New 3volution unit has clever circuitry
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- Опубліковано 15 вер 2024
- Beyond the marketing hype, this unit actually has a very clever feature implemented with discrete components, that allows it to detect when the refill has been changed - even when it's not plugged in.
That allows it to work out how much aroma liquid is still in the bottles during use and indicate when they it might be needing a refill by flashing the indicator lights.
Spoiler alert - the unit doesn't used chipped cartridges. It uses a switch and a single bit non-volatile memory circuit that is even active when unplugged. Like a single bit of static RAM that can be set to zero even when the unit is unpowered.
I found the circuit quite impressive. I'd more or less guessed what they might be doing, which made reverse engineering it easier.
If you enjoy these videos you can help support the channel with a dollar for coffee, cookies and random gadgets for disassembly at:-
www.bigclive.co...
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#ElectronicsCreators
It's very thoughtful of them to provide drill guides with which to remove the heatstakes
Also handy for pre-drilling sizing.
I love that this is the same guy who carbonates Jaegermeister …
Then drinks it in a big glass, with huge chunks of tropical fruit and a curly straw. Like a proper Glaswegian.
Hi Clive,
I'm genuinely baffled as to how the world works.
Start my shift at Tesco yesterday, and see this air freshener unit has been updated (I work the household aisle). I think to myself "I wonder if the circuitry has actually changed".
Low and behold a Big Clive vid.
All the best
You should send one to Clive. Including the appropriate size drill bit.
@@pilkjaer He's already got one! And the right size drill. I think the "update" is to the version in this video.
How the world works:
Normal people try to enjoy life while sociopaths seek positions of power to ruin everyone else's life.
The bumbling colour commentary on this one is price less ... "its as if I don't care! .. (drill keeps whirling))" .. excellent.
I laughed out loud at this moment
I'm always amazed by the small size and amount of components that deal with high voltage.
This schematic brought back a fun memory of my childhood 😊
This is pretty much how RAM works. Except the capacitors are tiny and need refreshing frequently by a memory management chip
DRAM specifically
@@Rapper_skull Exactly. There's also SRAM which is a flip-flop per cell.
Thanks big Clive you always pull out the great photo and then the circuit diagram just as it gets hard to see and then you walk it through and sum it all up a lot of hard work to make it look easy thanks again
A very neat (and minimalist) way of having a pretty long term "memory" capability, albeit single state (but that would probably be enough). Someone really knows what they are doing (and I'll remember this for a long time!)
I won't lie, when I saw the ad for these claiming "Smart technology", I couldn't help but laugh. I assumed they slammed a cheap microcontroller in there with some basic software but you have proven me wrong sir. Impressive stuff!
There will be a cheap micro in there, but obviously it doesn't work when it's switched off, so that's what this clever circuit does. Just holds a little bit of voltage in the cap, that can be discharged, left as a signal for when the micro is powered up again.
I wonder why they used an electrolytic? Yes they store a lot of charge but their leakage isn't great. I wonder if some other kind of cap would've been better? Like 1000x less capacitance but 100,000x less leakage. Since it's only storing a voltage, there's no real current coming out of it that's being used for anything.
At last, a use for these things - entertainment on UA-cam.
I wonder if in development it was referred to as 'The three ponged plug' (UK version)
I wonder if the earth pong gives off a muddy aroma?!
I used to have one of these "oil type" air fresheners plugged into an outlet a few inches below the metal support arm for a shelf. I quit using them altogether after I noticed it had caused the paint to peel off and heavily rusted/corroded the steel directly above the wick.
its kerosine in these, it can remove paint but i don't think it directly causing the rust
@@ChrisD4335 no, the oil it pushes out is an essential oil, or a solvent if you prefer. Works great if you need to remove some strong adhesive
@@ChrisD4335 The base oil is most certainly a highly refined petroleum distillate of some sort, but calling it "kerosene" is just plain ridiculous. The useless MSDS lists the contents as "proprietary fragrance" with very little other data, so who **TF** knows what's in that shit. It wasn't just simple rust BTW, it was heavy _corrosion,_ I'm not stupid.
