A pink potentiometer! I bet you custom ordered that one didn't you?! 😂

@carlyonbay45

Жыл бұрын

You Know Clive Loves Pink shit from China

@marcse7en

Жыл бұрын

Pinktiometer 🤣

@ianhosier4042

Жыл бұрын

​@@marcse7en 😂😂😂😂😂😂

@marcogenovesi8570

Жыл бұрын

Kinktiometer

@ToddVierling

Жыл бұрын

​@@marcogenovesi8570 No, those ones generally have locks to prevent unauthorized movement

THANK YOU Clive for exposing all these dangerous devices. Buyer beware!

Clive, bring back that dimmer circuit that used the 555 timer to generate a sawtooth wave that was fed to a comparator. That design moved me so much, I've been using it just because it's so elegant. This would be a great candidate for it. By the way, thank you for sharing all that you do, I didn't even know why dropper resistors were used before getting the motivation from the beautiful videos you make.

At 40 seconds in it is already clear, we are looking at an extremely bad dimmer.

3:00 And naturally the power from the dimmer comes out as pins (which you can touch) with the socket (which you can't) being on the end attached to the LED strip.

@phils4634

Жыл бұрын

Ease of assembly (for probably semi-skilled operators) is more important that end-user safety. The "Manufacturers" probably stick a "No User-Serviceable Parts Inside" label on the finished light system in order to (attempt) to avoid liability!

@ianhosier4042

Жыл бұрын

You are obviously forgetting the chinese plan to conquer the world one electrocution death at a time

Thanks for another insight into electronic kitch or even dangerous junk. I hate flicker so this would be destined for the WEEE bin, if the wiring of the plug hadn't already warned enough. That dimmer coming apart so easily was another warning. Thanks again.

quite an educational circuit, also shows the need of appropriate smoothing!

That plug wiring reminds me of the days when electricals were sold without plugs, and the wiring inside was so dodgy that it's amazing they actually worked... :S

@ianmorris8534

Жыл бұрын

I was born in the '60's, my father regularly used to stick bare wires into sockets and hold them in place using matchsticks. Most houses had (three round pin) plug sockets,but people also used to connect high current devices such as toasters and irons into the bayonet lighting connections, few devicesat the time actually had an earth connection. I was 12 years old, in 1975, when I was taught, at school, how to correctly wire a plug! What amazes me, is how bloody clueless people are nowadays about ....everything! I see kids going into halfords because they have a flat tyre on their bike, adults throwing away perfectly good washing machines because they can't remove a bra-wire from the trap below the pump, ugh, countless, countless examples of why we need more people like Clive, and why they should be teachers!

@twocvbloke

Жыл бұрын

@@ianmorris8534 I was born in 1985, and have seen the transition from such things (my dad too would do dodgy things with plugs and socket, like jamming the stripped-back wires into a socket with another plug, on a 30 amp ring main!) to people apparently too afraid to even flick an RCD back on incase it went boom in their faces, and as for repairing things, I love to fix stuff, but the trouble is a lot of things these days are built to be anti-repair, heck, the uncle got a washing machine for free (some indesit-built hotpoint job) as it needs drum bearings, only, you can't replace them cos they sonic-welded the outer tub into one piece, so there's no repairing it without destroying the tub, which negates fixing the thing anyway, so it'll get used 'til the bearings crap out, then stripped down and what I don't keep will be left out for scrap, because it's junk, and designed to be junk from the factory...

This is very good to know. Though am glad I fitted variable intensity under-cabinet lighting for our kitchen sometime ago because it was miles cheaper compared to today. Clive, you've saved many of us from buying dangerous stuff and I thank you! 🌻

And that's what i like in your videos - a little hack at the end, that should fix what the manufacturer missed (probably on purpose of saving costs). I remember that i stumbled across your website like 15 years ago and wanted to make the "LED Bonsai Tree", and to this day this website is still available, still in the same form as 15 years ago. You're a legend, Clive.

@bigclivedotcom

Жыл бұрын

I recently stripped all the advertising back off the website, so it's back to its original form.

