Someone recently got in touch about an oil diffuser that plugs into a USB Supply and instead of being the type that is the water and you put the oil on, then it creates a continuous Haze This version atomizes the oil directly. So I had a look in eBay and I found either a knockoff or or a variant on that called the Fight of Sun Aroms and they were selling these off quite cheaply. And if you look at Amazon the reviews are not very good. it's like two star and I get the feeling the reason for that isn't because the units are bad, but because the people using them um aren't totally or fair with what's involved.

So let me bring in a black background and I'll see if I can actually show you this working. So I'll Zoom down a bit and we'll see if I can actually get this to show up because what's going to happen is that when I plug this in, it's going to support little Jets of oil out there and there's a haze ready. Did that show up at all? I'm not sure if it did. I'll plug it in again and we'll see if it shows up.

It certainly came out, but I don't know if it showed up in camera and I'll find out when I look back at the video. So I'll Zoom back out. No I want some back out here. This is a good size.

Here is how you use it. It's got the USB port that can swing vertically or horizontally or Fold It Out The Way it's got the cover and then inside it's got this tiny little glass bottle and you pull down this trigger here to release the bottle and uh, the bottle has a wick in it. You fill it with the essential oil. It comes a little funnel for that and when you put it in, it actually presses up against a piezoelectric disc in here.

much like the little um set of continuous Vapor atomizers. Let's take a look inside and see what the secretary is like. It's quite potent as a button and if you when you turn it on, it lights up red I think yes, then it goes purple, then it goes blue and then it goes off. and uh, the red is one pulse of oil or a double pulse.

It tends to put out every 10 seconds, which is quite potent if you put a well I put in all the soil which is a thing sold in the UK. It's a sort of mentally oil used for air as inhaler oil for when you've got congestion. Yeah, but you put that oil in and uh, it atomizes it into the air and the other settings you have are one pulse every uh, 30 seconds and one every minute. So inside, we have a little light guide here I noticed there and another one.

I Got that? that must have been missing because uh, the light was just spread all over the inside the unit. There seems to be various uh, versions of this, but they all look as though they contain the same circuit board, the little chip here um, and a Transformer driving the piezoelectric transducer. Okay, I'll tell you what. I'm going to take some pictures and then we'll explore the circuitry in this one moment.

please. And let's explore. So the back of the circuit board isn't that exciting. The only notable thing in the back is the Uh 100 micro Henry inductor in series with the ultrasonic transducer.

The rest of it is just fairly chunky tracks. although I will say that the track layout isn't perhaps optimal. Let's go on to the front of the circuit board. It's busier.

We have a 14 pin Anonymous microcontroller. They could have used an eight pin for this because all it's driving is two transistors push-pro a button input, and then two LEDs So given its power rails, that's just one, two, three, four, five other pins, they could have used an eight pin chip. What's interesting about this design is that it's using a push-pull Transformer One connects the Transformers connect positive and these two transistors which are standard Npn transistors. Alternatively, alternately pull the A and B lines down to the negative Rail and in do so.

They create quite a strong AC signal here, which is that, then going to the ultrasonic transducer, the LEDs each have a 600 Newton resistor. In serialism, there's a red one and a blue one, and that is more or less it. Let's take a look. Oh, one thing here.

this is a high current carrying conductor because this is actually switching one of the windings. It's odd that they've run it in a what looks like a power pin in the microcontroller and then sort of taken out through that pin. Not sure why they've done that, but generally speaking, you shouldn't really have to make a controller on the same track as a sort of higher current load. Also, this, uh, little decoupling capacitor topped up here is the only sort of filtering from USB supply to the microcontroller.

Normally they'd have maybe a 10 ohm resistor in series of that just to decouple the supply rail from the electrical noise created by switching this small transformer. let's take a look at the circuit board. I shall Zoom down just a tiny bit more. So here's the incoming USB Supply So we've got five volt reel in the zero volt reel.

We've got the decoupling capacitor across that and then we get the microcontroller. The button is pulling down to the zero volt reel. the LEDs are being switched positive so the light because they're down to the negative rail, the zero volt rail I'll just draw the little beams of light there and then it's driving the two transistors. The circuitry is incredibly simple, really.

so the secretary will be. the microcontroller will be triggering these transistors alternately to provide a push-pull effect to get good at throughput. I've colored all the windings of this Transformer orange so you know which ones are matched. This is separate.

This is the little 100 micro Henry inductor on this of higher voltage side of that Transformer And there is the piezoelectric transducer. The piezoelectric transducer is, uh, quite interesting in its own right. Let me just grab that I may have to zoom out for this I will have to zoom out for this. Oh no, it actually does fit in.

Okay, that's more or less at novel Zuma A little tiny bit. so the piezoelectric transducer is unusual and then it's supported in this little springy plate and which is designed probably to give it the ability to self level to the top of the bottle and provide a slight pressure against that. Although if you look inside the unit itself, um, there is, the little thing that locks the bottle in place is itself springy just to put the correct pressure against that, Does it? Hold on? Let me just see if it goes up any further with the bottle out. Oh yes it does.

Yeah, so it is putting some pressure up, but this is providing the self self leveling and the way this works. It's uh. one connection is onto the back metal plate, one connection is onto this metallized side of the piers electric material and then it's basically a ring of the piezoelectric Crystal that distorts with uh, the voltage going across it. so it basically oscillates it ultrasonic frequencies and something you may not be able to see.

Actually, you can think this here is the tiny perforations through here. This is a sort of flat disc. um, but it's uh, got micro perforations on it and the oil is a basically it the movement of the ultrasonic disc against the top of the wick on the bottle uh forces little droplets oil through and then the surface atomizes it as a as a Cloud vapor. Hopefully you saw that earlier on.

I've not checked that bit the video yet, but there we have it. Um, these things can be found on eBay at the moment Facto: Sun are ROMs being sewed off in in bulk? they're just trying to get rid of them presumably and it makes me wonder: is that purely because people didn't 100 know the how to load them up properly the bottle? Or is it because of that weirdness in the circuitry that they've actually not got great filtering there and that they've actually passed a current High current carrying pin uh, on a track the microcontrollers referenced to. And therefore, there's a risk that you know that because there'll be a slight voltage variation along that track, that It's upsetting the processor? Who knows. But um, certainly.

I've been trying it out and it works so far, but that is it. The uh. Phytosun Arams An interesting little device. Uh, it works seemingly quite well.

It's unusually high output and the bottle of oil doesn't last too long because it is so tiny. But this is basically designed to be filled with things like say, oregano oil or the um, the Albus or whatever. you've got to atomize it into the air because I Did notice there that the French seem to be into uh atomizing uh, essential oils into the air for health reasons. I'm not sure if it really helps the health, but you never know.

It might well do that, but that is it. The Fighter: Sun a ROMs ultrasonic oil atomizer.