Clive, I actually made a staff for my young son, who went as a Knight for Halloween. The head piece of the staff was a blue flame bulb, very similar to your orange flame bulb. The only main difference was the power supply, which converted the main's volt down to around 3-5 volts DC. I removed the power supply, so I could drive the bulb with a 5-volt source. I also added a short section of RGB strip lights twisting about the length of the staff, which also ran off of 5-volts. The two were powered off a mobile cellphone charger, which ran off a 12-volt rechargeable battery pack, cannibalized from portable drill. It all came together very nice, with a run time of roughly 3-hours, on a full charge. He won 1st prize, for the uniqueness of his costume. Now to make one for the middle daughter!

What makes your channel so Great is not only do you show what is inside you explain how it works- for me it is the best electronics channel I have found so far for people who are self taught like myself- Big Thank You Clive!!!

@mduvigneaud

6 жыл бұрын

Yeah! Clive is awesome at making electronics fun, interesting and accessible! :D

I've found LED technology's progression over the last 15 years is incredible! An LED from a decade ago is a good indicator brightness at 15-20 miliamps, nowadays 10 miliamps in an indicator is near blinding!

@bigclivedotcom

6 жыл бұрын

If you touch a terminal of a 9V battery with one hand and then hold the lead of a modern green LED with the other one and touch its other terminal to the other battery terminal, it will light visibly just by the tiny current flowing through your body.

@captainscentsible1811

4 жыл бұрын

These guys making these lanterns powered by solar are making money. Off this effect.but solar garden lights. They cant keep up with the sales. But i find them to be dim.like a regular solar light. But they are getting better

Thank you for being a KZreadr reviewing the stuff I didn't even know half the stuff exist saves me the trouble for trying to have someone make what I want

Hi clive. snowed in. Got my supply's and hot coffee, watching my favorite Scotsman.

I love your giddy excitement! Thanks for sharing.

If you remove the secondary liner from the tube, I reckon the soldered pads would line up. That was probably they way it was designed, but the LEDs turned out to be too distinct. So, in order to 'fix it', they added the secondary tube and didn't solder the pads on the board into a tube.

Pretty clever that they use the LED's ability to drop the voltage to taper the intensity of the flame as it travels up. Reminds of me old school LED based VU meters :)

They could be using pnp transistors in order to reduce the strain on that tiny 5v regulator. Otherwise the current through a npn transistor will be 0,25mA per transistor - 4,5v supply - 0,5v transistor drop means about 4 volts over each resistor (assuming no voltage loss in the cmos chip). Having 16 transistors to control this means 4mA of current if all leds are on, this translates to 0,28W of additional power that tiny voltage regulator will have to dissipate as the positive voltage to control npn transistors will have to come from the 5v (or in this case 4.5v) rail of the chip. On another hand if you pull bases to ground then this doesn't cause any stress to the voltage regulator. Had to ponder a bin on this, it's really quite smart how they did it.

@AThreeDogNight

6 жыл бұрын

Thank you for that explanation, Tom.

@Mark1024MAK

6 жыл бұрын

Hmm, but if you did use NPN transistors with a reasonable gain, say a gain of 100, then the base current for each NPN transistor would only be around 112.5uA. If all 16 were to switched on together, that's only 1.8mA. So would not make much difference to the 78L05 regulator.

@featheredskeptic1301

6 жыл бұрын

Mark 1024MAK This could indeed be done but we have to keep in mind that these transistors are used in switch mode. This means they should be driven to saturation, and a lower dc current gain must be predicted in the design because transistors from the same type aren't guaranteed to have have exactly identical dc current gain. The average may be 100 but in reality it may vary between say 70 and 150 on each transistor. This is why switch mode transistors have to be driven with relatively high base currents even if they have high gain. Even if it's something like BC847 with a minimum dc gain of 110. There is also the issue of switching noise affecting the chip due to the switching of the power rail. This is usually easy to fix with a capacitor and there are some capacitors there but then again I don't know what the developer had to overcome. Could be the lower voltage due to the diode that causes problems even with capacitors on the power rail. We don't know what the chip is and so can't look at any datasheets in order to eliminate this option. Otherwise they may have simply used mosfets instead of bipolar transistors. But ultimately pnp's is how they did it. What I think is the case is that if you have lots of leds and a tiny sot-23 voltage regulator, stuffed in a flex inside a plastic housing, you will try to eliminate heat as much as possible. With 100 dc gain npn's it's still 12,6 mW of additional heat in the regulator with no proper ventilation and even additional heat due to the flex with leds covering the control circuitry bit.

