Pocket floodlight teardown - with schematic
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- Опубліковано 4 лют 2025
- A very neat little light aimed at mechanics and other trades where a pocket sized work light is handy.
I'll guess this is also available under different brands from other generic tool supply companies.
The circuitry is a lot simpler in this light than many other similar units. The PWM dimming frequency is low enough to be on the borderline of being annoying.
The power the unit runs the LED array at is very high. Chopping some resistors did yield very usable light levels with much higher battery run time. I still prefer a head torch (head mounted light) for more focussed light where I need it.
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I retired from Sealey at the end of April 2023. I worked in QC dept, this item did not appear in my time. It would have been drop tested power tested and working time tested. My job was to test items which arrived without a valid RoHS certificate ie test for Lead and other banned materials. No surprise they left my office in boxes marked Plastic/Electronic/Batteries/Metals and Other materials.
I bought a surprisingly bright key-chain light from my local petrol station about a year ago, which too has a magnet on the back and charges via USB-C. I thought the magnet would be very handy, should I find myself grovelling under the bonnet of my car at night.
Stupid here forgot the whole front end of his car is made from aluminium...
Is your car put together with aluminium bolts?
There was a time I brought a flashlight with a magnetic tail cap up a ceiling and it was a mistake. The magnet attracted a bunch of rust and metal dust from the roof that fell on top of the ceiling that by the time I got down the black tail cap was brown. (Popped the magnet out to not make that mistake again.)
Made a similar mistake before with magnetic USB cables and left the part that separates from the cable on the phone. After a few days of using the phone outdoors the cable does not contact the magnetic pins anymore due to all metal particles that got attracted to the magnets. Had to clean both ends for the cable to work again properly.
I find magnets are nice when they work in your favor but when they unnecessarily just attract random metal particles its a headache.
Landrover Defender or Audi A8/A2?
Everybody is so fancy with microcontrollers when a simple rocker switch high-off-low will do the job just fine.
I don't think that would help the waterproof rating and would also be particularly prone to being accidentally triggered, which could be a fire risk or, at the very least, discharging of the lithium cell and damage to the LEDs.
Yes but a switch won't do the vital SOS function!
@@zebo-the-fatthe one that everyone hates?
To an old bugger like me what you are saying sounds right. But these days a microcontroller is probably cheaper.
You already need the circuitry for charging, so you will have to pay for the PCB. And a rocker switch costs a lot more than a tactile switch, and all of a sudden the extra cents for an MCU isn't that much anymore. It always, always comes down to cost.
I was going to call you a Sealy Billy until you went and got the right tool to open the lamp!
You still have one of the highest like to views ratios. 👍
An entire computer to run a light. The mind boggles.
Wait for the AI 😜
1.7 Amps through a 0.5 Ohm resistor is 1.445 watts. I wouldn't expect that tiny surface mount to last long.
Yeah. It seems to be done a lot. I'd rather replace all these resistors with a higher value to make up a chosen value.
Well you just answered why there were initially 3 separate resistors.
A way of removing things stuck together with the foam tape is to use a piece of dental floss as a wire saw and work the floss between the two pieces stuck together. This will cut the foam, separating the pieces.
@@orion310591RS 3 0.5w 1210 smd resistors would work just right there.
@stellamcwick8455
A drop of oil as you use the dental floss helps to keep it from sticking back together.
I love these little lamps. Lidl’s
Parkside brand did a set of mini work lights like these, with an extra tradition torch lamp and a flash red strobe mode.
If I didn't already have too many torches and lights I'd get one. It looks handy. Don't really like the heatsink so close to the battery though.
That's why Clive tears it down for us! 😊
Thanks Clive.
Not possessing the knowledge you have for electronic control circuitry, I rely on you to help me modify my electronics without ending up with an expensive pile of bricks.
Now If I can figure out how to do away with the seizure modes on my flashlights.........
You could 3d print a spacer to go between front and back shells and stuff it with more cells.
I upgraded a BT speaker with this approach. Rather than “where do I get a new battery” I thought “what’s the biggest battery I can get in here?” It runs for days now.
@@wimwiddershins or you could buy the slightly larger Sealey 10W pocket floodlight that costs £2 more and comes with a 4.5Ah battery. (Sealey LED1000PB)
Shop around, there are places selling them for ½ the RRP.
