAL 5TH BAND COLOR IS BLACK, THEN IT IS A WIRE WOUND RESISTOR, if the fifth band color is white then it is a fusible resistor and If a resistor has one black band within the center, then it is known as a zero-ohm resistor."
So the protection comes from the MOVs/GDT shunting spikes, presumably relying on a fuse/circuit breaker elsewhere to isolate things if the current spike is severe enough. Only if the overvoltage condition persists will the thermal fuses finally activate to stop the MOVs from bursting into flames. I’d have thought it might do an even better job had another two terminals been provided to provide the same level of protection for the load as the LED circuit receives. Presumably GDTs degrade faster than MOVs which is why there is only a single (protected) one rather than a pair going to earth directly from the two supply lines?
@@BTW... In this circuit, yes. My thought was that as GDTs have a greater current capacity a pair could provide more protection and the rest of the circuit would be superfluous. Obviously in that case you would need two. The circuit appears to have been designed for a longer lifetime, minor differential voltage spikes being handled by the MOV network, which isolates the GDT from these more frequent disturbances which would otherwise shorten its life. The GDT only comes into play in the event of larger or common-mode spikes. After a little searching, I have found that GDTs are also slower-acting than MOVs so it makes even more sense to rely on those as the primary defence.
Thanks very informative. So I can feel safe if a car surges into a street light knowing it will not fall on me truly amazing the progress technology has made.😂😂😅 9:15
This looks like it goes across the various lines (live, neutral, ground), connected in wye, but is not in series with the nominally protected luminaries. So it must be in parallel with the protected light. If there's a voltage spike, it looks as if the thermal element will open the connections, thus _not_ shorting out the spike. Shorting out the voltage spike is how I'd expect a parallel-connected surge protector to work. So how does this protect from voltage spikes? What am I missing?
What protects the light is the MOV between L and N, the GDT is there only to prevent arcing to ground between terminals or inside the light power supply. An arc will ignite before inside a GDT filled with an easily ionizable gas than between terminals and/or PCB tracks exposed to ambient air. A MOV can't be used for that application because brand new MOVs are more conductive than GDTs and then their resistance goes down as they age due to exposure to voltage spikes, if you've enough of them in parallel in the same circuit or one worn out the current leaking to ground will be enough to trip the RCD/RCCB.
@@ruben_balea No, the GDT is there to sink High Voltage transients on both Active and Neutral conductors AND isolate both Active and Neutral from Ground/Earth connection under a low voltage transient surge. So, the GDT is there to "arc" to Ground.
@@BTW... That's exactly what I tried to explain, when the GDT arcs to ground it prevents the arc to ground from occurring elsewhere in the circuit. And it doesn't make any sense to wire the two fusible links built-in in those MOV modules between the GDT and neutral, no other serious manufacturer of SPDs does that, but this is from Philips and if they are not going to sell as many replacement lights at least they will sell enough replacement protectors. In Spain many (all?) town councils take weeks or months to fix the street lights and normally only acknowledge having found out that they had failed because the neighbors got tired of walking in the dark and made a complaint, I suspect the same happens in every other country so no one is going to check the the protectors even once a year and Philips won't stop selling replacement lights either but then it will be the customer's fault 🤦♂
Gas Discharge Tube. It's a spark gap with conductive gas inside. They are set up so that the gas will start to conduct current at a certain voltage; this one 600V. This will send an over-current surge on Live or Neutral to ground/earth.
Could you use an insulation tester to measure the actual threshold voltage of an MOV?? Since the testers have a 1 milliamp current limit it should not damage the MOV and you could read the drop across the MOV at trip point
Clive, coud that circuit board have been made also to function on 3 phase power in a different application? I do realize that three phase lighting isn't all that common, if it ever was.
Every once in a while i get reminded why we pay a premium for western manufacturerers. Feels like a breath of fresh air in a life full of low cost chinese electronics.
