Shoprite LED pumpkin light (is crap)
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- Опубліковано 15 вер 2024
- Bit late putting this video up. But nonetheless I've taken it apart and meddled with it for our entertainment.
I'm not sure if this is strictly local Shoprite stock or some of the stuff they get from the Sainsbury's label. I would expect Sainsbury's branding on it if it was theirs.
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I swear I watch these videos just to get my daily fix of, "One moment please...." So satisfying.
You're not alone
The brand name Osram is a portmanteau of osmium and wolfram (an old name for tungsten) - the two metals originally used for filaments in their light bulbs.
It's still called wolfram / volfram in the Nordic languages, despite the English language name “tungsten” being imported from those languages. “Tung” is “heavy”, so it's literally a “heavy stone”. Same with “potassium”, which is derived from “pot ash” in the Germanic and Nordic languages. But in those languages it's called “kalium”, from Arabic “al-kali”, meaning the ash from a pot.
@@rasmis It's also Wolfram in German, which makes sense considering that Osram is a German company... 😉
So, they could have gone with Wolfium, but decided not to?
@@rasmis > it's called “kalium”, from Arabic “al-kali”, meaning the ash from a pot.
And also where English gets "alkali" and "alkaline" for basic (the opposite of acidic) substances.
Osram translates to "shit on" in Polish
As a kid (1980s) I often wired up little headlights/tail lights on my Lego cars. Had I come across these Red and Blue lights I'd have hit the jackpot, as I often hunted my Dads toolbox for emergency vehicle lights 😍 It was simpler times back then 😆
If it makes you feel any better, blue LEDs weren't invented until 1995, so you would have had to put up with red, yellow and lime green LEDs until then.
I remember doing similar, my dad brought home pieces of scrap fibre optic cable for me to use as light guides.
@@johnclavis I think you could get them before then, but they were extremely expensive, something like £10 per LED.
I had some 80's LEGO lighting elements from a parent when I was little, and they actually had plastic bulb covers for the light elements in different colors, which was really clever. They were little knobby things that you could stick down over a stud on their own. I had blue and green from an old Space set.
You can make a decent Pumpkin light if you drive the base of a transistor with a flickering led and use that to control a bunch of warm white leds.
Pumpkin light and decent hmmmmm
@Shawn Stafford it depends whether the flashing circuit is in the led or not really
Had to wonder how it was a pumpkin light, given it looks nothing like a pumpkin aside from the colour, then the wet fish of realisation slapped me, it goes INSIDE a pumpkin!!! D'oh!!! :P
Ah,the wet fish of realisation.how well I know it's fishy smell.The last time I carved a pumpkin it was lit with a candle.That;s how old I am.
@@burtbacarach5034 we never saw pumpkins so used to carve a turnip, Then use a candle.
Yeah. Contrary to popular belief you don't put the pumpkin over your head anymore - although that would protect you from certain creatures.
Cr*p. I've been watching too much Minecraft content recently here on YT. 😄
Me too.
I'm glad that you explained that, I was thinking that it is just a piece of cr*p!
ShopRite is also a brand of supermarkets in the northeast USA.
Like did they expand to Wales?
@@nyetloki Two unrelated companies with the same name.
@@vwestlife Or so they would have you believe
Were you expecting a high, medium, low, strobe, and S.O.S. mode?
I was expecting something nice.
Ah! A pumpkin light is meant to be put inside a pumpkin. I was gonna say, that thing doesn't look much like a pumpkin.
I bet in a week these will be sold in green as Christmas light :D
Here in New Jersey we've also got a supermarket chain called ShopRite so the title had me very confused for a second
You can't win all the time Clive. But I'm tipping it wasn't to expensive. Worth the gamble.
I have this light in an identical housing (color and text too) and it has flickering orange LEDs. Served me.well for years now.
Well that was anti-climatic.
I had my popcorn and spam with live forks all ready to go...
If the pumpkin light had red and amber LEDs that flickered like flames, it would look really great. In fact, if you took that fire simulator equipment from an earlier video, and scaled it down a bit, that would look absolutely awesome inside a Jack O' Lantern.
Pumpkin light review on the 18th of November. Given the parsimony of us Scots, I'm pretty sure that you bought this on clearance!
Nah, I made the video before Halloween.
@@bigclivedotcom Kindly turn in your Scottish citizen card then!
Basically just trying to cash in on Halloween, is there one nearby that says Christmas light, Easter light, valentine's light...lol I actually kinda like it😊❤️
Dear Clive, ever tried unpotting the blob and taking zoom pictures of microchips? this one might be a good start. does not seem to be much going under the bonnet. cheers!