@HighestRank

6 жыл бұрын

Antitheist39 J, silencing ringing by shunting it to ground through a capacitor is a brute-force method of dealing with a little switching noise. Several other people mentioned use of a battery, and now I can easily see why.

good tear down. interesting circuit for both the power supply and the lights. I am impressed how little current is drawn at 9 volts. As for that weird PNP transistor arrangement, I suspect that they are used but not fully turned on thus providing extra limiting in line with that main resistor

Hello Clive. 4:10 Nice afterimage effect when you zoomed down on the board as I was taking my eyes off the led's looking at your hand. Great vid!

Man I don't recall the name of the game, but back in 84 when we got our first Atari 2600 it had some stupid game that had flames like that when you died. Oh thanks for the video, I am always excited when I see you have posted one, and drop what ever I am doing to rush to KZread to view the little bit of wonderful entertainment you present!

Clive is gonna be doing a bodge your own ugly Christmas fireplace Jumper with this as the flames.. we all know how much he love his fetching clothing.

@peterjensen6844

6 жыл бұрын

That's actually a really good idea...

@aspectcarl

6 жыл бұрын

Good idea to out do my co workers next Xmas jumper day :)

@HighestRank

6 жыл бұрын

While enjoying the catalyzed warmth of pocket heaters, like the BBC had put a VAT on the entertainment from actual flames.

@chronicgaming3280

6 жыл бұрын

Never done an ugly jumper contest but strangely it was the first thought I had.. pmsl

@HighestRank

6 жыл бұрын

Mark Pascall what's that you say, a real fireplace jumper has pockets or not?

I got one similar in the mail today... based on the design I was convinced it was the same style that Clive had. When I popped it open, it was indeed the flex board, but a much smaller piece of it containing only 33 LEDs (about a third of the one Clive shows), and mine was soldered at those contacts into a tight cylinder about 1 cm across. It works, technically, but with that small number of LEDs the effect isn't too great. $9 on ebay. Oh well, that's how it goes.

My guess is that the circuit was originally designed for NPN transistors in a common emitter configuration but after they'd made a few tens of thousands of pcbs they discovered that someone had made an error in the pcb layout. They had used the wrong footprint for the transistor and got the emitter and collector swapped. So then someone came up with the brilliant solution of substituting PNP transistors and using a common collector (emitter follower) configuration. They didn't even have to change the firmware in the MCU. This loses a bit of voltage compared with the original circuit but hey it works. Or maybe they just ran out of NPN transistors. If it had been intended to be a common collector circuit then there would have been no need for the 1k6 base resistors.

@petehiggins33

6 жыл бұрын

Oops! spot the deliberate mistake, of course they would have to change the firmware to invert the outputs.

@AThreeDogNight

6 жыл бұрын

It is a good idea after all though, who knows with manufacturing all of the mistakes made before they are caught, but yes, a good guess just as any.

@petehiggins33

6 жыл бұрын

There's another reason to use a common collector circuit instead of common emitter but it doesn't apply in this case. In the common emitter case the transistor saturates and saturated transistors are slow to turn off because of storage time. In the common collector case the transistor cannot saturate and remains in the linear region. This would only be a consideration of one was trying to drive the circuit at MegaHertz speeds.

@HighestRank

6 жыл бұрын

number 33 Meh, I don't think that this is a horse/cart cart/horse analogy. Common collector is PNP and common emitter is NPN. Reversed- connections are physically analogous, but I consider as a whole that they're imperfectly-mirrored comparisons due to incongruent differences in each type of the 2 component's operational characteristics~despite both devices fitting your solitary "transistor"_moniker.

@HighestRank

6 жыл бұрын

Kinda like wiring a pentode with feedback to the second screen and calling it a triode. No, it's still a pentode, wired like a triode could never be wired.

i love this guys channel! i learned so much about electronics lol...

