The new blue chaos PCB.

[@colepdx187]

If I were cutting the ends off of those USB cables, I'd cut them with about 6" of length still on them so I could store them and move them around with me for a couple of decades just so I could throw them away a few days before I actually needed them. Thanks for the video big clive.

[@Francois_Dupont]

i too, i too

[@Shaun.Stephens]

LOL! You and me both Cole, you and me both.

[@monad_tcp]

I never throw cables away, I have 5 RCA cables that I don't use for anything, still there with me, sometimes I sacrifice them for other things

[@ethanpoole3443]

Excellent thinking! LOL!

[@chaos.corner]

The other option being to throw them a few months before you need them so you forget you threw them away but just know you have them somewhere around here.

[@Shinare73]

I really like that you sped up the video rather than snapping your fingers and it's done.

[@olmostgudinaf8100]

Indeed!

[@Novel_Poe]

Won't snapping your fingers hurt

[@RedwoodRhiadra]

I would prefer to be able to snap my fingers. Moving that fast is exhausting. :-)

[@joefarr3304]

What a great project for a beginner or more experienced person. Spend an hour or so at the kitchen table, practicing your soldering, not really much can go wrong, low voltage so safe for kids, and you end up with a really pretty ornament for the shelf. I really like the simplicity of this project. Well done Clive.

[@Palmit_]

hi-speed vs cut. i like the hi-speed version. if i needed to see something i can always play it back at various speeds. Good Move Clive. :)

[@jkobain]

I was to choose between the sped up, cut and full versions, I'd watch them three.

[@w3stxs1dexr3pin4]

@@jkobain i want to see him teach us about the difference between a grow light LED and basic LEDs, and what makes one or the other

[@Anonymous-ig4bi]

I prefer the hi-speed. Id like him to do the hi-speed instead of the cut when he fights to tear down products

[@justingoss3147]

I too prefer the sped up version rather than the cut scene.

[@lovemy89240]

I was literally going to ask him why he didn’t time lapse instead of cutting and sure enough the time lapse started! Much prefer time lapse over hard cuts most of the time.

[@mikenco]

It must be people of a certain age who bloody love lights that flash like this!!! :D

[@agvulpine]

This needs to go up on Etsy. Boards, kits, etc.

[@pupslace]

He does sell certain projects on his own website: www.bigclive.com/shop.htm

[@markdodd7612]

@@pupslace I want a Big Clive covid mask with a big red beard on it.

[@danielhorne6042]

@@pupslace what it currently says >>> I've closed the shop temporarily while I try to work out an alternative system

[@pupslace]

@@danielhorne6042 well, 4 months ago it did work... But yeah.

[@Doomzdayisgone1969]

My mind is going Dave. I can feel it.

[@jkobain]

I love watching long videos too - simply because during the time-consuming stages Clive explains it all in details and digresses too. And it's a pure joy to listen to Clive again and again.

[@kalikatz2382]

I put a blinky red LED in my car many years ago. Still blinks, looks alarmed, haha

[@yadabub]

I sometimes look alarmed when I blink, too.

[@chaos.corner]

There was a condom machine at uni with a "this machine is alarmed" sticker on it. I always felt someone should calm it down.

[@olmostgudinaf8100]

@@chaos.corner Lots of fire exit doors bear a "this door is alarmed" sign. Your comment reminded me of those in the shops closed during the lockdown. I wonder if they calmed down in those few weeks.

[@kalikatz2382]

@thunderbird002 I know, I got a popup, just return it with full tank, all good.

[@CasperInkyMagoo]

The Pink Floyd album "Pulse" had a red LED on the spine of the sleeve Took the sleeve out, slid it into the dash, and go figure - no more break ins!

[@johnpossum556]

Trauma sheers are the best for cutting metals of all kinds. A number of years ago Walgreens sold ones under the name "Incredible Scissors" that would cut through even a nickel. They also had an autoclave rating on the plastic handle so you could use them medically & properly sterilize them if needed. One side was mildly serrated, just enough so that metals would not slip out of its jaws. Excellent product, I use mine every day.

[@davidkaye821]

Another GREAT video Clive! I like the time-lapse assembly a LOT, please do THAT instead of cuts. Thank you!

