Inside a 50W LED street light.

Another random LED street light purchase from ebay. This time from a British seller who seemed to have a random selection of proper commercial fittings.

[@noisemaker1696]

"Here's one I blew up earlier." Love your stuff, mate.

[@AureliusR]

Oh shit, I was in tears laughing at the "if your car is missing a spark plug, it's okay as long as you floor it"! I had an image of Clive driving a car with three cylinders, with a brick on the gas pedal, scaring all the little old ladies on the Isle of Man!

[@rutherford2580]

Great video showing the possible quality of LED lights and phenomenal education of your audience about electronics in total !

[@subzeroarctics1299]

I love it when people actually appreciate things that most people take for granted (like street lights)

[@stephenlamley541]

Agreed you can't have the complex stuff, without the basics.

[@jackwhite3820]

I like the missing spark plug analogy, it describes the issue perfectly. Thanks Clive!

[@kuro68000]

I like the way you give these things a fair go. Some people just assume anything Chinese/Poundland/cheap will be crap, but you take the time to examine them and give them an honest review. It's great for people who are actually considering buying this stuff, and an interesting look at building cheap but good hardware.

[@Effay513]

Take it outside and show us how well it illuminates! Cheers!

[@stevenking2980]

Thanks for also using the standard and English system. We have a mixture if both here. Distance is usually SAE and liquids are a mix, we do use metrics in all electronics. Thanks for saying 19" so I don't have to think too much while paying close attention to your videos. I have watched about half this weekend and still going... Thanks? S NC USA

[@mannomorth]

Love that you provide the length in both imperial and SI :) Really enjoy the videos

[@bigclivedotcom]

+mannomorth I like to cater for everyone. Here in the UK our rulers and tapes have both units on them. I'll often use whichever comes closest.

[@webchimp]

Relying on the angle to stop water getting in the cable hole might work, but it's not going to stop wasps.

[@zhangelv2896]

Now there is separate LED chips module with special design which can be IP68 waterproof to prevent water getting in, also with full plastic high quality optical housing and separate heat sink, no insects can get in.

[@miniwarrior7]

You'll need WSP69 standard to keep the wasps out, much more expensive.

[@SeanBZA]

Street lights generally get replaced if a relamp or a new photocell does not fix it, and then it goes to the yard where somebody spends time taking them apart and making up working spot replacement units from them, complete with 10m of wire. They can simply be taken up the cherry picker as a spare, undo old one, cut wires and drop new wires down then bolt light. Come down and fish wires out and do the connection to the pole fuse and see if it lights then go to next one. Saves a half hour per fault and 3 cycles on the lift hydraulics.

[@MRFUCR]

This channel deserves many more subs, helped me pick grow lites saved shit tonne of money. thanks bigclive

[@gateway8833]

As a new electronic student I really appreciate your analysis of electronic components.

[@incorrect1844]

Enjoying your videos Sir!

[@cjfdaniels]

Watching this at work without sound makes for a very interesting finger puppet show... so much expression much win

[@EmberBlaze-ij7of]

you still cant beat good old fashioned high intensity discharge fixtures

[@maxshadow...]

I like that it has a diffuser lens. Too many of the new street lights are too directional and aim light straight down with a narrow spread of light. LED's need a diffuser.

[@lwilton]

Clive, I think the opening around the wire is so the fixture can breathe and not accumulate moisture. The probably realize that they can't make a completely sealed fixture that someone won't screw up the gasket on, and this way water is not as likely to condense in the head. I'm rather surprised that these fixtures come with a feed wire at all. If you think about it, they are probably going to pull a long wire run from the pole to the controller, and another run from the head to the base of the pole. It makes more sense to feed that into the head and terminate there rather than a hidden splice in the pipe. Oh, and maybe grab some ND gel that is being tossed out the next time you strike a show where some is used?

[@slackerbeats]

I most say, love the calm voice! {a good radiovoice.

[@MalleusSemperVictor]

Hello from America. I've been really enjoying your videos knowing nothing about electronics and have actually gained a bit of knowledge from watching them. I work as a printer technician and believe it or not I rarely encounter failure of electronic parts. It would be pretty interesting to see you take apart a copier and take a look at some of the PCB's in there like the power supply.

[@bigclivedotcom]

+MalleusSemperVictor The mass produced stuff has to be reliable to avoid comeback from millions of units. I tend to choose older model and lower end appliances and equipment because I know that all the bugs have usually been engineered out.

