Let's take a look at Lidl's Solar Globes because they're actually quite nice and they do two versions. They do a warm white version and a color changing version. Uh, the color changing version that could make starts about it. but I'll show you what's inside if you notice the background is different at the moment.

it's temporary. it's just while I'm traveling because well, you film where you can. So these things have the Doom that unscrews and it's very nice that it's very big. And also, if I take this off here, everything is integrated onto one socket board.

I'll Zoom down this little bit and the circuit board has the actual solar panel strips on it and they've put that white Dan of silicone render outside. and then you've put a hard resin which covers not just up the sides of the LED but it covers a little boost converter inside here. the little control chip. Um, and if I take this out.

oh, there's also a little on off switch. Uh, it's worth mentioning if you want to bridge that out. I think it's these two pins here that you Bridge if this switch ever gives problem because it isn't protected. but if I take these screws out and we can take a closer look at these circuit boards.

if I take this out for some odd reason, there's this big weight in the bottom I'm not sure what that's for. uh I don't think it's because it's potentially a floating light because if it was a floating light, this would just flood and uh, it would corrode inside. but it's got a socket in the bottom for a triple A cell and then the only other thing the other side is the two tabs from the solar panel. Um, it's nice that everything's covered like that.

Well protected. It could do a little bit of extra protection, but you know we can do that. That's the classic thing that a bit of silicon grease or Vaseline or something on the battery terminals will generally stop them corroding. Um, let's try and put that in properly and that keeps popping out in the spring.

Um, can I demonstrate it. Lighting not under the where? I can. Actually There you go. it's warm white.

Now let's take a look at the other one. The other one is interesting because when I turn it on, it's got the boot circuitry outside here. This is where this would benefit from being covered in nail varnish or something like that. But if I cover it over, you see it starts off red and then it gradually morphs to blue and then it goes to Green.

Not really sure I've not watched it going through its full sequence. If you press the button at any point in time, it locks at that that color and you think, well, that's quite good because it's going to light up that color every time. But no, because uh, during daylight when it goes off, when it comes back, it's going to revert back to its color cycle. So that to literally to get a specific color, you have to wait till dark, unscrew the cover and then just click the button at the desired color and then uh, you know that's what it's going to be all night, but in the morning, uh, it's just going to reset again.

But hey, we'll take a look at these circuit boards and uh, kind of reverse engineer them because uh, they are quite nicely made. and I love that fact that the solar panel material is on the circuit board with the resin across it, right? So I shall look at that, noting that uh, when we take a look at the circuitry, it's going to be a different location Again, that's the Perils of of their travel with work how you're trying to run a YouTube channel. It gets quite tricky at times, but um, I shall take some picture of these and then we can explore them one moment, please and resume the video in a completely different location and some considerable time later, let's take a look at the module. Now there are two versions of this Uh.

one has just the worm White and the circuitry in the middle the wormware LED but this version is the RGB color changer version I Thought it'd be the most interesting one that has the Boost circuit shelf to the side and also this chip for controlling the LED in the middle which is an RGB LED The circuit board itself is quite interesting. It has that silicone a outer Dam with the hard resin in the middle here covering the solar panel. In the case of the white one, it just has that over the little boost circuit as well. but in this one, it has the components off to the side and they could perhaps do some waterproofing if you particularly like this light.

Um, what else is there to say here? So there's the blue circuitry. There's the diode that pumps the SEC pass drop. There's the chip. There's the RGB LED there's the button for Chase switching off the cycling mode I Think we'll go straight to the schematic.

Let's bring the schematic in and check it's not completely swampy out. That's not bad. that's pretty good. I Would zoom in closer, but I The camera is quite some distance from the bench here just because of the arrangement of uh available shoving.

But let's go over the circuitry. Here is this solar panel and it charges the the AAA cell which has the switch and its negative connection, which is quite unusual. It's using the positive, but it doesn't really matter, but the current from the little two volt solar panel goes via the chip and charges that up. There's no I don't think there's a voltage threshold I think it just basically any available Sunshine is used to charge that up.

It also uses the output from this to detect when the uh, the evening is approached and that the output from the solar panel reduces and it starts driving this inductor at high frequency, then doctor. It builds up a magnetic field and then turns off and it collapses. And what that does is it adds on to the voltage of this Uh Triple A cell and that allows it to drive the LEDs. Now it's worth mentioning that the Were my version has none of this circuitry here.

It just basically goes straight from the Doctor through the Wormy LED shown dotted here, but the color changing version is different. It has that shotkey diode that's needed to rectify and smooth it with this Uh small capacitor here, which I've guesstimated the value at 100 nanofarad. The reason for that is that if it didn't have these, it would effectively have a slight current continually to flow-through Chip and also when it was running, it would be pulsing and it would potentially cause this chip to reset repeatedly. Uh, so it's got that diode for that and the capacitor for that.

That then provides this mystery chip of Supply Uh, The mystery chip has one Uh button input just pulling to the zero volt Rail and it drives the three LEDs directly. They're all referenced to the positive realm at one end, and the red LED has a 10 ohm resistor. A couple of reasons for that: it's to ensure that its voltage doesn't vary Too Much from the other ones because the red LED typically is a lower voltage, and by adding the resistor, you get a slight voltage across that resistor. It's a very sort of rough way of doing it.

It does rely on a specific current to get a rough match, but it means that the red will match the other colors. It's not going to be the dominant color that syncs most of the current, pulls the voltage drill down, and that will also ensure that uh, when it's purely read that there's a slightly higher voltage across this rail, which keeps the chip happier with the sort of with its uh, site, higher voltage, and the two typical two volts you'd find across a red and that is more or less it. It's quite a nice module if you like it. It could do with the usual waterproofing it could do with the wipe of Grease or grease on the the battery contacts in here to protect them against corrosion.

It could do with perhaps, uh, these solar panel leads being cropped and a little bit of resin put across if it needs to be or varnish just to protect against corrosion. Although they're not a huge thing really, but in the top where we've got the components exposed to the weather. Ultimately a big good idea to say get a clear nail varnish and just put a little pool over those. Just protect them because where you get the pins close together if water drips from inside the globe condensation, it can basically Bridge pins together and cause corrosion with current flow between them.

But that is it. You know it's not bad. The globe itself give a nice area of diffused light, and um, the circuitry is typically what you may expect for one of these things, but it's quite nicely implemented. I should put that up there.

So in all the little usual things at the end of the video appear, you know the here's the recommended video: And subscribe to the channel type things. It doesn't block things, but that's it. It's quite a nicely made late. It's big.

It's not like they're not skimpy in size, it's got a good size glow, but it's just the right translucency to illuminate, but also let the light through to charge the cell by exposing the solar panel uh, panels to the sunlight and it just seems quite well made. This module seems quite robust, although as I say, it could benefit from those little additions and if you really like the light a lot, you could basically remove the switch. The one slight downside is that uh, because uh, this because the circuitry is not powered. When there's daylight, it always reverts back to the red uh, to the color cycle should I say so every time it comes on in the evening, let me switch on right now and you cover the solar panel so I'm not going to be able to do it.

It's not block, you see the red LED is lit. It's just going to start the color cycle. So by default it will be color cycling until you actually open it up and press the button and then screw it back together again, which is a bit odd, but um, it's nice. It's quite nicely made and it's a good functional device.