@@supermarioisacat Unfortunately there are strange patent concepts surrounding fragrances... The exact makeup does not need to be revealed. It's just understood that they're all basically the same on an MSDS level... A series of aromatic solvents, the solvent part being the point of interest, since toxicity, flammability, etc can be generalized without issue.
If you want to find out what's in one of those liquids, you need some fancy lab equipment and someone who both knows how to use it and interpret the results.
@@MadScientist267 Either way it'd probably give you popcorn lung if you stood too close for long enough. I dunno what's wrong with a bit of corn oil or something. Should work fine, but yeah won't be kind to non-polar solvented paints, having it gently bubble away underneath.
"He who controls the spice controls the universe" - Frank Herbert
**spiced apple**
Big Clive has the Weirding way 😂
Spice melange *optional
@@toolmanchris I haven't noticed the "blue on blue eyes."
Pumpkin spice?
A pretty neat concept and strangely simple design. I've not seen them in the States
. yet.
Thanks Clive.
Man walks into a room, he keeps hearing someone saying nice things about him but can't work out who's saying it, he ends up asking someone who is saying the nice words, and they reply "It's the aromas, they're complimentary!!!"... :P
(A paraphrasing of the complimentary peanuts joke!!)
That almost works 🤡… not as good with ‘complementary’
LOL, I literally just bought one of these and what I'd do before plugging it in each time in the morning is I'd pull out and flip the bottle pack around because I figured it always starts with the left one no matter what and it'd get used up the most, but it turns out it actually remembers its last position :)))))
I'm not a electrical or a electronic engineer. I'm a Computer Engineer (Programmer), but I still watch these videos for increasing my electronics knowledge.
*Great Explaination Sir !!*
Me too! Clive has made me appreciate all the work that goes into mundane objects around me.
You got me hooked on the freshner thingies. Here in Germany they sell the empty units for 2 Euro, i guess with a loss and to make Profit on the Aromas. Also my comes with a 90 degree adjustable Plug for vertikal instaled sockets . Clever made Thing.
Yeah, I think the bare units are a loss leader designed to get you buying refills.
This reminds me I have one of these plugged in that ran out about Christmas time...
Who else has one burning away somewhere with empty cartridges 😂
During the last MBC live stream we discovered that Juan had an empty unit burning 24/7 with a brand new refill next to it.
idk anything about transistors and this all but still watch these videos alot... I'd love some educational vids by you
Thank you so much for explaining how this new device works. Even Procter and Gamble Germany wasn't able to expain it to me.
Certainly an interesting circuit, thanks 4 sharing. But I'm wondering why it's important that it remembers in the first place? Is it to prevent the 'first' bottle in the unit from being emptied prematurely if the user only switches it on for the 'first' Pong Propagation Period each time? (need to copyright that threesome, don't I?)
Also a little bit more info on how the heaters work (i.e. why the stuff evaporates when heated etc.) would have bean nice.
It's to encourage the user to buy replacement refills in advance.
The heaters warm up the wick in the containers, so making the liquid, a blend of glycol, essential synthetic oil perfumes and some preservatives ( you will not believe how expensive some of those perfumes are when pure, I have seen prices of some being $20k per litre, and you have to order them in a 20l container) plus a lot of pure water as bulking agent. This is then slowly evaporated into the room, and the heat encourages a slight convection current of air to move it out of the unit.
Remembering likely is there to allow the unit to cycle the bottles properly, it probably does a power on test, and then checks the bottle change timer to see if the cartridge has been changed since last power on, and then uses a simple random number generator (possible as the power on time is going to be slightly random, as the voltage rails rise up slowly depending on the mains phase, so the clock will run a little bit before reset is achieved) to select first cartridge.