[@MalleusSemperVictor]

bigclivedotcom Oh, yeah. There was a recent incident lately where firmware had to be installed on certain machines to prevent the fusers spectacularly combusting, though. That was interesting.

[@bigclivedotcom]

+MalleusSemperVictor Software errors or crash-states that jam heaters on. Never a good thing. I had a charger crash and melt the sleeving off the NiMh cells it was charging.

[@MalleusSemperVictor]

bigclivedotcom Sounds like that probably smelled pretty good.

[@retrogamer33]

That is a beast of a street light

[@alaskanhybridgaming]

They even give you complimentary MEGA blocks!

[@unatproductions3602]

thought the same thing

[@who919me]

I wonder if they pay Lego or M.B for the design first time I ever saw one.

[@Slot1Gamer]

looks like a space man from some old black and white scifi movie...

[@Adam-eb3rs]

+Slot1Gamer Wall-e eve ;)

[@stephenlamley541]

Im so happy you got a decent led usually whenever i watch they are really crappy tbf. To the point i didbt actually realise they made good higher power leds at all.

[@lightforall2398]

I wish you would turn your lights on, on to show the brightness, express the lumens, and light throw before you rip into them. I like your technical prowess!

[@AndyMarsh]

A sheet of welding glass is brilliant seeing if all the strings in a CoB are working when running at full power.

[@Yousitech]

The mount is called slipfitter and uses 2 3/8" pipe. Also we don't have those 2 screw cable connectors in America.

[@linuxthemoon]

Around here the street lights turn of at 11pm, so might have to get some of these for when it gets dark!

[@simonhopkins3867]

glad to see you didn't need to tig this one; -)

[@PaulyG10657]

Something I saw on Julian Illet's channel...you can use a welder's glass to cover the LED and view it at full power with considerable detail. At $1.50 per 2"x4" glass you could buy a few spares. They get hot if you rest them on the LED, however...(hence the spares). I've been testing 20w COBs of the exact form factor you're using with the intent on moving up to genuine CREE or BridgeLux COBs at 4-6x the price. For learning, the cheap Chinese COBs are worth their price, and not a penny more.

[@parkeerwacht]

Those color codes on the wires are commonly used in China. I have some Chinese stuff and it internally uses those color codes. But where I live (Netherlands) we have the same color codes as the UK (Brown [phase], Blue [common], Green/Yellow [earth], Black [Switch], Black/white [used for switches as well but it`s to differentiate the wires like when you have a double light switch] and in some cases Orange [another switch variant but these are for fire protection, to connect smoke detectors together.])

[@NXTcreation]

Red yellow and black is standard in remote control models, yellow would be data, they use dc power so black and red would be for power obviously and the yellow would be the data wire for servo positions ect

[@Elfnetdesigns]

Orange, Yellow, Grey, and brown are US commercial 277 - 480 volts widely used for street lighting here. Maybe the red, black, and yellow are similar minus the grey unless there is a fourth? In any event I would replace that flex with one that matches the wiring code for your country, Unless you're feeling adventurous of course.

[@themaconeau]

Your backyard must be lit very well with all of these street lights lol

[@steampunkskunk3638]

That colour coding looks like the Australian system to me. We still use Red for active and Black for neutral.

[@K0nr4d_]

You could put the durex bottle into the opening of the streetlight. I bet it would fit...

[@brettknoss486]

It could be selling surplus, but I suspect that the reason it was sold with farm supplies is that they were selling yard lights. Farms are not on the street, so they need to set up their own lighting.

[@Tangobaldy]

Use a piece of black binliner extra thick to show led

[@girlsdrinkfeck]

they look likethe ones my county is using ! a weird shade of white with a directional beam

[@wellsgb1957]

Nice one thanks!

[@jackking5567]

That's a great price. I should search more for bargains like this..

[@thebeststooge]

+Zeal Ashwar Good luck as it seems Clive is an eBay bargain hunting expert.

[@stephenburden2084]

Resister on the back for extra bangs and flashes 😂

[@therealjammit]

5:08 kaleidoscope Clive. 5:08 kaleidoscope Clive. It bears repeating...

[@joejoe4games]

on your search to find well matched COB LEDs have you tried ordering them directly from sure Electronics? they have a webstore and the 100W variant is sold for ~15$

[@rguptaca]

Curious why you don't do a continuity test on all three wires to the body to check for a short/fault.

[@leadfootlawnmower2762]

big clive you should get some led traffic signal lights. the most common ones im finding a 8 and 12 inch. red yellow green and arrows. always wondered what type of leds they use and the placement of them that makes the visibility so good.

