Quite a novel idea. It's basically a slim solar panel with battery and LEDs that is sealed into an inflatable plastic housing. When inflated the units goes from being very flat and easy to pack, to a modestly sized diffused hanging lantern. It puts out a useful amount of light at its low setting (ample to see and read by) and a lot more at its high setting. Guesstimated run times are around a day at low level, and around 8 hours at full output with gradual intensity reduction.
Output of the solar panel is around 50mA in ambient light and 100mA or more in full sunlight, giving a potential recharge time of between 8 hours upwards. I don't recommend that it be left in full hot sunshine for too long to protect the internal cell from overcharging and heat.
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Output of the solar panel is around 50mA in ambient light and 100mA or more in full sunlight, giving a potential recharge time of between 8 hours upwards. I don't recommend that it be left in full hot sunshine for too long to protect the internal cell from overcharging and heat.
If you enjoy these videos you can help support the channel with a dollar for coffee, cookies and random gadgets for disassembly at:-
http://www.bigclive.com/coffee.htm
This also helps keep the channel independent of YouTube's advertising quirks and allows it to be more "relaxed".
I wonder if there would be a way to just order the circuit board fully populated, minus the battery and minus the plastic covering? Since they are using batteries without overcharge protection in them, that could conceivably get them banned at customs as a fire hazard, as is. Selling it DIY would put that liability onto the consumer, who could actually add a common phone battery that has proper overcharge protection built-in. They could also add some more shopping cart options by adding mounting kits of various types that fit the circuit board's dimensions.
I've see lights with large inflatable diffusors regularly at construction sites. The seem rather useful.
The chip seems designed for this application. As such, it is plausible they integrated a zener diode into it to short the current from the battery into the chip as heat once the battery is fully charged. Also, the LEDs are in banks of 2 instead of one big bank of 10 because not all diodes are exactly the same, some will have a slightly lower or higher voltage drop than the rest. If that is the case, the larger the bank the wider the difference will be between the highest and lowest, as those with slightly higher drop draw less current which is then concentrated through the LEDs with slightly lower drops, heating them up and shortening their lives.
That is a brilliant invention, simple and compact and if they had a switch which could energise flashing red LEDs would be a good safety beacon to assist mountain rescue hunting for lost or injured climbers or hikers. Why didn't I come up with that idea ffs. 😭😭
Inflatable solar light product development meeting:
Engineering: … "and finally, we added a protection circuit to limit the battery charge to extend the battery life and the life of the product."
Sales: "The price needs to be lower."
Accounting: "If engineering removes the protection circuit, the price will be lower and we'll sell more with planned obsolescence."
Management: "Do it!"
[Insert inappropriate comment here] 😂
If these were made better I'd use one on a boat (if i had a boat) so it floats if it gets out into the water.
My Mum has a few of these, the ones she has are called Luci Lights. One difference with the ones my mother has is that they have an LED battery gauge on them.
The round camping light works really well for float trips, we usually tie them to our rafts to have a light floaring near us
Ya gotta use protection.
We always drop penlights into milk jugs. Works great.
Those are cool, I used to tent camp when I was much younger, and loved it. A couple of years ago, we were down South in Arizona for the winter, and went to a city wide rummage sale, there I found a solar garden light top, just the top with the solar cell and an LED protruding from the bottom. First off, I didn't now for sure what it was, as it was filthy, but for a quarter I figured I could do something with the solar cell. So back to the RV we went, and I cleaned the little guy up, turned out to be in great shape, I stuck a rechargeable cell in her, and she worked just fine. I still have it, one day we had a power outage here in our home in SD, it lasted for many hours, I decided to put that little light to use. I put a AA Cell in it, and she came on, giving off some light but most of it right below th center of the LED. I had a glass of water beside my chair (I always have one of those handy) and just for shits and giggles, I placed the little light on the glass, nearly full with crystal clear water. Suddenly all around my chair became illuminated! Sort of like putting the globe on an oil lamp after lighting the wick. The water, much like that translucent plastic dispersed that light around the room and made a great occasional light for those days when the workmen just can't seem to get the power restored. Sort of reminds me of those lights I saw in hooches in Nam, where they had no power, some wise papa san took a pint jar, cut a hole in the roof in a dark room, and filled it with water, then covered the top with plastic wrap, he had made a wonderful solar light for the day time! Give that one a try, works great.
Clive, I realize this is quite an old video now, but I thought I'd answer your "question" about where these would be useful. I would take them with me when on a Kayaking trip. In a Kayak you have limited space for gear, especially stuff that needs to be waterproofed. I typically take a waterproof case for my phone that clips to my life vest. Then I also take a larger (about 150 cubic inch) waterproof container to fit everything else. Sometimes two of those. Then I take fishing gear, a backpack of clothing, and a tent. Once you add me in there, that pretty well fills up the Kayak. A couple of these in their deflated state would fit very nicely into my waterproof container(s) without taking up a lot of space.
That gives me an idea for a gas lantern like project- white straw hat LEDs in frosted plastic shot glasses. Should look quite reminiscent of mantles.
Well this explains why one of those same lamps I bought stopped taking a charge almost immediately. Thanks!