I was going to say the same. Everyone has quirks and habits in their speech. Clive presents improv for hours on end (if you watch a few vids in a row) so it's not a problem picking up on a few of these.
Don't change anything about how you speak. It's you! You seem like a friend. I replay many of you videos just for the comfort of listening to you. Wish you were a neighbor.
William Garrett I use nail polish on the Ferret slugs in the on-glass mounted UHF antennas loading coil, once the loading coil is turned to the standing wave you don't want the slug to move from vehicles vibrations.
The nail polish trick is one I've used several times. I've even used it as a poor-mans 'corona dope' for insulating HV terminals in tube(valve) amplifiers. It actually works pretty well,and is cheap and easy to get. The drawback is if you ever need to rework any coated solder joints..the stuff stinks really bad when it burns!
Hi, Love the nail lacquer idea. Will have to do this. In my tests, this device will put out enough light to read by for a solid 8 hours. I have a couple of these in my window for emergency purposes. Thanks for reviewing.
What you did with the "nail polish" is called CONFORMAL COATING and is available to all, but there's even better ways, an air brush driven by ones own breath has been a success I've done and it's almost invisible that way with even smaller fillets on the edges sticking out on the board, I've done custom color designs on boards too that worked a long time, until the boards were obsolete anyway and that even helps in the water tightness for the metal and ceramic objects, it also spreads the heat dissipation a bit.. Dave in Kentwood
Interesting, I didn't know nail varnish would protect against water, the only thing I've heard of using before was Silicone Conformal Coating which is over twice as expensive depending where you look.
Where's the t-shirt that has your quote "I'm not 100% sure."?
8 років тому
I bought a somewhat similar solar powered lamp here in Sweden. But it had a string of lights instead. I let it sit outside for a few long, sunny Swedish summer days. When I took it in and opened it up, turns out its a single, unprotected 18650 sitting at, then, more than 4.3V! I immediately dismembered that thing so that it wouldn't burn up...
Clear nail varnish, aka. "poor man's" Conformal Coating. To be honest, there's not much difference between some conformal coatings and the clear urethane that's used as the clear-coat on automobiles that use two- or three-stage paint systems (base/clear or base/pearl/clear are the ones I've heard of). Urethane paints are typically "paint+activator" systems, so they're not as easy to work with, but they're designed to stand up to years out in the sun/rain/weather. That makes them ideal for coating things that don't like getting wet, like electronic circuits. Unfortunately, they're also not as easy to acquire as nail varnish, unless you can make friends with an auto-body repair shop.
Well I have these lights for a while and funny enough one/two stopped working an came across ur vid, and I am a total newb at electronics and managed to fix them.. so thanks for the vid..
I wonder though if one is not repairable is there a way to re-use the solar panel as a light? As I have managed to charge a battery with it but can not work out how to do a light and use the solar as a sensor.. (one of mine got water in and all bits are not working except a few led's.. 😔
What I found with most cheap solar lights is that the solar panel gets dull from the UV from the sun making them useless after a year. You can get them back clearer by using toothpaste or car polish but after a month they are dull again. Last year I just bought a 2 euro can of clear coat and I over sprayed 2 modules here after the polish trick. They are still completely clear up till now. The can doesn't state anything about blocking UV but this one seems to be doing the trick so far.
+Luc Peeters That's interesting. Particularly if it is blocking the UV to protect the clear coat, but with the added advantage of protecting the cells resin.
+bigclivedotcom Yup, some preventative maintenance can make these things last a lot longer. Just over spray the complete top with clear coat (2 or 3 layers) and it will be a bit more waterproof too. I now have one of these pound lights, 2 euro lights, outside for 4 years and it still works fine. After 1 year it became useless due to corrosion on the switch, NiMh batt terminals were all rusted and the dreadful yellowed solar cell. Some WD40, toothpaste and doing that over and over every year ... now after 3 years that one is still up and starting to light up again since it is getting a bit of sun in the last days. So I only did the clear coat last year and just checked it 5 min ago and it still looks good. Btw I kept all the other solar cells from the broken no recoverable ones. In our climate you need the extra power .. so I now have a couple where I coated the cells and placed them parallel over the other existing cell. Being inventive and not throwing stuff away is fun for me (not the wife)
craziness, earlier I was telling the GF about using nail polish on circuits to protect traces and leak prone components. And here I sit watching Big Clive polish his circuits.
Have you tried CorrosionX? It is a penetrating solvent that drives out water like WD40 that is supposed to be safe on electronics. You can find it in marine supply stores around here. It is also used by hobbyists who build quadcopters and apparently it can save your circuits should your drone fall in water.
great vid! look forward to an up date on the battery and nail polish. Great idea though. How about a long Q&A vid where YOU take a shot every time you say a few key phrases!? That might just go viral!