[@astridsactionrc545]

I’ve always been fascinated by the classic sci-fi blinky light units.

[@tammmacdonald7723]

Brilliant. The high speed is much better than the cut to finish. I like it.

[@agurdel]

As someone who has a good pair of scissors for cloth, I almost fainted at 3:25. @Moms: Hide your scissors!

[@arianaajbeaverhausen8175]

I imagine any hairdressers watching passed out too! 😂

[@bigclivedotcom]

My mum was very strict about me not touching her sewing scissors. I do have a dedicated set for fabrics.

[@databanks]

Yeah, having just shelled out for new fabric scissors after my previous pair went "walkies" I cringed too. Nothing worse than trying to cut out a custom pet memorial plushy pattern with blunt scissors. Hey Clive, where are you picking up your cheap wire cutters? All the ones I can find on eBay AU have jumped from $2 to $20 recently after the Australian government started its little chest-beating competition with China about the beer virus. Postage from China went through the roof too (jumping from free to as much as 1000% the price of an item).

[@johnpossum556]

@@databanks Take a knife hone to them. I do this for my mother's fabric sheers every so often.

[@olmostgudinaf8100]

I used surgical scissor for trimming wires. With short, curved blades. Ideal for snipping wires sticking out from the board. (Past tense because I don't do much electronics any more due to my age.)

[@Vidar_Odinson]

I just got a pack of these boards from JLCPCB, first time ordering PCBs like that, went very smoothly, and now I'm watching this video while I build my first supercomputer :D I have enough slow change RGB LEDs, so am going to populate one board with those while I order some single color flashing ones. I like the hectic style of the blue. I've completed one row just to check polarity and function, and they're nicely out of sync after a couple of minutes of run time, and the slow change makes it pretty mellow. Thank you for the projects, Clive!

[@whitehoose]

When I was an apprentice working in a telephone exchange we built something similar using recovered strips of old switchboard lamps and uniselectors (strowager 50 point rotary stepping switches). It worked at 50v, the noise of spinning switches was horrendous and using incandescent lamps and relays it used about 2Kw, We thought it was very hi-tech (by the standards in 1973). It was "done proper" and wired to BT standards, not quite to turing's bletchley park standards ... but it used a lot of similar kit. The panels were "borrowed" and became part of the christmas decs until star wars set new standards.

[@slots1407]

Used to build traffic lights with those, with the green, yellow and red lamps borrowed from the Plessey racks.

[@hrnekbezucha]

I sold off all my electronics stuff when leaving England (thanks, brexit) and now I realise how much I miss these little projects. Gotta get some small-ish setup again and start making blinkies for the pure joy of it. Thanks for reminding me, Clive :) The Joy of Electronics with BigClive.

[@BRUXXUS]

This would be a pure joy to make, I think! Also interesting seeing all the patterns my brain starts detecting in those random patterns. I blocked off all but one row of the LEDs with some paper over my screen and it does look like they're chasing. So cool!

[@gregorythomas333]

Same here :)

[@ditch21]

very good result i really like how the leds seem to instantly generate a random pattern.

[@NormCookie]

Belated reply ... bought 100 flashing LED and ordered Gallium boards. As a sideline while waiting for delivery, worked out how a mini 3 led promo torch worked and for fun replaced the white led with flashers. Chuffed. Goes to show how projects don't have to be complex to be fun or satisfying. Trivial to some, a milestone to me :-) Cheers BC

[@gsuberland]

I built a cube one of these with 600 flashing RGB LEDs, and took it to EMF Camp 2016. It works quite nicely - you get an emergent pattern from the internal oscillators going out of phase, and it's a chaotic system that rarely produces the same patterns, presumably because of thermal effects: higher duty cycle of LED and its neighbours = hotter LEDs = greater magnitude effect on the oscillator period. After 5 minutes or so it turns into a sort of vague greenish-pinkish mess as all of them go completely out of sync, which isn't very appealing to look at, so I ended up adding a little reset timer to cut power for a second and restart the effect. Interestingly a few of the LEDs managed to "remember" their last colour, despite most of them resetting. It's an extremely simple circuit for a very nice effect, especially since the LEDs I bought operate on constant 5V so you don't need current limiting resistors. Just a lot of soldering.

