Fixing my brother's solar garden lights
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 พ.ค. 2021
- Summer is approaching, and as always it's time to fix duff solar garden lights.
Prime candidates for faulty solar lights are:-
Worn out battery from being cooked in summer, and the high number of charge/discharge cycles (365 a year). Common dollar store or pound shop rechargeable NiMh cells are usually a good replacement.
Corroded on/off switch. These switches are very prone to corrosion and can be bridged out. Their only purpose is to disconnect the battery when in storage.
Corroded or stress fractured solar panel. The continuous DC voltage present on solar panels means they are very prone to rapid corrosion from water ingress. The silicon resin potted in plastic approach also puts lots of physical stress on the cells and connections due to differing thermal expansion rates in sunlight.
PCB corrosion due to condensation. You can prevent this by coating the PCB in grease/vaseline or nail polish.
I've checked online and Festive Lights do indeed ship to the Isle of Man.
www.ebay.co.uk/usr/festive-li...
If you enjoy these videos you can help support the channel with a dollar for coffee, cookies and random gadgets for disassembly at:-
www.bigclive.com/coffee.htm
This also keeps the channel independent of TH-cam's advertising algorithms allowing it to be a bit more dangerous and naughty. - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
I caught myself saying "One moment please..." in a Scottish accent the other day. Wife gave me a strange look.
Ya should try that with your dogs... I got a head turn sideways look the other day... :-D
LLAP
I too have found myself using one moment please.
hahaha
You need to up your game!
Try imitating Sean Connery, that might help! 👍
Clive's cultural impact is having a profound effect.
I swear Clive is the Bob Ross of electronic/electrical engineering... 👍
Or I guess you could say Bob Ross is the Clive of painting.
I think of Mr Carlsson's Lab as being that.
"Solid plug that goes into the bottom" 😏
Ooh, Matron !
I came down here to find out if someone had commented on that.
@@paulsengupta971 I was surprised no one beat me to it!
"Summer is almost here" and in 3 weeks we'll get a "Winter is almost here" video... the "joys" of being in the UK :P
We’ve had summer, it was in April this year... Now in May, we’re already back in Winter!
Y'all actually leave winter for more then a week at a time? Weird.
@@wyokaiju992 - in parts of our country, at times, we can have weather representative of all four seasons in one day...
@@Mark1024MAK Throw in a Tornado or two and Cheyenne's usual insane winds, and welcome to my world....
Where's the lie
If Ralfy gives you a bottle of something nice in thanks for the repair, I hope you don't distill it
Maybe he'll carbonate it.
If he doesn't, I say he should wire up the dalek on the shelf to explode 😂
@@phonotical I think kids are absolutely disgusting, dispicable and horrifying!
... BUT....
... there's something really beautiful and awesome about your picture my friend =) made me smile man.
@@ScumfuckMcDoucheface thank you, you have to remember those moments when they have their teeth in your arm 😂
Clive will distill it through normal consumption, I'm sure.
These green no-name cells are so shitty, they often come pre-leaked from the factory.
They're just packed so full of amperage it oozes out...
If you put a little dielectric on the batteries terminals.
yep, i have a poundland solar movement sensor switched light, its cells didnt last long so it got new ones, also from poundland, about 2 years ago, still working .... at the mo ... but poundland havent got the rechargeables in stock any more... poo ...
And that's why (wives/girlfriends/partners), we have to lay aside old parts: to fix your family member's garden lights, because as you always tell others: "We're so handy with electronics".
I have many places loaded with 'stuff' for any such occurrence. They don't understand the sheer joy of fixing something 'from stock'.
Ralfy sure uses his amazing brother to his full potential!
it's nice to know someone with that capacity ;)
@@wakayama1991 I zee volt you did zere
@@JBLewis watt was that?
That was really nice of you to do this for your brother 😊
Project Idea! How about running two different inductors on a switch and then having a summer and winter setting.
For our Trans-Atlantic and other friends around the world, 'Knackered' is a degree of battery degradation between 'Schedule for replacement' and 'Totally screwed'
== “not even suitable for joule thief use”
God damn you have a smooth voice! I love listening to you work on electronics. Learning a lot!
He helps me settle down for bed with a migraine it's nice
Haha, I knew straight away as the avid tinkerer you were going to break something 😂
I'm just here to listen to your voice.
No one tell Ralfy that Clive broke a light. 😀👍
When Ralfy dropped them off, they were broken. So Clive fixed n-1 of them!
