Inside a tiny ASD Diamond British street light

This is one of the smallest proper street lights available. It's made by a British company called ASD and uses a conventional LED panel and a programmable driver.
After the video I was able to reprogram the driver to run the LEDs at just 10W. It's handy being able to read the driver settings of one light and then clone them to another. Ideal for where you are replacing a failed driver, since the faulty one will often still be readable due to its NFC circuitry being powered by your phone's coil.
The Tridonic app seems to work better than the others I've tried for different brands of driver. It still has some quirks, but was very usable.
The mode option was for extra sensor functionality to detect people or vehicles, and dim the light up and down as needed with duration and dimming speeds fully programmable.
The built in logging of run time and electrical anomalies is quite interesting. It has advantages for the manufacturer for detecting false warranty claims where the light has been exposed to unusually high voltage due to miswiring or a lost neutral.
If you work on one of these lights, be aware that the latching system is not released from the top as it may initially appear. It is released from the underside at the pole entrance point. Don't jam a screwdriver under the top and try to lever it open with force.
Note that the wires on the LED panel are a one-way trip. They cannot be removed without cutting them. Trying to release them may actually damage the panel. In normal use the panel would only be changed if it had failed anyway.
I mostly managed to avoid having a rant about the deskilling of labour in the street lighting and traffic signal industry. There's a bizarre UK culture of falsifying electrical skills using one-day slideshow "training" in one of the worst electrical working environments possible - wet and well grounded.
One day I'll probably take a deeper dive into one of the electronic drivers. But they are massively complicated, with microcontrollers and network functionality.
The choice of LEDs is interesting. Quite well engineered and tested under real-life conditions during manufacture.
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.com/coffee.htm
This also keeps the channel independent of KZbin's algorithm quirks, allowing it to be a bit more dangerous and naughty.
#ElectronicsCreators

[@teslatrooper]

Those lenses are from Ledil, a Finnish company which makes all kinds of LED optics. I've used a few of them for creating my own little LED spotlights, they have really cool zoomable lenses for spots as well. I'm guessing this is actually a catalog part from them. edit: found the part number: C15021_STRADA-2X2 not really useful information just wanted to see if I could

[@matambale]

The rants are a positive, Clive....especially your note about the choice between cheap or skilled labor. Preach, brother, preach!

[@Mchacz8008]

It's not always the case tought, business owners love to underpay. They'll pay you minimum wage even if your skills, are worth much more than that... And there's plenty of people who are desperate enough to agree for that.

[@matambale]

@@Mchacz8008 have to agree with that.

[@williamromine5715]

The home owner can't touch anything to do with anything electric, and is supposed to call a licensed electriction(sp), but the street department can get away with anyone.

[@stusue9733]

Of course it's more than possible they paid top dollar for the labor and got rubbish, seen it to often.

[@change_your_oil_regularly4287]

No rants! I'm here for the devices not preaching

[@seanman6541]

Perfect timing. I just got 3 150W rated 140 lm/W 21,000 lm LED street light modules at my local electronics recycling store for $10 each. None of them worked, but I figured I could get them working. Took one apart and found that if I squeeze the sides of the LED driver it starts working. Bad solder joint. After peeling open the aluminum case for the driver and spending a few hours picking away at the potting material to expose the PCB and components, I found multiple cracked solder joints. After reflowing all the THT solder joints and testing, I found that I had a new problem. The heatsink for the MOSFET and FULL BRIDGE RECTIFIER!!! got up to 130°C after just a minute of operation. Everything else stayed relatively cool. The MOSFET and rectifier tested fine and even swapping them out didn't solve the issue. I'm assuming the potting compound was thermally conductive and was required to spread the heat out to the drivers chassis. Since I absolutely magled the chassis while prying it open and I can't easily get thermally conductive potting compound for cheap, I opted to take a different path. I resoldered the MOSFET and rectifier on the bottom of the PCB and drilled and tapped 2 holes in the aluminum chassis of the light in the correct spots. Then I bolted the MOSFET and rectifier with thermal grease directly to the chassis of the light and glued the PCB in place with epoxy putty. Now everything works perfectly and even with the driver compartment closed the hottest component on the PCB is the transformer at 70°C. Did the whole thing 2 more times and now for 30$ I have 3 21,000 high efficiency LEDs for the shop.

