eBay LED night light 2024 - with schematic
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- Опубліковано 24 бер 2024
- How minimalist can they get? There are even less components now than in previous versions.
The ultimate low is to get rid of the light sensor completely. Which might not be a bad thing, given the way it works.
The main issue with this light is the ease with which the cover comes off. Especially given how alluring lights like this are to kids. It also has inadequate fault protection for use on high current power circuits as used in the UK.
If you enjoy these videos you can help support the channel with a dollar for coffee, cookies and random gadgets for disassembly at:- www.bigclive.com/coffee.htm
This also keeps the channel independent of UA-cam's algorithm quirks, allowing it to be a bit more dangerous and naughty.
#ElectronicsCreators - Наука та технологія
"From Dust to Down": that famous horror film starring Goerg Cleenoy and Sulmu Heyat.
Classic just like “the polishing” 😊
@@wisher21ukdon’t forget “The Silence of the Lmaos”
@@filthyE oh yes that classic, have you ever seen “Dream on Oak Road”
@@filthyE The Science of the Labs
I am more a fan of "Fictuous unfiltered fruit juice"!
"It just opens like Tupperware." Perfect! I'd been looking for somewhere to store all my leftover current.
Looks like the perfect shape to look like an evil glowing eye when you are laying down. Very good for the kids.
"Kids poking the fingers inside". Never stopped me. Neither as a kid in the 1960s, nor today ! Still remember getting my little fingers across the AC line, while playing with a Lite Brite, as a 5yo.
some of us are just big kids now and still zap ourselves on occasion (or all too often).
yeah, I zing a finger or hand a few times a year, probably shouldn't wire live without wearing PPE, nor on shady old building, sign, lighting wiring where it's about guaranteed to happen.
No capacitor as that shaved another 2c off the cost, and also another 30 seconds, and 3cm of solder, off the assembly time. Doubled the profit the manufacturer got per unit.
One of the things I’ve learned since having kids Is that they’re never happy.
“Daddy, I’m scared of the dark”
“Daddy that nightlight you’ve got me is an electrocution risk”
“Daddy, that night light you got me has exploded and my room is on fire”
Kids…
Pink! Doesn't get much simpler, surprised it has the transistor. Superglue to the rescue. Thanks Clive.
Yes. Another use for superglue 👍
I’m of two minds on this.
Obviously electric shocks at line voltage can be lethal and should be avoided for most folks.
On the other hand, as Clive pointed out, many of us who watch his and similar channels would stick our fingers where they shouldn’t be and would get zapped. In my case (and I can’t be the only one) that made me want to know why touching some things but not others produced that tingle, leading to a career in pushing electrons around.
There must be a nonlethal happy medium.
When the light sensors first showed up on the neon nightlights, it was sold as energy saving. They worked in a similar way where the LDR was in parallel with the neon bulb and would shunt it below its breakdown voltage. So they used more power when they were off than on.
I remember those from when I was a kid! The one in the bathroom was orange and the one in the hall was green, the neon green ones didn't have a light sensor they were always on, now I know why😅
Also loving the "snake" shaped burn marks on the bench from your plastic repair staple tool :-)
I reckon that will become the most mentioned observation in videos to come!
I asked if he branded himself, sadly not. 🤣🤣🤣🤣
We missed you Clive
But Mr. Clive, how else are the kiddies going to learn not to touch stuff?
Nothing like getting the kids to sleep with their nice new nightlight, only for them to be screaming the house down after the power supply explodes 😂
Yes. That sums it up very nicely. 💥
Screaming the house down? Sounds like some Stephen King story.
Jesus is coming back be ready
@@eugeniomusca putting my extra hard pointed shoes on already
@@Sonny_McMacsson I wouldn't put it past him
My old-style (incandescent) night lights used a triac and LDR. Since flicker isn't an issue with incandescents, it was simple enough. The lamp itself was a small 7W candelabra-base device. I've gotten these to work with line-voltage LED lamps by incorporating a small shunt resistor across the lamp socket. Probably still pretty energy-efficient, but I haven't measured the setup.
As this uses the same power on as off, they could save money by dropping the transistor and the LDR and leaving it on all the time. You probably would not even see it on in daylight, if you could see it, it's just a nice display.
LOL and a damn good point !
@@andymouse Hi Andy, good to see you again. Could also act as a warning to children of impending electrocution.
Basic light = basic death-trap 🤣.Mind, as a kid I was very handy with a screw drive so it would only slow me down a bit. ⚡⚡⚡⚡
No screws to hold the front on! This will never be on Etsy.
