Crappy Menards Boom Box also Puke Cam is Gone!

[@BenHeckHacks]

How does one get in touch with "Big Clive"? I'd be happy to snail mail him one of these across the pond.

[@casperleeberg]

Then you would need to get the radio in the pink version!

[@illustriouschin]

I'm pretty sure it would be really easy since he spends about 18 hours a day on correspondence.

[@JohnnyWednesday]

Just say "Big Clive" 3 times while looking at your reflection in a blob of solder

[@UpLateGeek]

You can find his email on his website by clicking on the Kit and PCB shop link. Might be a while before you get a response, apparently he gets a lot of email.

[@moosemaimer]

I was thinking this was going to turn into an Electroboom video.

[@endgovernmentextremism]

Consumer: "Hmmm, it's pretty heavy, can't be that cheap" Death Radio: Laughs in lead acid battery

[@EthanDoezYT]

holy shit I'm crying.

[@T3hBeowulf]

I've seen enough Big Clive teardowns to recognize the capacitive dropper on mains. If I recall, the shield of the USB will be live at mains voltage.

[@mina47879]

Yeah, i believe if you plug it in backwards you get half wave rectified mains on the shielding. On a device with a figure 8 plug...

[@qwertykeyboard5901]

Headphone jack too.

[@mr.behaving]

any product with shiny black plastic and chrome buttons just gives me the "too cheap to be a serious product" vibes, by default

[@brigham2150]

I’ve worked at two Menards stores but I had gotten into stereo/hi fi equipment between my stents at the two stores and so when i started working at the second store, the electronics really caught my eye. Of course I never bought any but I was tempted just to see how crap they were. Now I don’t have to because I discovered this channel!

[@derkreativste4419]

I like how they went out of their way to not only NOT include the isolation between AC and DC, but even left an unused pin between the AC connector on the PCB as a spark gap....

[@BenHeckHacks]

"Spared every expense..." (da da daaah da dum da da daah dummm....)

[@joelevesque9878]

Techmoan is a great channel.

[@ToTheGAMES]

@@NintendoDude888 Oh shut up

[@perpetualcollapse]

📠

[@jenshoffmannolsen]

😮🤧🎇

[@StevenS757]

@@NintendoDude888 he's retired you fucking numpty

[@BenHeckHacks]

@@NintendoDude888 Hey, be nice. Also if you wanna see what a real ebegger looks like, DSP Gaming.

[@gbraadnl]

Bigclive would love taking this one apart. Dinky stuff... Lead acid battery, capacitive dropper, unpolarized plug :-)

[@piratetv1]

He's got a better overhead camera and looking at capacitive droppers. Ben is turning into BigClive

[@BenHeckHacks]

He lives in UK right? I'd gladly buy another and send it over but shipping would probably be nuts!

[@trevorhaddox6884]

This thing has to be super light, even with a lead acid battery. Can't be too much.

[@1blisslife]

@@BenHeckHacks I'm pretty sure they sell them somewhere online over there too. He'd have a kick out of it! 😂

[@piratetv1]

@Ben Heck Hacks and the post likes to confiscate things he orders. Crazy shipping on the isle of man

[@jrmcferren]

Report that to the consumer product safety commission ASAP. That capacitive dropper power supply is a major shock hazard.

[@devikwolf]

Ben yet again doing the Lord's work, buying Menard's crap and risking his life with death-trap electronics so we don't have to.

[@BenHeckHacks]

If you collect 67 of these radios we can rebuild Liberty Prime...

[@devikwolf]

@@BenHeckHacks Freedom is the sovereign right of all Menards crap

[@Dong_Harvey]

@@BenHeckHacks buying 67 pieces of death-inducing crap would be a death to communism indeed

[@GGigabiteM]

It's not the capacitor limiting the voltage, it's the SLA battery. If you removed the battery from the circuit, the voltage would shoot up until something went bang. The polypropylene film capacitor is there to limit the current, not the voltage. In a capacitor dropper, you need something to clamp the voltage, in this case it is a SLA battery, but you can use other things like LEDs or zener diodes. Not that I'd recommend using a capacitor dropper in something like this ever. The only place it has a use is in sealed devices like LED lights where you can't come in contact with the mains.

