LEDs roasting on an open wire 🎵 Big Clive nipping at your heat shrink The sound of tortured LEDs screaming And folks dressed like Firemen beating down your door 🎶
Why do I now have a mental image of Clive just chomping down on some person's leg, like still had a pair of jeans on, but it's severed off of the body and he's holding it like someone would who is eating a turkey leg or something, but he pauses when he notices we are looking at him with puzzled looks on our faces? Interesting.
LEDs are more than just for light. LEDs are a lifestyle. LEDs are life. BTW, the usage of "Pound Shop" brightened my day due to my mind still getting the giggles out of silly things like that! 😁 And, forgive me, but I was just being goofy initially.... 😋 Ugh, I'm bored and my Roku has been buffering the entire time I've used writing this so I haven't even gotten to watch it yet!!!! 😢
@@nimoy007 I hope you are satisfied with the knowledge I sat here dumbfounded for a moment wondering why you were watching or listening to anything regarding those two animals getting it on with a Christmas theme or something? I don't even want to know..... 😂🤮😁 Edited: I forgot to add I read it wrong originally to read something like "Dogs on Cats, Christmas special" or something like that....🙃
That casual "oh shit" is brilliant🤣 On a serious note, I usually aim for 15mA forward current on LED's, although they can run higher, I find they create a concerning amount of heat.
It's almost like they know these are going straight to the landfill when they make them. -Make the product as cheap as possible, -Get a bunch of people buying them for gag gifts or what not, -Get used max 3 times, -Then throw them in the trash.
It's taken me decades to convince my mum I can't stand cheap 'disposable' novelty gifts. She still buys them for others. People need to change. Just give me the cash!
@@MG63 It's fun to blame the Chinese but they only build what we buy. It's not like we're even trying to stop these from being sold here. "The liberty of businesses to destroy the planet cannot be trampled on."
When you first plugged them in they drew 1.575 Amps at 2:05 , then were quickly 'semi-damaged' down to 1A. Before settling at 300mA. Chinese 'engineered obscelesence' has become noticeably more aggressive.
I'm worried that their actual plan was to just cook the LEDs until they were damaged enough to draw a reasonable current. They might as well be incandescents.
@@ZephodBeeblebrox Ironically, this LED string was designed by Boris along with the implementation of Brexit and his COVIDcritter super spreader party at 10 Drowning St. last year (that party supposedly cost him and his wife 1000 pounds each thanks to the police). At least now the UK has a cute chick as PM, maybe she will be a bit better than Boris the Russian was (yeah, I know he was born in the US but Boris is a Russian name). Current PM Liz can either shape up the PM's office and do well or end up dragged out of 10 Drowning St. in cuffs at this point. I think the chances of the Tories winning the next election are pretty slim after Boris' dismal performance.
That's a fine product that is safe and compliant with all the product safety regulations required in the UK, you can tell this as it has a UKCA logo on it... XD
Be interested to see what the current draw would do to the LEDs if you added a phone to charge at same time my phone has 5v 6A charging would been interesting to see how they'd a react on that as for that fast charge no data lines with would shunt it straight through the leds
I had the reflex to disconnect the plug as soon as I saw the current, my arm actually twitched a little bit before the brain stopped everything saying "it's in the video you dingus, you can't disconnect shit, watch those LEDs suffer the worst of deaths"
I thought I wound up in an alternate universe for a second!? Never been to this channel before and was so so fused it wasn’t Ashens or Atomic Shrimp or even DankPods lol
My guess is that someone on the assembly line went "ooh, look. They still work without the resistors" so stopped putting them in. I had a poundland Christmas snowman with a colour changing led across 5v before, bought another and it had a little pcb with a resistor and the led. I guess sometimes people get lazy or run out of components
Back in my secondary school days we fried and exploded various obsolete electronic components by connecting them to various voltage sources for lulz. We found that red and green LEDs can work directly connected to AA battery long enough to become bored to wait when they pop. I was not too lazy and read few physics and electronic theory books earlier. So realized that voltage drop for these LEDs was just right to not fry them from AA battery. Seems Chinese artisans found the same but didn't bother themselves about checking the LED ability to withstand higher voltages.
@@KrotowX There are quite a number of red LED chemistries out there from 1968 GaAsP to those stupid red-painted "white" LEDs, but most of the "real" red ones have 1.6 to 2.0V voltage drop so should work with a single AA (1.6V -> 1.2V). The issue is that their current and thus brightness drops sharply with voltage as the battery is depleted - current limiting resistors with higher input voltage prevent that.
@@jwhite5008 "those stupid red-painted "white" LEDs" I don't know it's the same thing you're talking about but I'm starting to see color LEDs that are basically InGaN blue/UV with tinted phosphors over them to make them green, red, orange etc. It's very noticeable with red and green because they look very washed out with a subtle blue/violet glow where the LED chip is. Red looks more pink, while green has an almost sickly fluorescent hue to it. I'm guessing manufacturers are doing this so that they can use the same value resistors in all of their designs, rather than having to use different ones for each individual specific color that has its own voltage drop and this requires a different resistor.
I've had a similar light for 3-4 years, and we love it. It has no USB, tiny bare colored LED lights, and thin copper wires insulated with clear lacquer. It runs on 3 AA cells or a Li-Ion hack. It turns on automatically when you choose every day and shuts off in 8 hours. Batteries last 4-5 days. No danger or device damage possible!
Pardon me if I'm showing my lack of knowledge but with how genuinely horrified Clive sounded at first and how promptly he unplugged them, are those a fire hasard?
For anything low current (like these lamps) drawing 1A from USB is a sign of a possible short circuit somewhere. Also really thin wire exists (with fat insulation) that won't carry 1A.
Using resistors with LEDs was literally one of the earliest things I’ve been told, either when soldering at school or looking at circuits e.g. Arduino. They likely didn’t add one because of reducing costs and ‘it works without them’ (as in they power on and light up).
I've screwed up breadboarding projects on occasion and turned LEDs into DEDs (dark emitting diodes). I even managed to blow up a couple of DIP optocouplers until it dawned on me the input was a bare LED without any current limiting.
I had a former employer who was doing education and they didn't use resistors on LEDs and still don't really understand why they should be used. This is somebody getting paid to teach.
Hi Clive, I have a keyboard from local store I bought cheap as chips it was only $20 . But I was hoping for circuit bend but found a chip with so many unused places like IO IN VDD ... What do these stand for I can't find any relative info...
It's probably a custom chip. If you run your fingers over the low voltage circuitry while playing notes you may find the oscillator that can be "bent".