Great video 2x👍
Why do they bother with the LDR, it could light all the time. Also the rectifier is unnecessary, they could just connect the LEDs antiparallel.
That thing is bloody lethal!!
Can even kill you when it's off. Double the value.
Kiddies like us with tools got in no matter how tamper proof. Understanding risk is what makes us so successful.
The kids who go on to technical careers.
Those of us that survived a zap,
Weeds out the weak ones
I'd have taken it apart by around age 8 anyway 😊
I enjoyed watching 'Dust to Down' when i saw it many years ago at the flicks. Especially all the vampires appearing half way through.
I still remember poking my finger in a lamp socket to determine if it was the lightbulb that was burnt out or if the socket was defective. We only have 110v so it was not super dangerous. Kids dont get to explore the world. All of their curiosity is limited to... "can I swipe up too?"... and even that needs to be told to them.
Ooh yeah, I had a desk lamp with a dodgy socket in it that would deform the bottom spring a little when unscrewed, requiring realignment to screw in a new bulb. Of course, since the bulb was blown, I just reached in to bend it back down. The results were exactly what you'd expect. For extra fun, this was 230V.
I did that when I was younger and my fingernail got burned badly, 230v
> like Tupperware
Mmm, 240 V leftovers.
Hello from the cheap seats.
Not often I see a night light for adults since it opens so easily, but that's cool for a dim ambiance. I use my kids night light so it doesn't hurt my wife eyes or mine's either.
Always find it curious that these nightlights shunt the LEDs during daylight rather then turning them off to save power.
Yeah I just made this point as well, it's a joke there is cheap and then there's stupid.
Why would they care, it's you that pays for the electricity.
@@MichaelBeeny I agree. But I have my engineer hat on: turning the light off involves cutting power not shorting it out.
The circuitry required to short out the LED's supply is much simpler than that required to open-circuit the feed. Although the current is greater when the light is off, overall it consumes less real power. That is because of the capacitive dropper and the resultant low power factor. Some other night lights employ a resistive dropper, which results in a much higher power draw, and those DO consume even more power when the transistor shorts out the LED supply.
@@robinvince616 I was thinking you could swap the ldr and the 5.1K, and then connect the leds between supply and the collector, but then the capacitive dropper wouldn't have a load and hence the voltage would get too high and fry stuff.
Brilliant Clive I would glue the case straight away 😊
Love the Tiny Tears shape, the perfect nightlight for children.
Reminds me of an eye when illuminated in the dark. Interesting n thnx clive👍
The resistance decreases with light, so it's not an LDR. It's a DDR. Dark Dependant Resisitor.
Light independent resistor
@mikebond6328 . I know what it's called. The name does not describe what it does.
Normal LDRs CdS have a lower resistance when exposed to light.
@Mike-H_UK . Exactly. So the resistance is dependent on NOT light(darkness).
@@E-BikingAdventures No-one claims that the resistance of an LDR is PROPORTIONAL to the light level, it is just said to be dependent on it. That dependency can be positive or negative.
gotta love how you draw the arrows on LEDs. =3
"Shock'o will get you ! ", my Granny would cry out, when she caught me, knife n' forking, my bread from the shinny new Electric Toaster.
I was about 6 when the Gov put the Electric to the houses in my Ganny's street.
Not exactly a Nightlight but, were the electric could go, little fingers would soon follow.😆
Cheers Clive.
Recently got a "HEAP" of TP4056 modules and I'm sticking Li-ion batteries in everything. (We use a lot of sensor LED lights in our house) Got 20 boards for €2.79 on TEMU... Well impressed they All work great so far too, and the boards look good as well (got a fake board a few years back with thin traces and suspicious chips) but the ones I got look brilliant... Well happy here in the King house 😊👍🇮🇪
Pretty classic design. You occasionally see a zener for voltage stabilisation in parallel with the smoothing cap (well, the Aussie Arlec branded wall night lights had this feature), and though simple, these are durable (we've got two outdoors that have been working fine for well over 20 years now).
Classic design ! a Zenner for stability and bloody smoothing cap ! LOL !!
I like how the circut to turn the light off uses just as much power as if you just left the light on all the time
I'm immediately adding "dust to down" to my vernacular.
I'm glad I looked at the thumbnail again, I thought it was an adult toy. 😆
anything is if you put your mind to it. ❤
Gotta love the "questionable safety issues." If EBay won't help spur human evolution, who will?