[@bigclivedotcom]

+lead foot lawn mower (leadfootlawnmower) I'd like to take apart some LED traffic lights, but they have been quite elusive so far.

[@leadfootlawnmower2762]

im finding loads of them here in the us. but i wouldnt know how hard it is finding them in other countries. fairly cheep at about $20 us for the 3 red green and amber. i dont know what shipping would equal out to.

[@thesaucewhisperer6073]

Hey bro did you get to see hutchy and Dunlop dominate the island last tt? Wish I can visit one day

[@j.cheeverloophole9029]

By my dad's house the local council have just replaced his street-lights with LED's, but they are horrible, very dim & a weird pale yellowy orange I've not seen before. It's very noticeable as so far its just his street, all the others are the old sodium lights & as soon as you turn on his street it looks like most of the lights are out! Progress eh? I bet the council paid a fortune for the damned things too.

[@therealjammit]

Red and black could be used as the American 220V standard colors for 2 phase.

[@JUST_ONE_ID10T]

in the us red and black is 220 volts. and the white black is 110 volts.

[@iainbanachowicz8318]

5:55 And here is what I blew up earlier. I couldnt stop laughing at that point

[@Fizzlecube]

In my street they use these bodies with many small LEDs and a solar panel on 🔝

[@GadgetBoy]

I'm looking forward to when you manage to find a reputable source of these 50w leds.

[@GadgetBoy]

+Chris Roller P.s. those wire connectors look like legos.

[@thebeststooge]

Your table top still has those scorch marks from the LED dealio, lol.

[@JohnnyX50]

where I am in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, UK our council have replaced some of the whiteish yellow main road street lights with LED ones and the effect is terrible because you get some areas of good illumination from the old lights then this almost back street ghetto look from the LED ones, they look awful, dark and just not a match for the higher powered original lamps. And though they havent been up long a couple of them are dead already, either random flickering or turn on then back off after a while then repeat. Just a rubbish idea to save money. They may as well not be on at all lol. The lamps on my street are still yellow sodium bulbs with the cool neon startup pink glow, except one. One lamp stopped working when it got bashed by a car, they actually cut it down to the big bit where the power comes in at the bottom, then replaced it with I assume the wrong bulb type and its like a football stadium at that end of the street, massively over bright and hurts your eyes if you look at it. God knows what bulb they put in, its definitely not LED.

[@BariumCobaltNitrog3n]

In the US, 3 phase wiring is brown, orange and yellow (BOY) and neutral is grey. Single phase is black, red and blue (BRB), or just black and red, then any other colors for branch stuff. But colors are not set by code anymore so you can use pink and purple if you want, but neutral has to be white or grey and ground is green, green stripes, or bare. The colors just have to be consistent and labeled at the terminal (service). UK is what, brown and blue and green for ground?

[@bigclivedotcom]

We have a main standard for three phase which used to be red, yellow and blue with black for neutral, but to align with Europe they changed the colour code to brown, black and grey with a blue neutral. (Yes they really did swap a phase and neutral colour.) For single phase and flex it's brown for live, blue for neutral and green/yellow for earth.

[@BariumCobaltNitrog3n]

bigclivedotcom That is odd, considering gray and white are actually neutral colors. It doesn't really matter, as long as you meter everything

[@Unknown-pg4ko]

Do you need these things or do you just buy them to take apart? Bloody good channel this, deserves waay more views and subs.

[@bigclivedotcom]

+Daniel ray i buy the stuff purely to take to bits. I will admit that with the channel it encourages me to buy even more stuff to take to bits because more of us can enjoy it.

[@keaganknapp2237]

Have you seen the 3 led "150w" street light? You could find them on ebay but I found out that mine is not that bad at all. It is bright, stays at 150F or so in 80F nights

[@sparkyprojects]

yeah, be very careful with wire colours, we had some equipment at work that had red, grey and green, red was ground. Also i would have done continuity of all wire, you never know if there's leakage, or if the yellow was touching live. btw, those 2 ridges also aid with drainage, any rain that gets blown into the end will hit the smaller diameter where the wire goes through, then will drain past the ridges instead of running down the pipe on the column

[@TheChipmunk2008]

+Sparky Projects Red ground might have been for Germany I believe (green was phase grey neutral, I think). A german may well come along and correct me.

[@sparkyprojects]

+TheChipmunk2008 I know someone mentioned that in china (or japan) that red is a lucky colour, so that was used for ground, but i think this equipment was from norway/sweden area

[@LGIndustriplat]

+Sparky Projects You can find red as ground in old wiring here in Sweden, otherwise it's green-yellow since the 70's

[@SupremeRuleroftheWorld]

so, any advice on where to get the "proper" LED's like this from? or have you only found duff ones on ebay?