Turns on the charge circuit for the memory, to top it up, then likely turns it off again, only polling it every odour change, to see if it has been changed, as it likely sleeps most of the time, just using a clock and timer to generate an internal interrupt every 16 minutes (guess based on the 8Hz LED and modulation rate, which is easy with the same timer, and a set of PWM comparators on chip, all using the same clock) to wake up, flip to the next odour after 3 cycles, and again check the cartridge and reset the capacitor.
After a certain number of cycles, probably 14 days of powered on all the time, it will flip to flashing the LED's to indicate empty, but likely there is still at least a third of the fluid left in them. Just to get the consumer to buy another, then come, pull it out, and see it is not, and put the old cartridge back, or toss it and put the new one in. They hope you do not look, but toss the partly used one.
Most of these units are plugged in and left on anyway 24/7, so a flashing reminder might be useful, at least getting you to keep on buying the expensive tiny refills, instead of simply refilling yourself with a bulk bottle of fluid (in your choice of aroma) and reusing the old one, as it likely has only 5ml of liquid in it.
Very clever indeed and nice low tech. Love it!
"Filling your house with stinky smells" 10:56 THIS.
I really do not understand why there's still a market for this kind of thing. But then people used to buy Aromadisc "players" way back when.
Fill your house with stinky smells if you like, but if you do keep the windows and doors closed so it doesn't take over the area and get into your neighbour's house.
And just like that, I had an answer to my flashing lights. Very detailed I would say, thank you.
"....now we come to the clever bit". And I thought the bit before was clever! There's some talented people in this world.
And we erect massive landfills in their honor.
I remember these from years ago. Haven't seen them or the refills on shelves for ages though. Probably why I no longer use the one I had.
You'll find them in any supermarket.
@@Matt19matt19 not here in Australia lol
Trust me, I've looked and looked.
@@zybch ah. They're rife here in Pomland.
Glad to see this video, i was still hoping it could detect an empty section, and use the other ones instead lol...
Just be glad there isn't a chip in the cartridge that stops the whole thing working if you run out of lemon scent.
@@gcewing That's the MK3 version, MK4 will be a subscription service that sends a refill when it says it is nearly empty....
The Spice must flow!
Hi Clive was hoping you was going to stripe down the older version. I have two faulty ones which all the leds flash rapidly all the time. Was hoping you had a fix for it 😪 love your video my favourite channel
I've not come across that. I've taken apart the older version in another video.
Very complicated stink bomb. Someone could have a great time swaping one "nice" smell for something much worce. 🤣 👍👍
Yep. Vanilla, Lavender, and Selenium rectifier.
@@stevenspmd Mmmm sounds nice
HMM, there are numerous "natural scents" used in hunting that could be interesting... Personally I'd opt to create a scent of bacon, then hickory smoke like you get from a smokehouse brisket, then buttered popcorn.... Might not be the best for anyone on a diet though...
@@Blazer02LS Didnt think of the natural stinks, good idea. I aways wanted a sceent like pipe tobaco and leather. I did find a fireside leather candle that was nice. But not tepmting like your selection. 👍👍
Hydrogen sulfide..rotten eggs
I love that you often reference AvE. I've watched him for a few years. Turns out he lives about 120 K.M. away from me! I don't claim to know him, but AvE stands for Arduino Versus Evil so I chuckle every time you say Ave. His vids linked me to you. I was a casual watcher of yours for a couple of years, but I watch much more as of late. Cheers Big Clive!!!
I used a similar circuit in my OpenDAC HD to store the on/off state. Basically, I had it so that the capacitor discharged on start means the unit should turn on automatically and if it is charged, it should wait for the user to turn it on. That way, it could be switched on/off at the external power supply or by pressing the volume knob, and if turned off using the knob, a power glitch won't cause it to turn back on.
Really enjoy these explorations Clive, thanks!
Hahahaha
What is the maximum refresh rate on that 1 bit of nonvolatile RAM? 1Hz or something like that?
That is a cool little circuit, somebody patted themselves on the back for that one.
I guess it could be classed as static RAM with hopefully a 24 hour refresh rate if it does get switched off every day for 12 hours. (I doubt they do.)