Sadly it would kill all of the curious ones and leave the sheep.
@@twotone3070 I have electrocuted myself and have had more dents to my head than a -81 toyota, I'm not sure I have anything left to offer for the advancement of our species but goddammit I survived!
Getting into low power mode by shorting out the LEDs PSU, very nice 😂
Thanks :)
If it's made of polycarbonate superglue will make that cover permanent and safe for kids as it can be because children are experts on using anything as a hammer 😅
I don't have children but I still like to superglue both halves of Schuko to 2 or 3 Europlug adaptors because the "prongs" that hold the screws can break if you pull them only by the outer part.
I use a lot of those adaptors at home so I can plug USB chargers or devices like TVs on Schuko sockets leaving at least other Europlug socket available for another thing.
Since *compliant* devices with Europlug are limited to 2.5A* there isn't a risk of overloading the Schuko socket by plugging two or three things at the same time.
*I bet you can get things that neeed 16A or more, like heaters and stick welders with something resembling an Europlug from some Chinese sellers.
Also, at least in Spain, many "handymen" love to reuse power leads with Europlug from old radios and TVs for power hungy devices that need a Schuko to "save" €10 tops... until they burn down the house 🤦♂
I have a few of the older square ones, in one piece I replaced the LEDs with slow self changing RGB LEDs and it is plugged in over the kitchen counter 24/7 for years now, quite nice when they go out of sync. I knew about the "self-falling" lid (and the cover over the ldr), but kids and pets can not reach it easily. You can fix it with some glue if you want.
Now with patent-pending Easy-Access Inspection Port! Just insert nubby finger!
I would say a drop of glue on it, children or not!
It can still burn the house down even if it stays intact.
@@benbaselet2026
True enough!
Instructions unclear children currently stuck to carpet
@@incywincy2k 🤣😂🤣😂🤣 very good
I doubt they removed the smoothing electrolytic capacitor for reliability. I suspect they removed it to save 0.1 RMB on their bill of materials
A similar one led nightlight from Dollar Tree in the USA lacks capacitors completely, using only a 39k resistor and single diode for the power supply. The entire circuit (as your unit, only half frequently) is pulsed on 60 (100) times per second.
I was pleasantly surprised to see the rare CDS sensor on opening the package; expecting a photodiode or photo transistor.
Not only will this one run off mains derived pulsating dc, it runs from a properly polarity oriented 9V battery.
It would be better if they used two antiparallel LEDs instead of one LED and a standard diode. Same parts count but much better power factor and much less flicker.
Yikes, that's a scary design! So the only thing keeping you from being zapped by live (through cap/680R) is the lens of the LDR. 😱
First a pop and then some sparks. Fun for the whole family.
i bought them years ago, but in a square form. i noticed back then that they were easy to open. i glued them.
You could always use a second bridge in series with the AC and shunt it with the transistor to act like a simple triac replacement.
Lil bit of a Georgia O'Keeffe vibe off of this one.
"Leaf shaped nightlight - For when you're ready to turn a new leaf in your life by electrocuting your hellspawns."
An LDR circuit to disconnect the power is simple. A TRIAC, in series with the bridge rectifier, with the MT2 connected to the gate via a fixed resistor and an LDR between the gate and MT1. Alternatively, an SCR could be put in series the DC output of the rectifier and LEDs, with the gate to the anode, via a fixed resistor and LDR between the gate and cathode. Thyristors are a bit more expensive than BJTs so I can see why they wouldn't do it.
Ah, the good old days, When you could poke just about any metal object into the mains sockets. 😃
Howdy Franko !! RIP Calculon
@@andymouse Hey Mouse, Long time no see my furry friend. 🧀
RIP Calculon !
Funny, when you say watch your eyes, I always open them more. Course I was a welder for a few weeks, 'til I became a master lol, then never did it again, 'cept tack welds....
CUTE.... THE LIGHT (AND YOU) lol
A nice night light led leaf, but from a childs point of view, it could give them some grief.⚡😫
Think the ones with different plugs differ at all?
I doubt it.
And this is cheaper to manufacture than a few neon bulbs and resistors? Seems to me like they've overcomplicated something very simple.
It is, neon bulbs are way more expensive than LEDs and wont be even close to matching the light output, i found some for 4 cents but leds would be more around 0.04 cents, plus if you wanted to switch them on and off with light you'd need a couple more expensive components on top of the ones in there already, not to mention the difference in lifetime. Though for a simple nightlight with no switching it would definitely be very close
The cheaper option is a resistor and two antiparallel LEDs.