12:08 I'm not terribly surprised by that value; I have a pile of 10uF/50V MLCC "tictac" capacitors, presumably x7r or x7s dielectric. Assuming that capacitor package is on the order of 0603 or 0805, 4u7/16V sounds reasonable enough. I have to admit, I like the hard turn-on of this light better than the softer turn-on of the single transistor solution you've used in your solar light builds. Slightly more complicated, but the transistors seem to spend a lot less time in their linear region. I'm sure this circuit could also use ultra-low Rds(on) logic level MOSFETs like the A2SHB/SI2302 for even higher efficiency? Regarding the drinking game, let's not forget: "unreasonable force" "brute force and ignorance" "may have to pause" "but you want to see it go bang/up in flames" rephrasing a phrase of three or more words as a supposition, a question, then a declaration, e.g. "We may need to use unreasonable force. Shall we use unreasonable force? Let's use unreasonable force." "futtery" "ontae plumbs" "seems reasonable enough"
I find the ones with a PIR sensor are best. They make the battery last much longer because it doesn't get fully discharged every night. The one I have has replaceable lithium cells too. It was about £20 with two cells, well worth it.
+kuro68000 I have one of these www.amazon.co.uk/Security-Waterproof-Rechargeable-Floodlight-Detection/dp/B00X7L7LHO/ Except after discovering the solar panel really wasn't that great, but that it plugged in with a regular DC barrel jack AND that the power from the solar panel connector would run the LEDs without the batteries being present, I hacked it to run off a 6v wall wart PSU. So now I have a solar charged, battery LED floodlight that runs off the mains ;-)
+James Grimwood I can't fault the one I have, it's given me years of flawless service on the batteries that came with it. It doesn't even get a lot of light where it is.
...at 6:40, it's BC and his Teflon finger tips, but "I'm not 100% sure" (2:50)...thanks for another interesting vid product review!...could you consider adding a product grading or rating scale for each item you disassemble...inquisitive minds want to know how the master scores each item reverse engineered! In addition to using nail lacquer for moisture and fungus proofing (MFP), colored variety can be used as a low strength threadlocker/anti-tamper indicator. Cheers
It seems like the way it's designed, the water will hit the solar panel, run straight under the rim, and onto the all the circuitry at the bottom where the battery is. The gasket looks like it's just there for show.
Australia, where we get hot temperatures in the day's sun. So the battery gets old quickly. Replacement batteries are a good idea. Rainwater may enter battery protection circuit board as well.
+Greg Zeng For super hot climates I'd consider mounting the lithium cell in a separate shaded compartment (underneath the light?). Water will inherently get in everywhere.
So I hit the ebay search link up there in the description out of curiosity, and saw a bunch of stuff with varying prices, most of it much bigger (some claiming hundreds of watts!). I then told ebay that I wanted to see stuff listed with lowest price+shipping first, and what showed up was a couple of them for $0.01, with free shipping. So I put in a bid on one. We'll see where that goes... :-)
you also say "modest amount" a lot. We could turn that into a drinking game too. Clive sizes: Thimble full of whiskey = modest amount Glass of whiskey = modest amount bottle of whiskey = modest amount barrel of whiskey = modest amount
+BillyNoMates1974 The energy density of the super capacitors is really poor for their size compared to a lithium or even NiMh cell. The voltage falls off quickly and they have a much higher rate of self discharge.
Clive, you forgot the switch from the schematic but i guess it's between the LiPo + and 3k6 resistor? That would leave the panel charging the LiPo despite open switch.
how would this kind of lamp work in my area north of the polar circle? Here we have daylight (and if lucky we have sunlight) all 24 hours of the day. The battery will be charged all the time and not be used for many months... And the other way around in the winter. We may have weeks or up to a month without any daylight...
would be interesting to see if these could be modded to feed the solar back to a main battery which then powers several ( akin to a full solar panel rig ) and switch them on/off with a dusk sensor or am i just waffling :)
My personal opinion on these: If you're gonna get a street light to light your garden with... be a badass and get yourself a Thorn Beta Five or an Indal 2600 and sling that on your wall. Need more light? Get a Philips SGS252 or an Indal Arc 80/90 geared for150w SON/CPO-T.