All I could think was; that is so cute that you do that for your brother . sweet dude
He should do the stuff you do to make them last longer...or be nicer to you to get them for you, but then it wouldn't be our sweet Ralfy would it?
He's one of those smack you with a branch brothers...
"I'll get to that later" .... Whoopsie ! Bahahhaahha
Nice 1 Clive, have got a few of those spare solar power packs of old lights myself, been adding those wire led strings into jars .., nice lights at night...
I recently re-surfaced the solar panels on my solar spotlights that had developed that alligatored, semi-opaque layer after five years. I used a sharp chisel to scrape off the damaged surface, and there was still plenty of thickness below protecting the solar cells. I added a few coats of super-tough flooring varnish to even out and clarify the panel. So far, they've held up fine for another two years. These are pretty decent quality lights, and came with 2 x 3.2v 18500 LiFEP04, 1200 mAh batteries, that I have only replaced once in seven years. Not bad for some Home Depot specials.
The idea of retrofitting the copper wire LEDs in is exactly what I did with one of my Aldi LED filament solar bulb things, the battery prematurely failed in one, and the other I'd pulled apart and not reassembled, so I took the working parts, some "warm" white copper LEDs, coiled them up and stuck it all together, and I have to say, seeing it out by the front door at night, it actually looks really nice compared to the LED filaments... :)
It should be obvious, seeing as you’re brothers, but when I visited Ralfy’s channel I was a little surprised you both have the same last name 😁
haha seriously? You must be as drunk as I am right now =) I didn't know he had a channel... what's the name?
@@ScumfuckMcDoucheface Ralphy’s channel is ralphydotcom. The Dotcoms are a proud and noble family. And no, I’m not drunk, but you’ve given me a fantastic idea 🍻🥃
@@andynonya6391 hahaha right on, thanks man, cheers brother man!
@@andynonya6391 Yes, a very noble and famous Scottish clan, in fact I'm sure I saw a Dotcom bust decades before I knew about Clive.
@@rexsceleratorum1632 Very noble. The Dotcoms famously defeated the Mitchells in a long-lived feud which lasted from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries.
I've supercharged my garden lites by having two solar panels with two aa batts per lite set they stay off a bit longer as the solar panels are detecting slight evening dusk before allowing LEDs to turn on.great video sir.
i just wanted to point out to everyone, that up to 95% of a battery can be recycled. given the cost of the material's originally and the the cost of manufacture, just recycling your old AA battery's is doing a substantial amount to the environment! so please recycle your battery's!
I much rather recycle politicians and turn them into fertilizer. You know something useful.
how?
I think that might be the stumbling block for most people...
I'm sure I can easily look it up, and actually have to because each country/area is different... but I would assume most places you would need to bring them to a specific collection point eh?
It would be nice if they could just be thrown into the weekly curbside recycling box y'know?
either way? *woohoo! recycling!* (legit!)
@@ScumfuckMcDoucheface In my area (US) Walmart and Best Buy have bins in the front of the store for battery recycling.
@@R_Forde no kidding eh? I'm southern ON. Canada, I'll look into it and see if they have that here too, thanks man =)
@@R_Forde There's bins inside Estonian stores like Maxima also, I got quite a few technology goodies out of these including fully working SLR camera._
I used to work in a garden centre where 30% returns on faulty solar lighting was the norm, they are absolute crap!
1:04 You had me at "solid plug that goes into the bottom..."
oo er, missus 😜
Got a string of these on a summerhouse; there's room to piggyback another ni-mh cell in parallel & looking up the IC (YX8615A) & it's datasheet it was easy to change an inductor on the PCB from 100uH to 56uH to give extra led brightness whilst retaining a decent runtime.
I like that part where you say "I shall use the force". The Force is strong with you, Big Clive. Lol
"Nice but dim" (Harry Enfield 'n dat), most apt for Ralph.
Shite, got the name wrong! Now I'm the nobe head
Ralph is brilliant. That electrician brother of his is not bad either.
Brilliant! Loved it Clive, learning much!!!
Bob
England
Had a burst of laughter when you forced the LEDs out of its bulb and said, "Oops, I broke it" 🤣
I love that when you break $hit you leave it in the video and not edit it out.
You might recall about 6 minths ago when you were working on some of Ralphie's other garden solar lights, I mentioned I was working on an Angel hanging wind chime blinkie solar fixture. The head is a clear plastic ball and I drilled a hole in it and inserted a RGB slow flashing LED to complement the white blinking ones in the wing area. The battery and switch along with the solar panel was toast. I bypassed the switch, upgraded the AA NiMH to a 2000Mah battery and glued on 4 50Ma 1.5V solar panels [parallel] which fit perfectly so 10 hours of good sunlight will fully charge the battery.
