This is a Volkswagen hopefully I pronounce that correctly. It was sent by Kai Stefan who said that this was a marketing campaign they had in Germany and it was supposed to be Volkswich the Light of the People or Light for the People and I guess they hope that everybody was just going to buy these lights and they were going to stick them in and control them from the phone because it is a Bluetooth controlled light and I don't think it was a success and they're basically trying to sell them off in bulk in Germany at roughly a Euro each apparently which is quite good. and it's a six watt LED filament lamp. and if I plug it into my little unit here, let's set that to Watts it's currently connected to my phone which is off one moment while I just unlock my phone and and bring it in, select that go into the app and see if it finds it.

So okay so here it is now. if I run up to full intensity, it goes up to six. Watts If I wind it down to save 50 percent on the display, it goes down to about 1.6 watts and if I keep reducing it I see what point it goes down to about 1 watt? Uh, at 25, probably about one Watt 25 is displaying 0.8 Watts So it's quite a. It's got quite a range and at the lowest setting, it's still lit, but it doesn't register on the unit.

I shall ramp it right up to full. Oh, you know what? I Want to see what the power factor of this is one moment, please. The purified trip fool is 0.8 which is actually pretty good. Uh, very typical of this filamentous style lamps though.

Uh, it's worth mentioning this looks lured yellow in the video. That's only because this, uh, the light in the bench is set for a fairly cold, delighted weight. Uh, let's just run this down to about 50 Again, just see how it compures. Yeah, similar to the to the other meter.

uh, 251 volts at the one we have. That's very, very generous. We've got quarter of a thousand volts that are disposable disposable disposal. That's good.

Ah, I should put these out the way. I'm gonna take the lamp apart. it's worth mentioning it it registered to the phone. Not bad.

It was fairly straightforward, but the first thing it did was a software update on the actual lamp, which is interesting I wonder how hands if you unplug it from the socket while it's actually updating. Anyway, we're here to take this apart. Oh I should mention that case Stefan that's all one name, by the way. Okay, Stefan Also sent some libukinter tropfin I Have no clue if I've announced that correctly, but what it does translate to is gingerbread cookies.

Gingerbread cookies with a set of rice paper base and uh, very soft and they contained liquor. Mmm chocolate everywhere. I Shall eat a little bit of this right now. That's going to upset some people.

Oh no, he's making eating noises I'll get these crumbs Off The Bench Keep in mind I sometimes have redirect material, bench and toxic chemicals. That's a great place to do food anyway now I've started eating gingerbread cookies. Let's stick out and see if I can nibble my way into this and get the circuit board module out. That's a fairly good start.

Let's go with this one advantage of these Edison screw holders is they're not too hard to open up much easier than the opening the equivalent Banner cap holder. These ones basically unpeel. and for those mentioning that you know, I could I could just, uh, use a paint cutter on it. It doesn't really work because it's so normally the pipe cutters are really just designed for a flat surface.

So let's uh, keep nibbling away here and see if we can get into this. I See that for a start. There's a plastic shell inside. This is good for insulation.

foreign. It's such a good tool. It's just the right metal and works really well. The Clones I tried just kinked and snapped and went all sharp and stabby.

Uh, the ice of Summer's been the best spudger of them all. Very long lasting and very good at opening things or indeed prizing little studs off the end of the cap. so this is looking pretty good so far. Let's go and get the big big boys into I'll get the module out and reverse engineer I'm Reckoning It's probably very similar to some of the other lights I've explored recently, although not made videos about them.

uh, that use Wi-Fi but this may just use a different module. Perhaps this is looking promising. There's the little wire that goes on there. here's a little plastic cap.

and here's the tricky bit where I have to try and prize everything off. so the wire the lamp is connected by wrapping around these little posts at the side. there. if I zoom in, there's a little Bluetooth module fusible resistor, presumably three electrolytic capacitors.

a little, a little inductor down there. and Doctor here. look past her here, right? Tell you what. I'm going to get the circuit board off and reverse engineer it one moment, please.

and resume. Let's explore at that one moment please. Was quite a considerable moment, but that's okay. It sometimes takes longer.

So one side of the circuit board we have the LED driver chip which is a linear regulator with pulsive modulation input. We have uh, the incoming Supply over here with a 47 nanofarad interference suppression capacitor and then, well, I'll show you this another side. It generates a power supply, but there's something odd about where this capacitor is charged. However, on the other side, we've got a simple inductive filter going to this 1.8 microfire death beam capacitor and then we've got a 100 megafied 10 volt air capacitor in conjunction with that bright power chip on the other side and this inductor to generate a 3.3 volt supply for the module Here and the module literally.

Then it's got three connections. It's got 3.3 volt, zero volt and pulsive modulation output, and the pulsive modulation output then controls this dual linear regulator chip. And the Dual linear regulator is quite interesting because one of them is for charging this capacitor to improve the power factor quite unusual. On the other side of the circuit board, we have the Bright Power Chip.

This is a voltage regulator chip and the incoming Supply goes to redirect fire, but the supply for this chip because it's very low power. Effectively, it goes via this diode through the inductor on the other side and then it gets a Charged capacitor and then it just gets converted to the 3.3 volt Supply Thing is worth mentioning. this side is that this odd diode I'll show you in the schematic and uh, a lot of these components here are associated with this with the chip on the other side. Not this one.

This one is very minimalist. In fact, you know what? I found it. Very hard to find data on the Bright Power chip. This is it.