Great Teardown Clive....Thx
"Why yes it is, and I *am* happy to see you!"
I had a Snap-on version that I found lying in the road... it was excellent (not sure the COB rating) I did look it up... being Snap-on, it was seriously expensive, about £60 and that was nearly ten years ago!
I bet it was accidentally left under a bonnet/hood by a mechanic.
I found my Snap-on flood light the exact same way! Crossing a major street I didn't see it till I stepped over it! Use that light at night every night since! No strobe feature thankfully! Dimmable too!
Thanks Clive a nice little work light, I would use it for squid fishing. Jim from Scotland
Honestly, I read "Pocket Fl___Light" very different than what it actually was for a second.
This one would only be suitable for warming the tip.
Hmmm… What a thoughtfully bright idea‼️
I like that it has a lipo over an 18650, I don't like the plastic tabs digging into it. One good drop, and it could go nuclear. Lol
Lipo on metal hot cooler ist dumb and most 18650 can take some impact. This bulgy lipo sack burst into flames much faster
Having used many soft case lipos in rc car both 10th and 1/8 scale you would be very surprised at how much abuse these batteries can take. Around 37mph into a tumble to then having the battery fly out and tumble some more on a tarmac car park, got a couple of years out of 5000mah turnigy soft case packs getting many weekends off abuse
@@HootMaRoot having seen clive take apart street lithium from vapes and done the same with ones that have literally been ran over and flattened by cars i can confirm that these pouches are surprisingly resilient
Hey Clive. Working at a Sealey dealer (and we occasionally get some of the intriguing samples via sealey as Andrew mentioned) I can get my mitts on anything lighting wise you get curious about so let me know! I've often wondered about these lights for chucking in my search bag. Now I know!
Interesting! Thanks Clive.
Giddyup. Our ST:TNG future is here! 😅🤘🏻
Could you put a smoothing cap over the output to tame the flicker (and maybe turn the strobe into a 3rd "lowest power" mode)?
That would probably negate the first dimming level and just soften the edge of the strobing.
What bothers me the most is that it has a lithium pouch cell(s) in between components that get warm. I'm not sure how much to worry about that, but using that battery as a heat sink just seems wrong.
I popped a big lithium cell drone battery on purpose to show a friend to prove how dangerous these things are and it farted the grey gas which ignited explosively followed by the ridiculously hot flame jets. In less than 10 seconds after self-ignition all that was left were weightless ashes I have no plans to do that again any time soon, it scared both of us, even though I'd prepared to contain the fire.
Since the micro is powered all the time, it would be worth measuring the standby current. Does the Lipo have a protection circuit build in to prevent over-discharge?
They have those at Canadian Tire. Which is very similar to Harbor Freight or Menard's in the USA.
First i thought you say it's from the brand Silly. But it look really decent work light!
Looks like a well made light and does have potential .But heat dissipation seems to be an issue with many .common problem when you want to reduce size
Sealey make some nice stuff, good quality hand tools and workshop gear. I’ve got one of their oxyacetylene torches that will probably outlast me.
As far as I know the deterioration of a LED really takes off around 45°C of dye temperature. Maybe check with a IR camera, and adjust for maximum life expectancy of the LED's too. Of course with only 45°C you will also be fighting ambient temp.
As an american, bruan puck light from harbor freight with housing broken or taken off is similar. Still would never keep in my pocket. Streamlight wedge is just too big but i keep around due to ease of use.
The EMOS (Legrand) P4543 uses the same housing but has a curved lens and claims to be 1200 lumen.
The "Spanish" EDM 36108 looks exactly the same as the EMOS but it says it's 15W and 1000 lumen...
The green Sealey floodlight versions seem considerably more expensive, one is higher power than the red version, the other is lower power.
Perfect
I think I found my new bicycle lamp.
I had a quick google for this, and Sealey seem to have at least 3 distinct Pocket Floodlights they put their name. one at 7W ( available in many colours), and another 10W which has a bigger battery and a USB A output, so can be called a "powerbank"
The one you've reviewed is the cheapest, and looks like a more convenient form than the stick ones I've been using. Head torches are good but when you're working on something that's in some hard to reach spot with things to reach around (wiring inside a dashboard or round the side of an engine), it's nice to be able to stick a couple of lights in the cavity and get consist lighting that doesn't change as you move your head. I just need to remember to always take them out again!