[@bigclivedotcom]

What voltage are the LED arrays? You can get a simpler driver for them online, and under-run them for longevity.

[@NiyaKouya]

21k lm per lamp? How big is your (work)shop that you need that much light? The brightest LED assembly I've had contact with so far has something like 3k, and that's already blindingly bright...

[@albear972]

That tiny streetlight is very high quality, just looking at it when it was opened. Very nice craftsmanship, I wouldn't complain about the cheap UK labor that put that one together. and the green wire was actually attached to the metal as well, as opposed to the cheap Chinese tingly stuff.

[@kewakl8891]

Chinese tingly stuff I must use that phrase more often!

[@albear972]

@@kewakl8891 Well, thank you. But I cannot honestly take credit for that. It's a Big Clive-ism. His phrase that I repeated. 😀

[@mikeselectricstuff]

Neat application of NFC - there are a few NFC eeprom devices from ST and ONSemi which present an I2C Eeprom interface to a host as well as NFC for standalone acecss without power - always wondered about applications - this seems a good one. Would be nice if there is a generic NFC app that could be configured with a simple script to map user-friendly values to eeprom locations make use of these.

[@bigclivedotcom]

I bet there's an NFC memory analyser app that gives you a memory map of what it finds.

[@user-es7yj3cf5p]

Similar setup is used in some Phoenix Contact power supplies, the parameters for the supply can be configured through a mobile app and then downloaded over NFC even with the PSU still in the factory package (there's an 'NFC' indicator etched into the surface of the cardboard so you know where to hold the phone). When the PSU gets powered up it then loads the parameters from the EEPROM

[@ruben_balea]

It's nice to see a rubberized cork gasket on a new product

[@KeritechElectronics]

Definitely engineer friendly! I just love how well built and hackable it is.

[@phils4634]

Tridonic have been around for a VERY long time. Their ballasts were used in the early Pifco single - tube kitchen fluorescent fittings (the ones with the stand-off tube arrangement from the 1960's).

[@Graham_Langley]

Started 1956 according to their website, which also claims DALI was "based on Tridonic technology".

[@FrankDux-rq7go]

LEDs really are kinda amazing. I grew up on incandescent flashlights and can't believe the difference.

[@markfergerson2145]

The life they get out of batteries these days is nearly as amazing as the lumens they get per watt consumed. I bought a twelve dollar flashlight at Walmart that contains a single 18650 that my wife says is too bright, and I only have to charge it every other week. I’m also old (71) and remember disgustingly dim tungsten bulb flashlights eating batteries in a few hours. I could live without the flash and SOS “functins” though.

[@viktorakhmedov3442]

I worked for an LED lighting company for 10 years from 2012 to 2022. I saw it go from nothing to insanely huge (peak c.2016) and back to nothing as they could no longer compete with everyone else who jumped into it. The advancements have been incredible when you think about it. And it's something nobody really saw coming in 2002.

[@mernokallat645]

But when you replace everything with LEDs the world will be a boring place. The beauty of the past was classic incandescent, halogen, fluorescent, HID lamps and nobles gas filled cold cathode tubes coexisting.

[@jhsevs]

Leds are gread for flashlights and head torches, but their lack of full color rendering makes them really horrible for other tasks where halogen is much better, like for example car headlights. I live in Norway and driving at night in winter means encountering a LOT of wildlife. Modern LED car headlights barely show anything in the red part of the color spectrum, so deer fur which is brown, looks black under most leds. The bluish light from leds also light up the fog, unlike halogen.

[@snafu2350]

@@jhsevs Interesting. Presumably experimenting with different colour-balance LEDs doesn't make much difference?

[@MyProjectBoxChannel]

Tridonic electronic ballasts, were a great source of of selvedged components for my projects. Because of the size of the office building that we maintained, I had a regular supply of failed electronic ballasts. I mainly removed the class XY capacitors, (for cap dropper psu circuits) and big Electrolytic capacitors from them.