Hey Clive, Those May Be Good To Use On Our Solar Panels For Lightning Surge Suppressing Also? Thanks, Butt I Can't Find Anything Like Listed On eBay or Amazon? 😢😁😎
I remember like 15 years ago when we were being dumb teenagers we used to kick lamp posts and if you hit them just right it would turn off the light for a few minutes or sometimes until the next on-off cycle. Wonder what kind of protection they had that did it
No problem. The industry has literally got it down to a one day slideshow called the G39 which is often referred to as "The street lighting ticket". There are literally companies hiring unskilled labour off the streets and using that slideshow to justify using them to do live electrical work in a wet outdoors environment.
I wish I could eloquently state how much your channel has added value to my life. Your process, methods, diagrams, explanations, curiosity, etc is all such a thrill to learn from.
HERE HEAR 😂 !!!
I like tearing things apart to since I was a kid if I had a screwdriver something been striped 😂😂😂😂
Actually that is very eloquent
I think you spoke for all of us, but better.
@MyTubeSVp Clive I really hope you read this as well as those of us subscribed or not...eloquence is such a rare gift especially amongst those whom endeavour to inform those whom wish to learn...♡
Interesting circuit. The ones I have seen here in NZ have just 3 of those blue MOV's put in a heatshrink sleeve. No fancy thermal fuses. The LED is nice but I doubt it that streetlight repair crews will check that and open the unit from a bucket truck to see if the MOV's have operated. Lamp fail, Complete unit ends up in the skip. I have seen hundreds of newish led streetlights being thrown in the metal recycling skip. I usually salvage the Wago connectors. I see if I can find some of those fancy units. The way you opened the device up to smoothly is awesome. Keep up the great work Clive.
Yeah, the landfill generated by the very expensive "last forever" LED streetlights is appalling. Almost at a fraud level given their cost.
Why change a bulb when you can change the entire thing and have the labour drop in a new flex while they're at it.
Reading all the comments of appreciation made me suddenly realize. 20 years ago you couldn't find someone to show you this cool stuff, they'd be a local weirdo that has only 1-2 guests per whenever. Like imagine photonicinduction but there was no youtube. That room would've never seen the light of day. An adventure we could've never had.
TDK has and is involved with metal oxides products a long time. In Shawnee Oklahoma they have a plant that cast and sinter metal oxide powder into various shapes for magnetizing later by the customers to fit their needs.
I just love those Littelfuse MOV's with series thermal fuses. It really simplifies the layout.
"one moment, please" is a favourite expression in my home, due to these awesome videos.
Congratulations clive. Been here since the early days of your channel..... and im so glad to see you will be hitting a million subscribers. (Probably even by the end of the day I'm guessing.) You definitely deserve the success!
Back a day later to happily see you did hit the million!!!
4:13 Yes, it's a fusible resistor, they seem to be somewhat standardized with that black stripe as the last one. That black stripe isn't supposed to be counted, so this would be a 4 stripe resistor. Funnily enough, earlier today I tried to decode one with two gold strips on 3rd and 4th position as a 5 stripe resistor, and every table I was looking at was sure that this resistor can't exist ;)
If I recall (and it's been a while, so I may not), the 4th stripe is tolerance and the 5th is tempco.
Hi bigclive
Small remarks ...
There is a special tin alloy in use in termal fuses that has a defined temperature point to pop up. If you try to repair such parts and solder it with your standard tin you will have undefined switching characteristic depending on the properties of your tin alloy. So don't repair such fuses - only replace.
The reason for the 27k resistor is (slowly) discharging of the 3nF capacitor over the themistors in case of defective LED or Diode.
regards
Hans
I love the design of the surge device. Philips did a good job on this
I remember when your channel was just starting and now you are already at 1 million subscribers. Excellent videos.
Ah, back when Philips was cool. Fun fact: My parents met and fell in love with each other in a Philips PCB factory in Klagenfurt, Austria. My father repairing old 1970/80s computers, my mother being at a soldering station. Later when I did my required summer internship for my engineering degree, I worked in the CAD/CAM department doing Linux and Solaris/SunOS stuff. I saw the place my mother soldered, I saw the factory lines the magnetic tape computers controlled. Love was in the air, everywhere. Philips will always mean "romantique" to me. 😍😍😍😍 Now that factory is gone, replaced by a shared working space for NPC TikTok trend influencers. #IceCreamSoGood
such a rollercoaster of a comment lol love it
Is it fair to say if it wasn't for Philips, you wouldn't be here? 😉
Klagenfurt in the house tonight ✨
It's always nice to see MOVs backed up with thermal fuses. As an absolute last resort, I've also heard that at least some MOVs are coated in a fireproof material similar to one class of re-entry heat shields on spacecraft. Exciting stuff!