For some unknown reason I had an small oil lamp as a night light in my room when I was very young. This would have been around 1957. There was an electric outlet in my room, and 15w pigmy light bulbs were a thing. Very weird, never understood it!
Probably a parental habit. During power outages my mum put tealight candles in our bedroom.
Nightlight or half of Donquixote Doflamingo's glasses? Has @GrandLineReview seen this?
As much as I don't like products being glued together, that should probably be glued together.
But why is the power lower when it's shunted (0.28 W) than when it's lit up (0.42 W)?
It's due to the non-linear I vs V curve for the LEDs. The shunting transistor only reduces the voltage across the LEDs by enough to cause them not to light and the LEDs then take very low current. The increase in current through the transistor is much less than this decrease in current through the LEDs, so there is a large net power saving.
The power factor changes. Apparent power will increase, but dissipated power will reduce.
It's because when the LEDs are shunted the capacitor is effectively connected directly across the mains and so all the current is reactive and theoretically takes zero power. The question should be why does it take as much as 0.26W? 16mA times 1.5V drop in the rectifier is only 24mW.
@@petehiggins33 16mA through that 680R is 174mW. So we're close to 0.2, and the bias circuit takes a little too
@@theelmonkYou're right, well spotted.
"Kiddies poking their fingers in" That's me! Did it when I was about 8 and my mother said that started my lifelong interest in anything with wires on it!
It's how many electrical careers started.
@@bigclivedotcom Yep that bounce across the room served me well for 45 years. Worked in radio and telecoms industry for rail and never received another shock - apart from 80-0-80 teleprinter lines - which is just as well as the 25 kV stuff tends to sting - a lot 🤣🤣
It's kinda like me, but I did it with some little plug in air fresheners with a little fan, I just stuck my finger in the vent to touch the fan but my finger got stuck and I had to secretly disassemble it to get it out
Would love to see a Chinese listening be like, UK hot 2024 fashion LED 1000000 lumens torch flashlight....with schematic 😂
Hit the FUN button on that An Tai and see what happens.
It makes lawyers explode.
So, if an LED goes open circuit, the LDR (which is pushed through to the outside of the "case") will have about 300v peak across it ? Also, the 750k bleed resistor doesn't really look big enough to have a mains-level voltage rating either.
With regards to the bleed resistor, it seems sufficient. We don't need to worry about the peak, we'll use 240Vrms. Vsquared/R. 240*240/750000 is 80mW. It doesn't look like a beefy resistor but it has high resistance.
@@bertblankenstein3738 Resistors don't just have power ratings, they also have voltage ratings. If you put 240v across a 1/8w resistor it could arc over.
Would it be safer without the ldr circuit? Just leave it lit.
Pink for all your dangerous tat :)
Could be made safer with a suitable zener diode, to stop the voltage rail rising like topsy if the led chain fails. Attractive little light though...
aha, good old ranpo, i've had a few things from them
I got the email today, Sorry to hear about your spudger! Can you maybe regrind a new end onto it?
a proper class x2! BUT i've seen a datasheet from one maker(cant remember which) that advises NOT to use them for dropper purposes ..? dunno why?
I think they're just avoiding the liability of gradual degradation causing the capacitance to fall and the product to start behaving oddly.
@@bigclivedotcom possibly, the motor dropper cap in a smiths plug in mechanical time i have, had gone low capacity, but cant remember if an actual class x2 or not a later timer i have uses a resistor
I was looking for a good explosion from that one - or at least lots of sparks. Very disappointing. Big Clive can you dump a bucket of water over the next one?
When I was young, my mom caught me poking pencils ✏️ into our German outlets. Kids 👦 rooms weren't that overly child proof those days in 1966. The eraser at the end saved me from the conductive graphite core. So the experiment was quite uneventful. 🥱 US outlets are not "compatible" with pencils due to their rectangular shape. I survived and became an electrical engineer. 🤓
As a child (70 years ago ) my favourite toy was a length of wire, a bulb and a battery. I worked out that the table light bulb was a lot brighter, so of course my bulb would be brighter if I plugged it in to the wall socket.
It made it VERY bright, for a microsecond, and made my mother scream
They're perfect for teaspoon handles though. Maybe that's why murricans don't drink tea.
