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bigclive

bigclive

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And this is why we don't whoofle hydrogen

One of the loudest bangs ever! It literally left my ears whistling for ages, and that was just a tiny amount. Imagine what a balloon-full would be like.

These are amazing machines, partly ...

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What's in the 100A version?

I got one of the 100A versions of the solar charge controllers to compare the circuitry to the original 10A one. You can have a guess at what differences there might be inside.

I also took t...

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Weekend stream

Usual time and usual place. Best viewed on Twitch, and may need a page refresh to start the stream. Local start time is shown in the Twitch schedule. (9pm UK time)

2025-06-21 17:11:34 +0000 UTC View Post

That disappointing feeling....

When you sneakily source what you think is methylene chloride in a "love meter" hand boiler. But when you start extracting it and put it into a bottle with a layer of water on it to reduce evapora...

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Handy little USB chargers with a slight issue

At first glance these little adaptors for most brands of power tool batteries seem a great idea. A USB power supply that simply clips onto a battery for charging a tool, headtorch or phone.

...

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Vacuum sealer teardown

A test and teardown of a very common style of vacuum sealer found on eBay and most of the other unregulated marketplaces. This one came from AliExpress.

Very simple design for the functional...

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Another vapour-style USB bug repeller

The video in progress is a vacuum bag sealer. Having seen what's inside I can now see why they are so cheap. It's pretty impressive.
But in the meantime, here's a chunky little military themed...

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Cute little LIR button cell charger

This neat little charger is for LIR series lithium button cells like the LIR2032 which is the same size as a CR2032, but has a higher voltage (4.2V) and is rechargeable, but has lower capacity than...

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Old shop window display unit

This is a light powered display feature that could be used to shake signs or objects to get a shoppers attention.
I haven't a clue how old this thing is. I've had it for a very long time, and i...

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The ultra short version of the water heater video

For those who have less time to watch the longer and deeper videos.

A much shorter version recorded specifically to just mention key points.

2025-06-16 17:47:41 +0000 UTC View Post

Something to thank the conspiracists for

I bought this conductive fabric thinking it was going to have a fairly high resistance or be very stiff, but it is neither. It's extremely tough and supple, and has an extraordinarily low resistan...

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Bedtime quickie - one way valve

Like a short, but horizontal and with useful information.

This is a look at a common eBay one way valve. I got it to test its ability to hold a slight vacuum pressure for some experiments. View Post

Weekend MBC stream starting earlier

It's going to be an MBC stream on Twitch this week, so it will start about one hour earlier than the usual time so we can drink too much and make fools of ourselves.

There will be loudness, r...

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First test of the new recording area

A test video in the new garage recording area, where I can accommodate bigger items.

It's a "classic" eBay under sink water heater, which I bought purely so we could take it to bits and see w...

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The not-so-humble car fuse box

At first glance this looks like a fairly basic fuse box with a high current connector and lots of sub connectors being controlled individually or in groups by relays. But once the cover comes off ...

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Clever mystery-module with useful ideas

This module came out of a retired microwave, and as I couldn't immediately determine its function, I put it aside to reverse engineer later. It turns out that it's got two sections and to demonstr...

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Random light upgrade

Let me know if I'm making too many videos about solar light repairs. It just seems a suitable thing for this time of year.

This is one I've featured before, but getting upgraded with newer L...

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How a stun gun creates high voltage from 9V

A look at the circuitry used in stun guns. This is quite an old one, so I'd guess that the circuitry might have been refined a bit since for easier manufacturing.

I can testify that these th...

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The hacked solar globes on the well trimmed tree

A picture of the colourful glowing solar-orbs I mounted to a well trimmed tree in the garden.

The tops of the branches have been trimmed at a slight angle to aid with water draining and also ...

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Putting milk and cream through a foaming pump

Every time I feature one of these little soap foaming pumps people ask if I can try it with milk and cream. So here it is. The creamy foam pump experiments.

It was interesting and rather me...

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Chillin' out during an arduous reverse engineer

I had to take a break from the reverse engineering of the solar power controller. So I made some brackets and hacked some solar lights for relaxation.

The openscad script is in the video des...

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This was a beast to reverse engineer

It took a long time to fully reverse engineer this unit. At one point I was going to cheat and just give a block diagram, but I really wanted to work out how it controlled the MOSFETs in their bac...

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Rambly mailbag video and teardown

A deviation for me, as I don't normally do this type of video. Let me know if you like it.

It's a look at several items that arrived recently, a look inside a couple and then a full teardown...

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Weekend live stream

Usual time and usual place.

https://www.twitch.tv/bigclivedotcom

Best viewed on Twitch, and you may need to ...

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Industrial concrete shaker

While primarily designed for moving concrete along chutes, through sieves and settling it in moulds/forms, I'm sure this unit has many other applications.

It was quite tricky to get apart due...

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The whack-a-mouse components

I showed these in a recent live stream. It's some components used in Chinese arcade games based on Whac-a-Mole.

Unlike the original Whac-a-Mole which was pneumatic, this is one of the much m...

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USB glitter lamp that uses thermal convection

This appears to be addressing the increasing scarcity of tungsten bulbs for things that require their heat for operation.

The best thing about this lights is that it works very well and is ac...

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Novel solar "roadwork" beacons

I'm not sure I'd actually trust these as roadwork beacons unless there was guaranteed sunshine every day.

The construction of these is actually quite nice. They could be a good base for a pr...

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AliExpress chrome bezel fairground lights

I'm not sure I'd recommend these for a situation requiring long term reliability, but for fun personal projects or some off-grid lighting bling they are OK.

Except the RGB one. It's not OK.<...

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One for the Linux geeks

I used to use openscad and cura in the linux section of my chromebook, but they have both stopped responding to mouse clicks. Is there anything obvious I should check?
I've removed and then rei...

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