Great component to dissect! The "L" is for inductor, C of course is capacitance. They can be a failure point, although they provide DV/DT control with some fast moving spikes on the line. I designed a 3-phase industrial surge protector once. It had L-C filtering on it. Interesting they chose not to populate those positions.
Thanks to these videos I now open up new surge protectors to see if they are high quality. I recently got an Ethernet surge protector with 4 dual gas discharge tubes inside that shunt to ground. They glow nicely under high voltage.
Massive congratulations on reaching a very well deserved 1 million subscribers!
Interesting device, in special thermal fuses on the MOVs, a very clever solution, remember safety wire resistors used on TV sets to protect power circuits like audio outputs...
Thanks to show it...
Congrats on hitting one million subscribers. I love your content and your personality is worth a billion subscribers. Have a wonderful day.
When I started to specify LED street and parking lot "luminaries " as they are technically called, surge protection was an option to add, which I always picked. I also started to specify a SPD on the circuits coming into the panelboard from underground exterior lighting circuits.
Did you have any criteria for choosing white vs orange, and the effect of color on peoples vision and/or animal behaviour? Thank you.
@@xtevesousa I usually chose 4100 Kelvin similar to Metal Halide. A high CRI was also important so CCTV cameras could distinguish vehicle colors. I don't like 5000 K or colder anywhere, inside or outside, too harsh and unnatural IMO. On one project, a military distribution warehouse, I talked the Army Corp into changing the standard spec from HPS to Metal Halide to distinguish green from tan. At a school project I talked them out of 5000K interior lighting by building a mockup and we ended up with 4100K.
@@curtw8827 I hate 4000K lighting. I'm not a fan of that metal halide look. With LED lighting we can do better. I prefer 3000K for parking lots, just beautiful in the evening. I've noticed all the cheap parking lot luminaires are 4000K. I find it sad, but I know it is cheap. For indoor commercial lighting, lots of 3500K. For residential, 2700K or 3000K.
@@whiggins101 In my Architect/Engineering company offices, I outfitted different offices with each of the color temperature fluorescent lamps, the architects were amazed on how the lamp selection affected the wall color. What annoys me is going into an establishment where the replacement fluorescent lamps are different color temperatures. Unfortunately, LED luminaries are now throwaway E-waste when they can't be relamped.
@@curtw8827I am a 5000k lover. I absolutely HATE any color temp less than that. One color can't please all of the people all of the time. Keep that in mind.
Cliiiiiiive. Don't you think we haven't noticed the big 999.
What are the plans for the giant 1?
Burning something and making art? Cooking with bare electricity? Making an explosion-proof-pie-dish controlled battery explosion?
Catching the table on fire?
Lots of things that haven't been done for a while. Waiting for the celebration.
Maybe Colin Furze could help him plan something over-the-top and slightly dangerous.
I'm going to have a huge millenium-grade anticlimax.
@@bigclivedotcom Well, that will make Auntie happy.
Pleas do a live strem where you get buzzed up with carbonated alcohol.
CONGRATULATIONS. You just hit 1 million subscribers while I was watching this.
Always interesting to see how different types of mains surge protectors configure the failure indicator. On this side of the pond I don't thing gas tubes are used to isolate safety ground from live and neutral but I could be wrong. The thermal fuse was pretty clever.
Congrats on 1 million subscribers Clive.
Congratulations on 1M subscribers!!!!!! I've been following you since you had 550k, man your videos and live stream always have been so nice and relaxing to watch, well explained and detailed. I've been enjoying them a lot. Road to 2M! 🎉
Great video as always fun and informative.
Congrats on reaching a well deserved 1,000,000 subscribers. .
The wire and sink EDM machines that I fix for a living have used TDK-Lambda switching regulators in them for the last 20+ years or so. They're quite robust and I find very rarely fail. Though, I've still got piles of old ones that I have to scavenge for parts to fix others. Their supply lines have been problematic for the last 3 years due to shortages.