[@andymouse]

Great description...cheers.

[@oudeheer]

Exactly!

[@Stuff1646]

LOL !

[@absalomdraconis]

They obviously didn't do it here, but you can also use a capacitive dropper to drop the output of a transformer if you have the wrong ratio, getting the safety of a transformer supply at the cost of reduced output current.

[@TearlessGosling]

Mr. Heck, just wanted to say thank you for being an inspiration for the past 10 years, I found you back in 2012 while in HS. Thought what you did was neat but I wanted to do software. 10 years later, I still think what you do is neat and last week I managed to get a soldering station and accouterments, you along with a couple others convinced me that I could learn to solder, and last night I was able to install a mod into my PS1. Thank you for being around and for doing what you have to inspire me and I am sure many others.

[@BenHeckHacks]

You're welcome!

[@x_x_w_]

This would be a great emergency radio. Takes a ton of power options, radio range.... Holy crap. How is that mains even legal??? That has to violate some US safety code.

[@ATSNorthernMI]

They can slap a license on the side from a different similar radio and fool the NEC and the UL certification process.

[@Ejrupolsen]

And europenian as well 🤪🤪🤪

[@1pcfred]

That's what I was thinking. I have a crank radio. When you've got nothing to do turning the crank keeps you busy. Gets your mind off the disaster you're in. It's gotten me through a few hurricanes.

[@alexstone691]

@@1pcfred Do you have to crank constantly or ?

[@12Mantis]

While I'd hesitate the use the word great for a radio like that it *does* look like it could be useful, with some modifications. The very first thing I'd do is rip out that mains plug port so that never gets used! Next is take a closer look at the chips to see what they're capable of and if there's some unused functions that could be brought out/exploited.

[@Birdman_in_CLE]

This reminds me of the death "dalek" flashlight that Big Clive tore down a few years back. The handles and USB output port were live at mains voltage when charging.

[@brianm6337]

That power plug is downright scary. Disney can put in a shop- Prints Charming. 😉

[@colonelbarker]

Thanks for the new mount. Makes a world of difference, my wife stopped me watching your videos on the big TV because they made her feel vertigo!

[@critter42]

"This is the kind of thing you don't want your insurance agent to know you have in your house" - ded 🤣🤣🤣

[@reese76man]

I got to enter Wisconsin for the first time last week (Chicago trip)... so I petitioned the wife for a visit to the Menards in Kenosha, solely based on these Ben Heck videos. That place is pretty neat, but I wasn't able to locate some of the cooler swag that Ben seems to find. Maybe I was in the wrong sections. (Also, House of Gerhard was delicious. If we didn't eat there, my first Culvers experience would have happened. Maybe next time!)

[@ligius3]

Capacitive dropper, gets quite hot under load and is quite inefficient. The lead acid is clamping the voltage, until the electrolyte dries up. Then it either opens up, which causes the voltage to reach line level, or it shorts out, likely causing the orange capacitor or the resistor to catch fire. You can safely charge lead batteries at C/10, float them at C/20. So let's assume middle of the road, that means it takes 15h to charge the battery, if you're not using the radio. Judging by the size of the battery and parts, no more than 100mA are flowing through the 'regulator', but the radio likely draws more current at high volume. The battery could be used as an UPS for a Pi, since you can just feed 5-5.5V into it.

[@eDoc2020]

A capacitive dropper is quite efficient because the capacitor returns the energy on the next half-cycle. It's resistive droppers which are inefficient.