Never occurred to me those maple cookies weren't something available everywhere.... I love the smell and taste.

@tncorgi92

6 жыл бұрын

And each one "DAREs" you to eat it. I unfortunately would dare to eat far too many...

@HighestRank

6 жыл бұрын

Ian Colquhoun When the entire world cramps up with hypoglycemia, we'll know who sold keys to THAT kingdom.

@Enjoymentboy

6 жыл бұрын

Ian Colquhoun I used to feel the same way but after more than 4 decades I am totally "mapled out". :) I'm still trying to figure out when eating anything maple :flavoured" became synonymous with patriotism. I may not know WHEN it happened but I fully blame tim hortons. lol

"A real flame effect on your own fingers" lol brilliant. I like the flame effect though :-)

@HighestRank

6 жыл бұрын

Smoke from Fingertips was really just some glue in a tube, too.

I only understand bits here and there but i enjoy watching.

I like the fact that after telling us not to get it out of its case whilst it's running, you then give us a photo of it running with your testing finger holding it down.

i broke a lightbulb the other day and saw a a copper coil a PCB and some wires. I was interested, because up until then for all I knew lightbulbs were powered by some tiny elf on a stationary bike. fast forward to today. my history is a thousand of these videos because i literally cannot stop clicking on them.

i love it when you play dangerous and naughty!

@tncorgi92

6 жыл бұрын

But where's the alcohol?

interesting that flexible boards are now so cheap. That opens up options.

@bigclivedotcom

6 жыл бұрын

I think it's one of the options offered by prototype PCB companies like Seeed studios service.

@rich1051414

6 жыл бұрын

It helps if the PCB doesn't need to be transparent. Just throw on a flexible silkscreen to keep the traces from delaminating, and you are good to go.

@davidgranger3628

6 жыл бұрын

Certainly they must be ,i was making some in 1995 for a satellite company and they were horrific to make ,you couldn't buy the boards pre coated with resist so i had to coat them before exposing ,in the end they were so complicated i had to use negative resist and instruct them to plot the tracks so the film was exposed track side to board ,if it was on the opposite side of the film you couldn't get a sharp image It was difficult then and all done printing the film on a hp laserjet and bubble etched (how things have changed) best i could do was 0.2 mm track width ,when i left they had to outsource and my 3 hour turnround became 2 weeks!

@tncorgi92

6 жыл бұрын

How long until someone covers a car with these? Especially if you could get a flame effect.

@herpnderpn2484

6 жыл бұрын

Need to see how many times it can flex back and forth before it starts having issues.

"Getting a real flame effect through your fingers" LOL

A real flame effect, through your fingers 😂😂

Using a PNP transistor allows using an open-collector output from the controller. It is typically for complex chips to be able to sink more current than they can source. Using an open collector allows switching a higher voltage than the chips power supply and sinking rather that sourcing the output current.

i think i prefer your old videos where you were literally opening the product for the first time and you learnt how it worked infront of the camera, helped others learn along with you i think.

These would make very cool replacement blinkers for anyone who has the skill to modify vehicles! Think I'll buy a set and see how it goes.

The power supply IC is neat, keeps things as simple & low-cost as possible. Its datasheet says that the switching frequency is 40-60 kHz, so it's never operating in the audio range. The most interesting specification I saw was the drain voltage range: -0.3 to 650 V.

The shadows looked weird when you covered the LEDs with your hand, it looks like one of your lighting LEDs is the old low CRI ones

Just popped the cover off the one I got from Banggood/gearbest (I forgot which one) and yes, it's a flexible PCB inside, kinda clipped in. May take it apart at a more sensible time, as I quite like it. It would be good to see how long your one would last on a 9V battery.