For a change the plug itself looked fine, from what I could see. Full metal Earth, shrouded Live and Neutral, right size pins, proper cord grip and real fuse holder. Pity about the wiring and the fuse used.

@zh84

Жыл бұрын

Even if it was a real fuse, 13A is vastly too high a rating for an LED lighting strip.

@MD4564

Жыл бұрын

@@zh84 Its a mains voltage lightening strip.

@SeanBZA

Жыл бұрын

Very likely the original plug was a 2 pin Euro style one, that they chopped off, and put on the UK version. Thus the 13A fuse, instead of a 3A one, and the poor work, because they are paid by the unit, so want to take as little time as possible on each one, so as to get more done in a day.

Flicker can be dangerous in a workshop because the stroboscopic effect can create the illusion a machine isn't moving, or is turning very slowly, even though it's spinning very fast.

Hope you are well Clive 😊 love the video great as always 👍👍

Thanks for the explanation of how the diac and triac work. I never really got that until now.

Your inline home soldered bridge rectifier is a thing of beauty!

@mechanoid5739

Жыл бұрын

And it was Chinese CE compliant !

I do remember running across fuses that looked a lot like resistors, a really long time ago. Like 1984, 1985, somewhere around there. If memory serves, they were used in the power supply of an Apple II. The ones I got to replace the blown ones were made by one of the major fuse manufacturers, can't recall which one offhand.

Ugh, the power cord termination! I don't know what's worse, this or the crusty head lamp @EEVBlog just posted. Interesting COB reverse engineering.

I think the pf is +90%, because only the first 30v of the 310Vpk can not light. If you parallel a resistor across the pot, you can severely reduce the pots dead zone, I have used 300K successfully. Good stuff, keep them coming! Thx.

Clive, I'd like to see your version of a good and smooth led dimming circuit. Maybe design what you'd think would be ideal for this and similar applications.

@bigclivedotcom

Жыл бұрын

It's not actually a straightforward thing.

Clive, Love your show. I took electronics engineering in Los Angeles back in the 70s. It's nice watching you break down so many interesting circuits. Thanks

I have a section of the tape from years ago no dimmer but a rectifier in a plastic diamond on the mains lead and I have never used it after seeing how dodgy it was 🙂

Perhaps the limited potentiometer range may be due to usage of a logarithmic scaled (package markings starts with B) not a linear one (marked with A)? The log ones are the most common ones, as they're used in audio circuits, where perception of sound level is log.

I have not seen that design since the 70s. Diac stunning

It comes to something when your improvised bridge rectifier is of a comparable standard to the product itself!

I'm going to have to give in and buy some led strips soon. I just had a really cool idea...at least in theory. My wife wants me to toss what's left of that TV but I think with some creative ingenuity I might try to make a sort of shadow box with the empty shell 🤔

@sometimesleela5947

Жыл бұрын

Great excuse to build the classic sci-fi movie space helmet where the face is detrimentally ringed with lighting.

The wall mount lights on the front of my house started flikering and my wife told me to fix it. But they had 16 surface mount led's and a few of them burned out. I was going to replace the whole thing, but they look great and the dawn to dusk switch still worked. So i removed the aluminum square holding the led's and the controler. Drilled the backplate and added a bulb socket. Put in 15w Aliexpress led bulbs. Now they are brighter than ever before. The Dawn-Dusk switch is rated for 32w so i have the option of really lighting up my front yard.

Hello Clive, I commented this morning saying thanks for the great video and KZread seems to have scrubbed my comment 👍👍

@ianmorris8534

Жыл бұрын

KZread do that, the autocratic twats that they are. (edit for spelling)

Speaking of LED lights, I dug out the old task light I built a while back, because I just received my new Noga arm so I've actually got something articulated to mount it on. It's just a few Osram 3W "Golden Dragon" LEDs in series, soldered to those star shaped aluminium backed PCB boards and mounted on a heatsink (with a 3D printed shroud and perspex light diffuser). I never did get around to building a driver circuit for it, so I really should look into what options are out there for constant current circuits with dimming. It would be nice to have something a little more "linear" than just PWMing a CC source (although perhaps without the added heat dissipation of an actual linear regulator).