Let's be honest, if someone's dumb enough to buy an electronic device or anything that plugs it from a pound-store, natural selection was never on their side
When I saw that figure, I just assumed he had a phone plugged in... Then I saw the empty end of the cable he'd just put down and decided his current meter must be faulty. 😂
I wonder what were to happen with one of those (or even one with proper resistors) if the data lines were connected through and charger and device negotiate USB-PD at 20 V.
Wow, just... wow. Those LEDs actually surviving 125+ degrees is testament to just how good they actually are, components now days have to survive lead-free soldering processes, so they seem to be hardier than their 2000's counterparts, which were an order of magnitude better than the parts of the early days! Only way to make sure they fail before next season is to cook 'em; or it's the grinch getting mad that the christmas lights stopped lighting themselves on fire!
@@trickster721 It's not unusual to see that figure listed as a peak value, but that is a very short pulse! I've seen transistors desolder themselves, so yeah they can'handle' it - but probably don't work as well as before...
Here in the USA, our Dollar Tree stores -- roughly equivalent to Poundland, having recently introduced $3 and $5 tiers, as well as marking up their $1 tier to $1.25 -- has LED flashlights that for years have had similar construction. Lasts about three days. Needless to say, I only ever bought one.
yep, many small (maybe big ones as well) led torches here in the uk, use leds direct off 3 AA cells, at 4.5v, so if you put good capacity cells like alkalines in, they get a tad warm😉 they seem to work perfectly ok off 3 nimhs so thats what i use
I work in in the US and in the electronics department of a big box store and I’ve got to check to see if we have these. I have little issue tanking the sales of a product for safety.
A friend of mine is always buying cheap charging cables and other cheap electronics from Poundland. I have warned him of the dangers of these cheap things, even to the point of showing him some of your videos. He recent bought a mains multi USB chager from Poundland and the inevitable happened and it caught fire.Thankfully we were in the kitchen and got to it before a major fire broke out.
Looks like they just set them all up in parallel, and are hoping the phone will pull down the voltage enough to avoid catastrophe? Do they behave any different when there is a device on the other end? Not that it fixes anything, because yikes anyway...
Considering phones are unlikely to charge below around 4.8v and once its fully charged the voltage will go back up again, I can't see that this was their intent. Its just absolutely baffling on all levels. Then again, having LEDs on a charging cable is pretty mad to start with given you want all that current for the actual charging. I wonder if the cable is even thick enough to take 2.4A? Although I melted the USB plug on a USB to DC jack cable off eBay from pulling 2A, still not sure if it was high resistance in the plug or the wall adapter that just put too much heat into a poorly make plug.
@@darwisyaiman1865 Only two wires. Communication with the device is generally required for multi-voltage chargers to bump up the voltage. Except for some dumb chargers which always put 9v onto a USB port. Those are great for frying your "friend's" devices.
@@alexatkin Not to mention the obvious scenario where you leave the charger plugged in but disconnect your phone when you're done using it, leaving the charger sat where it is until next use (ie how most people use phone chargers)
If the string were chilled to zero degrees c, would they go back to drawing an amp or more? In that case, I can't decide whether the LEDs would last longer or not.
You obviously have a lot of knowledge about these things, however, one thing that is omitted is an explanation of the significance of these things that you discover. Take, for example, the item drawing over an amp ( volt?? ) [ 2:15 ]. What does this mean? Why is drawing over an amp ( volt?? ) remarkable? What would you expect it to draw? Is there a fire or safety hazard here? I'd like more explanation and comparison, please.
Perhaps they thought that it would remind us of those older Christmas tree lights that would set the live Christmas tree on fire. If this set of lights are intended to be used with your cellphone as a charger, the fire Marshall's investigation team can always blame the cellphone's Lithium battery as the cause for burning down the entire house!
@@skylined5534 definitely UK too. We had a string of lights that we used on our plastic tree in the 70s and even as a 5 year old I had already had it drummed into me to make sure none of the lights were anywhere near a branch, tinsel or a bauble! They did get so hot.
Pound Land was hands down the best brothel experience I've ever had, I do miss their Christmas specials and I still have the mystery gift they gave me, I have a cream for it but it doesn't do much.
The price of escorts in the UK tripled when Pound World went out of business. Now the going rate for an hour with a cute, kinky escort is 2500 pounds. A full night with an escort is 6000 pounds. It is probably cheaper to go to Ireland or France and pick up an escort there. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
@@markevans2294 AA cells are still pretty wasteful though, since LEDs like this would go through a set of cells quite rapidly. I'd go for the 18650 (or other Li-Ion cell) + TP4056 route and add a single resistor for the whole set to limit the current (or at least some other sort of current limiting device).
@@TheSpotify95 Wasteful in what way? It takes the same amount of energy per watt to charge a Lithium AA cell as a Lithium 18650. As you said it would only effect runtime, which does not meet the criteria for being wasteful
id honestly be interested in how much current can make it past the LED's when you hook up a load like another battery bank so far its just wasting all its power burning the LED's and not charging whatever its plugged into
Well, the cheap and nasty cable between the USB plug and the first LED is going to be limiting the current a bit, so by the time said current has made it all the way to the other end, you may be lucky and get maybe 200 to 400mA to charge your phone!!!
@@Mark1024MAK would have been interesting hooking up the power meter to the other end as well. Maybe one at each end to see current out from the powebank and into the load simultaneously.
@@Mark1024MAK I just tested mine with the Ampere app. Plugged in a 1A charger and the app sais I'm getting 800~900mA to the phone somehow. I'm confused... Is the phone acting as a resistor for the LEDs or something?
Did you notice the insect running 'round the back of your left hand at around 3:44? It's in and out of frame quickly a few times so you might need to set the playback speed as low as possible to catch it.
Maybe it is made from leftover sections of normal LED strings that weren't long enough to get to a useful length. They just chopped to short lengths and moulded connectors on the end. The constructions looks like it.
No, these strings are wired wrong no matter how you use them. There really needs to be some sort of current limiting component (such as a resistor) for each individual LED in the string, no matter how you drive them or how long the string is. Any longer strings made this way would just consume even more ridiculous amounts of power and fail just as fast...
@@foogod4237 Well, the longer strings may be intended for current-limited power supplies given they're all identical white LEDs rather than a mix. Still, even if they're theoretically identical, it's still suboptimal to put them all together without individual current limiting, even if that's _technically_ something that you "should never do but often get away with".
@@foogod4237 Cheap (and shitty) current limiting can be achieved by powering blue or white 3,6 V LEDs with two AA-Cells (3V). Seems they used a LED string that was intended to be used that way.
Sadly, none of the dollar stores in my area have anything like this or indeed any interesting electrical/electronic stuff at all, nor does the local Aldi. However, hearing this was from a shop called One Below gives me hope. A Five Below is coming to the local mall, hopefully in time for Christmas.