@Lagittaja

6 жыл бұрын

Well that depends a bit. A 9V alkaline at a 0.02A CC discharge gives you about 0.55Ah total but the voltage gets below 8V quite quickly, at around the 0.12-0.15Ah mark or in terms of time maybe 8-9 hours. For 0.01A CC you can roughly double the time. So with this LED lamp, maybe you'd see something like 12-16 hours before it gets too dim to be useful. NiMH 9V? Depends heavily on the model, they're all quite different. Like for example with "Conrad Energy Endurance 270mAh" we'd be talking about 12-13 hours at 0.02A CC. 0.01A CC is closer to 25-26 hours. But keep in mind that some of these NiMH "9V" batteries start from 11V or so. And if it wasn't obvious, I'm talking constant current discharge numbers, with the LED lamp the current will obviously drop as the battery voltage drops..

@phils4634

6 жыл бұрын

Getting a pair of these for the two ornamental coach lights at the side of our front porch. I'll see if I can remove the inner diffuser and see what they look like. Used to use the old neon "flame effect" lamps - but they are far too feeble to be noticeable! Search Ebay for "LED-Flame-Effect-Fire-Light-Bulb-E26-E27-Flickering-Flame-Lamp-Simulated-Decor"

@Alacritous

6 жыл бұрын

I've ordered some of the flame effect lights when I saw one of Clive's earlier videos. I want to remove the LEDs from the package and build my own enclosure powered by DC. There are several different styles of solar yard light at a Walmart nearby that I am thinking of stealing the glass enclosure from to put the LEDs in. Some are frosted and a few are clear with sort of stained glass faux-lead lines on them. I'll see what I wind up with when the bulbs get here.

@peterschets1380

6 жыл бұрын

Yes, i also want to know how it looks without diffuser. But i think that the light will go sideways instead of forward.

@HighestRank

6 жыл бұрын

If the flexing breadboard smells like fishy capacitor oil inside, then nothing has changed in18 years since c. 2000.

HAHA, last night i had just replied to your previous flame lamp vid. Another guy had bought a couple of LIFU lamps and put them in lanterns in his house, he's into LARP, so liking the lamps i got one, opened it up to see if it could be powered by a battery to make a portable version, the PSU was switch mode, and isolated It only supplies 5V to the circuit, and is a panel like the one you have, the panel wraps around an aluminum tube with a slot for the electronics to be inside the tube, the end is soldered to secure it, i didn't want to unsolder mine, so i don't know the details any further than that. I made a couple of vids so the guy could convert one.

@AThreeDogNight

6 жыл бұрын

A nice idea Sparky, is your video on you tube perhaps? Thanks, Tom.

@sparkyprojects

6 жыл бұрын

It is, "USB flames" is the name

@AThreeDogNight

6 жыл бұрын

Thank you Sparky, I'll check that out.

@AThreeDogNight

6 жыл бұрын

I went & checked it out & subscribed as well. So keep up the good work. Thanks, Tom.

The PNP transistor is wired as an emitter follower. It's confusing because it is "upside-down". The way the processor is powered, it will provide 7 v (12v - 5v) as a 1 and a full 12v as a zero when measured (upside-down) from the 12v rail. This is the way the LEDs see it. So the emitter will 'follow' the base and provide the same (minus a voltage drop) to the LEDs. A zero will turn on the LEDs, and a 1 won't be enough voltage to turn them on. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_collector And thanks for this and all your videos. I enjoy them all.

That's a cool operating circuit.

I wonder if this would be good as ambient lighting behind a home theater/theatre TV. Might be fun to pair with "It's A Wonderful Life" and other autumn/winter holiday films.

Isn't it regulating the LED brightness linearly? then the PNP transistors wired as emitter followers would make sense...

@1marcelfilms

6 жыл бұрын

Hello diodegonewild

@hoglundh

6 жыл бұрын

Greetings, how's Veritáska?

@therealjammit

6 жыл бұрын

That's an idea. I was thinking you could do the same thing with NPN, but the chip couldn't share a common ground with the LED's and would have to share the positive as the "common" and have to use a negative regulator for the chip. The PNP option uses common (and therefore cheaper) parts. The PNP base only sees 5v or 0v. Assuming 9v drop on all the LED's and 0.6v for the BE junction, that leaves 2.4v across the 18 ohm resistor. That would regulate the current to about 133ma, or 65ma per LED series string.

@amaanqureshi1286

6 жыл бұрын

Diodegonewild and bigclive are my favourite electronics channel!