"pull one's knob..." 🤣😂😅

I don't really like any parallel connection of LEDs without an individual driver for every parallel branch. Not sure Clive, you are right by saying (if I heard correctly) that failure of one of the paralleled LEDSs will not cause shut down of the whole strip because the other LED will keep it going. In my experience failure of one of the paralleled LEDs (open circuit) will immediately cause failure of the other one because the current through the other one suddenly doubled. The strip current is stabilised at a value that assumes that the current is shared roughly equally between the two (or more!) parallel branches. Failure of one does not change the current as it is stabilised, but it now shared by fewer (one!) LEDs thereby increasing individual load.

Even if the appliance is ungrounded, polarity is still important. You want the switch and dinner to be on the hot side; otherwise like voltage is still present even with the unit turned off. Also: Edison sockets.

Really enjoy your channel ! I did happen to notice that the (supposedly) 3 amp fuse is mounted on the board at a location marked F2..., would that be a givaway to what it is ? Keep up the great programming !

Clive, very good to find this review. I’m planning to use a huge led strip assembly for the main room = a total of 25m in perimeter of the living room ceiling. It would be interesting to #1 be dimmable, #2 not overload the copper strips (solution: external wires), #3 provide uniform light intensity among LED-Strip segments. Because of these #1#2#3 I’m wondering if a 127VAC (Here in Brazil) would not be better than some beefed-up 12V header (~15A to 20A @12V) to use the conventional 12V strips as commonly used. Im wondering to use the total 25m strip assembling it in SERIES with 12 segments of 2.1m (12V x 12elements = 144Vavg I would appreciate any feedback from you and our fellows here. Thank you

I swear they intentionally wire things wrong (fuse on neutral, live/neutral reversed, no ground, ect) more often than they do it right. Is it because they have no standards to adhere to and they're just taking the piss because they can?

@adzib1823

Жыл бұрын

Well, if my understanding of Chinese labour is correct, it's either a case of "I'm not paid enough for this shizzle", or (possibly worse) "If I spend an extra 60 seconds per unit making sure polarity and termination quality is correct, I won't hit my production quota and then I certainly won't be getting paid enough... At all".

@user-hb8sq6ce9u

Жыл бұрын

I think that they do these with other plugs as well like europlug where is not polarity. And they do not know/care how the uk plug should be wired.

Great video, I had no idea those were so cheap. 😎👍

@gedtoon6451

Жыл бұрын

Cheap for a reason!

I like the flicker in the middle

Hiya Clive, Thanks for this vid, I've bought many shite products where they couldn't even bloody attatch the effing plug properly, or the socket in the device wasn't connected securely enough to prevent melty smoke and fire.... Yes, we love it when you do it but it's not fun when it happens in someones house outside the confines of an explosion containment pie dish, and let's face it, those pies are so bloody crap now that no-one is going to have one. It is with this in mind that I'm going to ask you if you've seen the article in The Guardian about the rising number of fires caused by cheap chargers for cheap E-scooter/bike batteries. and the batteries themselves that are causing hundreds of serios fires every year? Apparently, the Govt are asking Ebay/Amazon to regulate themselves, but we know how asking greedy giants to control themselves is going to work! Also, thanks for pointing out the Douche-flutes to people, a cause of fires in many municipal recycling plant.

@bigclivedotcom

Жыл бұрын

The point of a government is to do the regulation. The current world governments will only be interested in how the increased fires will affect their revenue from their insurance investments.

Thank you.

We love you and your channels exposě's(with schematics)...think Robin Hood in Cartland pink vs the robbing hoods whom would put us their customers at risk of harm whilst charging us...thank you Clive👉💎👈👉❤️👈😇‼️

HO LEE SHI - the wires in that plug!!!!

2:55 If that white plug to the LED strip comes loose, then you have both male contacts at mains voltage, you have to love those safe things.

This is a good one. Lights: yes. Some kind of dimmer:yes But they arent even "put together". What a mess!