[@justDIY]

How do you find "good" COBs like the one in this fixture? I'd like to build a 'monster' bulb for a carriage light on my house, but considered about wasting money on junk cobs.

[@mszczepaniak]

First I just will say thanks for the content and can you tell who's the manufacturer of the led?

[@marshallmorgan5554]

Where would someone buy a good quality led like the one in the light?

[@HobkinBoi]

Just curious, but where would you find a good COB style LED?

[@bigclivedotcom]

+{MLP} Rainbow Dash It's hard to find decent ones. All the best seem to be going to manufacturers for use in high cost products.

[@abcdefgh1279]

Hey Clive! Do you usually keep undestroyed items like this lamp for yourself? Or maybe even use it?

[@RandyDarkshade2]

You have mentioned before about these light heads not having a connected earth. Maybe it's because they bolt to a metal lamp post which should be earthed anyway?

[@bigclivedotcom]

It's better to have everything bonded to ensure that if there was a high resistance between the light and pole due to paint and corrosion, then no potential difference could be across them, leading to a shock hazard.

[@LemonChieff]

oooh I like this one

[@dougle03]

Hi Clive, do you have a source for good quality 50w LED chips? Also, can you do a video on high CRI chips and where they can be sourced from too? - I think you know where I'm going with this in relation to DIY theatre and film lighting... :)

[@Paxmax]

Only complaint would be the lack of cable restrain/relief and I think they went a little skimpy on AL for actually SPREADING the heat to all fins (as far as I can see)

[@Zlyzer]

Same as the one I blew up? Wait, let me check with another one I blew up. Hahaha Clive you legend :D

[@JohnSmith-ju4vw]

I think that yellow wire was not intended to be used as an earth but rather as a switched live.

[@darthvader232003]

the red, yellow/green, black is an australian wiring

[@rhkips]

Red, Yellow and Black are the old UK colors, before the UK adopted the IEC standards. From what I've read, the changeover happend in April of 2004, and that wiring color could indicated a 2-phase with no earth connection, or a single phase with earth. KZbin won't let me paste a link, so have a look around AllAboutCircuits.com. :)

[@TornTech1]

is it me or do them flex wires from the driver output to the LED look slightly thin for a 50W LED?

[@TornTech1]

+TornTech actully @ 1500mah them wires do look semi ok..

[@bigclivedotcom]

+TornTech It's a very tough and thin insulation. presumable heat resistant.

[@RobertNES816]

That would make a nice light for a man cave!

[@m3rdpwr]

They just swapped out are regular street lights with these. There is one at the end of my driveway. It's hard on the eyes and e have to keep the website shades drawn down when they are on because they are so annoying.

[@stcrussman]

Those are typical wire colors in the US and esp. in computer electronics.

[@JoeMalovich]

any chance that is a higher rated LED that is being under-driven for longer life?

[@jusb1066]

+Joseph Malovich do they make a single led rated higher than 50w? seeing as its the same size as his other 50w i think id assume its just a quality led being run correctly with huge heatsinking so it would last a long time.

[@Firecul]

+jusb1066 Isn't each chip in the COB 1w? if so then it is just a good quality 50w (there was 5 rows of 10 chips)

[@jusb1066]

Firecul42 yep it is a 50w chip, i didnt count how many individual in it

[@Firecul]

jusb1066 I am a bit bored at the moment so I have the time ;)

[@zhangelv2896]

Now there is separate LED chips module with special design, 1W each pc for LED and not COB version, so the heat sink area is much larger and easier for heat dissapation, 30-480W power all can offer 5 years warranty, and actually it may use at least 8-10 years.

[@jameslamb4573]

You must be unlucky Clive, I bought 10x 100W COB LEDs (eBay), everyone good.

[@SantaClaw]

You are leaving out the most important thing, What shade of grey does it come in?

[@JohnSmith-ju4vw]

+satanclaw 50 different shades.

[@coolbrotherj]

+John Smith yeah but after one some guy blindfolds and beats you while wearing a business suit

[@girlsdrinkfeck]

+satanclaw grey *

[@zcomputermanz4177]

can someone please linl me to the video where he blows the led up

[@hello235698741]

Why is the casing so large when it can be made much more smaller?

[@bigclivedotcom]

Possibly a mixture of thermal dissipation and allowance for fitting onto existing mounting systems.