[@carlubambi5541]

I was working at Pearson airport replacing HPS 150W 347V with 23 watt led .We were replacing drivers on lights before we got to the 2 Nd floor .Defective capacitors on the drivers was the cause .At $500 per fixture at 2011 prices was insane to have that many failures .No filtration and snubbers on the power supply

[@ChrisHarringtonMinneapolis]

Aww, haven't seen the quick test in a minute. Glad to see it's still near the bench.

[@d.t.4523]

We now have a night lamp for the front door of BigClive Industrial Corporation. Splendid. Thank you, keep working.

[@clivequinn8978]

Hi Clive , your comment about the four hour qualification reminds me of the North Sea gas conversions in the late sixties, horror stories of cowboy fitters, eating resident’s food, sleeping in their beds and leaving gas fires and cookers in a dangerous condition. History repeats.

[@trueriver1950]

I remember the conversion to Natural gas from town gas. I was maybe 7 or 8. My Mum wouldn't leave the workers alone while in the house: at the time I thought that was paranoia; only later when those horror stories reached the press did I appreciate the truth that just because you're paranoid doesn't mark they're not out to rip you off. Having said that, the "operatives" who attended or house were courteous and sorted out our gas cooker, gas fire, quickly and efficiently and made some reasonable attempt to tidy up after themselves (though inevitably not to Mum's high standards). They also replaced, free of charge, a "gas poker" which was effectively a burner that you could poke into a solid fuel fireplace to light the coal or coke. When Dad came home from work he was impressed because it was a better one than our old one. Two memories about the day, first was the way the "operatives" went from door to door checking everyone's gas was turned off. After that, even more impressive was the way they screwed pipes into the mains in the street and flared off the old gas. But when an industry calls its staff "operatives" it represents an attitude that they aren't people who are able to think for themselves, they just operate stuff. As Clive says, with minimal training. In retrospect, the fact that it was all done by private companies at a time when the gas supply industry was publicly owned was maybe the first incursion of subcontracting into our then nationalised utilities that I was personally aware of. This was well before selling off the gas boards would have been politically acceptable...

[@NickNorton]

8:55 That 0.25mm thick Graphite sheet is made by EMI Thermal. Top-notch UK based Thermal Interface Material manufacturer.

[@wiseoldfool]

Good to see a good quality unit designed for maintainability, something I remember from the dark, distant past (or maybe I just imagined it). In my industrial experience in the UK and Australia we had the mantra: "Cheap; quick; good quality. You can only have 2 of 3." Regarding skill requirements to do stuff, I have a UK degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, but I had to do a one day course to be allowed to put a mains plug on a lead here in the Land Down Under. Real estate agents, lawyers and used car sales people are also able to do this by doing the same one day course!

[@JacobKelly02]

I’ve fitted quite a few ASD lights, I was very impressed by the quality

[@amorphuc]

Wow. That's pretty well thought out from service to operation. Nice. Thanks Big Clive.

[@dashcamandy2242]

In the brief time it took you to extract all the goodies from the housing, I had disassembled, "fixed," and reassembled my Generic "Amazon Special" NiMH charger. (Mine is an Opus BT-C3100, but being generic I'm sure there's other brands and model numbers for the exact same charger.) Two of the four slots would have wonky current readings without a battery installed; one slot had a dead moth between the springy negative connector and a solder point on the PCB, the other had a bit of hay trapped between the spring and a surface-mount capacitor. What a relief! I was fully prepared to replace it, but it seems there is no need to. So far, it's lasted thrice as long as the charger I bought from the brand that keeps going, and going, and going... 🐰

[@TheSpotify95]

Looks like a neat little unit. And that's how the councils manage to save energy... change the LED settings from their defaults to lower current values in order to under-run them, make them last longer, and use less power...

[@bigclivedotcom]

It would be nice if they actually did that.

[@trueriver1950]

​@@bigclivedotcomit would be nice if the council decided to do that. It would be even nicer if the workforce then did it. With minimal supervision it's more likely that most of the units are left with factory settings whatever the bosses think is happening. Not that I'm cynical or anything...

[@ntsecrets]

I’ve seen led changeouts in the US with the bottom panels. What the tech does is loosen the mast clamp and rotate the fixture 180 deg so they can then move the bucket above it and work on it in front instead of above them.

[@bigclivedotcom]

Yeah. Rotating the light to a better position makes life a lot easier.