[@mattthe2nd865]

I really liked the time lapse of you putting it together instead of cutting to it complete

[@shemp308]

Seeing your project's and you doing them is not the only reason yo watch your channel's! Few if any fast forward I think I can talk for more then just myself. We ENJOY your tales lifes learnings and general commentary. From some of your stories I doubt you have run out. By the way maybe my age but this project's first thought was the pannell on the seaview. (Voyage to the bottom the sea)

[@mjbirdClavdivs]

Looks like something from classic Doctor Who. Well done!

[@zh84]

The term in the computer industry for lots of blinking lights on the front panel of an old minicomputer is "blinkenlights". If the computer stalled, an expert could interpret the pattern in the lights as a binary number which told them the current address, instruction, and so on.

[@spikekent]

Looks fantastic, I knew you would put the resistors all the same way round, which is exactly what I would have done.

[@tinplategeek1058]

Glad you used the black cable, I think I must have OCD as I was screaming "don't use the white one". And the LED is a great effect too.

[@isoguy.]

Cool project. Placing and soldering components at that speed you could well qualify as a line worker in a Chinese sweat shop.

[@theflatcapcyclist]

Fantastic to see the sped up build portion, that been said I always enjoy having a bigclive long build in the background. Keep up the great vids :>

[@el_spaghetto]

I'll bet one of these would look really neat as an infinity mirror. Also, we call that backing material "chipboard" where I live.

[@Novel_Poe]

I call fries chips where I'm from

[@getyourkicksagain]

We call it "coconut cardboard" where we're from; I kid you not. Infinity mirror with these would look maddening AND cool AF

[@g8xft]

Built one of the random blue flashing boards last week - very much like the effect.

[@rhp9797]

That speedup footage was so satisfying to watch, you did a really good job there! I like the fact you didn't get any music on that could distract from the awesomeness

[@mickward2775]

Awesome. That light is great to look at. Now I've gotta build one to go on my work bench great video bigclive

[@ChrisRid]

I really like that Clive, looks great and so easy to make. Also, I've never thought about using a picture frame for PCB's, which is awesome!

[@bryanh6873]

Would love to try out one of these, Clive. Would probably drive the rest of the family mad - but a worthwhile sacrifice. Bryan

[@robertkilbourne323]

That is absolutely amazing - just resistors and LEDs, seriously - no microcontroller, chips or anything.

[@CyberlightFG]

There is a microcontroller in each led

[@Winkleink]

I worked at a major computer manufacturer in the 90s and they had a visitors centre at the factory for when Large Client visited. There was a window showing the data centre. Only thing is servers are very boring. So, they put panels of flashing LEDs under the mesh fronts of the cabinets so it was more exciting. Another company a friend worked at in their reception lit of lights on the floor to represent where in the world their services were being used most. The lights rarely changed so they changed it to a random batter as looked more techie.

[@eebaker699]

Fantastically simple and effective. I saw your project on another channel.. Great!

[@Dave2108]

Well the outcome was a Very good effect. Blocks of LED's seem to stay in a sequence giving a great effect ..

[@jamesjrovira]

Sweeeeet! You know what we're going to ask for next... Surface mount resistors AND smd LEDs 🙂

[@AndrewGillard]

Even better: *reverse-mount* SMD LEDs! Those are one of my favourite components~ 😻 e.g.: www.digikey.co.uk/product-detail/en/W%C3%BCrth+Elektronik/156120BS75300/732-11419-1-ND/7316093 They're designed to be used with a PCB footprint consisting of two contact pads either side of a large-ish hole (2-3mm diameter, maybe?), and mounted with the lens of the LED *through* the PCB. This means that the light is seen from the opposite side of the board to the solder pads. I imagine that, commercially, this would let you keep all components on one side of the board but still have LED indicators on the other side, thus allowing the board/panel to only go through a pick-and-place machine once, saving a lot of money, and eliminating potential issues with having reflow SMD parts on both sides. But what's far more interesting to me is that you can use them to have LEDs shining from one side of a PCB *without seeing any of the solder, tracks, LED packages, etc!* While I do enjoy having visible circuitry in some projects - even artistic projects - it can be very nice to be able to hide all of it, and these LEDs give you that option. An interesting twist might be to only have holes drilled halfway through the PCB, giving a very diffused effect (you'd also have to choose reverse-mount LEDs with short enough lenses, though most don't seem to be the full height of a standard 1.6mm-thick PCB). I doubt you'd be able to get one of the cheap Chinese PCB fabs to drill shallow holes for you unless you were getting a lot of boards made and/or you paid them a lot extra, as they obviously could only drill one panel at once (rather than a stack of several panels), and it might require a lot of extra effort to drill holes to an accurate depth (I'm not really sure how those machines work!), but you could order boards without the holes and drill the holes yourself, preferably with a CNC drilling/milling machine, but even one of those amazingly-cheap £200~300 Chinese CNC "engraver" machines would work great for that! You can get a similar effect by just using regular SMD LEDs, or side-emitting SMD LEDs, on the rear of the board, with the solder resist left off (Pimoroni does this on some of their products), but I think the effect would be better with half-drilled holes :)