+bigclivedotcom Another LED light dismantling, yet I find myself enthralled and cannot turn away! I have clearly got to the age where I prefer to watch someone else do the dismantling and cleaning up :)
Bigger battery needed LOL Nice simple design, not much to go wrong really. The nail varnish sounds ideal, i wonder if coloured varnish would tint the led light hmm :)
+zx8401ztv If you got enough of a dome on the LED with coloured lacquer, it'd act like a lens too, so focusing the light a little tighter then without any lensing... :)
+Sparky Projects It would be destroyed quickly if I installed it here even just one of the stems. Being on an island in the middle of the Irish Sea can get quite exciting on a regular basis.
+tdcat.com For bench use it is good. I'd use a more industrial meter for actual industrial use. But at the bench the best feature both for me and video purposes is the huge display. It also has a good wide range of measurement functions.
Thanks for getting back to me. I'd only need it for bench use so that's great. It's not available on Amazon anymore but one of the reviews of it on Amazon references this channel! You're quite the star. :-) . Next stop Ebay.
Ceramic SMT multi-layer affairs actually are surprisingly small despite being in the 1-10 µF range. Check out Dave Jones' (of EEVBlog fame) latest on ceramic caps & piezoelectric effects if you don't believe me.
+Nick McRae They are very simple. Just a peltier plate with the cold side on the refrigerator cabinet and a heatsink and fan on the other side to get rid of the heat. They're incredibly inefficient compared to a traditional fridge.
I would imagine it is not uncommon on very expensive LED street lights (USD700+) to have a great deal of manual work done on them, to the point that they will individually bench test each LED module they produce.
So supposing the battery is fully charged, and over night the LEDs drain it completely, does the solar panel give out enough juice to fully charge the battery again? Or is this one of those things that, after a few days becomes useless junk that runs for about 10 minutes? Also, what about the battery, sitting behind a black piece of metal in direct sun every day.
Clive, did you ever try it out for battery life? Mine is bright for 5 minutes, then dims significantly, and then lasts another 30 mins. It's fairly random though, but really seems to need a solid number of hours for charging. Useless for what I bought it for, but cheap enough for parts I guess.
+Sparky UK That doesn't sound right, although in typical British weather right now that might be all the solar panel is getting. Keep in mind that the solar panel has to point directly at open sky where the sun traces across it for the maximum charge on any given day. this is where you could sacrifice intensity for run time by using a soldering iron to squish that main LED resistor off it's pads and then solder an ordinary quarter watt resistor across in its place with a value chosen to get the desired intensity/duration compromise.
+bigclivedotcom I think that's my best route, to remove the main resistor. I remember you suggesting this in the video, so think it's time to experiment. At least in the amount of rain I've had lately, the insides have shown no sign of water ingress, which is reassuring.
Seems the solar panel is a bit under rated for these lights. I get about 5 hours of run time out of these in June (summer solstice) where it's daylight from 4:30AM to 10:30PM. I'm thinking I might pull 2 or 3 LEDs off or change the resistor for better run time. Don't want to sacrifice too much light output, these things are dim as it is already. I don't see these being any good at all during our winters when we get about 8 hrs of daylight and the sun is low.
I'm looking for an inexpensive really bright light like this that can be setup on motion sensor on my rv any suggestions? thank you. love the vids! I can watch for hours. :-)
EDIT: I messed up and missed the "L+" part. 15:43 now that I look at the full schematic, I see a 10k resistor in parallel with the leds. And I doubt they are going to work on 0,43 mA, because that's like 2 mW and since there was a diode on the battery, it could only charge but not discharge so you screwed something up big time :D I think the second tranny was connected to the battery, not that trace you did. Now that I look at it again, there's 3.3k more resistance, so there's something REALLY wrong with that drawing
"Tropicalised" - I've seen this word in a few places, but what does it actually mean in an electronics context? I take it for granted that it's not got to do with filling electronics up with jungle leaves.
Hi Clive just thought when you did the schematic on this lamp you did not explain the position of the off switch and if it charges up when switched off
Hi Clive just to let you know i bought a sunnymoney solar light charity light pay £10 i get one and some African child not on grid gets one and this appears to charge when it is turned off I will let you have the url shop.solar-aid.org/products/sm100 some your subscribers might see this and maybe help some other child cant find your po box had it some time ago I would like to buy you one so you can take it apart and do the schematic including the switch lol cheers Pete
Great Video, I would like to convert a string of Christmas lights that plug unto an electrical outlet to either battery powered or solar powered, would you do a video sometime soon about doing that? Thanks
The mains voltage strings are not suited to battery conversion. You can buy sets that are designed to run on a USB supply though, and they can be converted.
You know, "them". Either the secret government, the illuminati (using warm white LEDs), or the people who are referred to when the phrase "they say...." is used.
Hi clive, would these kind of lights last longer outside if you spray the inside with some kind of crc or a lanolin spray, which is made from sheep's wool. the lanolin spray stops rust.