In 5 years "we present RGB aroma RAM for your ultimate gaming experience. Smells to choose are blood, sweat, iron and pooh".
@@bigclivedotcom I tested a NOS 10 000 uF 6V Sprague can electrolytic, charged up to 6V via a 1k resistor to reform it, and left it disconnected on a shelf for 6 months or so. Still had 5v on it after that time, while the other one, in the pack of 40 year old old stock capacitors, had corroded through the case, just in storage.
The 100uF capacitor likely has a time constant of around a week there, more depending on board leakage, and flux residue than capacitor leakage. Clean board probably 2 weeks, dirty crappy flux messed board with moderate humidity probably a day or less.
We need some new aromas for that: "wet dog", "burning tyre/tire" "cat toilet" "landfill deluxe" and "rotten fish"
I would like to add "scrapyard", "vintage electronics" and "Selenium rectifier" to the list
I would definitely buy this
In any office there are always outlets in hidden locations that lend themselves well to pranking.
Magic smoke obviously.
I enjoyed the tone of horror that the bench should smell of anything but flux and whisky ^-^
hahahaha
I have an idea for a Clive "rip -a -part" video... on the same lines as this one- to take to bits... a PUR faucet water filter (with electronic monitoring system); he will find the assembly and circuit VERY interesting!
Another good one. Thanks Clive.
Yeah, but will the spiced appley aroma stuff carbonate? ;P
Well it's not something I'd want to drink after carbonation. It would also cost quite a lot to fill the smallest sodastream bottle.
@@bigclivedotcom Fair enough. That's far more consideration given to a sarcastic comment than I expected.
The old one is 2.5w, the new one is 3w, how did the wattage increase? Also the new one has blue lights, the old one has red lights and when did it launch?
You said "when the switch is in the middle, and both are floating...", but they wouldn't be floating. They're tied to the high rail via those 47k resistors. So, they wouldn't be floating, they would be pulled high. It isn't like you to misspeak like this, so I'm confused and bringing this up to make sure I'm not missing something or misunderstanding.
Clive has just done his weekly visit to Poundland and it's time to see how their latest product works!
If you listen closely, you can hear Louis Rossman in the distance fuming over the lack of screws impairing repairability.
What I find strange is the usage of electrolytic capacitor. It should be a cap with low EPR or low dielectric losses. So, it should be a cheap film capacitor like polyester or ceramic C0G. Because electrolytic cap, that is used close to the heater would increase losses by time.
In large series those caps costs nothing, especially for mass production.
absolutely
I doubt it matters much if the cap fails. Just means it'll reset quicker so at worst you'll be running a empty cartridge for the full cycle, and by about the 2nd or 3rd refill most people would be tired of buying new ones anyway.
I had actually always joked about having 2 different Glade Plug-Ins plugged into one of those 2 channel clappers, then clap a random number of times to confuse the clapper into turning on either one or the other or both channels... Never actually tried it, kinda neat that this got developed instead...
So, whats the difference with the old model? (which I have)
That one also remembers at which position it was before.
Im super late to leave this comment but I looked it up and the scent he showed us is literally named "Spiced Apple"
For some reason the 3volution units themselves cost about $10 on Ebay but over $290 on Amazon?
I also assume you can swap the individual bottles inside the plastic housing. (Eg, Bottle 1: Spiced Apple. Bottle 2: Cotten Fresh. Bottle 3: Peaceful Night, things like that.)
The bottles can be interchanged in the holder.
Last time I used any air freshener like this, it was the original Glade Plug-In. Or maybe it was v2.0, because it had the adjustable odor output. It did... OK, I guess, but the cost of refills was ridiculous, and it seemed like such a waste with all these little glass bottles gathering up around me... I started using cheap liquid potpourri to refill them, and managed to get one or two more runs until the sheath around the wick came unglued. The biggest drawback was the potpourri residue at the outlet of the freshener. I gave up using them right around the time Walmart started selling store-branded refills, which were more reasonable in price, but still had an uncomfortable amount of glass and plastic waste.
