Inside a STOLEN (faulty) LED bulb 

If you get caught stealing bulbs, can you expect a light sentence?

I'm imagining Clive walking around random pubs, finding a burnt out bulb, opening his trench coat and pulling out a replacement, and quietly swapping them 😅

I think you managed to avoid the entire pub going up in flames.

Clive the lightbulb fairy, simply put the broken light bulb underneath your pillow and in the morning you will wake up with the circuit diagram for the lightbulb underneath your pillow

I've probably said this before, but your voice, your demeanor, and your personality just make me so happy. Your expertise and knowledge completes the whole package. Thank you for sharing yourself and your talents with us!

Watching you peel away the metal base was somehow oddly satisfying. Don't mind that it took a little while. 🙂

Clive, I’ve been having a rough go lately, but I want to let you know that your videos here and guides on your site have helped me stay centered and calm. Thank you.

LED's sure have changed the lighting industry. Clive has always been here to get into the thick of it, thank GOD for that Thank you Clive

I can just imagine the staff at the pub complaining how “people will nick anything, the buggers tool one of our globes”!

"Sir, sir! Put down the bulb sir! Sir! You are scaring the children! Sir? Sir!" "Nooo! I am the buuulllb faaaaaairryy!"

I probably would have returned and replaced it with a new bulb, because you should always leave a place better than you found it.

I think the manufacturers got smart, they're configuring devices to behave differently when being used in a Big Clive video.

A lamp that gets hot... so it was becoming an incandescent. No wonder it wasn't putting out much light.😂

You've just stolen their precious flame-effect lamp!!! They had saved up for ages to get that one, and now it's been demolished 😆

It is interesting to consider the evolution of lighting over the years if it was a really old pub. From whale oil to coal gas to carbon incandescent to tungsten incandescent to florescent to LED.

Not sure this is what happened here but I've fixed a few LED bulbs in the past that went dim because one of the current sensing resistors (usually 2 in parallel) was poorly soldered and went open. Several of them failed like this after less than a year of operation, but after being fixed have now been in use for over a decade.

Im one of the people that love watching you fight to get into the bulbs. Your videos are so amazing i love watching and I've learned so much from them.

You may have nicked the lamp ~ but you probably have saved the pub from burning to the ground. So thumbs up from me 👍🏻

only clive would have a moral quandary about stealing a bulb that should've been in the trash months ago 😇

"Is this part of the manufacturing or is this just a huge mess?" The two are not necessarily antithetical. As for being the lamp fairy...maybe the lamp bear?

1:53 I enjoy seeing you pull things apart. It gives me ideas of how to disassemble my dubiously obtained goods

Our favorite bear in a pub of ill repute? Say it isn't so!! And I agree that you becoming the lamp-fairy would be satisfyingly appropriate.

The Disassembly ASMR is strong with this one 😄

Hey Big Clive, this will interest you! Although NOT LED, I have a 1929 (94 years old) carbon filament light bulb, made to mark the 50th Anniversary of Edison's Electric Light (1879-1929). The bulb was made in the United States, and runs on US mains voltage. The bulb is mounted on wooden base, and has two uninsulated metal thumb screws for power. The underside is insulated with wax! Definitely no UL or CE Marks! The bulb works, and as long as you're careful, you don't get electrocuted! I bought the bulb on eBay in 2013 from an American seller for around £50.00. It's a thing of beauty, and probably quite rare? What do you think of that then? And no, you're NOT reverse-engineering it! 🤣

Here we go lads. Ive got absolutely no Idea why Im watching this at 1AM on monday but damn that bulb really did light up Innit?

I'm amusing myself imagining you (or me) with a giant Santa Claus sack of different replacement bulbs, merrily swapping out dead ones, as there are a wide variety of interesting ones out there. It would probably be more practical to just nick the dead one, obtain a suitable replacement, and go back and install it, but that would involve a lot more extra trips and bookkeeping.

When you do the busy work of peeling something open, I use that time to check the comments while listening. So keep on it!

I must say, I do like that test box, It's a very useful, viable solution for quick testers and professionals alike, as these users know where, NOT to poke you fingers. It is It's crudity and hazardous to use in the wrong hands that makes It a good tool, like a big lathe or an excavator, lethal in the wrong hands.

Bar Staff: Ok, I get nicking the glasses BUT THE F#ING LIGHT BULBS!

The marvel is how they manage to squeeze ANY form of PSU (no matter how minimalist) into such a small space, and do this for millions of devices. It wasn't that long ago when LED drivers were reasonably chunky!!