This summer we had quite a few thunderstorms, and quite amazing how many LED streetlights were taken out by lightning strikes hundreds of metres away..
Wow! Look at that, you'll hit one million subscribers shortly. Nice job!
Dude 😎 so close to a million subs 🌟
I can understand that LED street lighting is more energy efficient, but whilst driving, I actually prefer the light from low pressure sodium lamps. Plus the night sky light pollution seems worse now with the widespread use of LED street lighting, despite the illumination spread supposedly designed to be completely downward. Why don't they use Yellow LEDs?
Semi conductor devices (like LEDs) are definitely more prone to damage from voltage spikes, especially from nearby lightning- I have had to repair some of my fried equipment following a near strike.
I'm surprised they don't pass a law against lightning strikes.
Minimum service level?😂
Unfortunately, I wouldn't be surprised if they did. North Carolina passed a law outlawing global warming in 2012.
That mother nature ⚡ she belongs inside a women's high security prison!
A few sources seem to indicate the black band is, at best, to indicate the orientation of the resistor color bands - though it's superfluous in this case with a gold tolerance band. It would be useful to have those black bands on my cheap 1% resistors that CAN be completely ambiguous to read!
The fifth black band may indicate it's a non-inductive wire-wound resistor (or, more likely, may simply be used to indicate the right-hand end).
Gas discharge tube!! For years I've been trying to identify a small glass component (looks like a diode but not quite) which I see fitted to some TV PSUs marked with a "G" prefix. That's it!!
the last black line is temperature coefficient and black stands for 250 ppm/C (the relative change of a physical property that is associated with a given change in temperature)
Great video, I would add that the installation requires the earth connection to true ground also and needs careful consideration and not relying on the mains earth to carry the surge away. In places like Edinburgh castle where the earth is poor due to the local geology, connecting the surge protector to the mains earth will do little to protect a system as the surge will travel around the earthed devices and do damage elsewhere.
phillips makes good stuff, I have a pair of their expensive-ish headphones and they're great. wouldn't be surprised if the same quality and attention even went into this little doohickey.
oh yea just remembered I have their oneblade shaver, really good stuff. cute little shaver+hair trimmer all-in-one
@@JessicaFEREMi can relay that to that team of you want :p
Why aren't these devices used in series with the lights? If these fail, then the light remains unprotected, and unnoticed.
I reckon it's mainly to extend the life to outwith the warranty.
But how would that work...?@@bigclivedotcom
Yes, I pretend to understand most things, but struggle with this one. Presumably the second surge (during the lightning storm) sets fire to the lamppost, cabling, lamp fitting etc so you would know to check the device.
If the protection saves the light but the light then is off, it would be not much of a use
Slight add: 7:25 The function of the reverse diode is not only capacitor discharge, but also if not there, the LED could get ~40 V on its cathode. Can't see why they used that 27K resistor, that limits it down to that 40V, in stead of 350V. A bit odd I think.
Makes me remember a similar thermal breaker with a power resistor.
Now to break out the explosion containment pie dish and test it, Photonicinduction style!
DUDE CLIVE YOU ARE AT 999K SUBSCRIBERS. I WANNA BE THE FIRST TO SAY CONGRATULATIONS ON 1M SUBS MY FRIEND!
you have to watch out with some of those resistors with extra bands, some had 4 bands for the value, the maplin ones did but was stated in the catalogue they were 3 band value plus tolerance and one for temp. coefficient,
This device seems to be able to absorb minor transient pulses but anything that triggers any of the fuse links renders the device useless and the transients still get passed to the lamp. Surely the lamp should be wired to disconnect if the the suppressor fails to cope with a large transient.
Awesome Video Big Clive
Nice! You should do a video on the old Sox lights and how they work with the ballast, capacitor and igniter. I do miss when streetlights were golden yellow, better than these horrible LEDs that like to go disco mode for no reason lol
Since being a small child, I've had a fascination with all things electrical! ... In fact, I was born with a 13 amp plug in my hand! ... It was very painful for my mother! 🤣
EDIT: I've lost count of the number of times I've told this gag, but it never gets old!
I've bought a fair amount of TDK components from Digikey, but i don't remember exactly what. Inductors or perhaps MLC capacitors, I think, although Murata also comes to mind with inductors.