[@johnpossum556]

@@AndrewGillard They don't blink, though.

[@gofastwclass]

That turned out very well.

[@roger263]

Clive this takes me back to the cockpit of the Jupiter 2 in Lost in Space! Greetings from Australia, Roger

[@leegoodair4678]

Love your videos clive! Great live stream last night with you and your brother 😎 keep up the great work 👍

[@nickdiamond7595]

Looks really cool. Especially in the dark. And I love soldering thru-hole components to circuit boards. Even though I work in SMT.

[@getyourkicksagain]

Damnit, now I want a miniature version in SMT for a keychain or something. I don't expect those flashers to be available in SMD format, though. Microcontroller on the back?

[@Eremon1]

If this were a kit with LEDs and resistors included I'd very much like to buy it. Though I'd settle for just the PCB. I like this revised version with the option for through hole or surface mount resistors. Nice little project. Cheers.

[@haulngrassracing]

I think this is the first video I’ve seen that you fast forward. I like it 👍

[@stevenA44]

I want to make one of these. Love the random pattern.

[@DanOutdoorsUK]

I wonder how it looks with a diffused cover

[@Z-Ack]

Or with a fresnel lens cover from a tv or projector..

[@bob_._.]

Kinda blurry

[@ciarfah]

@@bob_._. cheers

[@peterpb0ans68]

Nice visual effect. I’ve put the blue one together. I’ve added a simple circuit with a ldr to dimm it automatically when the room gets darker. Works great and keeps the effect nice in stead of too bright.

[@bigclivedotcom]

That's a good idea.

[@morodochable]

Thanks for the time lapse instead of the cut!

[@quadcabdakota]

Looks awesome. I think I want to configure this for a 19" 2U rack blank.

[@bigclivedotcom]

It's viable. I already checked out the sizing as a 2U PCB and it fits in the manufacturers PCB size limit.

[@databanks]

@@bigclivedotcom With 2 side by side still within the limits of a stock 1A USB plug... that's going to make life easy. Nice one! Not to mention a lot of plug-in adaptors do 2A now

[@ryanhebron4287]

@@bigclivedotcom If you made a kit for replacing rack mount blanks I would buy it. I love blinken lights in my homelab

[@elonmask50]

That looks fabulous.

[@urugulu1656]

featured live yesterday.... mmmm cant be coincidence you put this up today

[@redpheonix1000]

Yeah, and I remember people even asking about it!

[@christopherguy1217]

A small tip, when you cut the connector off of fabric covered wire, slip a heat shrink tube over the fabric end and it won't get caught in the hole.

[@davidu4758]

Hi Clive. I've built 4 (1ea RGBY) of these and working on number 5 which is mixed. I don't have any USB power banks yet (dollar stores here in 'Murca don't sell many electrics/electronics, I think due to liability considering Chinese-ium construction) so I joined the 4 complete boards in parallel and connected them to my benchtop DC power supply. Having them all lit, I noticed at 5 volts constant those boards only draw 500 to 600 mA depending on how many LEDs are lit at any given time. I also noticed there are differences in the brightness. I rank them as GBRY from bright to dim. Interesting since all of them came from the same supplier you used and all were in factory-sealed bags. Regardless, they still look awesome side-by-side. Thanks for sharing this fun project with us!

