Wearable LED pixel with my own shady charger.
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 ก.พ. 2025
- It's always nice to visit older projects and see how I did things in the past. This device dates back to when blue LEDs were first available. Up to that point all LEDs had been in the range of infrared, red, orange, yellow and a dull apple-green, so the new era of blue and white LEDs was quite special. The first blue LEDs cost £10 each making them about 200 times the cost of a normal LED.
Since it was a new style of light source and was capable of giving out a deep and psychedelic blue light that had not been achievable at low level with small tungsten lamps, I decided to make a small battery pack system that let me wear a blue LED in my hard hat at work or in a jacket or sweatshirt at the weekend. It got a lot of attention at the time because in a world where blue LEDs hadn't existed before it created a very odd visual effect.
The charger was deliberately very simple and used a low trickle current to charge the battery pack. Since the normal charging current of these packs is very low (memory backup batteries) it suited a very basic resistive dropper directly powered from the mains. This also meant that the exposed pins on the charger could give a shock, but not a dangerous one. That little twist of danger was part of the fun of it.
These days I might consider using a simple lithium ion battery with a zener for voltage capping and maybe a USB or solar powered charger.
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.co...
BigClive is to electrical tinkering and fettling what Bob Ross was to painting - completely engrossing nuggets of sensory stimulating audio visual heaven. NO I have not a clue about electronics but YES I feel compelled to watch. Clive's close-miked voice massages weary ears and completes the soothing package - bliss. Thanks for inviting us into your brilliant life.
That, and the hypnotic voice. Just that he's got all the frizzy hair on his chin instead of the top of his head. :-)
I have a niece who is a ghost hunter (a bit on the strange side - to say the least!) I have been making her some toys for ghost hunting, some of them from projects you have shown us over the past few years. This appears to be one that would work as an ID for members of her group, only with red LED's so they can find one another when the lights are out, but not ruin their night vision. Great little project I would never have thought about on my own. Thanks so much, you are constantly keeping my rapidly aging 67 year old brain active by allowing me to learn something new nearly every day.
Sadly we are left to imagine what BigClive would have looked like at a Scottish rave dancing to Born Slippy covered in blue LED's :o)
And he came so close to inventing the motion-capture suit in the process, ah well, such is life.
I understand Clives obsession with LED's. Electronics back in the day were so dull, I added LED's to everything! I remember the amazing days when the white LED was available at my local shop for £1.00 ...One fucking pound for one LED. Amazing times man! I still love neons but LED's changed my life too man.
I'm starting to understand why Clive know so much about chinese deathtrap electronics design...
every person dealing with electronics has probably made a death trap with or without realizing
LEDs are never pointless, Clive, come on. They have always been and always will be COOL!!! I remember a car audio geek friend who thought it fantastic that I made him something that had a blue LED back in the day.
As a child I have made a "safer" version of this charger. Battery negative goes directly to earth and battery positive goes to live via a 100k resistor and a 1N4007 diode.
DiodeGoneWild It's always better to have a resistor in each lead, just in case the live and neutral are reversed.
earth is never reversed. Otherwise all of your metal appliances would be live.
DiodeGoneWild No; but in many countries they use reversible two-pin plugs with no earth connection (earthed plugs still fit in non-earthed scokets.) and you don't know which is the live and which is the neutral. Meaning if there is only a resistor in series with one pin, there is a 50% probability of the resistor-less pin being the live one. Separate resistors in each supply lead avoids this danger.
neutral may be swapped with live, but earth is always earth. Earthed plug can't fit into a socket with no earth. But anyway, I don't say it is 100% safe. It also slightly tickles the RCD.
Actually, bleurizlagirl is right. I can easily plug an earthed plug into an unearthed socket where I live.
I really like seeing these old projects BigClive has made, I wish I could be that cool :)
I had lots of laughs, Clive. Thanks.
I made totally useless, but rich in Leds projects too. Those were the days.
Don't know quite why, but it reminds me of the dodgy 'Mains Failure Warning Device' I built in 1972 or 3, which was a neon oscillator driving a loudspeaker, running from a large electrolytic capacitor, and activated by an imbalanced voltage in a resistive bridge circuit. All encased in a Tupperware sandwich box. Ahem. Looked at it about 15 years later and cringed at how risky and inflammable the thing might have been, connected to the 240V AC supply 24/7. It was loud though, despite having no amplification; audible throughout the house. Thanks Clive.