100Hz flicker a problem? We had a guy at work (Hello Colin!) back when we had CRT computer screens. He was always changing them to the maximum refresh rate they'd go, changing the colours to green-on-green and so on. So one day when he was adjusting one we all gathered around and asked why he was doing that. "The horrible flicker, can't you see it?". "No Colin, us Humans don't have that problem".

It also had a 13 amp fuse in it :)

LEDs love phase angle control, you don't even need a capacitor or resistor because they're off most of the time, just straight across 250v mains current, that's why the plug isn't earthed, because it doesn't need to be, trust me! 👀

Awesome Video big clive

A fuse of 3A is realistic, i have a similar strip at home. I purchased 50m. Powerrating measured: 600W. This thing is really a monster in brightness.

FULL BRIDGE RECTIFIER.Not a half punny bridge.Mehdi loves his rectifiers We need the RECTIFIAR here!Electroboom is awesome.Or diode gone wild he is also another amazing youtuber.Would love to see a collaboration with them.I love your videos and would be awesome to see electronic legends together.

@davidmckendry4491

Жыл бұрын

I would love to share a wee dram with you big Clive.👍

@davidmckendry4491

Жыл бұрын

Or a wee half and a wee halfen.😁A nice single malt would go down nicely.A nicely aged scotch whisky is like nectar.I love the taste it's my favourite drink you can't beat it in flavour.A good quality whisky and a stout that's the best 👌

Bulging cases and knobs, electrical erotica....!

"Pulling one's knob off "; 🤣🤣👏👏👍👍

The aluminum wire flame test would have been interesting to see. Maybe next time?

@bigclivedotcom

Жыл бұрын

Aluminium wilts and frizzles up. Copper holds its shape and glows.

Speechless ! ;)

The video for 3 seconds following 0:03 is oddly exciting. 😁

The power factor would be ok as the current is not phase shifted. Pf = true power \ apparent power. A bit spikey but in phase.

Hi Clive, I too live in the UK and thought that wiring was the worst I have ever seen. I did not know that fuses were soused to have sand in them, and after testing some of mine found no sand at all. What advantage does the sand make over the non-sand type? After seeing that plug, I wouldn’t touch that with a bargepole, I have seen some dodgy wiring in my time but never anything as bad as that.

@SkigBiggler

Жыл бұрын

The sand assists in quenching the arc on high current faults, and also prevents a scenario where in a particularly spectacular failure, the metal of the fuse vapourises and then deposits on the side of the fuse, leaving a conductive pathway even once the fuse has blown. In these failures, the sand absorbs the heat, and can also turn to glass, which effectively prevents any residual pathway from remaining after the fuse has blown.

I notice right away that they have fitted a gland at the plug but haven't bothered to tighten the strain relief. So that might well be why the wires have pulled out. At lease the tip is not coming off in your hand ☺ I dont think the case would make it double insulated for the safety of stupid people and children. ⚡⚡⚡⚡ Very interesting bit of deadly junk 2x👍

@Lemon_Inspector

Жыл бұрын

You've got to watch out for the tip coming off in your hand when you pull the knob off.

@dcallan812

Жыл бұрын

@@Lemon_Inspector Yes, a good grip on the knob is ideal.☺

I think some bright bulb finally figured out that they could sell the sand for fracking, thus creating a shortage of fuse-sand. That’s why the fuse didn’t have any sand in it. I’m surprised they didn’t just fill it with some granular, white powder, like table salt, sugar, or even baking soda. 😮

A non-compliant THIRTEEN AMP fuse, come to that

Thank you for the video, sadly I watched it after ordering that same exact strip. As a non native speaker I didn't quite understand though: Is just the dimmer bad, or the strip as well? I wasn't going to use the dimmer anyway, I would like to use a dimmer that's wired in my drywalls.

4:06 you never want to see something turning off/on as you're handling bare live connections, at least i had a glove on when i replaced a light switch in a fan the other day while it was live

The zero Ohm device (labeled F1) might even be a fuse. Ron W4BIN

Yeah...I would definitely have to use my own power supply...that one would drive me nuts!