I use one of those fully-automatic time-delay flamethrowers, minus the ignition source. lol
I have one of those, problem is that thing eats batteries like nobodies business, rechargables even more so.
Hi BigClive, I was wondering if you ever took apart a Vise on the channel? It might be simple inside, but I am curious to know & wouldn't want to take appart the one I got gifted from my father 😂👌
Clever, mostly because I never would have tried it. I expected that electrolytic caps would have a high enough self-discharge to be useless for retaining the voltage for more than a few minutes.
My experience with high voltage caps (with no safety bleed resistor) is that they don't behave in this useful manner. They typically self-discharge in minutes or hours. They also have 'charge recovery' that potentially makes them dangerous again if you only briefly short them.
I like the way the default (NO on the switch) results in the heaters going to full power, so that a gadgie switch will always use up the oil bottles at the fastest rate. That way any unsuspecting user will just keep buying more bottles - Nice little earner that is. They obviously know who's paying their wages!
Immediately I was thinking 'Open it, take it's soul!!' 😊
That's what we need, a T-1000 model intelligent air freshener. I for one, welcome our air freshener overlords. When they go sentient at least will have good smelling air when we die at their hands.
Remember doing some analysis on one of them a few years ago to see what the fragrances were composed of.
Probably packers like diethylene glycol with small quantities of ultra potent aroma chemicals.
Now if your room doesnt smell bad they sell these options with more than one container to make your room smell bad then the other container will make it smell good again! Totally worth it!
I think I use these the same as most people do. The scent is strong at first but then as you get used to it you stop smelling it. Then even if it's half full I'll buy another one. Then use the other one till I stop smelling that and then put the first one back in. I still always get each 'chamber' as I'll call it being used at different rates. One thing that's interesting to do is swap the bottles around to create new combinations.
I reckon that the evaporation process effectively distills off the volatile aroma leaving just the carrier liquid. There a staggering amount of science going on behind the scenes in aroma creation.
i have always wondered about these
thanks so much
wish you had looked at the older model too to see what else might be different.
Nice and honest design. I'm surprised that there is no barcode or RFID dickery to lock users into using original cartridges. If it was made by Nespresso or Apple I wouldn't be surprised if this unit required online activation and some sort of subscription.
Big Clive drills it, do you don't have to!
High praise when he said it was clever.
I used to repair train ticket vending machines and was confused by the coin system, the machine knew if a coin tube had been removed and replaced even if all power to the machine was off, on the PCB's in question there was nothing "smart" and no backup battery etc., confused me for ages but I reckon it must have been a similar system to this, it was fairly tamper/fraud resistant as well as you couldn't get to the PCB in question (to bypass the check) without removing the coin tubes, and removing the coin tubes dumped all the coins in them into the cash box before you could take the tube out. Wish I still had some of the parts, the machines were considered obsolete when I was looking after them (they ran OS/2 warp) and have now all been pulled out the ground and scrapped. SNCF still have them in use in France though.
A typical day fixing the machines :-
ua-cam.com/video/li8tQhfp6IY/v-deo.html
This was the coin sorter carousel, inserted coins dropped into the next available slot, then they could either be returned to the customer, dropped into the relevant change coin tube or if tubes were full dropped into the coin box. It used rotary solenoids which could stick so I reverse engineered the protocol and made a simple Arduino based test board so I could check them, it could also test various sensors on the board, one of which was a piezo disc that sensed when a coin had dropped into the slot ad they could come unglued or the thin wires soldered to them would break.
ua-cam.com/video/vXho3X5UXOo/v-deo.html
You should review the HybridLight Atlas 600. Solar or micr usb charging, powerbank and lantern. I love mine.
Should try the Vanilla Latte. I love that smell. Shame it’s so hard to find
Yet again another nice tear down and reverse engineering. QUESTION. I understand the power rating of through hole resisters but is there a rating on smd resistors ???
Yes. The higher power SMD resistors are physically bigger.