😂🤣😂🤣 🥄
A drop of crazy glue and it's ready to gift
This reminds me of a shitty nightlight I got from a $2 shop in the very early 2000s. I was about 7 or 8 and I remember it like it was yesterday. It was
Incandescent with a small bulb that had a silicone base that the wires just pushed into. The prongs that went into the outlet where internally geared so you could rotate them from an aussie to us plug. I remember being horrified when I discovered that the white plastic difuser dome coul just pop off to expose all the live internals!! The wires inside where both white and hair thin that they broke off with little to no effort. I wasnt happy to use it and I think I didnt even bother putting it back tohether. I also remeber having a fluro version of equally poor construction. Also one that looked like a butterfly, fluro also. Used none of them.
Actually a cool looking light.
Some super glue aught to fix it so the kids all do not have matching hair styles.
🤣🤣😂😂
Echo de menos el medidor HOPY. 😢
Clive have the old three and four colour band ceramic resisters been done away with? Resisters these days all seem to be these tiny little things with the value printed on in number form .
Only surface mount resistors. Wire-ended ones are still mostly coloured stripes but they're used less often because they cost more.
Thank you 👍
Cleaver how the dark pink boarder glows white when it’s on . Would be even more clever if the white bace turned pink .?
Of course, you had to gel pink instead of white or blue.
It’s funny it would not need more power if it had no dawn sensor.. and could be produced even cheaper.. can’t you use the same transistor to open circuit instead of shunting? Hey Clive, how about a breadboard session with improving the design at the same cost (and dangerous exposed life wires)😊
You can't use the same transistor to open the circuit because the unloaded voltage is over 300v.
مرحبا كلايف اشتقنا لك
looks like a flame when lit --a nightlight with ominous foreshadowing
If you want to use it in the children's room, superglue does the job. Just glue the lid on.
Where did you get the Antai power meter? I've seen Hopi on Aliexpress but not Antai.
There are various brands on the same units.
Well, for a plug-in LED light of dubious quality and safety, there's not mushroom in there... :P
I've got a similar square one. Mine is fully resistive.
I removed the LDR and now it stays lit all the time.
Mmmmm. Just had an idea for your next bearded man meet, 24 electrolytic caps on a board, pins up, 12 charged, take turns touching the caps... If you take a hit you down a shot. 😊😊😊🍺
A bit stupid making a circuit that consumes more power when it is off than when it is on
But it doesn't. 0.27W when OFF and 0.42W when ON.
Taking the line voltage portion of the circuit design away and maybe adding a smoothing capacitor, would this be a good circiut with lithium rechargeable batteries? I.e. a milwaukee m12 cordless battery (12vdc)
It would be very low current, the output would be live with respect to ground and any charge safety circuitry would potentially be damaged and bypassed with the high open circuit voltage.
Are you talking about making a DC-powered nightlight? If so this circuit is a poor choice because the current increases when the LEDs are shut off. For a low-voltage DC source you'd want a series pass enable resistor as opposed to this parallel shunt disable transistor.
Now I want to get one of these an find out what happens when you let the LEDs shine on the LDR, does it strobe? Does act like it's being PWM driven and just light at a lower intensity? Does it shut down the entire power grid and cause mass hysteria?
It dims.
I found the same one, on the US eBay site (albeit much more expensive). But what would differ between 120 and 230v? The capacitor?
Most likely, but it should work as-is on 120V at slightly lower intensity.
Should be gifted with a bottle of Super Glue...
I have a request for a possible teardown if possible. could you tear down a digital toaster? For how common they are, I haven't come across any teardowns.
Definately a fan of easy finger insertion 😂
It's rimmable with a twist. (A 240V twist in the UK.)
Shorting the supply in a cap dropper circuit isn't all that wasteful. The power factor just gets worse and the true power is very low. Seeing as how the power factor is capacitive it really isn't all that bad as it helps compensate for the largely inductive power factor of the grid.
Just looking at the circuit. If for some reason the base goes full on, doesn't the output of the bridge get overloaded? Or am I missing something.....
The capacitor limits the current, so it can be shorted.
Clive, can Saturday’s stream have a shout out to Rainman Ray? He is pretty ill with suspected pneumonia or bronchitis. Cheers big man
Remind me during the stream.
So it uses the same amount of electricity even when the leds are not lit. Could it not work with 4 leds to collector, and the photo resistor in a divider of sorts feeding the base (and emiiter at negative rail)?
That wouldn't work because if the load is removed the voltage shoots up.
A few drops of superglue would fix the issue with the cover. Not much reason for the cover to be removable anyway.