@HighestRank

6 жыл бұрын

light tree *bigclivedotcom if my memory serves me better than autocorrect.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if those panels alone would turn up for sale very soon.

@HighestRank

6 жыл бұрын

Anvilshock those *very* panels, deprived of all their former population, yes, that could happen once the Death Star arrives.

Darn it Big Clive! I bought a couple of these and love it but then have to wonder about my taste (which I think is fabulous) I was thinking a couple of these along the wall in my basement; in sconce type fixtures; offering some sort of "gaming - Half Life" kind of ambience. Totally fabulous but I think guests may think I've lost my noodles.

@amorphuc

4 жыл бұрын

Pretty cool, at least my version; against concrete.

I want maple cookies

3:58 - "...and find yourself getting a _real_ flame effect through your fingers..." Said so casually I had to pause the video I was laughing so hard. :)

It's very simple in it's complexity, yet it is very complex in it's simplicity. Clive 2018.

I think alot of the time the choice of NPN or PNP is to taste and whether youre using active high or active low outputs - reminds me of my first PIC programmer which I made out of a USB keyboard circuit (using the 3 status LEDs as clock, data and R/W, and switching a couple of the matrix lines for output) - those LEDs were common anode so I had to use PNP for all the logic.

I'm fascinated that they can step down European 240v down to useable 4.5v electronics voltage so efficiently.

Oh, I didn't know these have modes. I've seen a similar flame lamp on banggood and was tempted by the 2200K warm white, but was not keen on the flame effect.

Allegedly those unmarked eight pin chips are various versions of ATtiny (5 to 85) depending on complexity of operation. They also make 12 pin version but this beast is something else. Perhaps a pic? Or one of those 16 bit I can't remember now.. would be interesting to know

Sorry if this has already been asked but is there a link to where I can buy these? I read through most of the comments but did not see it anywhere. I also searched ebay but did not see one as described.

I've seen similar drive (pnp) used for IN9 nixie tubes.

Thanks for your video! I took apart one of my flaming LED bulb and changed it to run off a 9V battery. Now I need to hunt down one that uses 5v.

I got one almost the same. But it drives of about 3.3v so it works just fine with a 18650 cell. One problem though, the sequense is Static -> in/out -> flame. *facepalm* On the upside, it has a tilt sensor so it can be hung up side down still displaying the flame in the correct orientation.

I copied and pasted some info about the HM2741 chip = “Unlike conventional PWM control, there’s no fixed internal clock in HM274X family to trigger the GATE driver, the switching frequency is changed according to the load conditon. The multi mode PWM control is integrated to simplify circuit design and achieve good line and load regulation without audio noise generated. The peak current limit changes according to the real load condition for low standby power in no load.” Perfect for a dancing flame 🔥

Oh, Clive, Dare cookies are really good.

It might be interesting to replace the pnp for a npn transistor and see what the difference is.

OMG those cookies are from my childhood! My nana always used to buy those.

@kimsleep4111

6 жыл бұрын

LOL...I sent them to him, I m glad he enjoys em

@loginregional

6 жыл бұрын

pleeeeeeeease...

@HighestRank

6 жыл бұрын

LOGIN Noticias somebody in Chile wants a sugar rush. The artificial maple tar tastes like old beer smells. I don't drink so neither odor really bothers nor entices me.

@loginregional

6 жыл бұрын

Heh, that sugar rush: yep. Last night I mixed 5 teaspoons of sugar to a mound of cocoa powder with a little milk for mixing. That hit the spot, so I repeated it. As for "artificial maple tar" -- you have the wrong stuff. Real maple smells a certain way, and if you lived in a sugar bush, you'd know. Get your tap in, hang a bucket and gather up the firewood, lad, we be boilin' that sap down. And yes, I miss Fry's.

If you try to eat the whole box of maple cookies in one sitting, you'll only get about halfway through before you'll have to lie down for a while. A friend told me that.

@AThreeDogNight

6 жыл бұрын

I bet a friend told you, LOL. That's a good one.

Thanks for the video! : ) . Thumbs up Indiana USA.

