Quirky Tesco battery lights & Crude modification

[@nickhale2900]

A man after my own heart, I do love a bit of "hotwiring" Christmas lights. I too bought a set of Tesco battery lights this year and thought the screw on the case was over the top. I have commercial battery eliminator sets for some of my indoor sets but this is definitely a cheaper option.

[@alstden]

Those eliminator kits are a good way to do it to be fair, gives options for more ways to power and change it out between sets. neat!

[@oldgold1100]

Nice job matey.👍 I'm doing the same thing but putting 100 micro lights in the blue Haig whiskey bottle that I had for Christmas.🥳 Great video I enjoyed watching.😉

[@alstden]

That sounds like it will look cool as! Cheers mate!

[@oldgold1100]

Yes, it looks very pleasing to the eye. Thank you for your very informative vid matey.👍

[@trekbel]

you can fit in a usb-c socket in the casing.

[@alstden]

I like that idea actually that would be a neat way to do it!

[@trekbel]

@@alstden they cost next to nothing on aliexpress😇

[@CubbyTech]

I keep searching for power banks that don't shut off with low current draw - but I don't think it's a big selling feature.

[@alstden]

They are hard to find. cheap ones that hold a single 18650 cell can often be good. It defo is not a selling feature though you are right!

[@MissEAG]

As a fellow ADHD’er this is one of the tangents my brain took the other day wondering how to do this, so thank you for sharing your knowledge! Would be nice if you showed how to add in the bit that prevents the batteries from working just for novices like myself to learn and safety. I have some fairy lights with a battery pack with 3 or 4 D batteries… any idea how I could convert it to USB as it would be a higher voltage right?

[@copernicofelinis]

I use a constant current driver made with two transistors and two resistors. It sets the current via one resistor and has four wires: two wires go to the battery pack or USB power supply or any supply with up to 9-12V, the other two wires go to the LEDs (which I assume are in parallel). I would have done a video about it, had I not destroyed my phone. Maybe I'll do one with the new phone that is going to be my Xmas surprise gift.

[@copernicofelinis]

Ok, I've seen the video now and if your fairy lights have a converter like this one, you can do it just like he has shown here, but you need a charger capable of delivering the current of a D battery 🔋 which is substantial.

[@alstden]

To protect the batteries all you have to do is add a diode between the batteries and the lights to stop power from the USB feeding them and trying to charge them, Perhaps I will make a vid on this. As for the C&D batteries, I'm sure they are also 1.5v so you need to see how the batteries are placed if it is 3 in series again this will be 4.5v and can be put straight onto a USB, they might be a bit of a higher current set wanting big batteries but most USB outputs can handle 2A these days

[@alstden]

This is also a great idea and very simple. This way you can adjust the voltage to suit the light set needs!

[@MyBrilliantChannel]

I found the circuit copes with the extra voltage fine, I suppose with some new alkaline batteries the voltage would be close to 5 anyway. You struggle to just cut the lead off the lights and power them directly as they are usually pulsed at a higher voltage by whatever circuit wizardry is going on in the box. If i want to power a few strings of bottle lights or something that are powered by button cells you can buy a buck converter from eBay to lower the voltage down then you can solder the usb lead to it and adjust it accordingly for them.

[@alstden]

It seems to yes, I have a set that must be 6 or more years old that I did this to, and still works to this day after heavy use. The buck converters are a really good idea. Cheap, simple and you can adjust the brightness of the set if ever you fancy!