I shall have to poke through my parts bins.
Thank you. Keep working, good luck.
For the resistor with 5 bands, the first 3 colours is the value, 4th is the multiplier and 5th is tolerance, so 224 x 0.1 Ohm, not sure what the black tolerance band signifies.
I haven't checked who stands behind letters TDK now, but there are still high-quality magnetic cores sold under this brand.
I've seen some weird colors on resistors, idk but that black stripe is confusing. Did you measure it? Thanks Clive.
@terrym1065 i thought it was to do with temperature coefficient !! Probably.
My understanding on 5-band resistor is that the first, second AND third stripes are the value, fourth stripe the multiplier and fifth is the tolerance. But why would there be a gold 4th band in that case? Puzzling.
I did measure the value and it tallied up with the schematic I drew.
@@bigclivedotcom Thanks Big Clive, I figured you had. The gold percentage band followed by the black decibel band had me puzzled though, maybe reversed?
@@tncorgi92 Reversed maybe.
You said in the beginning it was in parallel to the load. It would have to be in series to break the power to the load.
It doesn't break the power. It just shunts transient voltage spikes
Why is there now such a big requirement for surge protection?? Could it be if the supply is switched off by the supplier and subsequently the re_energising of supply ( through smart meter control ) we will get more and larger spikes ??????
and if lightening hits it its fucked anyway.
Dood TDK makes some badass components.
1 million congrats 🎉 🎉 🎉
Ever been in a movie theatre and half the crowd screams out "FOCUS!!!"? Yeah, well, 5:37
It was more of an exposure issue. I lock exposure, so sometimes white swamps out.
I have a couple piezo buzzers made by TDK. Made me think about blank video tapes as well.
Pretty nice considering everything
A black band at the end means bifilliar winding (to annulate inductance) meaning it is non inductive. The common 5 band (usually used for low value of high precision resistors) does not work here because this usually means 3 significant digits a multiplicator and a tolerance but there is no black for tolerance and it would made the resistor have 22.4 Ohm what would make no sense for this voltage divider for driving a LED. This makes sense because an inductive resistor of high value would be too inductive and could cause the discharge tube conduct when turned on.
In solar they recommend a lightning rod separate from the surge protection with another ground. I havent, and cross my fingers alot when it gets cloudy but my panels are lower than the rooftops so I take my chances.
the black band might indicate the temperature-coefficient of the resistor
Almost 1M subscribers! 🤩
An interesting design and well-made - what we'd expect from Philips anyway. I imagine that this protects the lamp from the first lightning strike, then the next one takes out the lamp anyway - at least Philips have their money and will continue to produce them "because that's what commerce is"!
The hope is the first strike takes out the 16A fuse in the supply line, so that the one who fixes it will look in the fixture, see the black skid marks, and replace the SPD device. Though normally they just switch the breaker on again, and the SPD now is only a fancy wire junction.There is a reason that lighting suppliers make the interior wire all from thin enamelled copper wire, with a woven fibreglass sleeve slipped over them, as all the wiring from the input connector now is a fuse. It will blow open, and never short the power supply for long, so the rest of the lighting will work properly. Seen plenty of lights where the SPD is blown apart, generally those with wound ballasts will not even notice high voltage applied to them , even for a few weeks, though the lamp sure will notice, as the 95W mercury capsule will light up brighter than a 400W capsule, at least till it explodes, and the 400W metal halide or sodium will simply light up brighter, and start to cycle.
Black band is the temperature coefficient. 250 Kelvin (I think black is).
4:12 Apparently a resistor's 5th band being black most likely means it's wire wound.
bands 1,2 and 3, 22k, band 4, gold 5%, band 5 temperature co-efficient, and black seems to be 0, which is very odd, why even put it on there.
I've seen on aliexpress laser range finder units (Control board and range laser unit and recivers only) that claim to go out to well over a kilometer with less than a +- 1m accruacy. These range finders also use arduinos and USB connections and are dirt cheap. The sellers all say they will provide softwear and that they will help set them up. Would you be intrested in doing a breakdown on one?
