Category: lighting

Noname LED bike helmet autopsy (WHL #81)

Chinese junk that appeared on my work bench this week!

Well – it’s a bike helmet. An LED bike helmet. A colleague brought it over and asked if I could install an USB type-C port since he (or his wife?) brutally murdered the micro USB in the back. Sure, pinouts are basically identical and access to the thing is darn easy. Oh, no, they’re not.

Turns out this thing can be tossed, since he doesn’t want her to use a nonfunctional LED helmet that furthermore still has a ticking lithium time bomb in it. So I did, after extracting all the goodness shown below. […]

27th November 2022 27th November 2022 By Bzzz In No Comment

Flashlight comparison – Dimmable Triple XM-L2 vs USB rechargeable XPL HI (WHL #74)

China gadgets, finally :cool:

Both of these have been laying around for years now. Time for a review – we currently got a little bit of a snowy April, but mosquito season has already started and four of those bastards have made it inside my living room. No survivors :twisted: And of course, those flashlights can also be used for, you know, flashlight stuff. Finding things, not tripping over other things, sitting around with empty batteries and so on…

So, the contenders:

“Roxane X6 XPL HI 1850LM 650m Type-C Rechargeable LED Flashlight IPX7 Waterproof USB Charging 26650 Powerful Searchlight – Cool White”, bought from Banggood almost two years ago at 25,56€ including shipping. […]

10th April 2022 11th April 2022 By Bzzz In No Comment

Pre-Facelift Tesla Model S LED number plate lights real-world testing (WHL #70F1)

We all know who was too busy last week to upload something, and then too lazy to fix that during the entire week…

Well, here’s a very quick but conclusive report about the exchanged number plate lighting on my car. It’s not just brighter by eye or as viewed by the camera, it’s also that much brighter to anything out there swarming around at night that somebody, I do not know their name or preferred pronouns, decided to set up shop just between number plate and lights. […]

26th September 2021 26th September 2021 By Bzzz In No Comment

Pre-Facelift Tesla Model S LED number plate lights (WHL #70)

It’s time for cheap lights on expensive cars because of the friggen 3G mobile phone network. Yeah, that sounds perfectly alright.

Two weeks ago I ordered the MCU2 upgrade for my 2015 Tesla Model S at the Service Center Frankfurt. Ever since the possibility for that retrofit was announced by St. Elon, I lusted after it, yet of course it only was made available in the alternative Elon Time™ dimension on time and was delayed forever for everyone else, especially for AP1 cars like mine. Some day in between the recall bombshell of the MCU1 dropped and Tesla extended warranty of that part to 100k miles / 160Mm or 8 years max, and some months later the price for MCU1 cars was reduced from 2500€ (inclusive VAT) to 1550€ (same), as those do not need the AP3 computer refresh. […]

5th September 2021 6th September 2021 By Bzzz In No Comment

E27 to E14 Base LED Light Bulb Lamp Converter Screw Socket Adapter Holder Lamp Holder Converter (WHL #55)

I had an oopsie yesterday. Last December I got a bunch of E14 LED lights for free, but there’s no E14 lamp left in my home, only E27s. So as there are E27 (light) to E14 (socket) adapters (which I have in stock), I bought matching E14 to E27 adapters on our favourite Wan Hung Lo shopping website for 0.44€ a piece (x4, shipping included). Those came in some day this week.

While cleaning up a table I ran across these, and following the five minute rule, I decided to not just put them away to test stuff later, but to just pop in a light and verify they’re working. […]

12th January 2020 12th January 2020 By Bzzz In No Comment

99 LEDs E27 Flame Lamps 9W 85-265V 4 Modes Ampoule LED Flame Effect Light Bulb Flickering Emulation Fire Light Yellow/Blue Flame (WHL #53)

For a quick feasibility check for a work project I somewhat recently (end of September) ordered a pair of E27 “flame” lamps. 4.35€ each including shipping, one of each available color – yellow-ish (very warm white) and blue (being a company color).

Big Clive demonstrated these a while back and I had hoped for a bit more oomph. Hence I bought the 9W version. Which turned out to be 9 China-Watts. Well, not even that, which is disappointing and kicked these out of consideration. Too bad, my colleagues liked the effect quite a bit, but it’s clearly too dim for any ambient lighting in larger spaces. […]

10th November 2019 18th December 2019 By Bzzz In No Comment

DC5V USB PORT 10X10CM El panel Electroluminescent BackLight panel el foil el paper el sheet Led Board Display with Inverter (WHL #35)

Here’s another random thing from a colleague: A small Electroluminescent panel!

I was asked for an area lighting thingy that is slightly flexible. So unless one wants to bend the stiff backing of a mobile phone backlight unit, EL foil seems to be the solution. I’m not sure if that fits his needs, but I’m confident he’ll tell me if it’s not ;) I bought this thing quite recently on AliExpress (mid-January 2018) for 5.22€ including shipping. Yes, shipping cost have increased by a bit, but shipping times have improved as well. […]

11th February 2018 4th February 2018 By Bzzz In 3 Comments

Müller Licht 5.5W/220-240V/50Hz/38mA/470lm/2700K/dimmable/E14 EB1500665 40036 (WHL #12F2)

Well, I guess I was onto something when I first complained about the failed E14 LED bulb back in WHL #12…
Not only did the second one (out of four) die as shown in the followup #1, but now the third one is dead as well. And, which is my favourite part, the replacement for it was almost DOA as well. It blinks every few second and never fully turns on. What a heap of garbage!

So naturally I complained again ( :twisted: ) , and the guys from voelkner played the cheapest “shut up” card possible – they did a complete refund of the four initial light bulbs without any further questions asked. […]

7th May 2017 7th May 2017 By Bzzz In No Comment

Müller Licht 5.5W/220-240V/50Hz/38mA/470lm/2700K/dimmable/E14 EB1500665 40036 (WHL #12F1)

Another one bites the dust :suspect:

Three months after the failed E14 LED light bulb in WHL #12, the second unit (out of four) died. It came back to life a few times (a few seconds each), and I reckon now the magic smoke has finally escaped.

All of the remaining bulbs show this distinct yellow shading on the diffusion globe. The replacement one still looks white, like shown in the previous post. But this one clearly failed…look at it, I think it sneezed one single LED off the board. Bless you! […]

18th February 2017 15th March 2017 By Bzzz In No Comment

Müller Licht 5.5W/220-240V/50Hz/38mA/470lm/2700K/dimmable/E14 EB1500665 40036 (WHL #12)

Bit unusual item today – a plain E14 LED bulb that is sold in Germany, made by a German company, but I suspect it is made in China. Müller Licht has some stuff actually manufactured in Germany as well, but I don’t think this one was. But as it is not clearly indicated on the bulb and/or on the retail package (as far as I can see from product photos), I cannot say for sure.

Well, this was one of four identical bulbs that I bought for replacing halogen bulbs in my new home. I cost me 6.39€ a piece back then, shipping was free due to buying loads of other stuff and easily surpassing the free shipping limit at one of my favourite shops, voelkner.de. […]

26th October 2016 15th March 2017 By Bzzz In 2 Comments