It is a shame these aren't built to be more weather proof. I wonder what that would do to the price if they needed to give a five year guarantee? Maybe these priced at a tenner a pop means many would simply accept they must be replaced every year? I was just about to buy one as I have an ideal location in mind. But the need to weatherproof it myself (using some of the great tips here) is enough to tip the balance back to being unsure of the benefit. I guess I'm just describing the value/durability issue with cheap Chinese products?
as soon as you said, "I'm not 100% sure" i was drinking cider and wondering how many times have you said that. Maybe not a shot of liquor but alcohol nonetheless
+JR IsWhat I could have used iridescent "age defiance" hyper mystique nail enhancer with cuticle nutrients. But I was afraid it might explode when electricity was passed through it.
You live in the old days mate. High-value/small-size caps and LiPo's aren't that new. You can get 10uH multi-layer caps at that size. That LiPo has the size of a standard ~2.5Ah LiPo.
Darkfiberke Note the giant scribble near the 3.6k resistor. See that +L? There’s a matching one at the battery positive. It was easier to do that than draw the trace going over the sense circuit.
Please don't start trying to censor your speech Clive, it is you and we love it.
+Kiros Yeah, and also we like to drink! :)
I was going to say the same. Everyone has quirks and habits in their speech. Clive presents improv for hours on end (if you watch a few vids in a row) so it's not a problem picking up on a few of these.
Don't change anything about how you speak. It's you! You seem like a friend. I replay many of you videos just for the comfort of listening to you.
Wish you were a neighbor.
if theres one thing i like about your vids its the attention to detail.
the in depth of how something works.
Please do a follow-up and let us know how the nail polish worked. That sounds like a great idea for outside lighting.
William Garrett I use nail polish on the Ferret slugs in the on-glass mounted UHF antennas loading coil, once the loading coil is turned to the standing wave you don't want the slug to move from vehicles vibrations.
Very interesting. Before I saw your video I couldn't figure out how these things could work without a sensor and now I know.Thanks for sharing.
yeah, that is slick how it works..
The nail polish trick is one I've used several times. I've even used it as a poor-mans 'corona dope' for insulating HV terminals in tube(valve) amplifiers. It actually works pretty well,and is cheap and easy to get. The drawback is if you ever need to rework any coated solder joints..the stuff stinks really bad when it burns!
I meant to add that I really enjoy your videos. The endless variety of items you find keep them interesting.
So is there an offical Bigclive drinking game, or are you not quiet sure?
Hi, Love the nail lacquer idea. Will have to do this. In my tests, this device will put out enough light to read by for a solid 8 hours. I have a couple of these in my window for emergency purposes. Thanks for reviewing.
"oooooooh", "right then", "I'm not 100% sure..."
If we took a shot everytime you said these, Clive, we'd be raging alcoholics :)
+TheJohn8765 I totaly had the idea to play a drinking game with these
+TheJohn8765 "I should say"
+TheJohn8765 challenge accepted!
+TheJohn8765 "I like it" "It's really stylish"
stonent no
Sooo the game started and NOBODY told me. Thanks!!!!:p
What you did with the "nail polish" is called CONFORMAL COATING and is available to all, but there's even better ways, an air brush driven by ones own breath has been a success I've done and it's almost invisible that way with even
smaller fillets on the edges sticking out on the board, I've done custom color designs on boards too that worked a long time, until the boards were obsolete anyway and that even helps in the water tightness for the metal and ceramic objects, it also spreads the heat dissipation a bit..
Dave in Kentwood
Just thought I'd say, you're my favourite youtuber Clive, and I don't normally say things like that but I am drunk.
Don't drink and comment. You won't know who you fucked up the next day.
Isn't that the very essence of living?
+Nick Firth sir. The very essence of living is to.. give no shit about life imo.
Lmao
Interesting, I didn't know nail varnish would protect against water, the only thing I've heard of using before was Silicone Conformal Coating which is over twice as expensive depending where you look.
Well it's so obvious now but I never thought of using nail polish as conformal coating :) nice video!
HA! I always though you said "not 100% sure" too much and now you said "some of you are taking shots"
love to see people with a sense of humor
Where's the t-shirt that has your quote "I'm not 100% sure."?
I bought a somewhat similar solar powered lamp here in Sweden. But it had a string of lights instead. I let it sit outside for a few long, sunny Swedish summer days. When I took it in and opened it up, turns out its a single, unprotected 18650 sitting at, then, more than 4.3V! I immediately dismembered that thing so that it wouldn't burn up...
I mean, I wasn't taking shots of liquor, but then you said I should be and then I did. Thanks Clive!