[@suicidalbanananana]

The only side-effect i get from watching your video's is i find myself smelling random electronics more often than i used to 👍 Edit: New camera mount seems up to the task of not making me puke (not that the last one did, but yea, good cam angle)

[@markfiddament9383]

The case is a reused moulding - to save cost - holds 4 C cells, and then a hole for a memory hold battery

[@peterjszerszen]

You'd be happy to know that many brand new buildings still have their emergency lighting fixtures/circuits/inverters powered by lead acid batteries. Fire alarms and security systems too. They get replaced at regular intervals (or are supposed to), and are very reliable and robust in an application like building emergency systems. In the old days (or if you ever went into a Kmart) if you looked at their emergency lights from the '70s, they would often take a whole car battery and sometimes had an additional battery mounted around the side of the pole. Not only that but the lights themselves were basically car headlights. They have to run for 90 minutes.

[@BenHeckHacks]

My UPS is lead acid. It's not an obsolete thing.

[@DanielMelendrezPhD]

4:11 Banda El Recodo, "Y llegaste tu". Puro Sinaloa, pariente! Nice video, Ben!

[@markfiddament9383]

R37 is to discharge the cap when the mains is off, the capacitor limits the current, and the lead acid battery limits the voltage. If you have the mains lead in, then all metal connected could be live! - this is a death trap! When plugged in - it breaks so many rules.

[@wimwiddershins]

The AC in looks like its going to a capacitive dropper? I wonder if theres any leakage to the DC side? The odd range of power options gives the impression it might be for use in developing countries?

[@barbudoru]

It doesn't matter if there's leakage or not, it matters if the cap is on the Live or the Neutral side of the unpolarized plug. If you flip the plug so that the cap is on the Neutral side, then everything that is on the 0v rail will be almost directly referenced to live - the metal on the micro sd card slot, the ground on the line in... fun times for everyone using it.

[@eDoc2020]

@@barbudoru IMO leakage does matter, at least how I interpret the OP's question. The direct connection is what I'd consider to be _a lot_ of leakage.

[@absalomdraconis]

@@barbudoru : You forgot to mention that sometimes the outlets are wired backwards (especially on reworked areas), so that live & neutral are switched.

[@The_Vanished]

Army Hammer's father was Armond Hammer. The company was first made public a few years prior to Armond's birth. Armond was ridiculed much of his life because of the name. He also became a board member of the Arm & Hammer company!

[@The_Vanished]

@Old Guy I'm just curious whether this is real or not. I suppose I had some of the details wrong anyway en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armand_Hammer#Stake_in_Arm_&_Hammer

[@tonyat1714]

4:11 I laughed so freacking hard. Thats "La banda del Recodo", pretty popular here in Mexico. Definitely not expecting to hear that here LOL

[@kattmonstret]

This could be Bens big break! ”Boy Genious discovers lethal mains voltage in Menards radio”

[@coski87]

That's a capacitive dropper. You should watch Big Clive's analysis of camping light with this kind of PSU, they're dangerous, you can get shocks from some metallic parts like the USB plug, or the battery spring contacts

[@barbudoru]

The 18650 fit may be due to protected/unprotected cell lengths - protected cells are slightly longer. Also there's the issue with nibs versus flat-tops. Edit: Commenting as I'm watching - OMG, capacitive dropper on an object with exposed inputs/metal? WTF. Edit 2: Maybe they're doing a push-pull configuration on the audio amp.

[@johnsonlam]

Guess it's "Made in China" or recently call P.R.C.

[@maximilianwimmer627]

jupp, as soon as I saw the big PE film capacitor plus the bridge rectifier it was over for me. that is some cheap-ass design

[@craigjensen6853]

Also I think it's awesome that you keep doing vids even though you clearly don't have to after selling element 14 and the show. I'm sure you could just sit back and retire but you keep it going and I appreciate that! It's like when Wayne Campbell sold his show!

