Teardown of an impressive ubiquiti WiFi node

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…

Expensive UK surge protector teardown

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…

Poundland 12V bulb with mystery component

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…

Short notice Glasgow meetup for technical chat

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…

Wireless audience LED wristband

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…

Cheapest dancing flame teardown

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…

Ordinary product with iconic component

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…

IR controlled concert LED wristband

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…

Out of date self-heating Chinese meal at work

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…

Zappy and tingly Tetris toy

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,…

Why ceramic capacitors fail

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,…

Over-cheapened trashy LED bulb

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…

Inside a LIDL bottle security device

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…

Inside the LIDL solar globe light

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…

Classic simple clock pendulum circuit

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…

Perplexing solar light

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…

Inside 12v fixed colour LED sign pixels

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…

Inside a 360W digital amplifier

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…

Marmite vs Sodastream – will it carbonate?

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…

Fake Samsung charger with interesting circuitry

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…

Surprisingly good pound-shop solar light

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…

My work boots have melted!

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…

Refrigeration gas leak tracer teardown

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…

Simple HEPA air cleaner teardown

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…

Surprisingly complex banned voltage detector

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…

Quirky little mood light teardown with schematic

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…

Reinventing the neon test screwdriver

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…

1.5V powered Glade Wisp ultrasonic oil atomizer

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…

Pink rubber kettle teardown – not terrible

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…

Goose plays dead to escape dog?

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…

Fake Samsung charger with steel weight

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.

fixing a faulty light with powerful built in fan (awesome chip inside)

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…

Test screwdriver with microcontroller!

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…

Those NAUGHTY Victorians!

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,…