Clear nail varnish, aka. "poor man's" Conformal Coating.
To be honest, there's not much difference between some conformal coatings and the clear urethane that's used as the clear-coat on automobiles that use two- or three-stage paint systems (base/clear or base/pearl/clear are the ones I've heard of).
Urethane paints are typically "paint+activator" systems, so they're not as easy to work with, but they're designed to stand up to years out in the sun/rain/weather.
That makes them ideal for coating things that don't like getting wet, like electronic circuits.
Unfortunately, they're also not as easy to acquire as nail varnish, unless you can make friends with an auto-body repair shop.
Well I have these lights for a while and funny enough one/two stopped working an came across ur vid, and I am a total newb at electronics and managed to fix them.. so thanks for the vid..
I wonder though if one is not repairable is there a way to re-use the solar panel as a light? As I have managed to charge a battery with it but can not work out how to do a light and use the solar as a sensor.. (one of mine got water in and all bits are not working except a few led's.. 😔
What I found with most cheap solar lights is that the solar panel gets dull from the UV from the sun making them useless after a year. You can get them back clearer by using toothpaste or car polish but after a month they are dull again.
Last year I just bought a 2 euro can of clear coat and I over sprayed 2 modules here after the polish trick. They are still completely clear up till now. The can doesn't state anything about blocking UV but this one seems to be doing the trick so far.
+Luc Peeters That's interesting. Particularly if it is blocking the UV to protect the clear coat, but with the added advantage of protecting the cells resin.
+bigclivedotcom Yup, some preventative maintenance can make these things last a lot longer. Just over spray the complete top with clear coat (2 or 3 layers) and it will be a bit more waterproof too.
I now have one of these pound lights, 2 euro lights, outside for 4 years and it still works fine. After 1 year it became useless due to corrosion on the switch, NiMh batt terminals were all rusted and the dreadful yellowed solar cell. Some WD40, toothpaste and doing that over and over every year ... now after 3 years that one is still up and starting to light up again since it is getting a bit of sun in the last days. So I only did the clear coat last year and just checked it 5 min ago and it still looks good.
Btw I kept all the other solar cells from the broken no recoverable ones. In our climate you need the extra power .. so I now have a couple where I coated the cells and placed them parallel over the other existing cell. Being inventive and not throwing stuff away is fun for me (not the wife)
I am glad that I found. Your videos very helpful. And the nail lacquer. Idea. Is a godsend to me thanks cliv
craziness, earlier I was telling the GF about using nail polish on circuits to protect traces and leak prone components.
And here I sit watching Big Clive polish his circuits.
Have you tried CorrosionX? It is a penetrating solvent that drives out water like WD40 that is supposed to be safe on electronics. You can find it in marine supply stores around here. It is also used by hobbyists who build quadcopters and apparently it can save your circuits should your drone fall in water.
great vid! look forward to an up date on the battery and nail polish. Great idea though. How about a long Q&A vid where YOU take a shot every time you say a few key phrases!? That might just go viral!
12:08 I'm not terribly surprised by that value; I have a pile of 10uF/50V MLCC "tictac" capacitors, presumably x7r or x7s dielectric. Assuming that capacitor package is on the order of 0603 or 0805, 4u7/16V sounds reasonable enough.
I have to admit, I like the hard turn-on of this light better than the softer turn-on of the single transistor solution you've used in your solar light builds. Slightly more complicated, but the transistors seem to spend a lot less time in their linear region. I'm sure this circuit could also use ultra-low Rds(on) logic level MOSFETs like the A2SHB/SI2302 for even higher efficiency?
Regarding the drinking game, let's not forget:
"unreasonable force"
"brute force and ignorance"
"may have to pause"
"but you want to see it go bang/up in flames"
rephrasing a phrase of three or more words as a supposition, a question, then a declaration, e.g. "We may need to use unreasonable force. Shall we use unreasonable force? Let's use unreasonable force."
"futtery"
"ontae plumbs"
"seems reasonable enough"
I find the ones with a PIR sensor are best. They make the battery last much longer because it doesn't get fully discharged every night. The one I have has replaceable lithium cells too.
It was about £20 with two cells, well worth it.
+kuro68000 Have a link as I really need a light for my front door area though sun is an issue except for 3 hours (roughly) per day.
+Dark Alchemist www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B014FZVZ5Y?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=ox_sc_sfl_title_4&smid=A1PJSZIM7UA7OJ
+kuro68000 I have one of these www.amazon.co.uk/Security-Waterproof-Rechargeable-Floodlight-Detection/dp/B00X7L7LHO/
Except after discovering the solar panel really wasn't that great, but that it plugged in with a regular DC barrel jack AND that the power from the solar panel connector would run the LEDs without the batteries being present, I hacked it to run off a 6v wall wart PSU.