[@iPhonep0wah]

I spent 2 weeks in the hospital recently, When I finally got back home I was still taking morphine, was looking forward to space out in my couch and watch a new Ben video, but then I was introduced to the Puke-cam (TM)… It almost got me 😂

[@andrewrainville9453]

I bought a version without BT, but it also had a Shortwave tuner! I tore it apart after seeing your vid, and... yep. Lead-acid battery. I later got a better shortwave device off of Amazon lol Greetings from Wausau!

[@grebz]

The resistance ADC button decoder is an interesting idea, could you use powers of 2 resistance values to decode multiple button presses?

[@absalomdraconis]

Powers of 2, and also various other mixes. You basically run it as a manual R-2R network.

[@mndlessdrwer]

I now need a series of Ben making a collection of ineffective cat distraction devices. Sounds like great fun, then you can wander around the house with the camera to find and attempt to entertain the cat, only for him to sit there and look at you with mild disdain.

[@zaprodk]

They need to pull that boomblaster from the shelves. That's a DEATH TRAP!

[@senilyDeluxe]

The people designing this must have seen these power supply teardown videos where electrical engineers point out how crappy and dangerous these cheap PSUs are and thought "Can't be crappy and dangerous if there IS NO power supply!"

[@ConnerBurns]

"Design a power supply? But the plug supplies power already..."

[@volactic8495]

They were watching a 5-minute crafts

[@BehrouzKashkar]

Ben i have seen that use of capacitor for stepping down the voltage in many cheap electronics like some led bulbs and cfl lamps

[@wolfnails666]

It would be great to have Ben (Menards) and Big Clive (Poundland) and see if they can find the most questionable electronics.

[@absalomdraconis]

I just imagined the two of them with a huge pile of electronics, swimming through the stuff like Scrooge McDuck.

[@Kara_Kay_Eschel]

6:49 There is was a guy named Armand Hammer who did serve on the board for the company that made Arm and Hammer baking soda. As a note, the product was named before he ever was born.

[@zorbratron]

Medhi would be so proud with that radio having a bridge rectifier

[@ClericChris]

Perhaps the RF tuner doubled as a variac transformer. 120v @ FM 88.1 and 12v @ FM 107.9. I'm pretty sure the safety was in the 45awg mains line aka 50mA inline fuse. Tis but two sweaters touching Christmas morning.

[@TomStorey96]

For the solar panel input, are they relying on the fact that a small solar panel won't put out much current and thus the voltage will be dragged down?

[@eDoc2020]

I believe so.

[@NiHaoMike64]

Probably intended for one of those little 1W panels.

[@jimb032]

Send that to Big Clive. He can tell us how naughty it is while he draws us the schematic. :D It's more surprising you found that in retail and not from AliExpress. You can charge lead acid that way - I found many emergency lights that do it by just floating it- but not in such a crappy way!

[@hene193]

Capacitive dropper on the AC side? They use that in led light bulbs. Big clive has made few videos about it

[@steampunksystems1969]

nice to see the old red tweezers again! very nostalgic!

[@chronicgaming3280]

I believe that here in the UK you could legally return the battery to the store for them to dispose of. Keep up the great content 👍

[@Samuel-km5yf]

I would love to watch Big Clive or DiodeGoneWild reverse engineer the circuit to this death machine.

[@sobertillnoon]

Is it safe to run mains through that tiny wire?

[@JessHull]

Was that a Percy Bysshe Shelley reference ?...nice

[@christopherdecorte1599]

Was that leaded solder as well on the pcb. That this is a fire hazard I didn't see a fuse eighter not that it matter the mains wire so thin should act like a fusible link

[@Ajtech369]

What was the little blue thing on the board? Also, I liked the old camera angle

[@kev7345]

Hey it's not all bad ... it's got 2 way speakers ... (Ben opens it up) ... what was i thinking...?

[@paulpeterson7853]

As I live in Arcadia, WI (Trempealeau County)... I appreciate your Midwest references 🙂.