[@bigclivedotcom]

That's the correct scale of intensity. The green and blue are gallium nitride with green being at the peak of eye sensitivity and blue being at the extreme end of the visual spectrum. With the red/yellow it's down to the efficiency of the older gallium arsenide technology. There's much more demand for high output red chips for use in RGB displays. Consider getting a beefy power bank from Walmart. They are good value and made to local standards.

[@mayesip]

Still looks fantastic

[@Fake_Blood]

Looks fun to assemble. Black pcb might be an option, although we can always paint these ourselves.

[@DavidBTB]

Holy time lapse Batman! Quite an evolution from jump-cuts. Ich mag das!

[@AgentWaltonSimons]

That looks blinkin' great!

[@Leroys_Stuff]

That’s cool Clive thank you for the content enjoying from Mn.

[@andrewness]

Lovely stuff. Real Blake's 7 vibe from that.

[@majordisappointment8692]

All those blinking lights flashing and blinking and flashing.......lol rare movie reference. I like the blue thanks Clive.

[@xyanide1986]

That's pretty good looking!

[@muxallopeniot9194]

I agree with you I think they look amazing. I think you will sell a lot of them.

[@nolifewoodzy]

I love watching assembly videos. I would have a few boards made for myself, one of each, red, green and blue leds. And another of them mixed up.

[@charlieb9502]

Really Would love to have a few of these boards.

[@devlad]

Like the hi-speed timelapse thing, great change Clive

[@imark7777777]

Micro USB port tip: you can get like a dozen or more micro USB port on little breakout boards about the size of a pinky fingernail or smalle. they're awesome for projects you can tap just the power you can have power and data and you don't have to mess around with a surface mount soldering you have through holes to work with. I have a few projects where I just attached them on for the power supply or in one case I replaced a charging port on a keyboard or another one where I added USB power because the internal power supply died. This also allows you to separate the connector Port from your project which means they are easily replaceable if damaged and a strain relief between the port and your board that prevents damage on it! Anybody who's repaired a laptop power port will understand what I mean!! Although if you're looking for a reliable and sturdy Port I personally recommend going with the USB Mini ports. for some reason they are more durable and usually of a stronger material I've seen nothing but damaged micro ports and most of the USB mini ports I've seen are intact unless you're stupid with them.

[@johnpossum556]

Yeah but this way you never lose the cord.

[@imark7777777]

@@johnpossum556 lol. I forgot to explain the benefits of that. Personally I don't like attached chords because if something goes wrong you can't quickly swap it out and in the field it means opening to diagnose or repair but they do have their uses.

[@trombonetortoise3406]

Hi Biclive, just watched the original footage... if you focus on the LEDs on the very right hand side, you can see that they flash in an irregular pattern. They seem to stay lit longer than they are off. In general I guess your method would look quite similarly awsome (given you‘d organize the LED in lines instead of a matrix) and is easy to realize. In your version I like how the brain associates controlled patterns where there absolutely aren’t. Thanks for making Videos - always great fun to watch!

[@1914grant]

Excellent Clive as always

[@me3333]

This board pleases my symmetry compulsion. Thank you for making it so pleasant to look at

[@davidhernandez871]

Love it! Reminds me of the one I built in '70. Made it with resistors, caps, 40 neon bulbs & a 90V battery. No switch as it would run for months. Had a nice warm glow. I was in school with the Navy at the time. Had it my locker; came back from chow & found my locker had been broken into. The fire watch thought there was a fire in my locker; got into all kinds of trouble. Commanders have no sense of humor ;-)

[@antone.henderson]

Reminds me of an old DEC system, but the DEC used red/yellow LEDs in a random order that even the DEC engineer couldn't explain. Poop that shows my age. Thanks for the enlightenment. Regards Tony

[@videomentaryproductionschannel]

That looks really cool, I think if you could get coloured LEDs of the same type, that would look even better, nice project, love the videos

[@kellyrjohnson7693]

Jeez, I just finished the livestream replay and boom, new video. Well, I only went through half a bottle of Jagermeister during the stream so here's a good reason to use the other half.

[@nightlurker]

I wish working with circuit boards was as easy as your speeded up video, Clive.