You did well to stretch it out as long as you did. :-)
I was hoping for a teardown of the Osram original to see why it failed. Maybe next time.
Slice a pumpkin in half, and put the flame effect light behind it. Just a thought. Good luck. 👍
We've got those in California.
Edit: Is there any chance we can get AAA batteries removed from existence? They really are useless.
Some things are too small for AA or larger. Smaller TV or appliance remotes for example. (Not the ones that are flat and use a button cell, but the next size up.) As the other poster mentioned there are AAAAs, used in computer mice and maybe a car key from what I have seen. Basically intended for applications where a button cell is too small, but an AAA is too large. And let's not forget the N, which is like a short AAA, used in a lot of clocks. Yes they're pretty useless for anything that can fit an AA or larger, but in small things that are too cheap to use a rechargeable, they are one of the only suitable batteries that is commonplace.
I was thinking, as I was watching, 'That is just a chip and a resister!', before you opened it up. Thank you for your teaching.
I'm also surprised at the longevity of that spudger. I use a thumb nail , it grows back.
More likely three inverting buffer's in series. A single inverter is very likely to end up stuck halfway on, as a CMOS buffer is essentially a very high-gain amplifier.
That's likely why Clive figured it's a Schnitt inverter gate. Those are far less likely to get stuck on.
I once saw a schematic for a mic preamp that just used a CMOS buffer chip. There’s apparently a very narrow range where it’s linear.
That was ... uneventful! ;) Was nice to see that variable resistor "hack" though!
My Youngest Grandson saw one of those in the Dollar Store with his Mom , So guess Who had to make a trip to The Dollar Store to buy a light . Yeah so anyway Ole Pop's had to pay a Dollar , but figured I best get at least 2 just incase it didn't work or failed very quickly. He played with that light for like 3 days , plus it stormed Halloween Night abit after 11 pm , I went out the next morning, that dang lite was submersed under water in the pumpkin an It was still working, I pulled it out of the pumpkin an water slowly drained outta the lite housing , turned it off an layed it up on its side an the darn thing lite up that nite just pushing the lil button, it ran all thru that nite an by 9am it was just barely lit up .
The dollar/pound shops are a great way for families to entertain kids at low cost.
I have a couple of the original dot-it lights that came in a promotional pack of CFL lamps (the whole lot branded “Sylvania”) that have to be at least 15 years old. One of them lives in a rarely used cupboard and still works with the original batteries. I seem to remember the kids breaking one of them and revealing an actual on/off switch.
The first led light I ever bought, about 15or20 years ago, was in this identical plastic moulding case except colour was white, and branded "Osram" . It wasn't cheap, and had 3 dim whites, only on or off. It came with a sticky mounting (it's still stuck to the wall in the under stairs cupboard, so I could see the gas metre but it was never bright enough!) The worst thing about it was that, to replace the batteries, the whole thing had to be removed which meant breaking the sticky pad mounting.
I seem to remember a light that moved the sticky to a separate plate with a slide mount for battery change.
When I was a kid my parents shopped at ShopRite which is a chain of supermarkets in the southern New England area. Connecticut, down to I think New Jersey.
I bought a pumpkin light at my ShopRite back in the mid 2000s and it's gone through a few different mods and today it lives as a CFL lamp powered by a disposable camera flash circuit running off the 2 C cells that originally ran the pumpkin light.
I had one of those stick up Dot-it lights made by Sylvania.
Where can I get one of those variable resistor things? One of those might come in handy for testing what resistor I need to get to make 9 volt battery powered lights, USB lights, 12 volt lights.
Whatever you do, Clive, DO NOT ! release the BLOB !!
My mum bought some of those lights, many years ago, for dark cupboards in the kitchen. She stuck them to the top to shine light down. All they did was fall down while we were watching TV. LOL.
We use these styles of lights (with white LEDs) for safety lights backstage. I hate these bloody things, exclusively because it requires three AAA cells. I want lights that only require a single AA. We have AAs for days (for out Lav mics), but AAAs are always in very limited supply.
And in this day and age, requiring multiple cells to power low-power LEDs is inexcusable.
I used to go to an electronics shop on Queen Street in Toronto .I had a big gorilla out front .They had tonnes of surplus and new components would spend hours in there looking for parts to make my next project .LEDs were king
That place was awesome, they always made the most illegible handwritten receipts because you knew they weren't declaring most sales to the taxman.
