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. This cube formed part of my first order from Temu (not a sponsor) who did actually ship the stuff to this little island in the Irish Sea via Royal Mail. When the package arrived this part was making an ominous rattling noise, as the motor and disk assembly had come adrift during transport.…
From bigclivedotcom. The phrase "military grade" best describes the very robust internal construction of this unit. The custom cast and machined heatsink assembly has strong sci-fi vibes and is both stylish and 100% functional. The seamless two material case is also very impressive. This unit had been detached from its mountings and left dangling by…
From bigclivedotcom. Having looked at crappy grey-import surge protectors with very poor manufacturing quality control, I thought it would be a good idea to take apart a UK compliant one. Update:- The EPCOS component may be made by TDK and is probably a low profile gas filled spark gap. That makes sense for something that…
From bigclivedotcom. At £5, this is worth getting for the parts. It has lots of potential for being hacked for powering with USB (with series resistance) or a solar garden light module. The lamp itself has four filaments with 15 LED chips in each, so a total of 60 LEDs in parallel that start lighting…
From bigclivedotcom. If you’ve always wanted a string of lemon-yellow LEDs then Poundstretcher has them for you, although they do describe it as gold light. It’s odd, because Poundstretcher actually has some very distinctive and nice solar stuff, but this set is maybe just skimping on the costs just a bit too much. Beyond the…
From bigclivedotcom. Another video filmed on the fly while travelling. Is the black background good or bad? These are classic LED MR16 bulbs bought from Poundland as a generic example of their style. They are designed to replace classic tungsten halogen downlight bulbs, but usually lack the intensity and rich full spectrum of the traditional…
From bigclivedotcom. These are really cheap and common devices on eBay, sold as toys for printing images onto thermally sensitive paper. This one came with several rolls including coloured paper and self adhesive label material. The printer can only print one colour, usually black, dictated by the paper itself. The app does allow printing of…
From bigclivedotcom. These surge protectors were being sold as "returns" from a major online retailer at a suspicious price of £10 for four. I felt the urge to buy a set to check out. It turns out they were perfect for sale on eBay since they have at least one major manufacturing defect that means…
From bigclivedotcom. With Meanwell being one of the biggest players in the professional power supply industry, I had high expectations of this surge protection unit designed for use with LED drivers in outdoor signage, but also very suitable for many applications where you want to protect expensive electronic circuitry against rogue voltage transients caused by…
From bigclivedotcom. I think I’ll have to assume that pork cartilage is a common part of Chinese cuisine, but it didn’t feel good to eat. it was a soft bone-like gelatinous stuff. This was a self heating meal that uses a pouch of metals and salts that react to create the effect of a short…
From bigclivedotcom. This is one of many similar products that cashed in on the pandemic by offering products that would sterilise phones and other objects with UVC energy. To be fair, this one has a better design, since it allows for greater distance between the UVC LEDs and the object, and it actually drives the…
From bigclivedotcom. Here’s a link to the original project on my vintage website, which I recently returned to its advert-free pre-Google glory. https://www.bigclive.com/hamster.htm
From bigclivedotcom. Now I’m back in Glasgow we can have a meetup for coffee, beer and food at The Counting House on George Square in Glasgow. Please don’t travel long distances to attend this meetup, and please don’t bring large technical gifts. This is a midweek meet in the evening due to the popularity of…
From bigclivedotcom. The wireless version of the audience interaction LED wristband, given to me by Vince the crew chief for our exploration. These units are issued to the audience of large concerts, and will light up in colours as part of the show. If you enjoy these videos you can help support the channel with…
From bigclivedotcom. It’s a long time since the first (expensive) Luminara style dancing-flame candles first appeared, apparently based on the patented candle effect used in the Disney haunted mansion attraction. Then the Chinese started copying them en-masse as happens, and the price came down to a more realistic level. This unit is the cheapest I’ve…
From bigclivedotcom. Whenever I take things like this to bits I just kinda expect to see this old Motorola chip inside. It’s only now that I’ve realised that it’s as iconic as the classic 555. With the same modular style that allowed it to be used in many different applications. Dating back to 1983 it…
From bigclivedotcom. Since the Xyloband was used on Coldplay concerts in 2012, the use of interactive audience illumination gadgets has become common in the entertainment industry. Update. I tried a set of new AAA cells in the unit, hoping for a self test sequence, but it stayed unlit. It needs to see the correct IR…