[@commodoreNZ]

You make it look so easy :)

[@TheGhungFu]

Reminds me when I was a kid I made something similar (much larger) out of blinking Christmas lights mounted in a box with a sheet of florescent light diffuser (pizmatic) in front. When X-mas rolled around, my Mother discovered we didn't have very many lights left to put on the tree. Before she could throw a fit, I explained to her that was the price of her birthing a tinker child. After I blew up the cellar making a still, she forgot all about the x-mas lights :-0

[@tyttuut]

I bought 1000 68 ohm resistors a few years ago because "I'll use them eventually." Now that I've decided to build one of these, I finally get to actually use some of them!

[@mavos1211]

Fantastic effect Clive, I personally would leave the resistors on the front but spray the board black beforehand.

[@leslieschramm6252]

Yep I;d spring for 3 boards, colour wandering ones sounds like fun just three boards on a shelf in frames.

[@jayzo]

For a Micro USB connector you could cheat and use a breakout board and some header in a way where the USB connector points towards the centre of the frame. You'll get vertical clearance for a USB cable to connect and with it pointing towards the centre a cable won't poke out the side, and you'll not have to worry about the weakness of a vertical connector. All this needs is a 2/4U rack blanking plate with holes drilled for the LEDs.

[@gregorythomas333]

Very nice project Clive!

[@tonybastin5095]

Hi Clive I am new to electronics but since i retired in October 2019 i have watched many videos on the subject. Your explanations on circuits and how to build/adapt current circuits or make kits and fun things has taught me a lot and i've already successfully built most of the things on your videos and other channels. I hope you do decide to sell the printed circuit boards for your blue chaos as i shall certainly buy some. great channel, great content. keep up the good work and i'm now thinking of becoming a patreon.

[@RichardT2112]

“Shall we play a game?”

[@spencermitchell5951]

i have decided that nuclear war results in a loss for both sides. how about a game of chess?

[@lordelectron6591]

@@spencermitchell5951 how about a game of contacting other dimensions?

[@me3333]

Love to. How about Global Thermonuclear War?

[@steveemery30]

Would you like to play a nice game of chess

[@dahobbs9]

Add a sheet of diffused material for an even better effect! Most big box hardware stores carry the 2' x 4' sheets for recessed drop ceiling lighting.

[@fredflintstone1]

Wow the speed you inserted those leds and resistors you could be a pick and place machine for Seon:-)

[@DarrenDignam]

Liked for the time lapse!!

[@Culturedropout]

Looks good. Having it play back at .25 speed gives a pretty good appearance of groups going on and off together. Too bad you can't adjust the flashing speed.

[@johnpossum556]

Since they're probably some kind of standard VCO you could probably make small resistive changes to get them to flash differently.

[@user-ib9wu9tm4w]

Viewing the board in portrait looks more similiar to the one in the still image, you can see elements of that scrolling pattern

[@OtreblaMaslab]

I've got some of the slow-change RGB LEDs on order from AliExpress... interested to try something like this with those!

[@DavidFrostbite]

If you bridge the data wires in the USB cord you can pull more amps. USB power supplies limit current to .5A if there is no data signal. Putting different resistors on it can let it reach up to 2.4A I believe.

[@gcewing]

4:40 It seems Clive has been secretly developing a high-speed assembly robot modelled after himself!

[@electroshed]

It would also make a good array for Infrared LED's to give cameras enhanced night vision (for cameras that are sensitive to IR light) - also, moving on with the IR LED idea, could you use a transistor to drive the array, fed from a TV remote control, essentially modulating the IR LED's and making a rather long range IR blaster, which absolutely wouldn't be used to turn on/off peoples TV's at distance in the evenings....

[@charliedobbie8916]

I would love to buy some of these, especially as bare boards. Hope you do decide to put them up!

[@danmack3173]

Oh this looks fantastic

[@Gualluecious]

I definitely need to get into these projects when the budget allows. ;)

[@ianlucas7260]

very cool effect, nice on BC!

[@adrianrabbage4996]

That's really cool, nice one Clive!

[@RickDangerousNL]

If you can mount it behind the glass.. put some window tint on it. When the leds are off, the front looks dark :) Maybe even paint the board black.

[@ParallelLogic]

Hmm, SMT LEDs with frosted glass (steel wool) for a diffusion effect...