Back then it was winter here and the sun had moved so far south with the short days it would only work perfectly for a couple of hours after sundown and then dim into the weee hours of the morning. [I put a charge port on the bottom too so I could hook a Li-ion battery with a 10ohm resistor to charge it so it would work for a few days all night.]
Now that it's summer, it runs all night until the sun comes up on it's own. :-) [I did change the inductor from 100mh to 220mh but it didn't help, still the same brightness and subsequent battery drain.]
Oh well it works like a champ and my daughter is happy.
All I seem to do these days is put out the recycling and repair ,or Try to repair the cheap Chinese garden lights .Wish they would make them better
I have had to fix sevrail of mine already.Most of my home made ones suvived the winter.
06:50 - Oh, my! Now I know how I can mod my garden lights. ^_^ Thank you very much!
My family has some light sets which use the exact same battery/solar unit as the failed one. The only difference is the wires were tacked onto different pads on the PCB and they included NiCd instead of NiMH cells. The circuitry works fine but two of the three had the cells go bad. Actually only one had the cell go bad, the other came pretty much toasted.
Another ' very interesting ' video clive 👍
I've just bought, well, a week ago, a very similar set of lights from Morrisons, the only significant difference I see, is the mine are classic pear shaped bulbs, and they come in five different colours ( 3 x red, 2 x yellow, 3 x green, and 2 x blue).
I bought them because it says on the box "with non-replaceable, rechargeable battery" - I thought "non-replaceable"? We'll see about that!
The bulbs are indoors, but the power pack is outside, at least until the weather turns sour, then I'll bring it indoors, turn of the switch and let the dim winter daylight keep them topped up.
If batteries leak and make a mess, my solution to cleaning that is just a weak acid, like some lemon juice - the clean type you put in your tea. Give it 10-15 minutes and it should be clean.
Hey Clive! I have a big interest in PV/solar cell controllers of all shapes & sizes. I'd be elated if you ever did a reverse engineer vid for these solar light circuits!
Helping out his eldest brother.
For a while I was considering building my own "central solar garden lighting scheme" where I would have a big proper set of photovoltaic panels set up somewhere like on the roof of the shed with some nice big SLA batteries or something inside. I'd have everything ran off this instead of a transformer like on a normal SELV system.
You made the lights last longer by bursting one of them. :) That is the environmentalist thing to do. Proper Job!
You're lucky there's not really any sun in the UK... In Straya, the Sun very quickly destroys the panels, but the spiders survive!
Its your brother's. Dont worry about fixing it. Keep it for parts. He probably owes you anyway if he is like a normal brother.
Hay Clive just wanted to say I got my first 3d printer today.
Sounds good. You'll enjoy using it.
@@bigclivedotcom I have so far, i got a test print done. but have to wait for some filimant.
I've been playing around with solar lights and have an issue with them running properly for a short time and then going into oscillation. Looks neat though.
That sounds like a failing battery or lack of charge from the solar panel.
Would like to see you dig into the solar panel to see if it is fixable at that break?
I saw the video pop up as a notification and my immediate response was... What, again?!
How does a greenhouse stand up on the island
Yeah these can be hard to fix sometimes, my mom wanted me to fix a solar light she had, but it had a lot of water ingress so the whole board was destroyed, you also have to watch the batteries they put in these, they often put really cheap NiCd batteries that don't last at all. I am glad that I've found some time to watch some of your vids. I've been so busy at school working on a production of a mid summer's night dream. Let me just say, coiling 150 feet of socapex every day is not easy and it is not fun either. The other thing that's been happening to the theater industry lately is wood is super expensive at the moment so building sets is a pain, so a lot of theaters are resorting to virtual sets on led walls or projected. My theater is lucky to have a decent projection system with 4 LED short throw projectors, a mac pro, and a full version of Qlab to run them from. I was wondering how things are going for the Tattoo this year?
Not sure what's happening with the Tattoo this year yet.
CLIVE!!!!
I know you’re super busy, but I would be so happy if you did a few troubleshooting videos. Like you’re AVR troubleshooting video. (The one about the voltage regulator circuit board from a generator).