5:15 I do wonder about this sort of brick thing being fed with 240V 30A - but you did say it has a fuse in it.
it's not 30A
@@4lecsg No, but the wiring supplying it has a 30A fuse, or a 32A breaker, though I do suspect that the little bits of wire from the integrated plug will act as a pretty effective fuse.
@@4lecsg Go check the fuse/MCB in the consumer unit for the circuit it's connected to. Probably 32A - whatever current they actually trip at. Ditto with phone chargers and all other electronics bricks.
@@millomweb That's why British plugs have fuses in them. (Sometimes the Chinese even wire them up.) Not a bad idea actually.
@@j.f.christ8421 Brit plugs yes but what about power bricks ? I guess many do but do all of them ?????
Thanks for the tear-down. But I wonder how many users will actually unplug the thing every day for 12 hours.
Likely the resistors in the heaters are the same 15k resistors, as used on the board as voltage dropper. No need to buy another part, just take the one bandolier of resistors and have a few people taking a resistor off the tape, folding the leads on a jig, and stuffing the resistors into a plastic housing, then passing to the next guy, who is pouring the plaster of paris slurry into the holes, and putting them on a rack to dry. The last person takes them after drying, and wipes excess away, and then they go through to the rest of the factory to be assembled.
Indeed clever design. MCU can easily tell when cartridge was changed, even, when adapter is unplugged. 👍 That part of schematics can be used in different designs.
Closest to this idea is concept of using Mosfet, resistors and capacitor as a timer.. I did it in children's light sword because manufacturer put 20mA tact switch in LED circuit where consumption is 80mA.. Before that I changed switch 2 times, at third time I added Mosfet timer circuit and kids loved it.. 😂
The MOSFET and capacitor timer is a sweet circuit. Often used for the backlight displays on cheap meters.
Your accent sounds so wonderful!
That's interesting, my parents have one of these. If it ever dies I might cannibalise the parts, maybe those transistors might sound decent in a fuzz face or something
The scent wars have begun, oddly with themselves. P&G also makes a dual Febreze dual freshener. Maybe we will see a 4, 5, 6 smell freshener?
That capacitor just is used to know whether to re-I it the memory of how much fluid you have used up.
But where is the actual memory of how much fluid is used up? It much be in SRAM in the microcontroller? And the micro controller must also remain powered? Or is it in flash memory in the microcontroller? I’m guessing flash.
Did I miss that part or was it never explained that the ‘countdown’ is not kept in the capacitor?
Any counter for fluid level will be writes to internal memory. but with a wide time between writes to prolong memory life.
i am a bit confused. i understand the capacitor memory would work one way, in that, when the unit is turned on and a new cartridge has been fitted, it will "think" new cartridge, 100 hours of use, then stop. but if you plug it in with old cartridge and capacitor still charged, wouldn't it have to have a memory as well to "think" old cartridge, 24hours of use remaining, before stopping? i guess it does, the difference being it needs to know if you changed the cartridge or not when power was off.
That's one of the marketing gimmicks of those things, they said "up to 90 DAYS OF FRESHNESS" or something like that. The reality is most people won't put it on low because you can hardly smell it and I bet most people won't put it on a timed switch or turn it off for 12 hours every day. Therefore the actual life of the very expensive cartridges, when used in a real world scenario, isn't very long.
Awesome big Clive
Been using a Fabreeze (sp) Dual since end of June. Only has 2 big class items that unscrew the same way but the lights on top (1 ) doesn't tell me when it is empty and our power isn't great around here so clearly no backup memory via a battery on it.. So that bit is useless. Been using the Glad version as it's the cheapest one from Dollar General
A discrete 1bit DRAM memory thing 😎 clever
Technically speaking SRAM.
That seems to be a useless feature, I can't imagine many people would look at the leds to see when it thought the cartridge needed changing. Surely 99% of people would only change the cartridge when it stops smelling. But for the price of them it should have more features, I would have expected it to make me a cup of tea in the morning.
Let's the manufacture add 'smart' or 'intelligent' till the product packaging, thus making it look more attractive to the illiterate masses.