@@michaelstanley5215 just some amazing stuff in there ,military surplus and some restricted tech that if you knew what it was and what to do with it today you would be on a watch list
holy cow! I had one of these like 7 years ago and it was nice when it lasted. I can't believe they are still making them
Dollar Tree sold that same basic unit w/ cool white LEDs (e.g. for closet lights). I, of course, replaced 'em w/ warm white! Also, another dollar store, down the street, still sells one shaped like a turtle. Imagine that body, in green w/ attached head, legs & tail.
I got tired of the solid orange leds light in my Halloween pumpkin being on steady so put in a little 555 candle flicker, easy and there are lots of schematics for various versions
For a second I thought you were in the USA now.
There is a ShopRite in Ramsey, New Jersey, USA.
Just a funny coincidence.
Oddly, I'd expect to find the same product there too.
Although simple that could well be repurposed for other purposes - such as modelmaking where the lighting transitions might be used for more useful purposes? It would also be a useful component for a sci-fi style panel (the old Star Trek era with all those flashing leds!)
Clive's addiction to Poundland tat warms the cockles of me 'eart. Tbf. in this case, Tesco tat.
I always hope for the Vice of Knowledge when you're opening things
Keep it up Clive! Love the projects and taking things to bits =) basically your entire channel! I’ve learned so much about electronics. Rewatch your videos all the time. Really enjoy the project and chat videos
Sylvania used to include those as a freebie with packs of CFLs. They were simple white lights, but the exact same housing. Absolutely crap.
I have (or had, I may have thrown them out) a number of those lights but because of the disease they didn't get used and suffered from battery rot on the terminals. I had them quite a while so I'm not convinced that the original version was Osram. I suspect that like so many companies Osram saw a reasonable product and put their logo on it, much like the Poundland "Kodak" batteries.
Poundland! One of my favourite shops....
Mine is on/off button, but the chip has a 4 position latch; 3/2/1 LEDs on and of course off. The housing is also nickel or aluminum. Of course, the current isn't limited, so all 3 brightness levels are the same brightness!
Even more disappointingly, the LEDs aren't even colour-changing ones - there's red, green and blue, 1 off of each. Boo (in true Halloween spirit).
Are those 3 LEDs pretty closely matched in brightness or does it actually make a difference which LED is on which leg of that IC?
Probably not. The IC probably has constant current open drain drivers so the current should be the same regardless of the forward voltage needed.
They're just random LEDs. Not sure how the brightness compares between them.
I've learned that Shoprite's exist in the UK in today's video. I always thought it was an american super market chain
It might be a name coincidence. I think the Isle of Man one is owned locally.
For a moment I thought it was going to turn out to be a mini "Simon" game. =)
I quite like that colour changing controller IC. Maybe you could make a weird dangleberry light fixture with a few of those ICs controlling different sets of RBG LEDs at different speeds, and mix them in with static warm white and Cold white LEDs for a very interesting centrepiece fixture.
Someone dumpster dived in my pile of used appliance part I left for scrap!! I feel good to contribute 😁
Do you work in a business park with 80-100 companies around, by any chance? (if you get it, you get it)
@@aliveandwellinisrael2507 I work from home 🏡
I have some nice Hatfield resistance boxes, but they work - as do most boxes - in decades. That circular one has less precision but does have a convenient single-turn operation for wide ranges. Are they still available anywhere ?
Not available for at least a dozen years. I got mine from Radio Shack back in the 1970's.
Is that a cartoon “Ebenezer Scrooge” in your avatar? 🧐
Thanks Clive for pointing out a good example of Uriahtronic(sic).
Ah good old Shoprite. Is it still ran by the Nicolsons ? i remember one near to the old prison on Victoria road was like a small shed
Not sure who owns the chain here.
I occasional buy a similar product w/ push buttom top, very similar design and tooling, diffused white LED.
They are so simple to bypass the batteries to usb oirt and run overdriven from a 5V piwer bank.
The designers of digital computers in the 40's and 50's could only have dreamed of making the crap in this blob.
i fu-king love the pop and cracking noise when he opened it.
remind me of the punching VFX and stuff from the terraformar anime.
He called them "color changing LEDs," but they are three different colored LEDs that are rotated between. Ron W4BIN
I bought a bunch similar to those, but standard solid bright white, 10 years ago for unlit closets in my house. Not very bright, not very long lasting.
Yes, and sooner or later the batteries leakes in almost all of them. I had some "name-brand" ones from Osram that had the exact same case as this one.
@@Ranger_Kevin That's why I use heavy duty instead of alkaline in things like this - that spend almost all of their time sitting. Leaking isn't a big deal then.