Prepare to be disappointed. Five below has a lot of overpriced candy and novelties and stuff you could get cheaper at Wal-Mart. They don't have a lot of electronics and what they do have is almost guaranteed to be overpriced.
@@bubba99009 My $5 below currently has some 80GB 2.5" HDD's priced at $10...probably low spec 5400 RPM drives!!! I'd be curious just to buy one and shuck it to see what brand of drive it really is!!!
Impressively bad - only query I had was what effect it would have adding a phone to be charged on the other end? I presume it would exacerbate the current draw further while dropping the voltage across the LEDs ... I bet a real phone wouldn’t be happy with it. Maybe worth some extra tests?
especially when they're selling it to the pound store for 60-75 cents. The materials, the hot glue, the heat shrink, it all adds up. Add 8 resistors and boom, there goes your profit margin. 😂
if they used a resistor on each led. would that have impaired the charging current for the phone? don't they need a separate wire for the phone charger?
if the LEDs are on the same line as the charge wire i don't know how it would charge a phone if they had resistors ,so it's a no go from the start surely?
I wonder what happens if you plug it into a 1A charger with a phone connected - does the voltage sag down to 3V? It'd be a very dumb way to regulate them but I'm sure someone somewhere might have thought it was a good idea.
No, it won't get anywhere near 3V. A phone won't be able to charge much under 4.4V in principle, and they usually need a fair bit more than that before they even try for real.
So about why did they do that like this: I've had once a string of LED with identical shrink warp without plastic cap and they were a long string of LED light connected to some simple controller. I guess they were current limiting by lots of LED in one strip. So they just have taken the ready product without modifying it , cutting it short and adding some connectors.
What are the current indicator resistors in the plugs like? At worst it tells the phone to pull 3 amps, then you can get a draw of 4.5 amps from a 0.5 amp USB port. Nice way to blow up your motherboard...
Using 5v straight off the bat, so what happens if you plugged it into a normal wall charger which is normally 5v 2amps and charged a phone, would it draw power away from the LEDs or overdrive the plug?
So, the only resistor is the USB tester shunt. I wonder what happens if they will be connected to a modern 12V 30W USB charger. I think it will blow up something.
Not every led fails quickly ether when you over power them. I had one actually catch on fire witch I was shocked cause I never ever seen that happen before. That's crazy lmao!
The beauty of a fire-based design is that if LEDs aren't available, you can just use regular diodes, or any component really. And if wire isn't available, you can just stick the LEDs directly in the socket, without even having worry about polarity.
I wonder if they intended this to be used with olde USB2.0 500mA current-limited port/charger? But then this "changing cable" won't actually charge anything. The "lamp" packages (hopefully) contain a couple of parallel LEDs
I'm surprised they didn't immediately blow when plugged in. I connected a LED directly to 5V once and it flashed briefly and died, leaving a tiny black mark on the inside. I guess their thought was that when a load is plugged in it will limit the current to the LEDs, so you definitely shouldn't be leaving this one plugged in when it's not in use, which means you probably shouldn't be using it at all, because who doesn't leave their charger plugged in all the time?
I'm paranoid and unplug EVERYTHING that is not in use from the wall, almost died in an electrical fire and still sometimes have nightmares about it lol
After a long day my tired brain decided to check if the 9v battery was dead and causing my circuit not to work... by placing an LED across it. There was a loud pop and suddenly I was only holding half an LED. I wisely called it a night at that point 😂
@@KempPlays I did that once mucking around I had my head in the boot of a Mini clubman and stuck an LED across the 12 volt battery for shits and giggles. It sounded like mini firecracker and the end flew off, lucky I didnt get it in the eye.
@@KempPlays Half an LED, philosophically, must _ipso facto_ half not be. But half the LED has got to be, _vis a vis_ its entity. Singing, Lah-di-dah, one, two, three, Kemp's half an LED! A-B-C-D-E-F-G, Kemp's half an LED!
I am not too sure if this right, but there are LEDs with built in resistors. If the LEDs do not have resistors, shouldn't that pull the voltage down to the Led voltage ( maybe 2.2 -3 volts) ?
I think the reason why they slapped them in there like that is because after about month and a half to they're going to be so dim burnt out. That where you're going to have to go buy another string and probably another phone. 🤣
i always cut off the adapter pieces to have full capability of charging for anyone who could ask and borrowing anyones also. would the original charger damage your phone?
Not fair, we can't get crap like this at our Dollar Stores here in the USA. They never have anything with LEDs in it. Not even the ones that catch fire. This is not right.
I'm guessing these don't comply with the USB power negotiation specifications and risk overloading the power supply, or a phone not charging due to a lack of advertised power. If Quickcharge devices are connected to both ends, do they get ruined by 12 volts?
I wonder if they weren't intended to be wired in series and someone along the line "optimized" the design by eliminating the LED power wiring and grafting them onto the phone charging wires.
If they were meant to be in series then the USB charging aspect would no longer work, as it would be under 5v. I recon it was meant to be a resistor per led, and someone being paid not a lot got lazy
i doubt you'd get a fire from these, the current needed to get hot enough may trip off the charger/psu or the cable may self limit current enough, i bet its copper coated aluminium , or very thin real copper, it may well blow open at a bit more current
Presumably they're only supposed to last about 2 weeks with them being cheap seasonal product? I was wondering if the resistors have an affect on the charge capability? Maybe they left them out so that the current can get too the phone? At least when the lights pop you know Christmas is over right 😅🤟
4:50 4.73 volts 😉 edit: yes you corrected v/a mixup 😉😉. Also, I really would like to see a phone being charged to see the results with a proper termination. i suspect the current draw would be ... interesting. pls do update BC. Cheers.Your mate, Rob.
When I saw in the box "Phone Charger" I got: Hmmm, what does that even mean, lol. Maybe it's a phone charger with integrated lights, or it uses the "phone charger" slot to power the lights. Nice video
They probably figured once you plug your device into charge, it's going to take most of that load from those LEDs that's why they probably didn't put resistors on it.
Nobody ever leaves the charger plugged into the wall. Specially near a cold window with a wooden frame and highly flammable curtains. Come to think of it, they are designed in a way to make things around them glow 🌟 brightly.
If they plug into a phone rather than the output of a charger rated at 5v, would the output of the phone be only 3.6v lowering the input current essentially?
I guess that's one way to save money, skip the resistor cost and when they burn out in a few hours (as opposed to 50k hours) hope the customer buys another. But it also looks like they are relying on the temperature coefficient of the silicon to limit the current, as the hotter they get the less current they draw. They'd probably fail alot quicker if it was plugged into some sort of flasher with 125mA peaks each and not given enough timt to heat up much.