So now I have a solar charged, battery LED floodlight that runs off the mains ;-)
+James Grimwood I can't fault the one I have, it's given me years of flawless service on the batteries that came with it. It doesn't even get a lot of light where it is.
kuro68000 Thank you.
...at 6:40, it's BC and his Teflon finger tips, but "I'm not 100% sure" (2:50)...thanks for another interesting vid product review!...could you consider adding a product grading or rating scale for each item you disassemble...inquisitive minds want to know how the master scores each item reverse engineered! In addition to using nail lacquer for moisture and fungus proofing (MFP), colored variety can be used as a low strength threadlocker/anti-tamper indicator. Cheers
The capacitor is probably 6.3V. I have 22uF /6.3V in my design and is a small 0805 ceramic.
It seems like the way it's designed, the water will hit the solar panel, run straight under the rim, and onto the all the circuitry at the bottom where the battery is. The gasket looks like it's just there for show.
Australia, where we get hot temperatures in the day's sun. So the battery gets old quickly. Replacement batteries are a good idea. Rainwater may enter battery protection circuit board as well.
+Greg Zeng For super hot climates I'd consider mounting the lithium cell in a separate shaded compartment (underneath the light?). Water will inherently get in everywhere.
oh man was drunk when watching this and was taleing a break. time for another beer
I did beer, rather than shots. And still ended up drunk. Keep it up :)
So I hit the ebay search link up there in the description out of curiosity, and saw a bunch of stuff with varying prices, most of it much bigger (some claiming hundreds of watts!). I then told ebay that I wanted to see stuff listed with lowest price+shipping first, and what showed up was a couple of them for $0.01, with free shipping. So I put in a bid on one. We'll see where that goes... :-)
Would you look at/disassemble one of those 40$ tablets they sell at places like aliexpress? They look pretty interesting
you also say "modest amount" a lot. We could turn that into a drinking game too.
Clive sizes:
Thimble full of whiskey = modest amount
Glass of whiskey = modest amount
bottle of whiskey = modest amount
barrel of whiskey = modest amount
another brilliant teardown.
I wonder how many years longer it would last if it was a load of super capacitors instead of a battery.
+BillyNoMates1974 The energy density of the super capacitors is really poor for their size compared to a lithium or even NiMh cell. The voltage falls off quickly and they have a much higher rate of self discharge.
hmm good point. but battery outside through winter won't fare too well
Hiya, how did it hold up outside, and did the nail varnish work OK? Cheers.
Yesh, very capshulated!
Clive, you forgot the switch from the schematic but i guess it's between the LiPo + and 3k6 resistor? That would leave the panel charging the LiPo despite open switch.
+sleeptyper Yes. It kills the power between the LiPo and the LED array and that resistor.
Always excited for the weekend so I can see these videos. Keep it up man!
I cant stop watching these vids im addicted!!
Great video as usual. Keep them coming! Thanks for keeping me entertained in the evenings. :)
We use "Plastik 70" at work for conformal coating
That looks pretty damn similar to the new LED streetlights fitted near me!
Nice tip with the nail varnish.
how would this kind of lamp work in my area north of the polar circle? Here we have daylight (and if lucky we have sunlight) all 24 hours of the day. The battery will be charged all the time and not be used for many months...
And the other way around in the winter. We may have weeks or up to a month without any daylight...
Thanks for the tip regarding the nail polish! :)
would be interesting to see if these could be modded to feed the solar back to a main battery which then powers several ( akin to a full solar panel rig ) and switch them on/off with a dusk sensor
or am i just waffling :)
I'm not 100% sure i like this video..
but i am 100% sure i LOVE this video
lol.
My personal opinion on these: If you're gonna get a street light to light your garden with... be a badass and get yourself a Thorn Beta Five or an Indal 2600 and sling that on your wall. Need more light? Get a Philips SGS252 or an Indal Arc 80/90 geared for150w SON/CPO-T.
+bigclivedotcom Another LED light dismantling, yet I find myself enthralled and cannot turn away! I have clearly got to the age where I prefer to watch someone else do the dismantling and cleaning up :)
I love my Iso-Tip!
I do like that soldering iron.
Bigger battery needed LOL
Nice simple design, not much to go wrong really.