A few years I took two of these stick-on lights and changed one to slow fade rgb leds and the other got 2 uv leds for a laugh.. Didnt get my vacation days as I was planing so "Now I can get a nice tan and party lights here.. in my cubicle. "
I have a few of the "2 for a £1" stick-on push lights for the shed. Funnily enough I have an older one that flickers (probably due to bad contacts). I remember being impressed of how bright they were vs. the larger halogen push lights.
We got a pumpkin carving set, came with orange flickering led, quite nice
I wonder if replacing the LED's with other colors would give at least a weird brightness pattern? Not having one in circuit might make it 'dark' and break up the pattern more. Or replace the LED's with Transistors and PWM much higher power stuff.
Should have turned up the bench power supply until the smoke came out
I clicked for some hot spudger action.
I was not disappointed.
Interesting. Here in Canada Dot-It is a Sylvania line.
I have found that the good quality items give off a very good light,and last a long time.
That ASMR crackling 😆😆 very nice indeed
Is "It's absolutely fine" an electricians way of saying "It's crap" (title)? If so I got to talk to the guys who did my wiring and told me "It's absolutely fine!".
I was trying to be nice about this not-so-great light.
Can not wait for the video on where you try the Oxfam push light
It's like a mobile disco light from the 1980's!
Only 348 days left so you can never be too prepared
Yeah, I have an OSRAM-era, probably the first generation of knockoff, and it's defective in the same way. I thought the flickering in mine was due to the battery compartment being crap, but maybe the blob just dies after a few years. I'd be interested in a teardown/diagnosis of your red one, though.
I have an original Osram, maybe 8-9 years old, not used much. Have to dig it out and see if it still works.
Best UA-camr ever
I have a tray of odd and ends on my desk - there is a small pilot lamp dating from the 1930's from Osram and on the box it says 'Osram, The Wonderful Lamp'...
I use one of those rechargeable fire flame bulbs in pumpkin 🎃 they look great.
I've got the same light, free after rebate a few years ago, but in black with wimpy white LEDs that do nothing exciting. I was quite surprised there was a blob in yours, my bet was on the LEDs themselves doing any blinking. I have tried mine in a pumpkin, but it's far too dim and far too cold white.
I wonder what it would look like with all warm white LEDs and the speed cranked either up or way down so that the PWM becomes visible to the naked eye
Change out the red and green LEDs with an orange and a white. (Blue is still useful.) Stick under ghost decoration. Done!
3:30 LEDs flashin g at a different rate. Clive must have uploaded a different firmware to the Blob-On-Board(TM) µC.
Oh, wait. Alligator type circuit-pokey-pokey connections where that resistor used to be. Let me guess: the resistor DOES control the timing? 😆
That must be the simplest "not-just-a-steady-light" type of (flash-)light gadget Clive has ever taken to bits for us. No "Intel" inside 🤣of that thing.
I've seen those lights being sold as wardrobe lights. Seems like they've found yet another purpose for those
Was that a light to put inside your carved pumpkin to illuminate it's face? Otherwise the outer case and multicolours would have sod all to do with Halloween.
What do they call a hot dog that has no meat in it ????
A HOLLOW WEENER.
Those lights you got from Osram and any other brands are so cheap, the switches inside even make contact over time and the LEDs gradually fade and show light. It was so eerie back then when I expeirenced this. So weird...
What is that variable resistor thingy called? I'm thinking about getting one myself
I got it decades ago. I don't think they sell them any more.
change all the led's to white and ramp up the speed, you'll get flicker that changes position within a pumpkin ;)
Would love to know where to get one of these "variable resistors". Would love to see the internals too, even if my guess is it's just a bunch of resistors in a circle with contacts like those of a vacuum cleaner at the center of the cable coil.
Surely a pumpkin would absorb most of the light from the different colours (so you wouldn’t see those particular colours.)
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$0.99 at Dollarama.
Only available in Canada.
Pity.
I believe the idea was to put these inside a carved pumpkin which actually would be a good effect.
The name rhymes with the brand. Incredible.
Put diffuse yellow LEDs in all positions for better jack-o'-lantern illumination.
I now want your resisor box! It's amazing, but I'm sure it's not available anymore...
You could buy a few hundred and build a super-super computer.
We have ShopRite in Connecticut, USA. So this titles was a bit of a shock at first... Haha
Commenting for the algorithm. Thanks Clive. 👍
Heh, funny about the name and location. One of the supermarkets where I grew up was ShopRite in Ramsey, New Jersey.
Just pulled apart two of the IKEA versions of these last week for a project.
... waiting for the Osram (plus other models) disassembly
The Blob is a timer micro-controller powering internal transistors ?
Let's keep it even cheaper, just blink your eyes and there is you flickering LED ;-)