From bigclivedotcom. The things we do backstage… This self heating meal bought by Vince the crew-chief was very out of date, largely because of the bad timing of the pandemic. The brown oily stuff was probably seasoned peppers, since it was very "spicy". If you enjoy these videos you can help support the channel with…
From bigclivedotcom. They seem to be dumping these things on eBay at the moment. I wonder if that’s due to poor sales or technical issues. During the exploration of the product I found two issues that were not microcontroller friendly. One was a lack of power supply filtering (it literally just needed another resistor and…
From bigclivedotcom. Yet another grey import shipped with an unsuitable power supply, made somewhat worse by the conductive metal parts and target market of children. I’d like to thank Ray for sending this ornament. He’d received it as a gift, but didn’t enjoy the experience of getting shocks from it. The leakage current was low,…
From bigclivedotcom. The reason modern MLCC (Multi Layer Ceramic Capacitors) fail so often is due to excessive miniaturisation. Each capacitor is composed of hundreds of microscopic layers of metalised ceramic, and the slightest stress through flexing, thermal effects from soldering and electrostatic discharge, can cause the internal layers to bridge. That results in the capacitor,…
From bigclivedotcom. While I can appreciate the desire of the manufacturer of this style of bulb to make production cheaper, I think they may have gone too far. The usual spring contact inserts that connect to the smoothing capacitor and the incoming supply have been replaced with direct solder connections that are disturbingly close to…
From bigclivedotcom. Having accidentally ended up with a (paid for!) bottle locked shut with one of these security caps, it suddenly became a challenge to open it. The functionality is very good, and no amount of twisting and pulling was able to remove the cap – in fact it just locked on tighter! So without…
From bigclivedotcom. The circuitry in this light is quite pleasing in the way the solar panel has been potted onto the main PCB. The colour changing version does have an oddity though. It defaults to the colour changing effect every time it senses dusk, and the only way to lock a colour is to open…
From bigclivedotcom. Since I recently looked at a fairly complex two transistor self starting solar pendulum circuit, I thought I’d also take a look at a classic simple pendulum circuit as found in many ornamental clocks. This circuit uses a single transistor, but requires a centre tapped coil for the pulse and sensing functions. I…
From bigclivedotcom. I made this video in two parts while travelling, but now wish I had the other parts or some suitable test equipment to test my theory that it might have a design defect that could overcharge the lithium cell if the light is left in sunshine while switched off. Update – I’ve run…
From bigclivedotcom. Although I’ve featured the 5V version of these before I have avoided the 12V version because I thought they might just be the same as the 5V version with a higher value resistor. But they’re not. They use special higher voltage LEDs so the current per pixel is much lower than the 5V…
From bigclivedotcom. While attempting to clean this vintage solar flapping leaf ornament I found that the plastic had degraded to the point where one of the leaves broke off unexpectedly. This turned out to be a good thing, as I did a full reverse engineer of the circuitry and being older than the mass produced…
From bigclivedotcom. I bought this amplifier purely so we could open it and take a look inside. It’s a modern class-D amplifier that uses pulse width modulation and filtering to achieve high power audio amplification efficiently with low heat and size. One slight correction. The incoming supply comes in via an NTC inrush current limiter…
From bigclivedotcom. To see more, check out the full video here:- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAM882I6u7g
From bigclivedotcom. Well this was foolish, but I have no regrets. The sodastream machine did need a very thorough internal cleaning afterwards. To carbonate the Marmite I dissolved a large spoonful in hot water and then chilled it to make it more receptive to carbonation. It took a lot of carbon dioxide, but didn’t seem…
From bigclivedotcom. I had another go at getting this thing to communicate with various devices and step the voltage up for higher power delivery, but drew a blank. It just didn’t happen. It would have been handy to have a USB-C breakout PCB to check voltages, since the middle output didn’t seem to activate at…
From bigclivedotcom. This video was inspired by Paul of Mr Carlson’s Lab, and his shock story. You can find his video here:- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNes9blcFGk It’s inevitable that when diagnosing faults on equipment that maintenance workers have to work with some systems powered to be able to trace the fault, as turning the power off may make…
From bigclivedotcom. This pound shop (dollar store) light from One Beyond in the UK caught my attention because it seemed to be styled on the classic fence mounting solar lights, but was priced more as a typical garden stake-light. It turns out it’s a hybrid of the two with a decent solar panel and NiMH…