The nail varnish sounds ideal, i wonder if coloured varnish would tint the led light hmm :)
+zx8401ztv
If you got enough of a dome on the LED with coloured lacquer, it'd act like a lens too, so focusing the light a little tighter then without any lensing... :)
+twocvbloke
lol i suppose it would :-D
Clive gets some interesting bits and bobs doesnt he :-D
zx8401ztv
He does indeed... :P
I would be concerned about the bracket, looks a bit flimsy, what would it be like if there was a headwind with that sloping up at an angle especially.
+Sparky Projects It would be destroyed quickly if I installed it here even just one of the stems. Being on an island in the middle of the Irish Sea can get quite exciting on a regular basis.
I'm curious to know how you're finding the AMECal meter? I like it every time I see it and don't really want to buy one at Fluke price range.
+tdcat.com The one with the huge display is my main meter now.
Given that you seem use it every day, I assume comes endorsed by BigClive (not in a sales type way, of course) :-)
+tdcat.com For bench use it is good. I'd use a more industrial meter for actual industrial use. But at the bench the best feature both for me and video purposes is the huge display. It also has a good wide range of measurement functions.
Thanks for getting back to me. I'd only need it for bench use so that's great. It's not available on Amazon anymore but one of the reviews of it on Amazon references this channel! You're quite the star. :-) . Next stop Ebay.
bigclivedotcom
Ceramic SMT multi-layer affairs actually are surprisingly small despite being in the 1-10 µF range. Check out Dave Jones' (of EEVBlog fame) latest on ceramic caps & piezoelectric effects if you don't believe me.
hey Clive have you taken apart any of those micro refrigerator products ever?
+Nick McRae They are very simple. Just a peltier plate with the cold side on the refrigerator cabinet and a heatsink and fan on the other side to get rid of the heat. They're incredibly inefficient compared to a traditional fridge.
i love this guy.
Would it be possible to see the night time illumination of this street light. I mean if it is a street light does it perform as a 'street light?
I would imagine it is not uncommon on very expensive LED street lights (USD700+) to have a great deal of manual work done on them, to the point that they will individually bench test each LED module they produce.
So supposing the battery is fully charged, and over night the LEDs drain it completely, does the solar panel give out enough juice to fully charge the battery again? Or is this one of those things that, after a few days becomes useless junk that runs for about 10 minutes?
Also, what about the battery, sitting behind a black piece of metal in direct sun every day.
+James Grimwood well a lipo being fully discharged daily will be dead inside the year anyway!
The point of the protection on the battery is so that it discharges to a safe level and cuts off preventing full discharge. If it works!
Clive, did you ever try it out for battery life?
Mine is bright for 5 minutes, then dims significantly, and then lasts another 30 mins. It's fairly random though, but really seems to need a solid number of hours for charging. Useless for what I bought it for, but cheap enough for parts I guess.
+Sparky UK That doesn't sound right, although in typical British weather right now that might be all the solar panel is getting. Keep in mind that the solar panel has to point directly at open sky where the sun traces across it for the maximum charge on any given day. this is where you could sacrifice intensity for run time by using a soldering iron to squish that main LED resistor off it's pads and then solder an ordinary quarter watt resistor across in its place with a value chosen to get the desired intensity/duration compromise.
+bigclivedotcom I think that's my best route, to remove the main resistor. I remember you suggesting this in the video, so think it's time to experiment. At least in the amount of rain I've had lately, the insides have shown no sign of water ingress, which is reassuring.
Seems the solar panel is a bit under rated for these lights. I get about 5 hours of run time out of these in June (summer solstice) where it's daylight from 4:30AM to 10:30PM. I'm thinking I might pull 2 or 3 LEDs off or change the resistor for better run time. Don't want to sacrifice too much light output, these things are dim as it is already.
I don't see these being any good at all during our winters when we get about 8 hrs of daylight and the sun is low.
I'm looking for an inexpensive really bright light like this that can be setup on motion sensor on my rv any suggestions? thank you. love the vids! I can watch for hours. :-)
EDIT: I messed up and missed the "L+" part.
15:43 now that I look at the full schematic, I see a 10k resistor in parallel with the leds. And I doubt they are going to work on 0,43 mA, because that's like 2 mW and since there was a diode on the battery, it could only charge but not discharge so you screwed something up big time :D
I think the second tranny was connected to the battery, not that trace you did. Now that I look at it again, there's 3.3k more resistance, so there's something REALLY wrong with that drawing
do you watch eevblog? because that is the only place I hear tranny.
"Tropicalised" - I've seen this word in a few places, but what does it actually mean in an electronics context? I take it for granted that it's not got to do with filling electronics up with jungle leaves.
+FFcossag It means it can handle hot and wet environments.
+bigclivedotcom Thank you, kind sir!
Hi Clive just thought when you did the schematic on this lamp you did not explain the position of the off switch and if it charges up when switched off
Many of these units disconnect the battery when the switch is off.