[@VectorLog]

hearing the word "bitcoin" over the radio is the most anachronistic thing i think i've ever heard

[@ZENITH_System_3]

I had this all in one charging emergency radio kit I harvested for it’s dynamo that was almost this bad, as it had a lead acid battery, and a really janky method of joining all the power sources (though it didn’t have “mains” voltage)

[@MichalKobuszewski]

They've even included the flashlight to light one's way up to the pearly gates. Just a guess: What's the USB port voltage while charging? I bet it's not 5V..

[@all.day.day-dreamer]

Some Mom out there had just about $30 to spend on her kid around Christmas and this is what she got him / her. Poor kid.

[@akaJughead]

This is great free advertising for Menard's. I live on the east coast, and have never heard of it before. Now if I'm Menard's open near me, I would probably check it out because it's the store you get all this fun stuff from. The Menard's people should cut you a check.

[@stimie]

Is the radio chip some kind of SI47xx?

[@sprybug]

AWESOME. Glad you're fixing the overhead camera angle issue. Thanks! :) Edit: I haven't laughed this much on one of your videos in quite a while. XD

[@TunsaMcHaggis]

a capacitive dropper in a device that receives radio waves, no isolation, and exposed metal everywhere.. brilliant

[@marcbotnope1728]

Thanks for changing you camera setup.

[@ELECTROHAXZ]

They're using a capacitive dropper to charge the lead acid battery from mains. It's an acceptable way to do so for lead acid but still pretty jank. A linear transformer at least would make it much safer. The issue is that it's not isolated from mains this way. The lead acid batteries with capacitive dropper circuits are common in old rechargable flashlights that plugged directly into the outlets to charge. It's really not worth $30 at all, not even close.

[@LimbaZero]

But this have reachable metal parts that can have rectified mains -> death trap (Like that USB connector)

[@ELECTROHAXZ]

@@LimbaZero Yeah that's why I said a linear transformer would be safer. It's not isolated from mains and the user can touch it which can be unsafe.

[@Gunbudder]

there is a lot i didn't like about living in the midwest, but these videos do remind me how great menards is. going to menards on route 66 is a unique experience (i used to live just off of route 66). i noticed that new businesses built "on route 66" were actually built about a half block away with weird short roads that act like a driveway to get into the parking lot. i figured this has something to do with the preservation and historic status of the road. locals couldn't care less about route 66 though, and most never even realized they were on it because the name changes about 1000 times

[@jonelectronics510]

Some sort of capacitive dropper?

[@mina47879]

It's a capacitive dropper, I believe if you plug it in backwards you get half wave rectified mains on the ground/shielding! On a device with a figure 8 plug... Fucking terrifying

[@kbhasi]

(2:10) I KNEW you'd mention Techmoan! (5:34) Yeah, you can tell it's cheap, because the 2 flat parallel prongs with no holes like those look to me like plugs for China, not North America!

[@enzofitzhume7320]

I think China was having a contest on who could make the cheapest radio?

[@Frontman936]

The way you used bugger in this vid was so natural.

[@patrickriarchy6054]

I don't get it. Is it mono but out of 2 speakers?.

[@battra92]

Ben, I swear between you, Found Footage Fest and MST3K I will need to visit a Menard's some day.

[@cherryeyes71]

Looks much better. Doesn't look like I'm looking out from under an airplane before a landline.

[@ajsaracina8380]

Feels like a whole different channel without the puke cam. Never bothered me, but it does look a bit more "natural" now

[@kasuraga]

Wait, are those speakers hooked in series? Why would they do that?

[@sbcinema]

The battery is actually the best safety precaution that has been taken on the device. Unlike lithium-ion batteries, they tend not to burst into flames wen overcharged (and they also last far longer than NICD batteries).

[@peterjszerszen]

Yeah, don't they just produce hydrogen gas when overcharged?

[@oggyosbourne]

What is that small computer on the wall around 0:19 ?

[@hrofty]

The whole reason this type of crap exist is because someone had a warehouse full of led acid batteries and wanted to get rid of them. At some point China would start shipping this kind of tat with compartments filled with pressed landfill plastic or medical waste.