That shady charger gets me all excited!
Agreed! Adding more LEDs is quite the noble gesture in these parts.
"It won't kill you", now that should be a new British electrical safety mark for approved products post-EU divorce, it just has a nice ring to it... :P
"It might kill you, we can't afford safety testing now" :)
In Clive lingo, "it won't kill you" = "a good result" 😀
May I suggest a skull and cross-bones logo/icon for that? Use the normal classic 'pirate' version, but have the bones moved up to cross out the skull...
There should be three ratings: "probably won't kill you", "might kill you" and "probably will kill you".
Then we can make our own mind up without these politically correct heath and safety nanny state fat cat types in Brussels trying to stop us inadvertently killing ourselves or our families and friends.
"If it tingles a bit, it's working
Always interesting to see your old stuff Clive.
Pretty cool wee project.
Hey Clive; any chance of you doing a video explaining all the different types of batteries? Obvoiusly the lithium ones are newer technology and have advantages, mainly capacity? over the old NiCd ones but they also have disadvantages in terms of safety, or at least that is how I understand it to be. What about NiMH and whats the deal with Lion vs Lipol? Such a big subject now. Can you demistify for us all? Many thanks.
I have a fascination with LEDs and always seem to put more than is necessary in my projects.
Clive your timing is perfect! I literally just got done frying my first attempt at creating a wearable led flasher for my evening runs lol. Sick of being struck by vehicles. Thanks for the inspiration :).
Have you not heard of led bicycle lights? They are about a couple of bucks each on usual sources.
Josh Major Just get a pair of pound-store bicycle lights (with CR2032 or 2xCR2016 batteries), dangle one from each sleeve or bracelet. For a maritime look, modify the white one to green and follow the standard starboard / portside colored lantern convention.
Josh Major Just get a pair of pound-store bicycle lights (with CR2032 or 2xCR2016 batteries), dangle one from each sleeve or bracelet. For a maritime look, modify the white one to green and follow the standard starboard / portside colored lantern convention.
Get the electro-luminescent vests, they're better looking than LEDs.
LED flasher seen running in park. What a headline!
I remember in college around 1989 people were still trying to figure out the combination of elements to create a blue LED. When they did finally start coming out the movie Lost in Space had blue LEDs all over the costumes of the cast.
I think it's a beautifully made creation, not an abomination at all!
I love how... early 00's the design is... everything translucent and blue
I think that'd make a great project kit! Looks really neat.
Thanks for the upload!
And for showing me how off my monitor's colours are lol
Love your vids, Clive.
This is still cool. Also you should give the “automatic flamethrower” another go! I really wanna see that.
I remember when blue LEDs came out in 1995. It was so radical, anyone who was into playing around with Blinky lights just had to get their hands on some. I actually wrote to nichia, the company that first invented them, and got a few free samples! Or maybe it was Cree... It was one of those two companies that sent me some. I wonder if I still have the little anti-static bag they came in?
"Or it might have shoved the battery pack straight through my brain... nice!"
1:30 That gave me such a good laugh. You could relabel the video "How to get touched by BigClive" ... double/triple entendre fully intended!
I thought he wasn't going to show it off plugged into the wall. then he did!
Hard hat: LED possibly on your mind. 😎
God bless man, honestly very impressive project, inspiring too.
Oh the irony that your mains socket now has built-in USB chargers. Just plug the battery pack in there without even an extra resistor, and bam! instant 3mA charger :)
I've heard that some are rethinking that "safety first" thing as it inhibits invention. Imagine a better world where you can build a cyclotron in your basement like the old days!
Removing danger from work also removed all the fun.
Isn't/wasn't there a lad in the U/S who built a nuclear reactor in his parents' garage? Last I heard, he had multiple cancers. H&S has it's place.
The radioactive boy scout? Yes, but he made his nuclear reactor from commonly available products. Americium from smoke detectors, radium from glow in the dark clocks, thorium from lantern mantles, and tritium from gun sights. Nothing really that health and safety has made any less available. Also, nobody knows if he had cancer or not, since he died from alcohol poisoning. It was believed the radioation may have shortened his lift expectancy, but I believe he refused testing.
H&S does have its place, but the lad in question didn't die of cancer: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn
Try working in London for a week -you run all kinds of risks just crossing the road!