I have a similar "charging" cable that I bought five years ago, it look the same with one critical difference: mine are flashing so that's why I never noticed them getting hot (they also are going between 0.12 and 0.19 amps).
Well seems you get the quality you pay for. I would consider this to potentially be cause for civil action on the retailer for selling "unfit for purpose product". In worst case potential fire hazard.
I'm new to soldering and getting led to work. When i heard you say 5v to LEDs is mad, I opened my eyes and put resistors on my LEDs. I didn't know. I mean I knew it was bad for the LEDs but I thought they could take it.
HyperValue was just as bad. The only thing worth having there were the Rocket batteries. They cost a fifth of what Duracell cost, you needed 4 sets to equal the life of a Duracell so you did come out on top by a fifth of the price of Duracells.
I'm not any sort of particularly knowledgeable electronics person but I would have liked to see what the voltage/amperage was with a load like a cell phone to charge plugged in as well.
Quite considerate of them to add the feature of heating up, to aid in their disassembly.
I prefer higher speed spontaneous disassembly!
The hot glue is the heat sinking compound.
I was wondering if Clive would bother to show the schematic for this. I think he forgot that due to shock of the bad engineering...
@@bsod5608 I'll help you along, draw a 5V rail and a 0v rail and draw several leds in parallel between those rails. It is as simple as it is bad.
@@ralfvandeven3155 i know i know, silly stupid circuit.
I love how you can tell the exact moment when Clive sobers up after seeing the power draw.
That was definitely a fast & painful sobering up.
For real, I had the same reaction when I saw that it was drawing over 1 Amp just for the LEDs
YWNBAW 50%
@smelly paws your mom doesn't love you
2:05
LEDs roasting on an open wire 🎵
Big Clive nipping at your heat shrink
The sound of tortured LEDs screaming
And folks dressed like Firemen beating down your door
🎶
Wtf?! 🤔 That was awesome!!! Thanks for the giggle! ❤️❤️❤️
Not bad; needs a little work on the syllable count and meter though.
@@KJ6EAD yeah, it should be Big Clive nipping at some Ale...
🤣 That is so good!
Why do I now have a mental image of Clive just chomping down on some person's leg, like still had a pair of jeans on, but it's severed off of the body and he's holding it like someone would who is eating a turkey leg or something, but he pauses when he notices we are looking at him with puzzled looks on our faces? Interesting.
I like the way that using the phone charger is not optional. The draw from the phone is the only thing that will save the LEDs.
Dangerous and Dodgy Electronics Season, truly the most wonderful time of the year!
Chestnuts roasting on a charger wire ...
Yupper. Have a Holly Jolly Christmas. The best time of the year... Except when they are drinking too much egg-nog in the Chinese assembly plant.
:-)
And thanks to an incompetent government, almost no checks at UK borders.
🎶🎵🎶🎶🎵 *It's the most flammable time of the yearrrrr!* 🎵🎶🎶🎵🎵🎵🎶
*LEDsGoneWild* would be a good name for a Channel that calls out LED lights that are *_Very Dodgy._* 😁
I'm surprised the LEDs didn't just burn out immediately. They were actually kind of self regulating after a while!
An LED is for life, not just for Christmas!
Only if it has proper drivers!
LEDs are more than just for light. LEDs are a lifestyle. LEDs are life. BTW, the usage of "Pound Shop" brightened my day due to my mind still getting the giggles out of silly things like that! 😁 And, forgive me, but I was just being goofy initially.... 😋 Ugh, I'm bored and my Roku has been buffering the entire time I've used writing this so I haven't even gotten to watch it yet!!!! 😢
This reminds me of British comedian James Acaster's bit about "A dog for Christmas" on Cats Countdown. XD
@@nimoy007 I hope you are satisfied with the knowledge I sat here dumbfounded for a moment wondering why you were watching or listening to anything regarding those two animals getting it on with a Christmas theme or something? I don't even want to know..... 😂🤮😁
Edited: I forgot to add I read it wrong originally to read something like "Dogs on Cats, Christmas special" or something like that....🙃
@@skiptoacceptancemdarlin thanks. 😒
I snorted laughing when I noticed your message. 😂😁
That casual "oh shit" is brilliant🤣
On a serious note, I usually aim for 15mA forward current on LED's, although they can run higher, I find they create a concerning amount of heat.
Probably because he already knew before making the video and had to feign shock.
It's almost like they know these are going straight to the landfill when they make them.
-Make the product as cheap as possible,
-Get a bunch of people buying them for gag gifts or what not,
-Get used max 3 times,
-Then throw them in the trash.
Exactly. Throw away products. Cheap Chinese sh it. Poundland, Wilko, The Range, the list goes on.
It's taken me decades to convince my mum I can't stand cheap 'disposable' novelty gifts.
She still buys them for others.
People need to change.
Just give me the cash!
you not only saved me a comment but you made the point better than i could have.
@@thebrowns5337 gift cards are the best gifts. Then I can buy my own Christmas Lights after Christmas.73
@@MG63 It's fun to blame the Chinese but they only build what we buy. It's not like we're even trying to stop these from being sold here. "The liberty of businesses to destroy the planet cannot be trampled on."
Wonderful teardown! The panic unplug had me in stitches.
I didn’t think I’d be ending the evening watching a drunken Scotsman eviscerate Christmas lights, but here we are.
I feel an annual tradition in the making.
Clive
I am happy I am not the only one who gets excited when I see Christmas lights for sale in September! Thanks for the work you do for us
When you first plugged them in they drew 1.575 Amps at 2:05 , then were quickly 'semi-damaged' down to 1A.
Before settling at 300mA.
Chinese 'engineered obscelesence' has become noticeably more aggressive.
But, what will happen if a led dies? Does the current go up, or all leds stop working? And then, how does the charging react?
I'm worried that their actual plan was to just cook the LEDs until they were damaged enough to draw a reasonable current. They might as well be incandescents.
@@peterschets1380 they are connected in parallel so nothing happens if one burns up. Even if all of them burn up it will still charge the phone
Maybe the Chinese call this 'tempering the LEDs'?
@@hagen-p
Bad temper(ing)!
I haven't seen Clive being actually surprised in a while.
If you know an LED that is being abused please call your local help line.
I'm afraid the LED abuse hotline was an EU thing and went away when Boris showed his arse.
"Oh shit."
@@ZephodBeeblebrox Ironically, this LED string was designed by Boris along with the implementation of Brexit and his COVIDcritter super spreader party at 10 Drowning St. last year (that party supposedly cost him and his wife 1000 pounds each thanks to the police). At least now the UK has a cute chick as PM, maybe she will be a bit better than Boris the Russian was (yeah, I know he was born in the US but Boris is a Russian name). Current PM Liz can either shape up the PM's office and do well or end up dragged out of 10 Drowning St. in cuffs at this point. I think the chances of the Tories winning the next election are pretty slim after Boris' dismal performance.