[@sonacphotos]

I REALLY wish they would stop putting full spectrum LEDs into street lamps. I do astrophotography and the amount of light pollution these things create is crazy. The old sodium single wavelength type bulbs were ok because you could just use a filter to block out that specific wavelength. But it's impossible with full spectrum light. It's also so much worse for wildlife. I understand we need LEDs due to lower power consumption and longer life etc, but they need to have a narrowband filter fitted.

[@casemodder89]

LED'S as such are monochromatic. so all we need to do is put orangey yellow 'amber' LED's in streetlight and everything is back to fine ! white LED's apperently aren't monochromatic because of their phosphor layer on top of the blue/UV chips. but who prefers to be blinded by a dazzling cold white led rather then by a nice sodium yellow ?

[@simonr2749]

We're looking at changing LED street lighting as part of the dark skies initiative in Northumberland. Is there a particular colour rendering we should avoid e.g. 5700 Kelvin as opposed to 2700k? Which works best for astronomy? Either or neither? Is it just that LEDs per se emit the wrong kind of light?

[@sonacphotos]

​@@simonr2749 For wildlife, the recommendation is long wavelength light above and not below 560nm. The old low pressure sodium lamps produced monochromatic light at around 589nm which is perfect and many as astronomers already have filters to block this. 2700k sits nicely within the friendly range. The most important thing is to use either monochromatic diodes or ones which produce a controlled range rather than full spectrum.

[@stepheneyles2198]

Certainly a well-made unit... It would be nice to hear some more about the use of the DALI system - I guess there's plenty online anyway, will look it up. Thanks Clive ;)

[@wisher21uk]

The quick test we always called them LEN live, earth, neutral. Thanks Clive really enjoyed it

[@David_Hogue]

I've missed the quicktest. I got one and it's been surprisingly useful for small things around the house like checking light fixtures when installing.

[@mfbfreak]

These are used quite a lot around Zaandam along cycle paths, as far as i can tell. I thought they were smaller, but street lights always look much smaller up in the pole. When you get them on the bench they suddenly appear twice as large. I learned that when i got some bog standard Philips mercury vapor street lights.

[@davidnull5590]

Clive, you were making KZbin videos at four in the morning? Good man.

[@DigitalIP]

I recently became a fan of the solar ones on Aliexpress as i believe i mentioned before, surprisingly good especially if you modify them with higher capacity and manual charging.. There are times that i wonder what itd be like to have a streetlight provided by the power company for my driveway and front of the house, but cant say the cost would be worth it.

[@gregorythomas333]

It's really nice that it can be reprogrammed so easily...kind of interesting that anyone with a cellphone can do it :)

[@dougle03]

I think the metal housing would preclude drive-by nonsense, but opening up to get to the wireless comms deffo makes it more compelling.

[@teslatrooper]

Climb into the one in front of your house and dim it to your preference :)

[@gregorythomas333]

@@teslatrooper My street doesn't have any street lights

[@rockofgibraltar4771]

Great vid, and nice to see the 1million subs & climbing 👌

[@bertblankenstein3738]

Agreed, well built.

[@TechyBen]

25w street light? That's less than some home lights!!! :O

[@themule6032]

you don't need 300 lux per square meter under a lamp outside. for some streets, 10 lux per square meter will be enough

[@user-es7yj3cf5p]

Nice to see the Cliff getting a run

[@snafu2350]

Presumably you could even reprogram that driver & board to cycle thru the LED panels, making the unit an interesting 'mood light' or even ambient disco light depending upon the colours of LEDs you choose to populate that quadrant. V interesting 'breakdown' (hah!): TVM Clive :)

[@Dmitrytln]

I had too many headache with tridonic in past, finally I'm using Mean Well drivers. Open circuit is absolutely usual problem for tridonic products because they like to use unreliable integrated circuits and of course many electricians not using hot air to replace malfunctioned IC, they prefer to buy new one power supply. Mean Well at least cost 3 times cheaper.

[@CrazyOregonBeaver]

It's nice to see a british company making quality products. Not chinese crap. ASC Is quite large in the US as well with very reasonable prices. 👍

[@phonotical]

Guarantee all those parts came out of taiwan

[@alouisschafer7212]

@@phonotical Good. Taiwan, Korea and Japan is where you want your components to be made.