As already noted - All power into the transistor goes through the LED. No worries about the base current. Not previously noted, I think, is if the chip I/O pins power on to High?. NPNs would turn all the LEDs on during boot?

How would I convert a flame effect bulb over to LiPo DC? Would I attach the corresponding leads to the control chip or chip and ground depending on how the pathways run??

They're now using this flame effect on led keyboards as well.

I've also had those cookies. Quite tasty if you like maple, which I do.

i wonder if the transistor was a cheap reject run that was printed with the PNP code but is really an NPN

What IR kamera do you use? I have FLIR integrated in cellphone and there is aligment tool - for close up pictures.

@bigclivedotcom

6 жыл бұрын

I've got an E4 with the resolution hack.

Since it's LEDs, is the PCB made of Aluminium (foil i guess) for heat dissipation? You may see if you scratch it. If Aluminium, it must be hard to get through the oxidation when soldering. I wonder what they're using as solder & flux. 2 layer, I wonder what they're using for the seperator, maybe double sided kapton tape?

That bulb in my opinion, for me will be perfect for winter. I would set it on a lamp, and on another lamp set an infrared 50w light bulb (ExoTerra reptile bulb) to create the illusion of heat, and fire... Without burning the house down.

What if you remove the reservoir between the voltage regulator and the CPU, if it is indeed used to allow the cpu to sense the power flick removing it may dissable the feature since the desired mode is the primary mode anyway

for the cpu pin output npn/pnp thingy: the good old NE555 was able to pull down to gnd better than push up to vdd, (did not reach vdd i think) perhaps the internals just work better that way.

Clive you said lamp,cookies and MRS. I feel like I have been shorted. I guess I'll just have to wait for that part.

@bigclivedotcom

6 жыл бұрын

MREs coming later.

@seannot-telling9806

6 жыл бұрын

Yummy, Food. Well I hope so anyway for your sake.

How strange .... I'm almost certain I have seen this done before comparing it with a previous version ...... but its gone now ???

4:02 Clive became a chipmunk 😂😂😂

Nice video

There's a circuit board in a hollow tube with no power supply. Could you put a cell in the middle and run it off that? It's fairly liberal in what voltage it'll take.

Oh Clive, you're always so flaming.

Great video Clive! I purchased two of these just before Christmas and I received them around the second week of January. One larger diameter and one smaller diameter. The larger one has a screw off plastic cover and the slimmer one has a snap off plastic cover. Each one is branded by different companies. I'm going to "try" and collect as many different ones as I can. The plastic covers are shaped and vented slightly different from each other. The internal circuitry might be from the same designs and manufacturer so it's going to be hard to tell if I'm purchasing the same ones again. I've noticed that companies re-brand everything nowadays. This new model that you have now is completely different from the two I have. I wonder how many different (original) designs are being sold. At least 4 I think, so far.

@bigclivedotcom

6 жыл бұрын

It'll be interesting to see if the pattern complexity evolves or if they just aim for the lowest price with a wall of clones.

Love you'r videos

So, as for the PNP tranny's, the only thing I can come up with is that they wanted to use a 12V supply and they wanted MAX BRIGHTNESS for each PWM pulse, to allow for a smoother dimming effect? (I'm sure you know this already, but the reason why PNP would be preferred over NPN for this, is due to the lower Vce(sat) voltage drop. And the reason why they are placed switching to the bottom rail, is because they didn't want to do level shifting between the microcontroller and the transistors).

@HalvardSkurve

6 жыл бұрын

This would make a 0.65 volt (Vce) drop, which means that the LEDs will not get the max brightness. A NPN transistor would make them light more. (sorry if I didn't understand your explanation.)

@mortlet5180

6 жыл бұрын

Halvard Skurve; The transistors are used as switches in this circuit; they are either completely off or driven well into saturation. In the saturation regime, the voltage drop over the transistor is referred to as Vce(sat) (or Vec(sat) for PNP transistors). Crucially, PNP transistors have a lower saturated voltage drop than NPN transistors. Therefore, to ensure that the maximum possible voltage is going to the LEDs, they picked PNP transistors.