That's a fine product that is safe and compliant with all the product safety regulations required in the UK, you can tell this as it has a UKCA logo on it... XD
Actually it's a UCKA (Universal Chinese Kwality Agency) logo it just happens to like a UKCA logo.
@@thegorgon7063 Just like CE stands for China Export...
@@bigmouthstrikesagain4056 no, ... just that our standards, like everything commented upon above, is SHipping ... to china!
@@bigmouthstrikesagain4056 it's likely not the standards but rather products pretending they're compliant with them
Probably just one more thing the Chinese have faked.
That's just insane. Suprised these poor LEDs didn't die in like several seconds without any current limiting.
They're designed to fade along with everyone's enthusiasm for Christmas.
The LEDs lasted longer than my enthusiasm for Christmas 🤣
Christmas is still my favorite time of year, despite my family's attempts to be as miserable as possible during that time.
My enthusiasm for christmas faded in August as soon as crap ads came back 🤣
Especially when it starts in late-September!
Be interested to see what the current draw would do to the LEDs if you added a phone to charge at same time my phone has 5v 6A charging would been interesting to see how they'd a react on that as for that fast charge no data lines with would shunt it straight through the leds
Your reaction was the same as mine when it said they were drawing 1amp!
I had the reflex to disconnect the plug as soon as I saw the current, my arm actually twitched a little bit before the brain stopped everything saying "it's in the video you dingus, you can't disconnect shit, watch those LEDs suffer the worst of deaths"
Would charging a device make the power going to the LEDs lower?
It should as would be more load
This looks like a device for converting LEDs to SEDs or NEDs. (smoke emitting diodes or noise emitting diodes)
Or DED's (Dark Emitting Diodes)
Does anyone know where to get a bottle of genuine magic smoke for the SEDs? Guess they need to be refilled after one go.
Died Emitting Diodes 😉
Might have been NEDs with a more powerful powerbank.
@@jeremiahbullfrog9288 What? I can't hear you for all the echo.
I thought I wound up in an alternate universe for a second!? Never been to this channel before and was so so fused it wasn’t Ashens or Atomic Shrimp or even DankPods lol
My guess is that someone on the assembly line went "ooh, look. They still work without the resistors" so stopped putting them in. I had a poundland Christmas snowman with a colour changing led across 5v before, bought another and it had a little pcb with a resistor and the led. I guess sometimes people get lazy or run out of components
Chinese Factory probably burnt down before Christmas rolled around and people plugged them in
Back in my secondary school days we fried and exploded various obsolete electronic components by connecting them to various voltage sources for lulz. We found that red and green LEDs can work directly connected to AA battery long enough to become bored to wait when they pop. I was not too lazy and read few physics and electronic theory books earlier. So realized that voltage drop for these LEDs was just right to not fry them from AA battery. Seems Chinese artisans found the same but didn't bother themselves about checking the LED ability to withstand higher voltages.
@@KrotowX There are quite a number of red LED chemistries out there from 1968 GaAsP to those stupid red-painted "white" LEDs, but most of the "real" red ones have 1.6 to 2.0V voltage drop so should work with a single AA (1.6V -> 1.2V). The issue is that their current and thus brightness drops sharply with voltage as the battery is depleted - current limiting resistors with higher input voltage prevent that.
Assembley line workers don't make manufacturing decisions.
@@jwhite5008 "those stupid red-painted "white" LEDs"
I don't know it's the same thing you're talking about but I'm starting to see color LEDs that are basically InGaN blue/UV with tinted phosphors over them to make them green, red, orange etc. It's very noticeable with red and green because they look very washed out with a subtle blue/violet glow where the LED chip is. Red looks more pink, while green has an almost sickly fluorescent hue to it.
I'm guessing manufacturers are doing this so that they can use the same value resistors in all of their designs, rather than having to use different ones for each individual specific color that has its own voltage drop and this requires a different resistor.
I've had a similar light for 3-4 years, and we love it. It has no USB, tiny bare colored LED lights, and thin copper wires insulated with clear lacquer. It runs on 3 AA cells or a Li-Ion hack. It turns on automatically when you choose every day and shuts off in 8 hours. Batteries last 4-5 days. No danger or device damage possible!
Pardon me if I'm showing my lack of knowledge but with how genuinely horrified Clive sounded at first and how promptly he unplugged them, are those a fire hasard?
very much so, they're basically going to keep heating up until something fails or they light up in a different way
It's only a fire hazard if you DON'T want them catching fire. Otherwise it's just another lighter.
For anything low current (like these lamps) drawing 1A from USB is a sign of a possible short circuit somewhere.
Also really thin wire exists (with fat insulation) that won't carry 1A.
Yep, perfect for getting your Christmas pud going.
If you use them with like a old nokia 150ma chargers than it's probably fine.
Remember when electrical products had to carry the BSI kitemark?
Before deregulation freed up the market to set fire to our homes?
Using resistors with LEDs was literally one of the earliest things I’ve been told, either when soldering at school or looking at circuits e.g. Arduino.
They likely didn’t add one because of reducing costs and ‘it works without them’ (as in they power on and light up).
I've screwed up breadboarding projects on occasion and turned LEDs into DEDs (dark emitting diodes). I even managed to blow up a couple of DIP optocouplers until it dawned on me the input was a bare LED without any current limiting.
I had a former employer who was doing education and they didn't use resistors on LEDs and still don't really understand why they should be used. This is somebody getting paid to teach.
Engineers cost too much money on a project retailing for a pound or whatever.
And it'll break in time to buy another cable again soon!
330 ohms is your buddy
Hi Clive, I have a keyboard from local store I bought cheap as chips it was only $20 . But I was hoping for circuit bend but found a chip with so many unused places like IO IN VDD ... What do these stand for I can't find any relative info...
It's probably a custom chip. If you run your fingers over the low voltage circuitry while playing notes you may find the oscillator that can be "bent".
wow, they sell a burn-your-house-down machine at the dollar store?! Who'd have guessed!
Let's be honest, if someone's dumb enough to buy an electronic device or anything that plugs it from a pound-store, natural selection was never on their side
The pure panic. Never seen clive get so serious so fast. 🤣
Edit: I guess that's what they mean when they say it's a 1A cable, right??
When you first plugged them in they were drawing 1.575A...and yeah I gasped at that too!
When I saw that figure, I just assumed he had a phone plugged in... Then I saw the empty end of the cable he'd just put down and decided his current meter must be faulty. 😂
My phone negotiates with my charger at 2.4 amps. What would that do to those LEDs? I shudder thinking about it.
