The trashiest electronic channel on YouTube. We test and use affordable electronic soldering equipment and tools to build, teardown, modify (and sometimes destroy) random electronic stuff.
A British TV licence is NOT required to view my videos or almost every other video on YouTube.
Many of the builds and projects featured here operate at full mains voltage and carry a high risk of shock and fire. As such they’re really intended for either entertainment value or for those who do similar stuff.
The videos are generally uncensored and may contain tasteless jokes, profanities and even blood and electric shocks when things go wrong. So just like a normal workshop really.
So kick back, grab a beer and enjoy the ride.
From bigclivedotcom. There are so many free lithium cells to scavenge from products these days that you can build up quite a hoard of them for future projects. Here’s how I store some of mine for safety, as having them all loose runs a risk of accidental short circuits.
From bigclivedotcom. Blue asbestos was often used inside the wall between the auditorium and the projection room in old cinemas due to the risk of traditional nitrocellulose film igniting if the projector jammed and it got stuck in the high temperature light path. If you break the surface of a wall in an old building…
From bigclivedotcom. They promised more meat, but did they deliver? (Clue – I ate the whole thing.) In a previous video I bought one, but discovered that the accountants had visited and reduced the meat content to a box ticking slurry. It appears they have addressed this issue. These tinned pies have been a British…
From bigclivedotcom. To dooby a bulb is when you reduce the power rating of an LED bulb to make it more efficient, cooler running and longer lasting. It’s named after the infamous Dubai bulbs made by Philips for the Ruler of Dubai, who wanted the most efficient and longest lasting bulbs possible. With modern linear…
From bigclivedotcom. This little LED street light is so cute that I had to buy one. It does make me wonder if they actually use things like this in China, as street lights in rural areas, or just as yard lights. It’s probably the most basic thing you could mount onto a pole outside and…
From bigclivedotcom. One of the nice things about these tool batteries is that they are relatively simple, have a BMS system and best of all, the ability to shut themselves off when the charge is low. I did a few cycles on a couple of the cells and they measure in at 1400mAh (1.4Ah).
From bigclivedotcom. This was a LONG video to make. But worth doing. Note that the filled pods were dried at a maximum of around 90C due to the way the drying system works. It would have been better to have a system with metal containers and a higher drying temperature. But the results are still…
From bigclivedotcom. A look at a novel fuse designed to make troubleshooting easier by indicating the its location and blown state. That could save a lot of time in some applications where an overload on a circuit is common (vehicle appliance socket?). Or one of those very rogue intermittent faults. These fuse are only for…
From bigclivedotcom. It’s cheap – it does work – but would you trust this in your home? This voltage transient shunting device was sent by Frankhe for our exploration. He also sent some candy and some combined metal oxide varistor and gas discharge tube devices. I’m used to seeing surge protection devices that have a…
From bigclivedotcom. What percentage of pistachios are nut vs shell?
From bigclivedotcom. I’ve already featured the battery and charger in separate videos, so here’s the full teardown of the actual chainsaw itself, complete with oiling system and gearbox. I also show how to put the chain and chain-bar onto the unit and adjust the chain tension. The arborist-experts can weigh in on the way I…
From bigclivedotcom. A look inside the extraordinarily lightweight 21V "2A" battery charger, often supplied with generic unbranded cordless tools. The charger is instantly notable for how lightweight it is. Literally just 60g or 2oz. It puts out a current limited supply of around 500mA, and uses a standard USB 5V 2A chip, but with the…
From bigclivedotcom. The circuitry in these generic battery packs for the unbranded cordless power tools on eBay is actually OK. Given that you can usually purchase an extra battery with a kit for just £5 more it does make me consider how much markup the prominent brand names like DeWalt, Makita, Milwaukee and others are…
From bigclivedotcom. When refilling burners or other devices with alcohol based fuel, keep in mind that it can flash back into the bottle and blow out the blazing contents over a large area.
From bigclivedotcom. It might surprise you that human embalming wasn’t just done by the Egyptians. It is still done when a body is not going to be cremated or buried soon. That is often as a result of families taking a while to arrange a funeral, or when the body is going to be viewed…
From bigclivedotcom. Water hammer is the loud thud from pipework when a valve closes suddenly. It’s often caused by the sudden stopping of water with momentum, causing the pipes to jump. It can put a lot of stress on fittings. The normal approach to fixing this is to provide an air buffer in a pipe…
From bigclivedotcom. This is entirely my fault. I bought a mini chainsaw to make a video about, but as I’d featured another variant at that time I held off and ended up storing the unit and its batteries for about three years. When I rediscovered it I found that both batteries were damaged beyond recovery…
From bigclivedotcom. You do NOT need a 3D printer to make this project. You can use a standard project case. If you do choose to make a 3D printed case, then the three scripts are included below in this description. They can be copied and pasted individually into OpenSCAD to create customised STL files to…
From bigclivedotcom. I didn’t realise how far voice recognition had progressed. This light can understand several voice commands and react accordingly with no need for a network connection. One slight correction. A longer test showed that the unit does not store the current state to flash memory, but will power up in a random state…
From bigclivedotcom. The peril of making videos late at night. I completely screwed up the frequency by a significant factor. The 5ns waveform is around 200MHz (0.2GHz), so it could be the oscillator frequency. A fairly standard style of module used in solar powered lighting systems. The circuit board has a very intriguing mix of…
From bigclivedotcom. ParCan – an abbreviation for Parabolic Aluminised Reflector bulb and the metal can it’s housed in. The bulbs used with these are MR16 or GU10. MR16 means Metallised Reflector and the 16 is its diameter in eighths of an inch. Likewise the classic PAR56 and PAR64 are 56 eighths (7 inches) and 64…
From bigclivedotcom. It’s fun to visit past projects from decades ago, and see what sort of stuff younger-me was making back then. This is a little rechargeable light I carried in my toolbox for a while. It used very early white LEDs that look a bit tame by modern standards, but were cutting edge back…
From bigclivedotcom. If you wonder why there haven’t been videos for a while, it’s because I received what I believe to be a very unfair strike from YouTube for a harmless 18 second short where I singed the end of my beard with a lighter in a controlled manner. I bought this unit a while…
From bigclivedotcom. For reference – beards are combustible, but easily extinguished. And smell like when a bug gets stuck in a bug zapper. Most of my technical videos take hours, days or weeks to make. This one didn’t. I bet it gets a lot more views though.
