Years ago I became acquainted with one of our librarians, who was from Germany. He told me he lived in Dresden during World War 2, and he had a flashlight that had a handle which he could squeeze and it would light the bulb. But he said he lost it and everything else when the
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I wrote this article last year about my Blue Blinkies. I have rounded many of them up and I tied them under the eaves of my house as a substitute for Xmas lights. But I ran out, and had to use a bunch of other LED blinkies. So yesterday I called up my old ExpressPCB
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QS sent me a link to a series of Youtube videos of xmas LED light reviews. This review is on my mind right now. It’s a review and teardown of a 15 RGB LED light string from Brite Star. This is in my opinion an excessively long video at 55 minutes. I think it would
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I put up xmas lights in the eaves. Most of them were Watson’s Blue Blinkies. I also put up some of those pigeonsnest.co.uk flashers that I built years ago. I think some of them have been flashing for a year on the same cell, so long that I figured it was a lot cheaper to
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I built the “Joule Thief” circuit in this Youtube video by Xee2 / Xee2vids. This uses a Radio Shack Cat # 273-1365 transformer, an E13007 transistor and a 51 ohm resistor. He also puts a 200uF capacitor across the resistor and a 14 millihenry choke in series with the resistor. The 120VAC primary is turned
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CFL light bulbs have their disadvantages (see note below). Now that the LED light bulbs are becoming more available and cheaper, there is an alternative to the CFL problem. Yes, the LED lights are more expensive, but they save he buyer a lot in the long run. I watched this Youtube video by a
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I forgot and left the AA cell in this circuit and I paid the price heavily. The AA cell leaked and corroded the battery holder so bad it’s going to the trash can. And by capillary action, the battery juice wicked up the black wire, around the switch and came out the end where the
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I drew this schematic years ago before Switchercad III or whatever schematic drawing package was available. It’s a three transistor design; one transistor inverts the photocell’s voltage so it shuts off during the day. The other two transistors make up the V boost circuit. The S9013 is a good transistor for this, but a better
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This agrees with my own experimental findings. This is why I’ve been buying the Philips LED lights. They seem to hold up best under long term tests. I think he made a good choice of using the Nichia LEDs, they are good quality and seem to hold up long term, too. Anything else is
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This Greenwave Reality (their website was s-l-o-w) is something that could be the future, but the price at this time may be prohibitive. If the price can be lowered then more home owners will be attracted to this really cool product. I bought a Stanley three station wireless power outlet controller. I got a little
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