@ferrumignis

Жыл бұрын

I don't think it's suitable for driving your nuts tbh 😁

Clive, U have a proposal for next video. How about going deep in to zigbee/zwawe LED controllers? Maybe grab a couple of best on market? 🤔

9:14.. Actually here in North America/Canada, On a standard DC Circuit the Black wire is always Ground and the Coloured Wire would be Positive.

Wonder what new circuits are now available to do the dimming. that vacuum speed control circuit/dimmer seems to be kinda universal solution

Pulling ones knob off. HAHA!! 😂

Youre great

this year I'm gonna replace my window A/C with a 240v version of high btu swap in a 2 pole breaker in the breaker box to power it just plug the connected outlets. its getting hot and I don't really use A/C but when I have guests I wanna be able to blast it cold pretty quick. I'm gonna use a 20 amp breaker because thats what the a/c calls for on the package and I used a wire gauge calculator it needs to be 14AWG existing should be thicker than that but I'll check. This is my first time pokein around in a breaker box should go okay I think its a pretty short run from the breaker to the window

@Roy_Tellason

7 ай бұрын

I'm assuming from what you write that you're in the US? For a 20A circuit you want 12 gauge, not 14.

Someone should make a game with villians like "The Hideous Dimmer", "The Deathdapter", and so on.

I wonder if the dimmer would work better if a shunt resistor were added across the LED strip? Maybe 10k or so...

5:43 *Hand* 'Saudered' by _Little Peoples_

Diabolical wiring very shoddy . Very well put together Clive who ever wired that should have been sacked plus failed there (Eye test ) in flying colours.

@6:13 - The markings on the tape - 8mm - 288 (D)iodes - 18 (R)esistor?? That makes perfect sense to me but I am probably wrong.

Please try magnetic charging plug

Rite Big Dude, So shite! I want one... TFS, GB :)

Hey up my bearded friend. I've had a reply from the ASA regarding those bloody VoltMax devices. This is weeks ago (too damn slow these people) but anyway, and this is for everyone, apparently we need to capture the "stats for nerds" in the screenshot to show that it's advertising to UK users... I mean really?! These bloody things are potential fire risks and they're a fudging con too but as usual FA gets done!

Very hackable. I like the capacitor dropper idea. With smoothing, how would the power factor look like? Can it just run 24/7?

@gedtoon6451

Жыл бұрын

power factor for a thing like this is not an issue.

@kyoudaiken

Жыл бұрын

@@gedtoon6451 Depends how the billing is changed.

@bigclivedotcom

Жыл бұрын

Power factor would be different with a capacitive dropper, but it would be very low power anyway.

Have you ever examined what’s inside ghost hunting gear? Like the little green Electro Magnetic Field detector or whatever the REM box is? There’s also this daft Spirit Box thing which seems like just a random word generator

@bigclivedotcom

Жыл бұрын

I have a ghost detector project video. As you mention it's all just random so that people can interpret what they want.

The LED lightbulb on a dimmer in the living room of a holiday cottage I rented the other week behaved similarly. Almost nothing for most of the range of the dimmer, then heavy flickering then full brightness. I wonder if it was similar design flaws?

@bigclivedotcom

Жыл бұрын

That may have been a non-dimmable lamp or just an older style dimmer that needed a minimum load to work.

As we age, pops and cracks can be expected from our wiggly connections.

"Pull one's knob off" 😂😂😂😂😂

the kink potentiometer

I just saw an AD for a white plug in device that will save me money on my lecy bill and it had your pad and schematics and hands in it LOL ! they are taking the piss now on mainstream youtube, demand money from them !.....cheers............RIP Calculon

@bigclivedotcom

Жыл бұрын

They do that a lot. I find it amusing.

Plug has a 13 amp (non compliant) fuse. Even a 1amp fuse would be ~ 30 times over-rated!

HV metal KNOB for the COB - that already shows me that somebody wanted to warn me of something :). Dont turn it on - tease us and strip it apart first :)

Can you do a el tape/wire and inverters please.

@bigclivedotcom

Жыл бұрын

I've featured electroluminescent things in the past.