I don't think going into a nightclub with a single LED and Li-Ion batteries on your torso would go down so well nowadays :(
I hung a blue LED on my chest; as was the style at the time....
That's really kinda cute!
Great, old projects! Can we expect a full demo of your "tingle-tron" and "Bam-Board" as well please?(please do the bam boards)
Clive, you and Naomi Cyborg could do a double piece as she is always dabbling on utube with wearable electronics hehe
I told my friends "Do not touch while plugged in." Now I have fewer friends.
Clive Goes clubbing..."For tonight, God is an LED...!"
I have a heated hoodie that has a logo that glows, and let me tell you, people are still shocked to see something glowing on your clothes. I have at least half a dozen people comment on it every time I wear it.
Paramedics would have been perplexed if they saw a tiny blue light in your head.
Clive, I know this is a really odd question, but.. what kind of pen do you use while doodling? It looks really smooth and I'd rather like one myself.
Clive uses a Pilot V Sign Pen.
Sketchy As mentioned, it's a Pilot V-Sign, but he has made videos about refilling them using inkjet ink. Not sure if he still does that.
When it was? 10 quid for one blue led. A bit pricey but I would not cry if it could keep blue leds from being used to blind people in consumer electronics.
I remember the first blue LEDs I got back around '96 were high brightness types around 430nm, making them a really vivid royal blue. All the ones now seem to be a disappointingly washed out 460-470nm. Those older ones also seem to be ferociously ESD sensitive. I only have one working one left. :-/
Used to have a battery powered blue LED I took out with me, and if you hold it under a bottle of Smirnoff Ice or something similar the whole drink glowed blue.
Like the fact that the mains socket you choose to demonstrate has USB charge points built in! Ah progress!
Oh yeah, tell me about it. I still remember buying blue LEDs in the 90s for $5 a piece. Those were some dark times.
'Proper' electronics :P Uou cant beat a good 5mA tingle.
I wised up and bought an isolation transfomer. Less zaps.
Clive, interesting circuit, but you'd never get a job in China making dodgy products, too many components. the crunch comes near the end it's not unsafe. :-)
I find it quite ironic you showcase it in a socket with USB :D
I know jack shit about electricity . But watching your channel helped me make my doomsday weapon thx Clive !
Very cool, I love the switch back and forth LEDs, and the circuit is great for understanding the zener diode as well as the resistive dropper. My spell checker says I no longer know how to spell, and perhaps it is right, however I am just in the right mood to blame the idiots at Microsoft. That's it, I am going back to Linux.
Nightclub attendance and knowledge of industrial brothels. What secret life does Clive have?
Clive mate those people touching your shirt in the club, they didn't happen to be wide eyed and reaching for the lasers did they?
Clive was making led wearables before Adafruit existed. Neat
there was wearable stuff in the 80's, granted it was bulky and most used a 9v battery. i recall wrist bands, hat's sunshades and pants with the ancient stuff, seems it was mostly japanese import then, but dirt cheap at amusement parks
Well I stand corrected. I never knew of any older wearable stuff. I only know of it from Adafruit and Instructables using Adafruit. I guess there would have been a market for it.
they of course wasn't high brightness, nor compact at all. just ancient green, yellow and sometime red body leds (color encapsulation) the dinosaur ages of led :)
Very nice. On the very end shot at 11:59 I see you have 13 amp sockets with built in USB chargers. Is there a particular brand you use and would recommend?
+48snapper This is in work supplied accommodation. I wouldn't use sockets with integrated USB sockets in my own home.
they are dangerous and a really bad idea. imagine the shittiest USB PSU in existence permanently screwed into your wall.
they likely are the shittiest USB PSU in existence
Jamie Phillips knowing china, ofcourse they are.
Thanks for Sharing :-) Interesting stoff :-)
That's quite ok, I remember that era when men were real men, women were real women, and people put LEDs on things just to indicate that there is an LED on that thing (then several more, just to use at least one of each colour available - bonus points if they were blinking alternately just to indicate nothing in particular)...
Clive, this is unrelated to this video, but I was wondering what soldering iron and bench power supply you would recommend to someone who is just getting into electronics, what was your first? I don't have much money to spend and it seems like any cheap power supply is unreliable...
Do you know of any specific irons or PSUs to look for?