[@RT-qd8yl]

@@phonotical I'd hope so, Taiwan gear is great

[@viktorakhmedov3442]

That NEMA socket is an interesting retrofit. Kind of reminds me of that Frankenstein USB 3.0 connector with extra pins.

[@caleblaws7722]

From what i understand most of the issues with getting more humph out of an led comes down to heat dissipation, cool to see that massive thermal block behind yhe led pcb. Where those custom lenses plastic or glass? Pretty incredible design either way.

[@bigclivedotcom]

Plastic lenses.

[@JendaLinda]

Street lights are always switched centrally around here. Either by a single dusk sensor or by a clock with builtin calendar. LED lights are treated the same way as traditional fixtures, they run from the old electrical system. No fancy smart controllers. Cities can get money from the government to buy LED fixtures but that doesn't cover new poles and cables. Individual broken LED lights are replaced with random fixtures that were on hand atr the moment, often HPS ones.

[@tncorgi92]

We've got ones that are on photocell, trouble is that we have a large school where they put in their own circuit and some of the lamps are right by the street. So we get the city street lights coming on at dusk, then the ones at the school come on and their brightness makes the city ones shut off. I think they could fix this by changing the orientation of the photocell but these have been up for about a year with no signs of being adjusted.

[@wobblyboost]

@@tncorgi92 Haha, street lamp street fight 😁Queue michael jacksons 'Bad'.

[@Ale-bj7nd]

In Italy as well. I'm pretty sure most of my colleagues designer don't even know what a zhaga/NEMA socket is.

[@twocvbloke]

Quite intriguing how it can be adjusted in an app (even if it's a non-universal one, cos of course it would be) to change how much current it runs the LEDs at, no doobying needed here... :D

[@freethinker1492]

Where I live in London, Canada. The city replaced a load of street lights for LED Lights.. 12 months later all those new lights are now Blue.. So we now have blue streets at night.

[@Martin_ve2mrx]

Yikes, blue is the worst color at night!

[@bigclivedotcom]

That's either phosphor degradation or detachment from the violet stimulator LEDs. Very common. I've been trying to get a photo of the LED panel in a failed unit.

[@sbv-zs7wz]

Great teardown. I wonder about the complexity/technology/reliability/environmental impact of this device vs say an old fashioned sodium lamp :)

[@DelticEngine]

I didn't hear any ranting, I heard some helpful comments, likely from experience and observation. Nice teardown, Clive, but I admit to feeling disappointed that there wasn't a schematic of any sort, even if it was just how this particular light sensor worked. On the other hand the demo of the android software was very interesting and a great addition to the video. Considering all the features, I can see that there could easily be a very long video (as in practically a livestream) or a series of videos just on this street light or street lighting technology if you were to go into all the details and demonstrate everything... I'm rather keen on illumination and illumination technology so I'd definitely watch such a video or series of videos. It would also be rather fun to have a go at a DIY version and see how many features could be included.

[@bigclivedotcom]

The driver would have to be a block diagram, as the schematic would be several pages and take a long time to reverse engineer. The dusk sensor will be featured in its own video.

[@jonnypanteloni]

I look forward to the day you look at a sodium vapor lamp. I have a nostalgic preference for their colour and properties. The narrow spectral emission band of a sodium Vapor lamp in my opinion is superior to the white spectrum of an led system.

[@NiyaKouya]

IIRC that bright orange hue is one of the worst colors for street lighting because it doesn't align with any of the light spectrum peaks of the human eye.

[@jonnypanteloni]

@@NiyaKouya I apologise for this being a single paragraph as I have to use speech-to-text . the spectral density of a white LED is actually not that great. it is referred to as colour rendering index but colour rendering index is not the full story. If we are speaking about an emission source such as a white fluorescent bulb that is very different as it has a high spectral output. This is why the shadows of LED light sources often have lower discernible visible features. There have also been studies indicating that the spectral density of a source such as a sodium vapour lamp during night conditions under bright Illumination that perception of moving subjects and subtle changes around the road are easier to perceive due to the narrow wavelength- but not too narrow- reducing distraction of other foreign elements related to night driving that are not conducive to vision.