@@covishen Nothing more than this does, since they're still running at 5V.
I wonder what were to happen with one of those (or even one with proper resistors) if the data lines were connected through and charger and device negotiate USB-PD at 20 V.
Wow, just... wow.
Those LEDs actually surviving 125+ degrees is testament to just how good they actually are, components now days have to survive lead-free soldering processes, so they seem to be hardier than their 2000's counterparts, which were an order of magnitude better than the parts of the early days!
Only way to make sure they fail before next season is to cook 'em; or it's the grinch getting mad that the christmas lights stopped lighting themselves on fire!
Over six times the proper current! It's a minor miracle.
@@trickster721 It's not unusual to see that figure listed as a peak value, but that is a very short pulse!
I've seen transistors desolder themselves, so yeah they can'handle' it - but probably don't work as well as before...
I'm frankly amazed they lasted as long as they did!
@@KomiyanVT
Good god your original message... that's bang out of order...
Mentioning lead free solder!
The best part of these vids is Clive going in with the best of intentions, and then finding out just how unscrupulous manufacturers can be.
The best part of this vid, in particular, was _"Oh shit!"_
Big Clive says: Only *you* can prevent LED abuse!
You mean LED fires don't you?
I might have to admit I have a problem. For the last few years I've been abusing LEDs quite regularly. Anyone know the number for LA?
@@Quickened1
Swoosh.
@@skylined5534 back at ya...
Here in the USA, our Dollar Tree stores -- roughly equivalent to Poundland, having recently introduced $3 and $5 tiers, as well as marking up their $1 tier to $1.25 -- has LED flashlights that for years have had similar construction. Lasts about three days.
Needless to say, I only ever bought one.
yep, many small (maybe big ones as well) led torches here in the uk, use leds direct off 3 AA cells, at 4.5v, so if you put good capacity cells like alkalines in, they get a tad warm😉 they seem to work perfectly ok off 3 nimhs so thats what i use
Poundland does have way more expensive stuff nowadays, like big laundry bottles for a fiver/tenner and other knick knacks
@@ZaJaClt yeah , and a lot of the £1 stuff has shot up in price ...
@@ZaJaClt Sounds more like our "Dollar General" discount stores -- _generally_ under $10... but don't count on it!
"They've actually directly wired the LEDs to 5 volts. That's odd"
I would've used a different word, but I guess it works.
@Jeroen Its a way of selling the ever expanding market in empty apartment flats they have.
Dooodgyyyy...
I work in in the US and in the electronics department of a big box store and I’ve got to check to see if we have these. I have little issue tanking the sales of a product for safety.
Slightly tiddly and rather disillusioned Clive is my new favourite Clive!
A friend of mine is always buying cheap charging cables and other cheap electronics from Poundland. I have warned him of the dangers of these cheap things, even to the point of showing him some of your videos. He recent bought a mains multi USB chager from Poundland and the inevitable happened and it caught fire.Thankfully we were in the kitchen and got to it before a major fire broke out.
Looks like they just set them all up in parallel, and are hoping the phone will pull down the voltage enough to avoid catastrophe? Do they behave any different when there is a device on the other end? Not that it fixes anything, because yikes anyway...
Considering phones are unlikely to charge below around 4.8v and once its fully charged the voltage will go back up again, I can't see that this was their intent. Its just absolutely baffling on all levels. Then again, having LEDs on a charging cable is pretty mad to start with given you want all that current for the actual charging.
I wonder if the cable is even thick enough to take 2.4A? Although I melted the USB plug on a USB to DC jack cable off eBay from pulling 2A, still not sure if it was high resistance in the plug or the wall adapter that just put too much heat into a poorly make plug.
I wonder if that 5v can melt hot glue how about fast charger that can go 9v can it survive?😂
@@darwisyaiman1865 Only two wires. Communication with the device is generally required for multi-voltage chargers to bump up the voltage.
Except for some dumb chargers which always put 9v onto a USB port. Those are great for frying your "friend's" devices.
@@Kineth1 yes it do that on my charger when 'dumb' usb cable connected😂 i fry my 1.2v battery connected to it 🤣
@@alexatkin Not to mention the obvious scenario where you leave the charger plugged in but disconnect your phone when you're done using it, leaving the charger sat where it is until next use (ie how most people use phone chargers)
If the string were chilled to zero degrees c, would they go back to drawing an amp or more? In that case, I can't decide whether the LEDs would last longer or not.
8:04 Classic USB plug moment 🤣 we've all been there 🤣
Three positions of a USB A connector: up, down and correct.
every ... single ... time ...
Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance uses it as a one off visual gag, it's great
wrong..wrong..right
@@ferrumignis Most of the time it's correct though
You obviously have a lot of knowledge about these things, however, one thing that is omitted is an explanation of the significance of these things that you discover. Take, for example, the item drawing over an amp ( volt?? ) [ 2:15 ]. What does this mean? Why is drawing over an amp ( volt?? ) remarkable? What would you expect it to draw? Is there a fire or safety hazard here? I'd like more explanation and comparison, please.
Perhaps they thought that it would remind us of those older Christmas tree lights that would set the live Christmas tree on fire. If this set of lights are intended to be used with your cellphone as a charger, the fire Marshall's investigation team can always blame the cellphone's Lithium battery as the cause for burning down the entire house!
Was that a USA thing only? I'm not sure it was in the UK.
Or do you mean those bubble lights? Reg I think they look cool!
@@skylined5534 In the olden days (80s and 90s) Christmas lights frequently caused fires. No that's not a US thing, happened across the UK too.
@@Stettafire When i was a kid they were called candles.
@@skylined5534 definitely UK too. We had a string of lights that we used on our plastic tree in the 70s and even as a 5 year old I had already had it drummed into me to make sure none of the lights were anywhere near a branch, tinsel or a bauble! They did get so hot.
Pound Land was hands down the best brothel experience I've ever had, I do miss their Christmas specials and I still have the mystery gift they gave me, I have a cream for it but it doesn't do much.
The price of escorts in the UK tripled when Pound World went out of business. Now the going rate for an hour with a cute, kinky escort is 2500 pounds. A full night with an escort is 6000 pounds. It is probably cheaper to go to Ireland or France and pick up an escort there. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
All is not completely lost - buy 4 sets, cut the plugs off, wire in series , and you have a set of 32 lights!
Alternatively replace the USB A with two AA cells.
Which may be how the string was actually intended to be used.
@@markevans2294 AA cells are still pretty wasteful though, since LEDs like this would go through a set of cells quite rapidly.
I'd go for the 18650 (or other Li-Ion cell) + TP4056 route and add a single resistor for the whole set to limit the current (or at least some other sort of current limiting device).
