Poundland solar crackle globe is a winner
bigclivedotcom 11:24
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This is one of Poundland's solar garden light range, and it's one of the better items for appearance and hackability to ruggedise it against the elements and also customise it to your local sun levels.
The use of a AAA cell allows upgrading it to a higher capacity NiMH cell. The solar panel is a decent size, but could be replaced with a slightly bigger one if desired. The circuit board is classic and the main hack on that would be to replace the inductor to suit your local sunshine levels. The LED string can be replaced with a much longer one in your choice of colour. It's a standard copper-wire string of LEDs in parallel.
Things to improve to make your light last longer:-
Bypass the switch with a solder blob or fill it with oil to coat the contacts. They often corrode.
Coat the battery contacts and ends of the battery in grease or vaseline to block water and air from the contacts. That will greatly reduce the risk of corrosion, even if the light floods internally.
Coat the PCB liberally with lacquer like nail varnish or grease like vaseline, paying particular attention to the pins of the four pin chip.
Squish grease down the sides of the solar panel to stop water from seeping down inside. The solar panels are often very good, but can suffer from corrosion if water wicks in.
Changing the NiMh cell every few years can give a light a new lease of life, as they do age with the high number of charge cycles in a year and high summer temperatures and charge current.
Things to customise your light:-
Change the LEDs to your choice of colour and quantity.
Replace the LEDs with a custom soldered tree of clear 5mm LEDs to shoot coloured light out in all directions through the crackle glass. All the LEDs will have to match to share the current equally.
Upgrade the cell to a higher capacity one.
Swap in a new solar panel with higher current output than the existing one.
Change the little inductor to suit your local sunlight level. Higher inductance is lower LED current.
The datasheet suggests the following inductor values:-
10uH for 40mA LED current
15uH for 26mA
22uH for 18mA
27uH for 15mA
33uh for 11.5mA
47uH for 8mA
68uH for 5.3mA
82uH for 4mA
100uH for 3.3mA
You can also use 220uH, 330uH, 470uH and higher for even lower LED current for longer battery life in places with less sunshine.
I specifically avoid using intrusive mid-run video adverts, which means I don't earn as much from my content as other YouTubers.
If you enjoy these videos you can help support the channel with a dollar or two for coffee, cookies and random gadgets for disassembly at:-
https://www.patreon.com/bigclive
Patreon supporters get early access to advert-free videos as they are made, and also regular live streams.
This also keeps the channel independent of YouTube's advertising algorithms allowing it to be a bit more dangerous and naughty.
Other contribution options are available at:-
http://www.bigclive.com/coffee.htm
#ElectronicsCreators
The use of a AAA cell allows upgrading it to a higher capacity NiMH cell. The solar panel is a decent size, but could be replaced with a slightly bigger one if desired. The circuit board is classic and the main hack on that would be to replace the inductor to suit your local sunshine levels. The LED string can be replaced with a much longer one in your choice of colour. It's a standard copper-wire string of LEDs in parallel.
Things to improve to make your light last longer:-
Bypass the switch with a solder blob or fill it with oil to coat the contacts. They often corrode.
Coat the battery contacts and ends of the battery in grease or vaseline to block water and air from the contacts. That will greatly reduce the risk of corrosion, even if the light floods internally.
Coat the PCB liberally with lacquer like nail varnish or grease like vaseline, paying particular attention to the pins of the four pin chip.
Squish grease down the sides of the solar panel to stop water from seeping down inside. The solar panels are often very good, but can suffer from corrosion if water wicks in.
Changing the NiMh cell every few years can give a light a new lease of life, as they do age with the high number of charge cycles in a year and high summer temperatures and charge current.
Things to customise your light:-
Change the LEDs to your choice of colour and quantity.
Replace the LEDs with a custom soldered tree of clear 5mm LEDs to shoot coloured light out in all directions through the crackle glass. All the LEDs will have to match to share the current equally.
Upgrade the cell to a higher capacity one.
Swap in a new solar panel with higher current output than the existing one.
Change the little inductor to suit your local sunlight level. Higher inductance is lower LED current.
The datasheet suggests the following inductor values:-
10uH for 40mA LED current
15uH for 26mA
22uH for 18mA
27uH for 15mA
33uh for 11.5mA
47uH for 8mA
68uH for 5.3mA
82uH for 4mA
100uH for 3.3mA
You can also use 220uH, 330uH, 470uH and higher for even lower LED current for longer battery life in places with less sunshine.
I specifically avoid using intrusive mid-run video adverts, which means I don't earn as much from my content as other YouTubers.
If you enjoy these videos you can help support the channel with a dollar or two for coffee, cookies and random gadgets for disassembly at:-
https://www.patreon.com/bigclive
Patreon supporters get early access to advert-free videos as they are made, and also regular live streams.
This also keeps the channel independent of YouTube's advertising algorithms allowing it to be a bit more dangerous and naughty.
Other contribution options are available at:-
http://www.bigclive.com/coffee.htm
#ElectronicsCreators
Category (YouTube): Science & Technology
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