[@thomasandersson1011]

I'm so curious about the reflector in all these cind of lamps. The led seems to be mounted behind the reflector and sometimes in a simpel cutout. It is obvious that no light from the led will hit the reflector so why spent effort on mounting it at all? Maybe there is videos explaining the difference.

[@alexatkin]

My guess would be that the diffuser will cause some light to reflect back and this way its sent back again through the diffuser rather than wasted.

[@tarassu]

Almost all electrical devices (those that heat up) MUST have ventilation holes (Usually looking down).

[@FusionDeveloper]

Wow!

[@BRMBug]

...I think we're gonna need a bigger bench.

[@electrodacus]

Yes those LED's that start to emit light before 24 - 27V for 10 series LED dies are defective. I got 20pcs of those 50W LED and are all defective not a single one is good and that makes me think they are quality control reject. I took a photo (is on my google+ page) with the LED at 340mA photo with very low exposure time so that you can see that are still LED dies that will not light up at all and some much brighter than others meaning that 10W is about the safest power you can use those without degradation

[@SouthwesternEagle]

Someday it may be possible to emit this kind of light with just 5 watts.

[@lozbrown1985]

any link to the seller?

[@Alexelectricalengineering]

Thumbs up :) Alex

[@drkastenbrot]

Decent leds arent rare, theyre just hard to find on ebay between all the sellers trying to get the qc failed leds sold.

[@chipbennett2845]

In the USA a red, yellow and brown would indicate a 480v feed.

[@chipbennett2845]

480V three phase that is.

[@therealdjflip]

Australia uses red/black red - live black- neut yellow - earth but also yellow/green for earth

[@chenbarry2851]

not bad!!

[@DonaldSleightholme]

why did they use that connector block? wouldn't it be more sensible to run a longer wire and have a direct connection from the ballast to the led.

[@DonaldSleightholme]

i suppose it would be easier to change the led when it fails that way?

[@bigclivedotcom]

+Donald Sleightholme That's what I was thinking. Just have pre-wired LEDs and a service kit with the LED and a sachet of heatsink compound.

[@AndrewKitayev]

You may use old floppy disk tapes as a mask... I think you may have one, probable even 5.3".

[@melom8276]

is that screwdriver pen from poundland i have a few just like it?

[@bigclivedotcom]

+london smith Yes it is. They're actually quite strong.

[@melom8276]

bigclivedotcom i know i always have one in my pencil case in class :D its funny i think they cost 5-6 pounds in the large tesco branches ,what a rip-off thank god for poundland xD

[@jusb1066]

Actually does make you wonder, that what the chinese direct sellers sell to us, are the 'seconds'

[@ChrisD4335]

+jusb1066 good chance of midnight runs

[@jusb1066]

+ChrisD4335 im sure most of the machinery is all set up and running all the time anyway, im sure what does happen is they test them, and the best of the crop is sold via proper suppliers and sold to customers who make real items such as this street light, the seconds which 'kind of' work are sold to us, the other small percentage that failes , who knows, i know i have had bad luck with anything bought from a chinese seller via auction (where they start items very low), so i wonder if thats where the broken junks goes

[@ChrisD4335]

+jusb1066 a "midnight run" is just a term to describe when manufacturers assemble the components that failed quality testing and sell them off to a market that is less likely to notice. not the actual time of day they ran them

[@jusb1066]

ChrisD4335 oh im sure in some cases it does happen, with memory cards for example, so they dont have to pay the big boss or the company that designed the real product, often using a lesser quality material during that run

[@wupme]

+jusb1066 but i've also seen quite often, usually in IT Stuff, that they seriously sell the original stuff, just without labels. For example, there was once a "cheap" external USB case, don't remember the Company, but it was one of the big ones. They sold it for like 20 euros. I bough 10 without the company name on it from china. And compared them, it was exactly the same device. Even the material of the case was exactly the same plastic (i did a few tests with it with solvents, melting, burning etc) So quite often, there is no difference at all. But of course, yeah in the majority of cases, it is done with less quality material. Also they usually lower quality control.

[@deseehc]

what's the name and model of the fixture?

[@bigclivedotcom]

+deseehc There's none.

[@MagikGimp]

Here's a question for you Clive- how come B&Q don't stock any of these new, fangled, modern-style LED lights? They have the old types and the halogens but not the yellow ones I've seen a lot on your channel. And I don't mean why aren't DIY stores stocking giant streetlamps; I mean the security lights and such. Are they just that cutting-edge, hence your interest in them?