@@TheSpotify95 Wasteful in what way? It takes the same amount of energy per watt to charge a Lithium AA cell as a Lithium 18650. As you said it would only effect runtime, which does not meet the criteria for being wasteful
@@markevans2294 Most likely...
@@IraFox84 But who charges AA cells now days?
My mom gave me a set like this a while ago. Never used them to actually charge my phone, but I did use them as decorations in my car
id honestly be interested in how much current can make it past the LED's when you hook up a load like another battery bank
so far its just wasting all its power burning the LED's and not charging whatever its plugged into
Well, the cheap and nasty cable between the USB plug and the first LED is going to be limiting the current a bit, so by the time said current has made it all the way to the other end, you may be lucky and get maybe 200 to 400mA to charge your phone!!!
@@Mark1024MAK would have been interesting hooking up the power meter to the other end as well. Maybe one at each end to see current out from the powebank and into the load simultaneously.
@@Mark1024MAK I just tested mine with the Ampere app. Plugged in a 1A charger and the app sais I'm getting 800~900mA to the phone somehow. I'm confused... Is the phone acting as a resistor for the LEDs or something?
@@lachezardonev9381 parallel circuit innit,
@@lachezardonev9381 - maybe they actually used copper wire for this then 😮
I got given one of these for Christmas last year, only thing I used it for was the adapters to use up all the micro usb cables I had laying around
Did you notice the insect running 'round the back of your left hand at around 3:44?
It's in and out of frame quickly a few times so you might need to set the playback speed as low as possible to catch it.
He ate it
It is possible to get LEDs with integrated resistors for 5v and 12v.
Maybe it is made from leftover sections of normal LED strings that weren't long enough to get to a useful length. They just chopped to short lengths and moulded connectors on the end. The constructions looks like it.
yeah China is getting creative. i think we'll see dodgy USB charging pocketbook mirrors next
Recycling the crap in Chinese way. Unfortunately they didn't understood yet that they must not produce crap from start.
No, these strings are wired wrong no matter how you use them. There really needs to be some sort of current limiting component (such as a resistor) for each individual LED in the string, no matter how you drive them or how long the string is.
Any longer strings made this way would just consume even more ridiculous amounts of power and fail just as fast...
@@foogod4237 Well, the longer strings may be intended for current-limited power supplies given they're all identical white LEDs rather than a mix. Still, even if they're theoretically identical, it's still suboptimal to put them all together without individual current limiting, even if that's _technically_ something that you "should never do but often get away with".
@@foogod4237 Cheap (and shitty) current limiting can be achieved by powering blue or white 3,6 V LEDs with two AA-Cells (3V). Seems they used a LED string that was intended to be used that way.
I think the fact you said you had been drinking before made this 10 times more funny than it should have been. Cheers!
Sadly, none of the dollar stores in my area have anything like this or indeed any interesting electrical/electronic stuff at all, nor does the local Aldi. However, hearing this was from a shop called One Below gives me hope. A Five Below is coming to the local mall, hopefully in time for Christmas.
The "Five Below" stores around me have signs saying: "Tech below 10" so most of this cool stuff is at the "below" $10 price, not $5.
Prepare to be disappointed. Five below has a lot of overpriced candy and novelties and stuff you could get cheaper at Wal-Mart. They don't have a lot of electronics and what they do have is almost guaranteed to be overpriced.
@@bubba99009 Yep. One trip inside one was more than I ever needed. They have a worse assortment of goods than a funnel cakes stall at a fair.
Our Five-Below has a nice electronics section. Mostly USB oriented devices. The Dollar Tree is now all $1.25, thanks Bidenflation.
@@bubba99009 My $5 below currently has some 80GB 2.5" HDD's priced at $10...probably low spec 5400 RPM drives!!! I'd be curious just to buy one and shuck it to see what brand of drive it really is!!!
I had one of these as a charging cable, I used for 3 years, it was great
I'm gonna guess they're normally 3v battery holder ones that someone somewhere just thought "lets wire these up to a charger".
Pretty sure you've nailed the origin of these LED strings.
Impressively bad - only query I had was what effect it would have adding a phone to be charged on the other end? I presume it would exacerbate the current draw further while dropping the voltage across the LEDs ... I bet a real phone wouldn’t be happy with it. Maybe worth some extra tests?
it'd likely make the wire get very warm, any maybe melt the insulation 😉
Designer could not include resistors. 0.08 cents for 8 resistors would ruin the price point and profit margin!
especially when they're selling it to the pound store for 60-75 cents. The materials, the hot glue, the heat shrink, it all adds up. Add 8 resistors and boom, there goes your profit margin. 😂
if they used a resistor on each led. would that have impaired the charging current for the phone?
don't they need a separate wire for the phone charger?
Didn't you hear about the component shortage. We can't go wasting resistors!
if the LEDs are on the same line as the charge wire i don't know how it would charge a phone if they had resistors ,so it's a no go from the start surely?
I wonder what happens if you plug it into a 1A charger with a phone connected - does the voltage sag down to 3V? It'd be a very dumb way to regulate them but I'm sure someone somewhere might have thought it was a good idea.
No, it won't get anywhere near 3V. A phone won't be able to charge much under 4.4V in principle, and they usually need a fair bit more than that before they even try for real.
@@SianaGearz You can't successfully charge a phone below about 4.7V and preferably the voltage would be in the 4.8-5.2V range to charge appropriately.
Darling Clive, as Christmas time is just around the corner i hope that we can put what happened behind us!
Evidently, somebody (China?) knew there was a market for a charger with dangling colored lights. Thanks for the video.
So about why did they do that like this:
I've had once a string of LED with identical shrink warp without plastic cap and they were a long string of LED light connected to some simple controller. I guess they were current limiting by lots of LED in one strip.
So they just have taken the ready product without modifying it , cutting it short and adding some connectors.
Unbelievable what they make and sell. Thank you.
What are the current indicator resistors in the plugs like? At worst it tells the phone to pull 3 amps, then you can get a draw of 4.5 amps from a 0.5 amp USB port. Nice way to blow up your motherboard...
this was really close to a contender for the old "resistor roulett" game, which one will pop first?
Using 5v straight off the bat, so what happens if you plugged it into a normal wall charger which is normally 5v 2amps and charged a phone, would it draw power away from the LEDs or overdrive the plug?
It would potentially overload the charger.
This product was probably tested by plugging into a Chinese cube shaped wall wart which puts out only a few hundred mA at best.
"QC PASS"
@@AsekiBekovy Thanks for reminding me: QC PASS! 😀
So, the only resistor is the USB tester shunt.
I wonder what happens if they will be connected to a modern 12V 30W USB charger. I think it will blow up something.
Not every led fails quickly ether when you over power them. I had one actually catch on fire witch I was shocked cause I never ever seen that happen before. That's crazy lmao!