@johnfrancisdoe1563

6 жыл бұрын

MRLT If the voltage is raised to around 14V or 15V, all the LEDs should light from leaks to the 5V rail through the MCU. But the supposed-to-be-on LEDs will be brighter by 5V/1K6 * ß or about 0.3A to 1A.

@mortlet5180

6 жыл бұрын

John Francis Doe; Hmm... It could very well be (like I said, this is a totally stupid design, but it IS a way to cheaply get your 50p chinese knockoff to look a bit brighter than the other countless knockoffs, I suppose.). Thing is, we don't have the datasheet on the MCU, specifically, its IO leakage current in the High-Z state. If the MCU actually tried to DRIVE the transistors into cutoff (by outputting ~5V into the base), then yes, I could see how a couple of microamps could flow through the input resistance and down to ground. However, the diode at the supply input would prevent any large leakage current from flowing between the supply rails (so, in your example, there would be 10V between the LEDs and the MCU's supply), so long as the reverse voltage of that diode isn't exceeded. This is still very unlikely to be an issue, since I would expect that they would just park the IO pins in High-Z. Something else might lead to an even bigger problem though: What is the maximum reverse voltage-to-ground that the poor little MCU can hold off? 15V Would be pushing it quite hard, I would think, but any transient overvoltage, supply malfunction, etc. is very likely to cause that input to breakdown, resulting in a tiny, but relatively low resistance, short to ground. All of the transistors connected to that pin, would then instantly turn on and pass as much current as they can, killing the IO pin and possibly even the transistor!

@AThreeDogNight

6 жыл бұрын

Thanks for that explanation MRLT, I needed that.

by using pnp transistors they can use the bass resistors to limit the current to the leds

You could actually make a low cost version with the E27 bulb kit and lots of the flickery flame LEDs.

missing you testing the 9V and share the amount of time it will run

Would be interesting to know what it would take to blow the FR1 fusible zero ohm resistor ?

Is there any chance you can do videos explaining electronics to us?

I quite like these, would anyone in the UK be interested in doing a bit of a groupon and seeing if we can bulk order just the flexible PCB component from the manufacturer?

Can I slow that thing down anyhow? Mine is much too flickery. I shorted out the first 2 of the transistors for the bottom LEDs and bridged the next 3 with 100ohm resistors. It's much better, but not perfect. Update: I soldered some higher value resistors over the transistors of the top LEDs and it's fine now. All the leds are never fully off now. It adds a nice static glow. The ramping mode was deleted on mine and there is a massive aluminum tube inside of the PCB in mine. But I did not buy the cheapest one.

Bet the power supply is a flyback style, which to make isolated would need an optocoupler - so they save the cost (an space) of the optocoupler and just regulate direct. They will have access to the transformers in huge quantity with both windings for other things.

Hey Clive, I really like these, but I would rather find one that can have the flame pattern able to be controlled by a standard dimmer, something that would more emulate the old gas lights. Have you seen or heard of one like that?

@bigclivedotcom

6 жыл бұрын

I've not seen anything like that yet. If it happens I'd guess it would be implemented as a switching option with each switch click stepping through a series of flame styles.

Where did you get the Hopi meter from? I would be interested in purchasing one :)

@bigclivedotcom

6 жыл бұрын

I bought it on eBay.

I'm always fascinated how they managed to put all those patches in such devices. Because there is no much space there, and when you have so much leds it's need serious thinking to figure out how to connect it all when you have just two flat sides on it.

@HighestRank

6 жыл бұрын

Akinaro hence the limited symmetry, mentioned earlier. What, you hadn't read my previous comment! How planar is thy thought.

Very kewl, it's a shame they didn't have this in 2000, but it's 2018.

@HighestRank

6 жыл бұрын

MrBrymstond referring only to the flexible circuit, I presume, but I disagree. I had both wired and wireless keyboards with flexible circuitry in 2000. They both were strange things. One smelled of a fishy lubricant like capacitor oil and the other was molded opaque rubberized silicone. Neither device failed before entering the legacy peripheral zone, despite many thousands of flexions. These days one can just look at a new USB wire wrong and it splits its casing.

This led flame bulb reminds me of a audio Spectrum analyzer. I think that would be a neet project for you Clive to build your owen led flame bulb, and find out what music emulates the best flame.