There was one 0.5Ω and two 0,39Ω resistors? Was it the two smaller ones you snipped?
I took out the two .39 ohm resistors. It's a trade-off between intensity and run time.
Aldi just had these in
What's the price like compared to Ali Express knock off? Great video.
It has a mode that step down after 2 minutes.
What are the two screwdriver sets making appearances in this vid? Anything interesting, or Poundland specials?
I'm at that annoying stage where I am really quite good at the handicrafts required for electronics--soldering, desoldering, SMD assembly, heatgun for solder paste, breaking and splicing wires and so on but I still really struggle to understand what things do in a circuit and why.
I know a MOSFET is some kind of successor device to the current-amplifying transistors I remember from being a kid. I also _think_ that it being 'p channel' means that altering the current through the base pin will alter how much current the entire device passes. However I cannot recall whether the current goes up when the base pin current goes up or if it is inverted! Or does a MOSFET work off the voltage of the base pin rather than the current? It is this kind of thing I find almost impossible to learn from textbooks or reading things online. Sadly I am suitably thick that I need it explaining to me in words of a half syllable!
It would be really cool if you would do a series on very basic concepts like that Clive--something to give a toe-hold into the topic and a place from which to build which goes a bit further than these tear-down videos. Still use something straightforward like this torch as the basis for a tutorial but give a bit more detail--like explaining what the MOSFET component does, what impedance is, how it is related to the battery and why it is a bad thing. The problem is so much in electronics requires other tools to understand it. For instance you cannot really appreciate how things change in a circuit without at least a multimeter and really an oscilloscope... Yet the latter are absolutely impossibly expensive even in 2025! I cannot justify burning through £700 for even a bog-standard one. I always think of an oscilloscope as like an active electronic graph-plotting device!
I hate it when they put usb-c because it's mandatory but they fail to implement the actual charging standard.
i thought that pouch batteries shoud not be squeezed since that is what Samsungs Note 7 phones brought to self ignite, Samsung bought batteries from another vendor, which size slightly deviated from spec and during charging these spicy pillows can expand due to gases. If that gets restricted the separation inside them can fail and bridge anode and cathode
If the extra resistors reduce battery run time and strain the system and well add to building cost but barely effect output then why include them?
Reminds me of the Harbor Freight's "BRAUN 750 Lumen Rechargeable Ultra-Compact Magnetic LED Floodlight" (except the latter has no carabiner or strobe capability)
The lithium battery is just waiting to catch on fire. 🤣
Yeah, I saw that, and thought: "I'll stick to alkaline batteries for something like this thanks. I don't care if it makes it thicker, I don't want a metal fire in my pocket."
I think lithium cell fires are not as common as to warrant that level of concern. There are probably around 100 billion cells in regular use and just a handful of catastrophic failures a year and alot of those are user modified devices, etc. That's pretty damn safe, I certainly don't lose any sleep over it.
@@OnlySlightyRadioactiveexactly lol. How many of your phones have burst into flames?
Trapped in the back of a car - lolololol :)
How could you bypass the mode chip so you can just switch the light on and off, without any other modes?
Clive did you just fat shame the battery lol
Interesting
If a mechanic got stuck in the boot of a car, they could use this to alert attention (1:19). There's obviously an audible mode (which may not help the now-blinded mechanic).
Heatsink, directly on to a battery. . .
There is a slight space, but it's not great.
Strobing is good when you are hunting for someone also armed. It is hard to see into strobing because your eyes can't adjust. so many pistol attached flashlights come with strobing...Of course, I strongly suspect such is not allowed in the UK.
Does anyone else prefer "whip this circuit board out" over "pop this circuit board out"?
It would've been interesting to know how hot the LED gets. 13W is a lot for not having a real heatsink.
Well, that battery definitely isn't at all going to get utterly roasted by hot LEDs butted up agaisnt it at all, best keep that one in the Explosion Containment Pie Dish..... :S
Not tat, what's going on.? 🤣 Interesting video.