Aye that's what i do. I'll buy one. It'll smell great, then when I stop smelling it I'll have another on standby to put in. Then when that one stops smelling I'll put the other one back in or a new one I've since bought.
I was thinking this too, but I think what this does it prevent the first cartridge from getting wiped out. If you run this on a timer, or unplug it daily, it would keep resetting back to the first cartridge. This scheme will allow it to pick up where it left off. (I think)
@@asicerik Yes, preventing wearing out #1 cartridge makes sense. The unit has three little windows where you can see the fluid level, so there'd be no need for an LED "empty" indictor light.
@@kimchristensen2175 I've found the best way to not have these things run out of juice is to never buy them to begin with
2:59 Hmm yes, the switch here is made out of switch.
Gonna use that reset, cute as can be.
Another great one Clive 👍
Now I want Clive to modify it and cook Spiced Apple Cinemon Buns with it
210 more to 1 million!
Quite a lot more than that.
Does this Plugin has the same fade defy technology from the US Plug that allows the plugin to ramp up the heat by time to ensure first day fresh to same last day fresh?
I don't think it has that.
A single BIT dynamic RAM with a 64 day refresh rate ?
Hi Clive, I'd love for you to do a video on batteries, most lithium batteries I come across in small devices (ipod, switch, phones etc, have 3 wires or terminals, a positive, negative, and I never understood what the other wire is doing, or what the circuitry inside the batteries themselves are doing. Also some drill/portable tool batteries have these mystery extra terminals, iv tricked a bosch drill into accepting a makita battery, by measuring the resistance from this other terminal to ground or positive, and then replicating it using resistors, but I'd like to know what's actually going on there.
Clive, wouldn't the MOSFET stay on anyway, without the capacitor, until it is electrically switched off? Is the capacitor just a bit of an insurance policy to make sure this eventuates?
It would need something to maintain a gate charge predictably.
If it's not remembering which cartridge was last used, when I have mine on a smart plug just on for an hour at a time why would they all run down? I would have expected number 1 to be empty with 45 minute use, with number 2 only somewhat down being only on 15 minutes each time and number 3 completely full? Puzzled!
I would expect that too. I'll have to test that.
How does it detect when the bottles are empty as it says on the box or manual the lights flash when refill is needed ? Strange
It's based on time and detecting when the bottle has been changed.
Does this thing bump up the power over the 90 days as the bottles slowly dry up?
No.
When you just need a single bit of DRAM!
That bit of the circuit remembers the change state, but where does it store the operation count, the MCU has no power loss input, unless it goes into a low power SRAM hold state as the voltage drops, or holds the use count in flash memory.
Surely they don't use the capacitor as an analog use count?
The capacitor is purely for unpowered cartridge change detection.
Out of intrest now geek bar vapes are in the UK are the batteries after the vape has been used any good for home projects?
Have some friends who are now using them and will happily take the batteries if you could do anything with them!
Many disposable vapes have standard rechargeable lithium cells in them. They can be reused quite a few times if charged to 4.2V at about 100mA.
Is there any technical reason why would they not replace the MCU with a 2$ ESP8266-like module, and make it "really" smart? You could program different aroma profiles depending on time, weather, etc.
Cost.
I'm a computer engineering student and I've taken all of my circuits classes. I can do some light reverse engineering, but I don't think I could do it on the level of clive. Will that come with experience, or do I just suck and need to study more?
You will learn alot by taking things apart. Everything makes more sense over time.
Nice job!
Another interesting video. Thank You.
Mate love your work, what is a good circuit for wrong and correct polarity.
What voltage and AC or DC (AC to determine which leg is referenced to ground)
Oh that is a nice redesign of the traditional three aroma units. Just wondering actually if at some point you could disassemble the new IKEA VINDRIKTNING air quality sensor which uses 3 LEDs in a traffic light arrangement to show current room air quality; I got one today and just curious to what would be inside
I'll keep an eye out for one. There's no Ikea here.