From my livingroom I see the Dutch Philips Headquarters tower, less than half mile away, and I will tell them.tomorrow that you approve this little device . They probably know you already and I guess they are subscribed to your channel too
Almost at a million subscribers!
Do the surge arresters also provide protection against Death Beamz?
They might charge a subscription fee for that. 😊
No. You need a radioactive pendant for that.
3:52 hmmm u wrong my component calc from saulawa displays it as a 22.4ohm resistor. the 5th stripe only is use for the %s but black dosnt exist. app says only 2-4 can have black.
Red is 2 yellow is 4 Gold says it xx.x Ohm
Maybe 220K 5% and temperature coefficient (black) = 250ppm/Deg.C
@@Aitch-Two-Oh Nope Bc the 4th strip is Multiplier. and Gold is x0.1
the 5th Band is Tolerance.
so if black is usally equal 0 would mean 22.4ohm +-0%
resistors with temperature coefficient are 6 band Resitors
As you wrote yourself, black is not a tolerance, so the 5 band color code does not apply. It is 4 band with an extra black band which according to some is just an end marker (since it cannot be the start) or according to others it signifies wire wound.
I measured it at 220K.
I found this (my bolding):
"In a four-color band resistor, the first three color bands are used to decide the resistance. The fourth color band will represent the tolerance value.
In this color-coding system, the type of resistor can be determined based on the color band. In a resistor, IF AN ADDITIONAL 5TH BAND COLOR IS BLACK, THEN IT IS A WIRE WOUND RESISTOR, if the fifth band color is white then it is a fusible resistor and If a resistor has one black band within the center, then it is known as a zero-ohm resistor."
So the protection comes from the MOVs/GDT shunting spikes, presumably relying on a fuse/circuit breaker elsewhere to isolate things if the current spike is severe enough. Only if the overvoltage condition persists will the thermal fuses finally activate to stop the MOVs from bursting into flames.
I’d have thought it might do an even better job had another two terminals been provided to provide the same level of protection for the load as the LED circuit receives.
Presumably GDTs degrade faster than MOVs which is why there is only a single (protected) one rather than a pair going to earth directly from the two supply lines?
Only one GDT is needed.
@@BTW... In this circuit, yes. My thought was that as GDTs have a greater current capacity a pair could provide more protection and the rest of the circuit would be superfluous. Obviously in that case you would need two.
The circuit appears to have been designed for a longer lifetime, minor differential voltage spikes being handled by the MOV network, which isolates the GDT from these more frequent disturbances which would otherwise shorten its life. The GDT only comes into play in the event of larger or common-mode spikes.
After a little searching, I have found that GDTs are also slower-acting than MOVs so it makes even more sense to rely on those as the primary defence.
I'm a little surprised that there isn't a fault-feedback terminal that could (e.g.) signal a controller that the suppressor has failed.
Thanks very informative. So I can feel safe if a car surges into a street light knowing it will not fall on me truly amazing the progress technology has made.😂😂😅 9:15
This looks like it goes across the various lines (live, neutral, ground), connected in wye, but is not in series with the nominally protected luminaries. So it must be in parallel with the protected light. If there's a voltage spike, it looks as if the thermal element will open the connections, thus _not_ shorting out the spike. Shorting out the voltage spike is how I'd expect a parallel-connected surge protector to work. So how does this protect from voltage spikes? What am I missing?
It does shunt the spikes. The fuse is a safety feature when the shunt component fails.
Thank you.
I thought that GDTs are slow for transients. Did they save any street lights?
I've not tested that yet.
What protects the light is the MOV between L and N, the GDT is there only to prevent arcing to ground between terminals or inside the light power supply. An arc will ignite before inside a GDT filled with an easily ionizable gas than between terminals and/or PCB tracks exposed to ambient air.
A MOV can't be used for that application because brand new MOVs are more conductive than GDTs and then their resistance goes down as they age due to exposure to voltage spikes, if you've enough of them in parallel in the same circuit or one worn out the current leaking to ground will be enough to trip the RCD/RCCB.
@@ruben_balea No, the GDT is there to sink High Voltage transients on both Active and Neutral conductors AND isolate both Active and Neutral from Ground/Earth connection under a low voltage transient surge.
So, the GDT is there to "arc" to Ground.