[@PaulSteMarie]

Oooh, look at all the protective webbing organizing the wire! Very nice! That dusk sensor might physically match a NEMA connector, but there's no NEMA connector with a switched live. They all have 1-3 live phases, neutral, and ground. That looks like a NEMA L5-15 connector. Those are supposed to have 120VAC live, neutral, and ground.

[@michaelhall4626]

An L6-15 would be 240V L1-L2-G. 120V L-N-G would be an L5-15.

[@PaulSteMarie]

@@michaelhall4626 my bad! Thanks for the correction!

[@kbaisley4947]

I would love to see the inner working of the ULEZ Camera. I hear that several have been freed up in the UK ;-)

[@UpLateGeek]

I'll have to take a closer look at those street lights I mentioned previously that they installed outside my place. They're pretty bright, I'd guess way more than 20W and they look a lot bigger than this one, but they do have a flip open lid, so it's possible they're related to this one. I didn't get a great look while they were installing them, since it was dark outside and they weren't that close, that said I got the impression that the lid covered the whole width of the light and also the sides and front, which would help with resistance to rain. So perhaps it's not so related to this one after all.

[@wearsjorge55]

I think i might have installed or replaced one of these lights here in australia. The latch cap and tridonic driver are ticking my memory. I may even have it in my garage still

[@Richardincancale]

13:13 It’s 4:42 am - late night or early riser? Sleeping time for me!!

[@U014B]

Clive doesn't sleep, he waits.

[@smalcolmbrown]

Thanks :)

[@jimsvideos7201]

This looks like a nice project box if nothing else.

[@markaz2kk]

Smart LED's are great! However, the circuit and components exposed to full sun exposure on the top, would make that device short lived. They could have at least used a white paint or opaque in that little light detection bulb fitting. It would significantly increase its life span of the smart street lights...

[@dougle03]

Good to see it's not actually 'online'...

[@phonotical]

All these different street lights, I bet you'll never see one in the wild unless it's one you out up yourself

[@upsidedownrc8992]

The killer death ray led street lights🤤🤤🤤🤤

[@andydriscoll1903]

Did I spot an MK Safety plug there? When I were a ‘prentice back in the day making extension leads they were my favourite

[@marcse7en]

Life is particularly cr*p for me at the moment (don't ask!), but if there's one thing I can rely on to cheer me up, it's Big Clive, taking apart more random, and probably badly earthed, $h1t! 👍🤣 God Bless you, Big Clive! ❤️ EDIT: Not badly earthed Chinese $h1t, after all? 🤣

[@dc-4ever201]

Clive, I watched a very interesting video of how they've improved LED's further by studying how Fireflies are so bright, they are cutting the substrate at angles to make them more reflective and absorb less of their own light before it leaves the LED, making them much brighter and more efficient.

[@tubastuff]

At last, something's not a bit of Chinese-made trash! Thank you--this is a very nice unit, from appearances.

[@markthursfield9996]

"A 4-Hour slideshow to allow the use of labourers to do electrical work" Literally Death by PowerPoint!

[@hughtube4me]

Nice light but it, and most others, have a fundamental weakness, the light sensor. I live in a fishing port in NE England and after a couple of years (or much less sometimes) the lights are on all the time as the seagulls perch on the nice flat tops of the lights and sh*t all over the dusk sensor. It would be nice to see a lamp design with a "no perching" design. I am old enough to remember when the lights used a timer, low tech but dump proof, and were adjusted a couple of times a year. I am no Luddite, but I think a little more thought into the design of the lamp tops or at least the ability to add a bird deterrent in certain locations would be smart. Of course if the local authorities cleaned the lamps this would not be a problem, as if !

[@bigclivedotcom]

Some use light sensors that point down and analyse the local light levels.

[@mmmm768]

I'm not sure why you chose to call it small, to me it looks like an average sized street light with a great personality.

[@beefchicken]

An average size street light is at least twice the size.

[@mmmm768]

@@beefchicken you are absolutely incorrect.

[@giowawa5035]

​@@mmmm768older models streetlights are big. Maybe modern ones are smaller.

[@GERALD_786]

I thought it is big 😞

[@stephenfanthorpe2708]

Ohms may break my bones but volts alone won’t kill me

[@hattree]

The problem with LED streetlights as opposed to other technologies, is the lack of a diffuser. They are so bright and no diffuser means mega glare.