From bigclivedotcom. I saw this COB based led keychain light and wondered if it had a donut shaped COB that could be used as a ring light for a miniature camera. The answer is yes and no. It COULD be adapted with a bit of effort, but is not totally suited to the application. The…
From bigclivedotcom. This is a pair of rigger boots. Classic construction site footwear in the UK. I’ve had these in a cupboard for a long time and recently rediscovered them. But the soles of the boots have degraded in some way. They have gone sticky and crumbly. I’ll guess that they’re made of some sort…
From bigclivedotcom. This unit uses the variable ionisation of the air to detect specific refrigeration gasses. It uses fairly complex linear circuitry to create a two speed pulsed tone that can be tuned to increase and decrease sensitivity as needed. This unit is only intended for specific refrigerants like CFCs and HFCs. For other gases…
From bigclivedotcom. I can’t put a date to this. It could be from the very end of the Victorian era, but I’m not sure the exact timeframe. The fabric coated rubber flex didn’t seem quite right for the era, but on further inspection it appears the scary rubber tape mess inside the handle is a…
From bigclivedotcom. A very basic unit with minimal electronics and a simple three position switch. Off, Low and High. I was hoping this unit would contain an ioniser module, and it turns out to have a proper bipolar ioniser module in it, with both positive and negative ion emitters in a very basic configuration. Ionisers…
From bigclivedotcom. This is an early NCV (Non Contact Voltage) detector that uses a ceramic PCB with printed resistors. I wonder if they used a ceramic substrate to give high stability at the very low currents involved in sensing electric fields. The quality of the construction was also the downfall of the early units, since…
From bigclivedotcom. This is quite a neat little light once you get used to its quirks. That and the undocumented dusk sensor that makes it behave oddly until you realise that you have to set it up in a dark room! Here’s a summary of the operation:- Single click increments through individual colours. The light…
From bigclivedotcom. The classic neon test screwdriver has been around for a long time. It relies on the sensitivity of a small neon indicator bulb in series with a safety resistor to give a slight glow when touched to live electrical connections by finding a return current path through the user. It has a few…
From bigclivedotcom. My bassy voice didn’t do this button justice. With a higher pitched voice it’s a bit louder, due to the limited frequency spectrum needed to smash 30 seconds of audio into memory. This video was inspired by Julian Ilett video where he showed some technical goodies he’d ordered online. You can get these…
From bigclivedotcom. A look at a surprisingly sophisticated air freshener that emits tiny puffs of aromatic oil to mask smells or add an aroma to your environment. This unit is notable for using a single AA cell to power a tiny ultrasonic disk that pulses every 8 seconds to atomise oil that is supplied via…
From bigclivedotcom. This started as a very ordinary fault with an easy fix, but then I discovered that a section of the circuitry was getting extremely hot and had to explore further. It turns out that a classic fault was causing a weird knock-on effect that was so unusual that I felt the need to…
From bigclivedotcom. It’s pink, it’s rubber, it’s a kettle – it’s a pink rubber kettle. I think the point of this is that it is rugged while also being easy to fold down for storage and travel. It’s not a fast kettle at just 600W (I measured 700W on the local 245V supply) but for…
From bigclivedotcom. I saw a dog chasing geese in a local river and was surprised when the goose appeared to play dead to escape the dogs attention. I didn’t realise geese did that. You can hear the dog’s owner shouting in the background while her pooch completely ignores her because it’s busy having fun in…
From bigclivedotcom. A fake Samsung charger from eBay, with a steel weight inside to make it feel "better quality". I strongly recommend buying USB power supplies from reputable companies with a reputation to protect. At the moment I regard IKEA USB chargers as some of the safest.
From bigclivedotcom. This light contained a chip I’ve not come across before. A super minimalist chip that operates at full mains voltage and replaces a lot of traditional circuitry. Bright Power S4523B. Here’s the datasheet (not https). http://www.bpsemi.com/upload/cn/file/2023-01/col385/1673442622103.pdf The LED driver is also a Bright Power chip with a super low component count. Notably the…
From bigclivedotcom. This is NOT the product I was expecting. The functionality is probably the same, but the circuitry is very different, and it seems ridiculous that a microcontroller could be used in this application. Especially when you see how they detect the voltage thresholds. I get the impression from the ludicrous 100Mohm resistor that…
From bigclivedotcom. It wasn’t all top hats, big dresses and chimney sweeps. Behind the scenes the Victorians were having naughty fun with "medical" devices used to cure their hysteria and other ailments. This is an original Dr Young’s self retaining "dilator" which was claimed to cure many ailments including bad breath (!), apathy, constipation, piles,…
From bigclivedotcom. That annoying moment you discover that your "copper" scouring pad is actually made of copper-themed steel.