@HighestRank

6 жыл бұрын

Jonathan Hughes NAIR!

@Slicerwizard

6 жыл бұрын

Neet is for the ladies' legs (and maybe Clive's)

Interesting to find out if the device (12 volt power supply) would work with 120 volts as well as 240 volts.

So, I've been planning to use one of those to hack myself an electric torch for roleplaying purposes, meaning that I am going to run it on DC. But since there are just sooo many different ones to buy, I am just very unsure. Are they any you would recommend getting on ebay?

@bigclivedotcom

6 жыл бұрын

It's very hard to say. You may need to buy a couple and check the voltage carefully.

Placed inside of an unused wood stove, it probably would look quite nice, not as nice as having a real fire going, but still... :)

@DreStyle

6 жыл бұрын

twocvbloke that's a great idea actually! Thanks for that! I have one and I'm going to steal your idea! Thanks!

@twocvbloke

6 жыл бұрын

You're welcome, I've thought about things like this before, I just haven't a stove or fireplace to do such a thing with... :)

@HighestRank

6 жыл бұрын

twocvbloke 1 most-clever & efficiently designed light source vs. old sooty, spare cast-Fe 'luminary_boi', guess who won?

@HighestRank

6 жыл бұрын

Andrew van Leeuwen pyromaniaphile, don't blame anybody else for snooping under your personal apple tree in an orchard!

@hockeyguy820

6 жыл бұрын

From a wood stove you would likely be relying on a fair bit of indirect light. I have one of these flame lamps, and the indirect light from it is not very random. Not nearly as nice as the direct flame effect where you can see groups of LEDs form patterns. I would maybe use more than one lamp to introduce more random indirect lighting patterns.

Was expecting some Thomas the tank engine references, when I read the title!

I`d like some of these boards, but don`t know how to get them

They’d be great to use for the bonfire night torchlight precession with the 9 volt battery option.

@HighestRank

6 жыл бұрын

Green Silver *procession. That centripetal precession, tho.

@locouk

6 жыл бұрын

Rýán Túçk Cheers, I was looking at it and knew it wasn’t right. I had a brain fart lol 😂

@HighestRank

6 жыл бұрын

Green Silver could you be more specific? Is there a real bonfire in the same space as some random electric flame thingy? Won't one be completely consumed by the other, just like the premonition was consumed by flatulence in the head?

Is there any solder to be done to STOP changing modes? I want it fixed on the flickering flame position...

@mmradian5233

4 жыл бұрын

I have the same question , did you figure out how to fix it in flame mode ?

With my limited experience, a sinking output will supply more current than a sourcing output. That could be the reason pnp transistors are used.

Very neat, interesting!

@HighestRank

6 жыл бұрын

Jason Doe NO! Spoiler Alert.

@jasondoe2596

6 жыл бұрын

Rýán Túçk, I'm sorry xD

Going back to the previous style flame effect bulbs - I found two separate bulbs wander out of sync, just didn't look right. I finally got round to connecting two LED arrays to a single controller to see and it certainly solves that issue - and seems to cope with the loads fine. Layout either flat or a big doughnut looks equally good. Used two lots of 4x4 wire JST plug and sockets (one for each group of LEDs) to keep it simple! This new layout complicates piggybacking, shame!

A couple of those boards inside a a picture frame would give quite a good flame effect for a small fire, build it into a small fireplace. If I had one I might try that, but no fireplace in this house.

@HighestRank

6 жыл бұрын

bob4jjjj what's next then, a cardboard chimney with crepe smoke hiding a solar panel at the top?

I read the datasheet. I've never come across a Buck/Boost converter chip that used both FM and AM modulation of the PWM!

@HighestRank

6 жыл бұрын

UFOhunter alien tech for the uninitiated.

For an IC, sinking current generates less heat than sourcing it. At logic high the base of the PNP isn't putting out any current, and at logic low it might even be putting out a milli-amp, and that adds up. So, the PNP solution is lowering heat.

@Mark1024MAK

6 жыл бұрын

Great Joe But if NPN transistors with a reasonable gain of say 100, are used, the base current for each transistors could be around 112.5uA.