Big Clive did a video called "Soldering basics and choosing a cheap soldering iron." You can find it if you search his channel. Cheers!
Thanks
I've got a Maplin catalogue somewhere with blue LEDs listed at £19.99 each I shit you not!!
if they ever sold any at that price I don't know.
Marc Chambers They sold at least one from their Erdington store, to some bloke who no longer exists.
Big Clive in a nightclub!
Nice, if ya do make some (for sale) id like a couple, or a kit to put together, would be quite nice. Either way. If ya don't where would a guy get the plug, Merica style, what for plugging them into 110v
Ah, live exposed connections.....lovely.
Thats awesome , tho now a days you could make wireless battery packet in the pocket for clothing leds with a usb charger
Not a warm white LED anywhere. Must have been in those far off days when ickystickydickysaurus roamed the earth.
The white L.E.D. evolved from the blue L.E.D. so that's not surprising considering that this was back in the days when the blue L.E.D. was the new kid on the block! :P
11:00
That would have made you the second youtuber who got superpowers from messing around with unsafe technology.
Question: When you have 3 batteries in series like that, won't the one in the middle discharge?
They will all discharge equally, but one will inevitably have a lower capacity and run out first.
How long would the LED stay on once the battery was fully charged?
Would there have been some sort of Hi-NRG music playing in these clubs?
Yes, there may well have been very loud Hi-NRG dance music being played.
Better than whats on the shelf..
i made a little pp3 nicad/mimh charger some years ago using similar idea but 2 10k 2w resistors, that definitely could give you a good whack if you touched the contacts 😱
..but it worked nicely..😁
Ahhh live exposed pins!
JT Lowry ...for added excitement :)
Perfectly OK if you don't touch it.
Common sense is all the insulation you need.
The resistance is too great to pass enough current to trip a 30mA RCD. The worst case is the negative peak of the mains = 230 * sqrt(2) V across 47kΩ = 325.269 / 47000 = .00692A = 6.92mA. So just shy of 7mA. That's within the definition of "safe", i.e. not enough to kill most peoole -- but it's still 7mA more than I'd want through me.
Mind you, I used to work with gas boiler ignition controllers, which worked by discharging a 470nF capacitor charged to 325V into a step-up transformer to produce a spark to light the gas. I have had it up my arm a few times, and it was never pleasant. What is interesting is the amount of energy delivered to cause such a painful shock is .5 * C * V**2 = .5 * 470e-9 * 325 * 325 = .025J. That is slightly less than dropping a penny (weighing 3.5 grams) onto your foot from a height of 1 metre; which would impart an amount of energy equal to m * g * h = 0.0035 * 9.81 * 1 = .034 J.
If he only used one resistor then it would indeed be potentially live exposed pins. The rectifier can pass full mains voltage and current when its back-biased and a pin is referenced to ground. In this case both resistors on the neutral and live mean there is always at least 47k to limit the current. Not super safe, but unlikely to kill under normal circumstances.
Neen. Neeun.
I could just listen to a loop of Clive pronouncing neon.
So, when exactly did you build that? I mean, the first time I ever saw a blue LED, Stateside, was around late 1994.
Can you please make another version of wearable IR LED?
"...or the battery pack would of been pushed right through my brain...niiice."
LOL
Wartoc Von GoAway Would have been pushed right through my brain. The words are "would have".
*would've
Clive, thanks for enlightening us again.
Two things - Where did you get the plastic plug style housing?
And perhaps people were prodding your illuminated blue LED in a club because they were off their tits on ecstasy!
Incidentally, do you have a treasure trove of hidden Clive made tech shoved away somewhere?
Our friends in China would have been proud, except there is no fatal shock hazard
The guys who 'invented' high intensity blue LED's were given a Nobel Prize back in 2014 for dong so, but it wasn't until the turn of the millenium that it was commercially feasible to grow the proper crystals. So I guess this device dates back to the maybe 2000-2003?
I have few types of connectors, but not the molex type you've' used in this video, or the ones replacing tungsten Christmas lights. Could you or any of your followers mention type and size?
I get mine from Rapid Electronics in the UK. You have to buy the housing and crimps separately.
www.rapidonline.com/jyk-h2500-02-2-pole-crimp-housing-22-0905
Thanks Clive. And I won't have to wait two-three months. Thank you for all the help starting electronics, Master Solderer.