[@bigclivedotcom]

They use an array of lenses to create an accurate beam pattern on the road.

[@aaronatwood9298]

They should just rely on the dusk sensor and keep the circuitry to a minimum that is highly durable. We obviously know that electrolytics don't like SMPS where they will be subjected to high frequency... I suggest they use a separate can capacitor with jumper leads, like a PSC motor so when it inevitably fails its an eazy swap and away it goes... Makes perfect sense to me. Or find tantalum caps that don't go bang randomly. 😂

[@CTCTraining1]

That was super complicated and very impressive. If you get the chance to explore inside one of those standalone street sign illuminating light+solar panel it would be interesting to see how those are made to be more robust. Keep up the great work 😀👍

[@robba1234]

I agree, like so many Chinese "electronics," we have a mental calculation to do, if it says 30 w take off a third, so 20 w thing is that's its not consistent, Same unit same manufacturer but different supplier different outcome. Rule of thumb cheaper is less ( but not always) industrial equipment from China is all over the map, certainly led driver ratings (or am I just unlucky)

[@kimsleep4111]

Im certain that someone is in a Lab saying "Who The Hell Gave One Of Our Supplies To Clive!!!!", after receiving a notification by email from this supply

[@henninghoefer]

5:52 I believe what Clive points out in his (way too polite) bri'ish rant is "Pay peanuts, get monkeys" 😂 EDIT to add: 14:51 I'm blown away - you can read data via NFC without having the µController powered, that's amazing. They have to sync it to the NFC chip somehow.

[@dcallan812]

Nice light, well designed and made. "skilled" workers after a 4 hour power point demo and no practical hands on 🤷‍♂.Very interesting you can find so much detail about the run time and temp etc. interesting video 2x👍

[@venenareligioest410]

Thank good they are made in Britain, many British cities are fitting them as we speak!

[@wobblyboost]

Well for 'made' read 'assembled' lol, there's quite the international gathering of parts in that housing, several asian countries in the electronic PCB components, the high precision lenses are from Finland for instance.

[@venenareligioest410]

@@wobblyboost At least Finland is preferable to Chinaland 🥸

[@peterking2794]

I know nothing of NFC and didn't know it could read the device without it being powered up. Isn't technology wonderful? 🙂

[@SirBoden]

I’m surprised there is no strain relief on the led board power cable as there is no disconnect.

[@karlschuneman7960]

Nice Freedom sized YoYo.

[@Stevo_1998]

15:28 Didn't know you were in to T4T ;)

[@cambridgemart2075]

No Death Beam (TM) capacitor in the light sensor?

[@chrishartley1210]

The LED street light at the corner of my street has just failed (after about 1/4 the time the old sodium lamps lasted). If I see them when they are replacing it I'll ask if I can have the failed one.

[@jhartford58]

At least they grounded this streetlight

[@UK.RoadsCyclingandTransport]

I like street lighting, I think I'll buy one for my bedroom or the garden along with the purchase of road sign

[@professionalineverything]

The best thing is LED is becoming more viable and will come in anything now due to viability.

[@richardbriansmith8562]

Awesome Video Big Clive🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂

[@Krishell]

When will you build your own LED bar for your car?

[@marcoloos9395]

I think the light always lights for a number of seconds after powering? I assume the dusk sensor does not respond within seconds.

[@leewot]

I know I’m weird but I miss the Hopi

[@Nancy-hy5so]

Was watching the mosquito zapper a few minutes ago and it reminded of a comb that you zap fleas with when combing your dogs fur, also thought about the fly swatter I seen few yrs back that would zap bugs as you swing it or flap it around the air, how dangerous are those? Would the fly swatter zap fingers if touched and would the comb burn your dogs fur when zapping fleas? If the swatter did zap skin and hurt like hell, I guess you could use it as a defense thing if someone tried to get to you and attack you. Sort of like a taser but mild I guess. Are those safe to use if someone came across them in some Chinese online shop?

[@bigclivedotcom]

The swatters used to have open wires, but now have an outer and internal, mesh arrangement.

[@antoineroquentin2297]

13:14 radiacode app? :D

[@tinygriffy]

The real McCoy !