Hi Clive just to let you know i bought a sunnymoney solar light charity light pay £10 i get one and some African child not on grid gets one and this appears to charge when it is turned off I will let you have the url shop.solar-aid.org/products/sm100 some your subscribers might see this and maybe help some other child cant find your po box had it some time ago I would like to buy you one so you can take it apart and do the schematic including the switch lol cheers Pete
Great Video, I would like to convert a string of Christmas lights that plug unto an electrical outlet to either battery powered or solar powered, would you do a video sometime soon about doing that? Thanks
The mains voltage strings are not suited to battery conversion. You can buy sets that are designed to run on a USB supply though, and they can be converted.
Mr clive what's the value of the transistor? please I want to know
Interesting Clive, are you working for them. ?
+Graham R Dyer Working for who?
You know, "them". Either the secret government, the illuminati (using warm white LEDs), or the people who are referred to when the phrase "they say...." is used.
mr clive.. please say the backup time of this kind of light
Yes, you do say I'm not 100 percent sure all the time.
I guess you've brought you're first Ferrari with all the add revenue now Clive
What is the voltage of the solar cell used in this please reply soon
Hi clive,
would these kind of lights last longer outside if you spray the inside with some kind of crc or a lanolin spray, which is made from sheep's wool. the lanolin spray stops rust.
+David B I've not tried lanolin, but you get VCI sprays to inhibit corrosion.
thank you i will see if the VCI equivalent is available in new zealand.
David B VCI stands for Volatile (or vapour) Corrosion Inhibitor.
Lanolin is water soluble. Not a good long-term choice. Also melts and runs in heat.
Awesome.
how long would something like this run for on its battery?
Ideal product for polar nights:)))
why don't you buy yourself crap like imax b6 for raw testing, its costs similar to that light!
great work !!
It is a shame these aren't built to be more weather proof. I wonder what that would do to the price if they needed to give a five year guarantee? Maybe these priced at a tenner a pop means many would simply accept they must be replaced every year? I was just about to buy one as I have an ideal location in mind. But the need to weatherproof it myself (using some of the great tips here) is enough to tip the balance back to being unsure of the benefit. I guess I'm just describing the value/durability issue with cheap Chinese products?
+Mark Blackmore they're worth buying just for the component value and building into a better enclosure, or even mounting inside a skylight.
Do electrical circuits actually attract water in some way, or is the action simply passive?
André Castillo It doesn't attract, actually it's because water is such a "slippery" element that it may make it way through the rubber insulation.
what about using clear epoxy resin painted on them?
My big Clive shot phrase is “a modest amount”
Nail varnish. Or, as the MoD call it, conformal coating.
Be with you in a minute, just got to let the conformal coating on my nails dry.
running a 500w floodlight 24x7, would cost around €1000 per year. (in holland).... 0.23€/kWh
Job done
as soon as you said, "I'm not 100% sure" i was drinking cider and wondering how many times have you said that. Maybe not a shot of liquor but alcohol nonetheless
I was hoping you would suggest a fingernail lacquer with a romantic name like "midnight passion" seeing as the leds come on at night. ; )
+JR IsWhat I could have used iridescent "age defiance" hyper mystique nail enhancer with cuticle nutrients. But I was afraid it might explode when electricity was passed through it.
lol
Hahaha!! Yes!! I just mentioned the drinking game in the Power Bar video last week!
Btw I love your videos Clive and I'm not hating on you for saying it
You live in the old days mate. High-value/small-size caps and LiPo's aren't that new. You can get 10uH multi-layer caps at that size. That LiPo has the size of a standard ~2.5Ah LiPo.
+TheMrTape
10uH caps huh? Wow things must have really changed =)
Yep.. Meant uF..
www.digikey.com/product-search/en/capacitors/ceramic-capacitors/131083?k=10uf
How's it going up there in bonny Schottland?
+Jeremy Morton clive is on the isle of man, but apart from being below 0'C its quite reasonable at the moment up here
The schematic is wrong... how can the lipo power the LED's, when that diode is blocking the + from going to that 10K resistor...
Darkfiberke Note the giant scribble near the 3.6k resistor. See that +L? There’s a matching one at the battery positive. It was easier to do that than draw the trace going over the sense circuit.
You said it twice! If I pass out now its your fault.
Another shot. What a shame. Well done.
Others add an IR sensor and it doesnt run when no one's around
Where do you get that screwdriver
what kind of solder gun was that that u used to fix that led
+76verdee An Iso-tip cordless iron.
The light output at a stated 0.9 W isn't very much. (Let's hope they are not exaggerating).