1:13 That plug was terminated by Stevie Wonder 🙂

Cob Strip and the Terrible Dimmer. Not exactly sure what kind of a children's book this would be, but I'd love to find out. I assume that Cob is just really thin, hence the last name, not just fast or "weird" about his clothing behaviors...

That’s how my step dad terminates plugs, needless to say he’s banned from ever wiring one ever again 😅

Interesting. I don't understand how the series gate firing chain of pot + R + C can pass any current with the bridge in series too. Is it charging through the LED chain as well? Is the gate firing chain returned the other side of the bridge maybe?

@jussikuusela7345

Жыл бұрын

The diac-triac series dimmer circuit always passes at least a minuscule current through the load.

Bought a COB LED strip for my bedroom not long ago that runs at 24V with an in line remote dimmer, not sure what the culprit is but below 60% dimming it flickers making it essentially useless for the mood lighting I was intending to use it for. Maybe I can send it to you so you can investigate it?

@bigclivedotcom

Жыл бұрын

It may be a low pulse width modulation frequency or interaction with the power supply. It might be worth trying another dimmer or power supply.

So I know the reasons you cannot plug a 2000w tower heater/space heater etc into extension cables or multiboards etc. But i have a "heavy duty" out door cable for power tools, can I use something like that? If not can you recomend a safe way to make the pathetic 1m cable it comes with reach about 2.5m away where I need it to be? I got a quote from an electrician a while back to install another plug socket and it was 3x the price of the heater :(. Sadly most Nz houses have only 1 or 2 sockets per room it seems...

Why does a UK fuse needs to be filled with sand? 🤔 As a German I "like" much more: - the 2 cables entering the white box without any meaningful safety against getting pulled out (incl. the live wire) and - the loose fine copper fibers without an endcap half out of the screw. 🤭🤦‍♂️🤪

@ferrumignis

Жыл бұрын

The sand is there to quench the arc that is formed when the fuse ruptures. High energy circuits most always used this style of fuse (HRC high rupture capacity).

@sootikins

Жыл бұрын

Sand helps to prevent or extinguish arcing through the fuse. A fuse that allows sustained arcing is no fuse at all.

@u.e.u.e.

Жыл бұрын

@@ferrumignis Thank you! 👍

@u.e.u.e.

Жыл бұрын

@@sootikins Thank you! 👍

@ianmorris8534

Жыл бұрын

I think that the fact the fuse has no sand is of less concern than, as you mentiond, the conductors are not secured in the terminals!

Hey Clive, when are you going to do another Soda Stream video.. Can you add carbonation to Rumplemintz?

I'm curious to know if you could remove the led strip from the silicone sleeve and replace it with an alternative led strip?

@bigclivedotcom

Жыл бұрын

It's not viable. You can get empty sleeves for your own LED strip though.

Why do UK plugs have fuses in them? Do UK homes not have fuse boxes, or are UK electronics more likely to combust?

@TheEmbeddedHobbyist

Жыл бұрын

In the UK we have ring mains circuits protect by 32A breakers in the fuse box. So the fuse in the plug protects the wiring to the equipment plug in.

I noticed that COB strip has 220V silkscreened right on it. Given the claptrap dimmer circuit, what would happen if someone tried to connect that to 120V/60 Hz? Nothing? Magic smoke release?

@bigclivedotcom

Жыл бұрын

With the high number of LEDs it would either be dimmer or not light at all.

Shame it wasn’t RGB it would have had more uses that dimmer needs modification. Thanks Clive 😊

Will the dimmer pass enough current to power a slow cooker? I have a 50 year old electric frypan that's continuously variable and works great but my crap Chinese slow cooker only has 4 heat settings.

@bigclivedotcom

Жыл бұрын

Not recommended. It's a low power rating.

Interesting you note the fuse is fake but 13 Amp!! That wouldn't give much protection if needed. Haven't they got any 2 or 3 amp fuses, or even a 5 amp are quite easily available, at least that's better than 13. Keep the vids. coming. Marrtin.

@martinnewbery3032

Жыл бұрын

It makes no odds fake or not. Even a genuine 13 Amp fuse isn't going to cut the power by the size of the wires. Martin.