1:20 - "...people staring at it, then coming up and actually touching the shirt 'cause they couldn't work out what it was..." If they didn't ask before touching you that takes some courage seeing how tall & intimidating you look. :)
There is NO SUCH THING as too many LEDs!! Superfluous? Blasphemy! ;-)
"Let's take a look at my abomination" 😄😅
I've never been this early to a bigclive video before guess I better make a joke
I couldn't think of one
you rock Clive. love your website comments are disabled on your 7 port killer usb hub , I'd just killed 3 devices and almost my hp desktop , but it recovered, devices gone. applying power was what causes that. 1 of my usb flash drives had 28gb of data and I'd applied 12v 1000ma maybe not the brightest thing to do. any way I can fix the usb drive? smd cap or resistor blown?
Kal Jak >make usb killer
>plug in your flash drive and complain that you destroyed it
+# well I did destroy it and it was before I saw Clive video about exact same one I have. the 7 port silver and black one. thanks to Clive I know how to test these things before hand. I used the scoshe netbook power adapter manual pdf says it's actually 19V 2.1 mA or something. I'm Thanking Clive for showing others before what happen to me happens to them. also wondering if maybe a smd component blew in the usb devices that I can replace. as my wireless logitech mouse usb got fried as 2 usb memory sticks, ones been replaced was blank, other was 32gb with 28gb data files.
Clive, if you weren't repurposing an old USB charger, how would you design the circuit now?
mains derived is still good if done properly and the risk understood.
Hope the ICRC never sees this video - they'd sue over that red plus sign on a white label on the battery pack.
Clive, when is the RGB version of your schematics coming out -- would it help if I sent you a pack of coloured pens?
Mick Kennedy It's a spiral notebook, there's only room for storing one pen in the spine. All his other pockets are probably filled with tools and parts.
Oh well, I better not buy spiral notebooks then if I want to draw in colour --- hold on, what am I saying, I draw in colour in my spiral notebooks all the time !!
The licence is cheaper for black and white.
Why pot the low voltage and and not the other?
Now I want to play with zener diodes.
With Clives charger, touch the charging pins with one hand and an earthed object with the other and you will definitely get a tingle but it won't kill you. Do the same with a shitty pink Chinese charger. If you are lucky you won't feel anything but there is a fair chance it could kill you.
I think we were all just more easily pleased back in those days!
I remember when I bought what might have been one of the first blue LEDs in Birmingham, and everyone I shew it to being suitably impressed ..... It was painful on the wallet, and next to the price in the Maplin catalogue it even said "THIS IS NOT A MISPRINT" ..... but I reckon if I'd charged people 10p a go to see it lit up, it would soon have paid for itself ..... I used it for awhile in a project I built, an I/O port for a ZX Spectrum that must have had a poor connection somewhere on the edge connector, because it used to reset the machine if you so much as brothe on it ..... then when I scrapped that after one too many crashes, the blue LED was one of the parts I retrieved for use in another project ..... in fact I still have it, in a disco light sequence chaser I built -- it's part of the front panel display so I can see from behind the decks, which bulbs should be lit or not. It has opto-isolated inputs allowing the lamps to be switched by a computer (back in the days of Centronics printer ports, anyway) and some nice chunky triacs good for 10 amps, so it's still useful.
Agree that a USB charger woukd be the way to go if you were building one of these wearable pixels today. Clive has given the Poundland ones favourable reviews on this here channel, and you couldn't get a neon night light any cheaper than that anyway. You could just have a strip of breadboard with a row of Molex plugs, wired to a USB lead with the "phone" end cut off (that's the plug that usually breaks, anyway, so you may well have one already .....)
Did I hear you admit to starting the whole 'China" thing?? That's one for the Resume' :-D
That truly is an abomination. Can I have one?
DIY is the word you are looking for.
12:00 I take it that is in the flat where you are staying atm and not at the IoM, didn't you say you didn't like the idea of USB wall sockets as they were on all the time and are sometimes of dubious quality.
Yes, it's a student flat.
USB charger=safe? What about if you use one of those special pink Chinese ones made famous in song and story?
This one is much safer and is upfront about giving you an electric shock if you touch it.
I enjoy a good tingle. PP3 Batteries on tongue were fun at age 8.
cool foxy liked the orange glow of the neon light !
What year did you make this?
Dodgy projects are quite pleasing -- if you live to tell the tale