That wasn't an LED, it was an FED.
@@tech34756 hahahaha
@@tech34756 lmfao!
The beauty of a fire-based design is that if LEDs aren't available, you can just use regular diodes, or any component really. And if wire isn't available, you can just stick the LEDs directly in the socket, without even having worry about polarity.
I wonder if they intended this to be used with olde USB2.0 500mA current-limited port/charger?
But then this "changing cable" won't actually charge anything.
The "lamp" packages (hopefully) contain a couple of parallel LEDs
I'm surprised they didn't immediately blow when plugged in. I connected a LED directly to 5V once and it flashed briefly and died, leaving a tiny black mark on the inside. I guess their thought was that when a load is plugged in it will limit the current to the LEDs, so you definitely shouldn't be leaving this one plugged in when it's not in use, which means you probably shouldn't be using it at all, because who doesn't leave their charger plugged in all the time?
I'm paranoid and unplug EVERYTHING that is not in use from the wall, almost died in an electrical fire and still sometimes have nightmares about it lol
"who doesn't leave their charger plugged in all the time?"
Especially when said charger is covered in decorative lights!
After a long day my tired brain decided to check if the 9v battery was dead and causing my circuit not to work... by placing an LED across it. There was a loud pop and suddenly I was only holding half an LED. I wisely called it a night at that point 😂
@@KempPlays I did that once mucking around I had my head in the boot of a Mini clubman and stuck an LED across the 12 volt battery for shits and giggles. It sounded like mini firecracker and the end flew off, lucky I didnt get it in the eye.
@@KempPlays Half an LED, philosophically, must _ipso facto_ half not be. But half the LED has got to be, _vis a vis_ its entity. Singing, Lah-di-dah, one, two, three, Kemp's half an LED! A-B-C-D-E-F-G, Kemp's half an LED!
Reminds me of the Christmas episode of Shoestring when he was running around Bristol investigating dodgy Christmas Lights lol
How hot did the LEDs get after being ran at 5 volts for some time? That one led was sad at the end
I am not too sure if this right, but there are LEDs with built in resistors. If the LEDs do not have resistors, shouldn't that pull the voltage down to the Led voltage ( maybe 2.2 -3 volts) ?
I think the reason why they slapped them in there like that is because after about month and a half to they're going to be so dim burnt out. That where you're going to have to go buy another string and probably another phone. 🤣
That instant tone shift at "Oh shit. That's not right," cracked me the eff up.
I guess when the retail price is a pound, a few resistors even at pennies each, would eat into the margin considerably.
Not even pennies, when I lived in Shenzhen, China I could buy a 1000 bag of 1/4W resistors for 5RMB. Barely 0.06 of a penny each.
If retail is £1 then cost is likely to be in the region of 30p?
@@nophsp When corner cutting become ingrained in culture, nobody think in sane way anymore.
i always cut off the adapter pieces to have full capability of charging for anyone who could ask and borrowing anyones also. would the original charger damage your phone?
Not fair, we can't get crap like this at our Dollar Stores here in the USA. They never have anything with LEDs in it. Not even the ones that catch fire. This is not right.
Ive found battery powered stuff but no usb stuff at dollar store in us.
Just power that ones with USB and you are done. ;)
I'm guessing these don't comply with the USB power negotiation specifications and risk overloading the power supply, or a phone not charging due to a lack of advertised power. If Quickcharge devices are connected to both ends, do they get ruined by 12 volts?
No data lines, so no negotiation of a higher voltage.
I wonder if they weren't intended to be wired in series and someone along the line "optimized" the design by eliminating the LED power wiring and grafting them onto the phone charging wires.
If they were meant to be in series then the USB charging aspect would no longer work, as it would be under 5v. I recon it was meant to be a resistor per led, and someone being paid not a lot got lazy
That's a rare thing for a pound shop now, I can't remember the last time they made something this sketchy
Is it actually a criminal offence to sell these in the UK because of potential fire risk
i doubt you'd get a fire from these, the current needed to get hot enough may trip off the charger/psu or the cable may self limit current enough, i bet its copper coated aluminium , or very thin real copper, it may well blow open at a bit more current
Presumably they're only supposed to last about 2 weeks with them being cheap seasonal product?
I was wondering if the resistors have an affect on the charge capability? Maybe they left them out so that the current can get too the phone? At least when the lights pop you know Christmas is over right 😅🤟
4:50 4.73 volts 😉 edit: yes you corrected v/a mixup 😉😉. Also, I really would like to see a phone being charged to see the results with a proper termination. i suspect the current draw would be ... interesting. pls do update BC. Cheers.Your mate, Rob.
When I saw in the box "Phone Charger" I got: Hmmm, what does that even mean, lol.
Maybe it's a phone charger with integrated lights, or it uses the "phone charger" slot to power the lights.
Nice video
You know it's a good video when Clive swears.
You know when Clive exclaims "oh shit!" it's gonna be a really good video.
They probably figured once you plug your device into charge, it's going to take most of that load from those LEDs that's why they probably didn't put resistors on it.
Nobody ever leaves the charger plugged into the wall. Specially near a cold window with a wooden frame and highly flammable curtains.
Come to think of it, they are designed in a way to make things around them glow 🌟 brightly.
If they plug into a phone rather than the output of a charger rated at 5v, would the output of the phone be only 3.6v lowering the input current essentially?
I guess that's one way to save money, skip the resistor cost and when they burn out in a few hours (as opposed to 50k hours) hope the customer buys another. But it also looks like they are relying on the temperature coefficient of the silicon to limit the current, as the hotter they get the less current they draw. They'd probably fail alot quicker if it was plugged into some sort of flasher with 125mA peaks each and not given enough timt to heat up much.
I have a similar "charging" cable that I bought five years ago, it look the same with one critical difference: mine are flashing so that's why I never noticed them getting hot (they also are going between 0.12 and 0.19 amps).
Well seems you get the quality you pay for.
I would consider this to potentially be cause for civil action on the retailer for selling "unfit for purpose product".
In worst case potential fire hazard.
I'm new to soldering and getting led to work. When i heard you say 5v to LEDs is mad, I opened my eyes and put resistors on my LEDs. I didn't know. I mean I knew it was bad for the LEDs but I thought they could take it.
A quality product! Poundworld stuff was always a bit dodgy.
HyperValue was just as bad. The only thing worth having there were the Rocket batteries. They cost a fifth of what Duracell cost, you needed 4 sets to equal the life of a Duracell so you did come out on top by a fifth of the price of Duracells.
I'm not any sort of particularly knowledgeable electronics person but I would have liked to see what the voltage/amperage was with a load like a cell phone to charge plugged in as well.