I do component level PCB repair on industrial equipment every day for a living, But sometimes while watching one of your videos… You’ll explain some thing that I learned years ago… But i’ll have a “eureka moment“ and it helps me understand even better!!! Just like in math class back in school… I could always work the steps and do complex equations but every now and then I would have a “holy shit moment!” And really understand the working principles in detail instead of just the idea of how it works.
And after all of these years on TH-cam and doing electronics… I’ve never seen someone shows the actual path of electrons. How they actually start, move, and interact with each other through components.
I mean actually showing it on the circuit board like solving a maze with a pencil. showing where the electricity starts, how it moves through the board, and how it connects through each component and makes its way through the board. And especially what happens to the flow of electricity when certain components fail and how the flow is affected.
I know you’re super busy but you’ve helped me understand electronics better than anyone. And a video like that would really help folks. Even professionals like myself.
You have a natural clear and understandable teaching ability and way of explaining things.
Sorry to take your time with a long comment. But this is the clearest and most honest feedback I can give.
You are absolutely right. Clive is an amazing teacher.
Tell ralfy to fix it himself 🤣🤣🤣🤣 hope he gave you a nice dram for that say hi to him from me lol if you are my brother from another mother then so is he haha great content mate stay safe and sound 😁
Breaking the filament at the beginning will give me nightmares tonight! That’s based on a childhood of being a very clumsy, accident prone child sharing a bedroom with a four year older brother. Said brother had far too much gear to entice a smaller, inquisitive sibling into "…just seeing what it did." Which was my stock excuse when his 'toys' mysteriously stopped working. After serving his apprenticeship at Leyland Motors as a fitter and turner he went to be a PhD engineer, I went on to get a law degree after being a chef. Our futures were predictable really.
I just mixed my dad's solar lights. One of them got a spare battery from my old phone, it whould last a good long while (or die horribly in the winter :-) )
wiskey or gin? =P
Nice! Like this video, THX Clive
NICE Going Bro! So Ralph keeps them "Inside", in his Greenhouse. _hmm_ no moisture there. ; )
i want to see some of the little light strings inside one of the crystals.
How about. Attaching four plastic mirrors at appropriate angles to reflect more photons on to the cells, to mitigate low winter light levels?
I caught the SMA reference and I have heard him mention you and AVE back.
You've reminded me of something.
Any idea how I could wire multiple stand-alone solar lights together so if one is in the shade it can get a charge from the others?
Is it possible?
The lowest capacity Pound store Lion is usually the one closest to the printed capacity anyway.
Heyy the green crusties...
Is it all green and puffy?
I wish Eric and you would just have a button on your channel that says "Play any random video that is not liked / watched".
Love both your videos and I always have them for entertainment and talking on here - especially since I'm in Homeoffice for more than a year now.
Cheers,
Well done. 👍🏻🍻🖖🏻
I've never seen these strange lights before, where did Clive get them from? (:
I recognise the battery type from Vaping devices, good job Mr Clive, brotherly love in action!
I've always called that type of corrosion "green meanies".
If you fill the bulbs up with mineral oil, they'll never rust and may also run cooler (not that these need it).
I like those that are mostly made out of glass and metal with those amorphous solar cells, the Chinese dry cells don't last but maybe a couple of months. I swap out with some EBL batteries and get upwards of two years thus far.
Am I the only person who noticed the 'new' power unit that you used had the facility for taking TWO AA cells and wondered if the factory diode bodge had anything to do with the fact it had been adapted to only use one? It sure looked like it had more solar 'panels' so may have produced a higher voltage...
Kind of disappointed you didn't make a Wallace and Grommet reference when you mentioned the Grommet.
You should dab hot glue or silicon glue in hole wich wires are coming through, so it will be "water proof" agian 😂 otherwise, nicely done job 👌🏻
So has that Chinese solder station designed the hot air wand for heat shrink tubing only or is that for SMD work/rework too?
It does both.
Why do they always make the backing for solar panels like that black?
It ruins the efficiency! A white backing would lower their temperature a lot in the sun and really improve performance. I tested this myself and hacked my lights with new cells and it was a lot better.
Hi Big Clive! Little Clive here!
I was wondering ...... have you got THREE LEGS? 👍😂
I've got a brother called John, and he can repair his own solar garden lights! 😂
LittleCliveDotCom
PS: Don't we ALL live on an ISLAND? 👍
0:25 Oh Clive, I really think you should have used your _x-ray_ machine to have a close look at the construction of those lights.
I thought the X-Ray machine may be contemplated.
What a coincidence, I just watched a South main auto video before this. It had green crusties too!