Thanks :)
Don’t know if I missed it or not but is the case plastic or zinc / pot metal?
Plastic. He mentions it when he takes the COB out and the screw posts are cracked.
I love a good sealey
I hate that strobe on all these lights. I just need a light with an on/off switch for speed but then that strobe activates, it's so annoying.
anyone got a link to buy this?
Does it remember the light setting when switched off ready for switch-on BC? If not then if you have to go through the accursed flashing mode in order to select the brightness makes it a definitely "do not buy" for me.
It doesn't. But it does go through a logical sequence. Low, high, strobe.
Could you do a video to eliminate or bypass the click flashing light...
ie battery to bulb with resistor to run and possibly dimming.
Anti epilepsy upgrade 😻
I don't like the possibility of puncturing the battery also the heat.. 3? Amps🤔
It's not just conduction but radiation and a unventilated space.
I have an idea for a video... could require a microscope 🔬
Take a debit/credit card apart.
the LED reminds me of a cracked egg 🍳
I don't buy any flashlight/torch that has that dam blinking function. If I get one from Amazon because they didn't say it has it in the description, I send it back. The flash function is not needed for shop use. If it's a bike, camping, or running light, it is useful. China needs to let us know this. No more flashey, # No more flashey, No more flashey, No more flashey, No more flashey.
Great vid - Now, will it still light when on charge? Many of these rechargeable devices cut out when charging, but using this for bench filming I'd need it to stay functional when on charge. Either that or cut out the call altogether and hardwire it perhaps....
It does. But they advise against it.
That's not a 10watt LED! A 10w LED emits roughly the same light as a 60w incandescent bulb. I have a torch/flashlight with a 10w Cree and without the lens and reflector on it, lights up my living room quite brightly. With the lens and reflector I can overpower one 55w halogen headlight or even my 35w HID headlight. It claims to be 1016 lumens and uses 2x18650 batteries in series/parallel. It charges from a USB A, can charge another device, and is a torch/flashlight. I can't buy a replacement battery for it, so I disassembled the battery and replaced the cells myself with larger 3000mah high drain batteries.
A lamp that has to have a processing chip, to me is not a simple lamp.😎
Gaz Yorkshire.
Looks like a fried egg.
White plastic ring, and a clear plastic lens . . . covered in fingerprints . . . ;-)
The PWM alone is a deal killer for me.
Kinda want NGL
Does it support USB-C PD charging?
Only at 5V.
Does this one start to slowly lose intensity a few minutes after you leave it on? I have a Parkside (Lidl) 20W battery floodlight at work that starts dimming down very, very slowly a couple of minutes after you turn it on, yet I can notice it doing that in very small steps, and its very clearly been programmed to do that. When you turn it off and back on, it comes back at full power and does it again. I wonder why they do that, are they hoping we don't notice it getting dimmer so the battery lasts longer, or is it because they decided to not install a proper heatsink in the bloody thing and are trying to get the LEDs to not overheat? It's really annoying because initially it's actually impressively bright. I also own a small handheld work light from them that does the exact same thing.
And yes, the floodlight has the obligatory strobe and SOS mode, because of course it does.
@@redpheonix1000usually its the temperature of the led which causes the drop by the driver... But the 18V Lidl floodlight doesn't not do that with a fresh 4Ah so maybe your unit is defective
It's to reduce the heat dissipation of the LED array.
Please Stop the really ugly ai languages. The German which applies automaticaly is really bad.
not sure, but it may be an automatic UA-cam thing
UA-cam is enabling that for everybody, you have to change it yourself, click the ⚙ icon and choose the original audio track.
@@ruben_balea i know, but i have to do it over and over again.
Are you married or do you have a gf because you don't have any ring on your finger ( i am a relatively new viewer and i am purely just curious)
that question is so strange, why do you need to know?
@@HAWK9002 what a weird question. Why does it matter to you?
His livestreams over on Twitch on Saturday will answer your question.
Single for life.
Clive does wear a plaster on his finger on occasion. Not sure if that helps you at all? 😂
I went to sealey hq for business today in bury St Edmunds
I find your videos incredibly relaxing, and I wanted to express my gratitude for the time and effort you put into creating them! 🫡👍