This is what I found for the Bright Power Chip. Uh, nothing on Brightpowers website, but just showing the DC Supply And it's basically got a capacitor and doctor and that is a super minimalist uh circuitry for this chip. Odd data sheet on the other hand, the data sheet for the lab driver chip was more thorough. and it's the shows: The incoming Supply going via the director and then this high speed dialed is a high speed dialed.

This was discussed when we came across this similarly. I'm not sure why they do that though, because the incoming supplies just 50 60 hertz that equates to 100 120 hertz going through this diode. I'm not sure why they've got a specific high speed diode, but this chip here has two current. Regulators One is for the capacitor here, the electrolytic capacitor, and one is for the LED output.

And what that means is that instead of just all the current, if you have the top of the sine wave, let's draw. Now let's draw it here. If you're the the top of the sine wave, it's going off in a series of humps. Normally, the capacitor is charged to peak of these humps, and because it's just discharging slightly during use.

uh, all the current is drawn sort of. In this area, it causes for quite High current Peaks by using the linear regulator. the kind of smearing that out over the sine wave a bit, trying to give it a better match to that. It can't really do much about the lower ear of this sine wave because uh, you need the forward voltage the LEDs then they simply won't conduct below that.

So really, it's just going to affect the top of the sound wave quite complex. And then there's these two resistors. here. it's going to the LED output and the zero volt rail and I'm not really sure what that's for.

it just is cryptically marked Ln Not much of a data sheet for this, it was one page. Do I have the data sheet here the full data sheet? Yes. I Do Here it is nothing really major. twin Innovative constant current pass one main current path to achieve constant output current.

other one is a charging Loop flight charging current for input electrolytic capacitor removing the output current Ripple while realizing the high power factor. Note: flicker is achieved. Um, but this device takes post of modulation input. Let me show you the schematic.

Now uh, wherever I put the schematic I've just shuffled everything here. Here we go Now There is a very tiny mistake in the schematic. Um I just I was so thinking in the line along the lines of Wi-Fi that I actually put Wi-Fi in that box. That is a little Bluetooth Receiver notice there's just three connections.

That's all that's needed. Uh, that particular Bluetooth receiver does at the facility for about five possible modulated output so it could control a lot more. I Guess that's for like red, green, blue, cold white worm height or something. The incoming Supply comes through uh, unusually high six to eight ohm resistor.

and then there's the decoupling capacitor. It then goes into the bridge rectifier but also a tap is taken off for the low voltage Supply the 3.3 volt Supply but the main current going to LEDs Goshiba direct fire through that high speed diode that I don't totally get. Also I wonder why they couldn't have just powered the other secretary the BP 8501 The 3.3 volts play off that um, it would still have been referenced to ground. potentially very odd and but it goes through that and then the capacitor here.

The main smoothing death beam 5.6 microfired 400 volt capacitor is charged via a linear regulator and this sent resistor of the 6.8 ohm Center resistor when it's driving the LEDs which have a shunt resistor across them. just a high value one just presumably to control after glow when the lights are supposed to be off. perhaps um, the LEDs are switched through current regulator through the 51 Ohm resistor and that sets the LED current which is quite High because it's a it's six Watts this length the other supplier coming via its diode and it's another high speed diode I think they've just used it because like they just use the same diode goes through that filter circuit 2200 micro Henry inductor with a 4k7 resistor cross it goes, charges up this capacitor and then goes to the bright power chip which is quite a low pin count. It's got that little capacitor which I measured roughly in circuit roundabout one microfar.

that's not a guarantee. That's what it is because when you measure in circuit capacitors with other compunction uh, in the circuit, it can screw the test from the capacitance tester, but it generates a 3.3 volt Supply with respect to the zero volt rail across this capacitor little shunt resistor or load and that, and then it. Powers the Wi-Fi module, which has its positive modulation output to this to actually control the intensity and also pull down resistor just for presumably stability of operation. Not sure why they've had the cooldown resistor unless uh, maybe the output of this doesn't decisively go to zero volts.

Not sure, but that is more or less it. Maybe it's when it's initially assigned as a Um, it might be a program, but it might initially be assigned as an input and that will still be Flicker And we flash when the lights are initially powered up by making sure that's down to zero. Real. Anything else worth mentioning: there's a little feedback circuit.

Really don't know what that's for is it for measuring a high open circuit voltage across the LEDs could be it might be an open circuit, an over voltage thing to stop them burning up inside of if one goes open circuit. but that is it. The lift Lift Volks lift uh the German light of the people. Very interesting really.

For uh, um, Wi-Fi controlled one, all you'd really do is Swap this module for a Wi-Fi module. Oh incident, there's a wee pin in front of it, but it's not connected to anything I Think it might be just to space it or something. Not really sure. or maybe it was an option for an antenna I Noticed that the whiz version, which is Wi-Fi has an antenna that just pokes down into the sort of lamp area as well.

Um, but a very standard circuitry. Other lamps that have the cold and warm white uh, simply have two. The linear regulator has two sections for the worm and cold fight, and the output from the Wi-Fi unit just has a input for each of those. so they have a very low pin count.

but uh, interesting circuitry. Quite useful to see. Quite educational away. So under, uh, if the main reason it wasn't a success is the fact that people just maybe didn't necessarily want to control the lights.

Maybe they're just not read or controlling them from phones yet or hooking their lights to the internet I Don't blame them for that. Maybe it was just maybe a bit too early on. Maybe it was just too premature. but that is the LED Vamps or lead Vance Voxlicht.

Very interesting light and thanks to Kai Stefan for sending it for our exploration.