From bigclivedotcom. Just a simple teardown of a very standard device to see how its construction differs from others. This video is also a nice relaxed one to make my life easier while travelling. The heater has a resistance of 24,000 ohms, so at 240V it will pass 10mA and dissipate 2.4W of heat. Local…
From bigclivedotcom. Some devices can be a very useful source of motors, and this one contains a low voltage and fairly low current motor that will potentially find use in solar ornaments and other projects. Removing the motor was tricky. I ended up having to use a hacksaw to carefully cut a slot through the…
From bigclivedotcom. These lights are available in 50, 100, 250 and 500 LED sets in warm white or coloured. I got a set of each type to check out the circuitry and solar panel size. The LEDs are wired as a long parallel string with visible intensity drop across them when bundled together. By cutting…
From bigclivedotcom. When I made these panels 20 years ago, I never envisaged that it was similar to how some future LED bulbs would work, but using multi-chip LEDs and a linear regulator. The weird choppy sinewave is definitely screwing with the test readings. I think the energy meter got the most accurate result. It…
From bigclivedotcom. I’ve not seen a bad Wagobox (Connexbox) product yet. From the first Wagobox to the more recent products they’ve all been fresh, innovative and very functional. Now that other countries outwith Europe are discovering the convenience and versatility of the Wago connectors, I thought it would be worth showing some enclosures designed specifically…
From bigclivedotcom. Having looked at an official Otis Elevators illuminated button, I got a couple of similar ones from AliExpress to compare the construction. These are visually nice buttons and have a solid feel due to the stainless steel actuator, albeit that it’s pressing a fairly standard tactile switch. The 24V LED circuit restricts their…
From bigclivedotcom. These lights have a really nice case and appearance. I actually had high hopes of them being a great light. They even seemed to have a dedicated all-in-one charge control and PIR monitoring chip. Then I dug a little deeper….. A simple diode test between the solar panel input pins and the power…
From bigclivedotcom. Nothing really radical about the circuitry, but the visual effect is very neat. Especially with the LED placement. As with most solar lights, if you really like this one, then it’s worth spending a little bit of time waterproofing the interior. Whether that’s using a lacquer on the PCB or some form of…
From bigclivedotcom. Every time something new gets introduced, the negatarians and conspiracists come out of hiding to say nasty things about it. That happened with glitter lamps, when the career-haters implied they contained nerve gas. The reality is that some very old "fast movement" glitter lamps contained solvents like trichlorotrifluoroethane which could break down into…
From bigclivedotcom. I’m a bit perplexed by the fact that the 220V indicator had two resistors in it, but with one literally doing all the work. One resistor is 39K and one is 2K, meaning the 39K resistor is dissipating almost all of the power as heat. For the higher voltage buttons on AC a…
From bigclivedotcom. A very long and relaxing project build where I answer questions and chat for two hours. These ultra long videos aren’t usually as popular as the shorter ones, but can help people relax and sleep. This project does involve mains voltage, and should only be attempted by those with good electronic assembly experience.…
From bigclivedotcom. With recent regulation changes to address the issue of RCDs/GFCIs being damaged when used in solar power systems that can feed power back to the supply network. The issue is that some (not all) RCDs/GFCIs have a short duty cycle coil designed to be pulsed at high current very briefly to trigger the…
From bigclivedotcom. If you have one of these then you may wish to either stop using it or completely change the way you use it. At the very least, wear insulated gloves and make sure the unit is unplugged after use. Do not rely on the onboard switch. There are safer units available that convert…
From bigclivedotcom. Yeah! Weird device that I’ve never come across before. I kinda want to fit one in my DB just for the gimmick value. It’s basically a digital counter with non-volatile memory, that detects high current pulses being shunted by a surge protector and gives a running score. This could be used to monitor…
From bigclivedotcom. I have to admit, this exceeded my expectations significantly. The plastic light housing was slightly disappointing, but viable, since the power of the light is only around 5W with a fully charged cell and maximum intensity selected. The solar panel itself seems fairly robust, and is based on a glass panel with the…