[@RNG_Anarchist]

That screw on that connector is coming out exactly once and never going back in

[@fredlar9421]

Lifespan is up to those wet capacitors.

[@JohnSmith-gs4lw]

Curious what one of these would cost new.

[@kareno8634]

5:19 *8|}* with just 4 hr 'class', i could even get job. any after AC-DC *_"High Voltage"_* [drive bar] contacts pics? There's always a positive when things go wrong, Clive; Lots learned by *Opps* everywhere. *Thanks!*

[@rancillinmontgomery2480]

Repair that trace young man! I use wire from 1/4w resistors. Works great.

[@bigclivedotcom]

I repaired the light afterwards.

[@PinePondCTDevilsHopyard-fy3hj]

Interesting. Any idea of the cost to the citys in quantity? Would the smart module automatically decrease the output after business hours and a motion sensor bring it to full power as long as there is activity present?

[@bigclivedotcom]

The installers mark the price of these lights up dramatically due to general council apathy regarding financial matters. Not sure what they cost from the manufacturers.

[@farmersteve129]

A lot of streetlighting is done on fixed contracts these, the council will pay someone like Balfour Beatty a wadge of money each year to be responsible for ensuring that the lights are maintained and replaced where necessary. What usually happens is that at the start of a new 5 or 10 year contract lots of work is done to make it look good, but then as time goes on there's less motivation to do a good job and tge shareholders are looking to squeeze as much money out. Trade price on the basic 50W mini version is ~£450

[@galxieranger8277]

Since you do 3D printing, couldn't you make a solid cap to put over the photo-sensor when you're testing the operation of lights like this?

[@bigclivedotcom]

Or I could just find the black test bag that I have with a new sensor.

[@GeraldPost]

I've noticed that the dusk sensors detract from the ergonomics of the overall design of modern lights in general. Why such a huge pimple?

[@bigclivedotcom]

Some use a small sensor. The big ones date back to huge cadmium sulphide cells and heated bimetallic switches.

[@stuartmcconnachie]

I feel they missed a trick by not having a loose earth wire flapping around inside.

[@transmitterguy478]

WOW, that CLIFF ELECTRONIC COMPONENTS CL1850 Electrical Tester, $101.82, $3.69 delivery May 6 - 7. From Amazon here in the States. NOT CHEAP! Must not be made in China.

[@neosenshi]

They aren’t cheap, but they are worth the money. I just bought the US color model. They are lifetime tools.

[@urbanwarior3134]

Hey Clive is it true that Blue light led can trigger neurons on and off in mice changing behaviour and the year that was discovered was when tube tvs started being phased out ? Those blue lights that are in that street light ?

[@andymouse]

Thats how they program you to do what they want.

[@GERALD_786]

Blue led light can sure cause cataract if you are staring right at it for 7 bussiness day

[@Lumibear.]

Hey Mr Clive, there is a wave of very similar ‘we do too much but nothing well’ mini light & phone chargers being practically given away on Aliexpress right now, I got one for £3, and it’s dodgy af, like the Bluetooth asks for your contacts and location access, I’m wondering if they’re sold at a loss for data mining, seemed like a job for you! The larger ones are called ‘Big G LED Lights’ because they’re shaped like a capital G, the tiny ones as I got are: Multifunction Wireless Charger Pad Stand Speaker RGB TF Night Light 15W Fast Charging Station - and they’re about 16 cm in diameter. Just a thought! I’ll be modding mine, I just wanted the plastic casing really.

[@bigclivedotcom]

The analysis if the apps is more for a cyber security geek. I try and avoid flippant apps.

[@Lumibear.]

@@bigclivedotcom no app, it’s just doing something suss with the Bluetooth i think, but rather the main point is what’s inside for it to be being suss with?

[@Lumibear.]

oh, you erased, so can infer that I did actually post my previous reply, when I saw it gone I wasn’t sure, but I wasn’t meaning to annoy. Sorry! Personally I just like the interesting shape of the casing, retro sexy!

[@rimmersbryggeri]

Are there dusk/PIR sensors for the control connector?

[@bigclivedotcom]

This one can accept dusk or more advanced sensors/receivers. But PIR would need to point downwards.