Mega green crusties. I was expecting half the wires to pop off that fuse box.
Could you perhaps expand on the diode discovered 6:40? Maybe a schematic? :-)
There always have to be a diode between the solar panel and the battery otherwise the battery discharges on the panel when there's no light. Remember at the beginning Clive calculated 2V for the panel minus the diode, that diode.
@@DumahBrazorf This circuit uses a 4 pin ic (not a 8 pin Clive ;-) ) You can google for solar light IC and they will show up. Everything is already included in that IC ... but most manufacturers have a on/off switch which disconnects the battery from the IC, so also the charging gets disconnected. Now if you connect a diode directly from the solar panel, and the side of the switch where the battery is always connected to, the battery will get charged even if the switch is set in the 'off' position. It's a non regulated charge but most of these solar panels are so not powerful that they will cause issues. In this case the panel is outputting max 2 Volt, diode drops 0.6 to 0.7 Volt and you get about 1.4V max over the battery ...
Those contacts succumbed to the old green death
I wish you were my brother.
When you tie knots for strain relief you stop the electronic flowing properly. That's why sometimes when you have a extension lead coiled up with a high load on it may overheat because the electrons escape. (LOL)
Clive have you looked into to a freight forwarder from Britain to isle of man, where you can have your parcels shipped to a British address then they send it to you
In extreme cases a friend does that for me.
lol I find myself doing the one moment please in a glaswegian greenockian accent, my girlfriend looks at me weirdly
been doing that constantly just because of big Clive lol
Are you sure the problem with the faulty LED wasn't in the cable. looked like high reistance to higher resistance given that a few lit then none then when you dropped it on the desk all started working.
I feel is pain lol. 👍🍍
hey clive i do get that you live in the isle of man but how do you get components for projects? i really struggle to get certain resistors and capacitors without paying an extortionate amount
I use CPC these days.
Could you trim the brightness of an odd led with a low value resistor?
Yes, if its voltage was slightly lower than the others.
i kno this might b a little difficult to answer.. if it wasnt i wouldnt b askin lol when would u adjust the inductor value?? say u want brighter or dimmer lights...but dont u adjust the resistor for that then figure out the inductor value? im trying to teach myself so i could b totally ass backwards.. whats the benefit to adjusting one or the other for ex. which ones would b more efficient? n is that because of its forward voltage?? thanks in advance for attempting to shine light on this trainwreck of a question lol :p
With these ones the best way to change intensity and run-time is to change the little inductor that looks like a resistor. A higher value makes the LED dimmer and the battery lasts longer.
Can you explain what Henrys are when referring to inductors or even what inductors do?
It’s a relationship of a changing current to a voltage through a magnetic field. The greater change in current the greater the voltage. I’m open to correction I don’t claim to be an expert but I did graduate an EE.
A Henry is a measure of inductance in the same way that a Farad is a measure of capacitance.
It's gotta be SUPER handy to be able to just leave your weird chinese electronics with Clive to fix and wonder off to drink whiskey. Ralphie's got a good thing going. :p
But I have to ask, do you drop off anything at his work and ask him to "fix" it? :o
I have a set of solar lights that look like these. The only difference is my light are of 5 different colors.
Could you have taken the end light off and replaced the dodgy one with it and then capped the end?
The way he uses them I don't think it matters that one or two go out.
Ralfy owes you a dram!
Hey, what is the easiest way to replace the solar panel with just a regular old wall outlet connector?
That depends on the light's circuitry.
I have bought a pretty similar arrangement from a local store twice, but one new set doesn't really light up when it's dark. Only two or three of the first leds start to shine. I was able to switch the solar panels (because plugs) so I know it's something about the panels or the circuitry. But what? Any ideas?
That hints that maybe the end of the wire possibly has a short circuit or an LED has failed shorted.
My pet hate is them 1.2V button cell batteries or 2/3 AA size... Sourcing AA replacement is easy. So when buying solar lights always check if they have normal AA size NiMH battery.
Surprised you didnt add dielectric grease to the wires/contacts to lessen the nastiness over time.
I rewired my garden solar light - and now the bulb turns on when the solar panel is on the off position (it is on even during bright daylight) - why might that be? (it is just one low watt bulb)
If the unit is switched off the battery is usually disconnected and the solar panel may feed the light directly.
First thing I do when I buy solar lights is change the battery for a decent one cos them green things are junk and then I seal the case with silicone sealant to protect it from the weather thay have been in my garden 4 years and still stay on all night my next door neighbour's lights didn't even last a year