[@UnlimitedRun]

Can't you press multiple analog-multiplexed buttons at once if you use resistors of exponetial values, specifically each resistor is twice the value of the last? Would work like a resistor ladder but in reverse - each button would correspond to a specific bit in the ADCs returned value. But you would need very precise resistors as well as extra bits of ADC resolution versus amount of buttons (e.g. a 10-bit ADC for 7 or 8 buttons). To read it, bitshift the ADC value rightward by the ADC resolution less the amount of buttons (psuedo-code example: ADC_Value >> [ADC_Resolution - Button_Count]) then you have a bitmask of buttons pressed.

[@Lee_Adamson_OCF]

Man, that thing is nuts. Curtain-burner AC cord?!?

[@randycarter2001]

Hot chassis! Never ever connect anything to the circuitry. Especially if you like life. I didn't notice if it was UL listed. Definitely a shock hazard the negative of the D cell battery terminal will be 70vac above ground.

[@CTommyB]

Ben Heck & Techmoan, that would be a great collab!

[@CountDuckula07]

Whenever I hear the phrase 'bugger all' from someone outside the uk/aus/nz, the world seems a little bit brighter.

[@kalimaa999]

That antenna might look good on the cyber deck too

[@joeytomato]

Put it back together... Send it to bigClive with a note that just says "good luck". ... he'd have a field day with that.

[@jeremygeorgia4943]

You could tell it was lead acid, because of the cap on top. I'm surprised they mounted it sideways, though. It almost looked like there was a way to get at the cells, to add water. The waffle grille was right behind the "X-Bass" sticker. Maybe it was a crude port of some sort. Maybe, it was actually going through the motions to be functional, but not necessarily helpful or useful. The C battery holder was confusing.

[@GalvayraPHX]

Would it blow up any inserted D-cells when also plugged into mains? Seems like it would put 120+ Vdc over them? Edit: Serves me right to comment before watching to the end ;) Unless, of course, the cap in the capacitive dropper fails closed. Still not healthy to put dc voltage on the D-cells.

[@treedeblue]

Do they sell hotdogs and fresh popcorn at Menards?

[@iamdarkyoshi]

How is this being sold at a retail store? A capacitive dropper on a piece of equipment with exposed metalwork (USB connector, battery terminals, etc) is not in any way safe

[@ArlenMoulton2]

Lead acid battery, class AB amp chip, capacitive dropper, this thing is OLD SCHOOL!

[@fluxpenguin]

Oh no you took it apart! I would have loved to see Techmoan reviewing it first.

[@coolduder1001]

I feel like I'm being annoying but I don't know who to ask. Do you think you can make your own PS1 controller using an attiny or atmega? Just the most basic digital only version. There's instructions on raphnet for an SNES to PS1, but I'm just talking about a DIY controller. Don't know much and I'm trying to make a PS1 portable and it would be easier to cable manage if I could connect the buttons with 2 shift registers and an attiny 84 or 24.

[@zaprodk]

The capacitor is a part of a "Capacitive dropper" - It's a way to drop the voltage without too much loss. The battery (and maybe a zener) is pulling the voltage down.

[@konradrueb1713]

There's nothing like eating pizza and enjoying some Ben Heck with menards "crap". Always a thrill.

[@yinzer4life1]

Big fan of the new camera angle. The lead acid battery is just retro now

[@frankbose544]

i like the new camera angle thingy didnt mind the last set up tho

[@tenchuu007]

I appreciate the white balance fix at the 6 minute mark.

[@nigozeroichi2501]

Yep that big fat gumdrop is used as a capacitive dropper, I haven't seen that THING at my local Nards,

[@NeoSamus]

Wow, love that Ben sang Sonic Boom from Sonic CD. 😁 Also, this radio is crazy bad!

[@tapestapes0]

I wish i could give this man a hug