@@BTW... That's exactly what I tried to explain, when the GDT arcs to ground it prevents the arc to ground from occurring elsewhere in the circuit.
And it doesn't make any sense to wire the two fusible links built-in in those MOV modules between the GDT and neutral, no other serious manufacturer of SPDs does that, but this is from Philips and if they are not going to sell as many replacement lights at least they will sell enough replacement protectors.
In Spain many (all?) town councils take weeks or months to fix the street lights and normally only acknowledge having found out that they had failed because the neighbors got tired of walking in the dark and made a complaint, I suspect the same happens in every other country so no one is going to check the the protectors even once a year and Philips won't stop selling replacement lights either but then it will be the customer's fault 🤦♂
Can you talk more about what a GDT is
Gas Discharge Tube. It's a spark gap with conductive gas inside. They are set up so that the gas will start to conduct current at a certain voltage; this one 600V. This will send an over-current surge on Live or Neutral to ground/earth.
@@stephen1r2 thank you
I'm wondering if the extra component locations are for a three-phase version.
Is that a flash over at 1:32
Just a reflection.
So Clive, That blue MOV inside the termal fuse package looks like it was an S20K320 then?? BTW I like your spudger
Could you use an insulation tester to measure the actual threshold voltage of an MOV?? Since the testers have a 1 milliamp current limit it should not damage the MOV and you could read the drop across the MOV at trip point
It will show up as a resistance on an insulation tester, and it will actually degrade the MOV.
Clive, coud that circuit board have been made also to function on 3 phase power in a different application? I do realize that three phase lighting isn't all that common, if it ever was.
I doubt it due to only having three terminals and potentially needing a ground.
Every once in a while i get reminded why we pay a premium for western manufacturerers. Feels like a breath of fresh air in a life full of low cost chinese electronics.
I wonder if things like streetlights and the like are protected against EMP?
Wonder about the composition of the thermal sensitive metal. Any guesses?
I'd guess a low melting point solder, but not sure of the metals involved.
This is all good, but where and how does it connect to the lights
It just goes in parallel to shunt transient voltage spikes.
@@bigclivedotcom cheers big Clive.
999k subs .....SOOOOO close now!!
2 omps and a "tell you watt" (tyw) bonus! - great vid on little often observed industrial device. What's the price of these things per unit?
From Philips it will be high. Largely due to markup by council contractors.
a big Clive video that's not at 4am?
I got some thing you can't do. Lincoln Town car cruise control module. If any one could there would be an aftermarket one produced.
A project like that would be complex and carry high liability.
That used with the 5000 watt LED street light from earlier? :)
As it reacts on overheating of a bit of soldering, does it not react too slowly to be of any use?
The heat build up from failure is progressive over time.
@@bigclivedotcom Oh? I thought it is to protect something from quick power surges?
Knowing Philips, or Signify as the Lighting parts is called nowadays, probably Xtreme prices as well...
Yes indeed. And still with no guaranteed reliability.
Hey Clive, Those May Be Good To Use On Our Solar Panels For Lightning Surge Suppressing Also? Thanks, Butt I Can't Find Anything Like Listed On eBay or Amazon? 😢😁😎
They're quite specialist, but you can get ones designed specifically for solar panel and distribution board use.
Someone spent some thoughts how to design it in a proper way. Like it.
F2 and F3 maybe fuse 2 and 3 for 3 phases? 🤷♂️
I remember like 15 years ago when we were being dumb teenagers we used to kick lamp posts and if you hit them just right it would turn off the light for a few minutes or sometimes until the next on-off cycle. Wonder what kind of protection they had that did it
It was just the lamp shaking in its holder. If the current is interrupted they have to cool down before they can restrike again.
MOV's is series ? Seems very odd...
They're in parallel across the lines, except for the ground ones which have that extra GDT for safety isolation.
Very few professional street lighting engineers around these days as were mostly retired. Also very few trainees.
No problem. The industry has literally got it down to a one day slideshow called the G39 which is often referred to as "The street lighting ticket". There are literally companies hiring unskilled labour off the streets and using that slideshow to justify using them to do live electrical work in a wet outdoors environment.
TDK is also known by its ceramic technology base electronics.