Fault finding, my favourite! 👍

I enjoy that you don't skip

Dr Clive soft of fixed the bulb. 🤣 .I thought we might see a bad solder joint, but once open its difficult to see anything. 👀. Very interesting bulb. 2x👍

I think in this failure mode it just turned into a very noisy resistor that sometimes decides to emit light.

Clive's autopsies are the best.

I have dozens of such 4W "filament" flame-style bulbs at home in our antique chandeliers and wall lamps, I buy them in bulk from China. When they fail, it's exactly like this, turns flickering or dimming, some has a dead LED that can be easily spotted when dimmed. I think their demise starts when a LED fails. Some works for years, on the whole lot I have in service, the failure rate is a few %s . I've always thought sending you some cadavers for the fun of the autopsy, but looks like you've found a nice test subject by yourself :P But mine are the cheapest one, not dimmable. Wonder what's inside for being made that cheap...

Loving the LED liberating larceny.

Why u stole a Lamp man?!?! 😂

This video is getting more and more interesting the longer you dig the more you find 😂

Bigclive, "I see dead lamps."

Admitting that you are stealing defective light bulbs is the most you thing i have ever Heard 😂

A kind of guilty pleasure of mine is opening defective LED lamps and dismantling them 😇 Just to see how they are made, how the designs and manufacturing evaluates. I regularly "steal" defective LED lamps. I live alternately in the Netherlands and Belgium. And there you will find special waste bins for defective LED lamps in many places, such as the hardware store, supermarkets, shops that sell electronics, drugstores and more. And usually combined with bins for empty batteries. And often also bins for defective electronics/e-waste. (I'm actually curious what this is like in other countries. They also have these types of packs in many places so that it is easy for people to dispose of e-waste in a better way than throwing it in household waste or dumping it.) Great "dumster dive" spots for people like me who like tinkering with e-waste 🤪🤩 Officially, this is considered stealing if you don't ask/do it without permission. But I'm bold enough to just do it. And I've fished out more than enough treasures 🥰 I've been doing this since I was a little boy of about 6 years old, crafting with e-waste (but I don't think that term really existed back then) and in the roughly 30 years that I've been doing this, I already have a large network of stores. where I can look in the e-waste bins for materials. I think at least 80 percent of my electronics are e-waste, received or second hand. And also a lot with my brother and mother. And I also regularly help good friends with something when I have new acquisitions. Just like charities that help other people in need with household goods and related items. We are dying in e-waste and that mountain is getting bigger and bigger with equipment such as poor quality LED lamps and electronics that are difficult or impossible to repair. My experience is that with LED filement lamps such as in this video the driver is often defective. But the files still work like Clive in the video. I have a collection there that I want to use to make new lamps with other waste material such as waste wood. Or one or more of the files are defective. Then I carefully smash the glass into a sturdy plastic bag and remove the working fillets. Due to lack of time, they are still waiting for repurposing, but Big Clive has nice projects on his channel to reuse them.

I wonder how dimming level effects power consumption. Partly over all consumption (i.e.; does dimming save you on your electric bill), but also is there a particular dimming level that maximizes heat inside the base, increasing the chance of scortching.

A nice soothing voice to start a stressful Monday with x

We use these in common hallways and some brands are just trash. Find a few flicker dim and black crumbs inside now and again. High quality and full swap in the chandeliers.

Bulb made by BEL? Bharat Electronics, Limited in India. With incandescent lights you can pretty much see what's defective. No such luck anymore with LED lights. I thought places of questionable repute used red lights, not blue. Our fire dept's engine house has a red light. I wonder if that means anything? 😮 Thanks, Clive for making my day. I just don't feel right until I take something apart, either really or virtually on Clive's RU-vid channel. 😍

I really enjoy your videos. One word of caution hold the glass bulb in cloth or something to protect you from breaking glass. Cheers mate.

The minute I see that brown acrylic staking compound I start to worry. It's a notorious failure mode in a lot of gear. They use it because it's cheap but it's hygroscopic over time and it starts to leak and can start fires. Cost a number of TV manufacturers millions in rework around G2 stages and I've seen a number of hockey Puck down light supplies die from it. Just recently did a couple of CRO supplies with the issue, one was an Insteak the other surprise was a Tek, but they had a 3rd party supply fitted.

Some time ago i dismantled a very similar led lamp which had an identical flickery behaviour; the circuitry looked very similar to yours, and the LED strips also exhibited occasional flickering. While handling them (after breaking the glass globe), one of the four snapped very easily, so my guess is that maybe the glass(?) substrate cracks, therefore the LEDs occasionally stop working.

Nice interesting lamp autopsy, and given the state of the electronics (and how hot the lamp was getting), you may well have done that pub a favor! I'd have personally gone back home afterwards, grabbed the least interesting drop in replacement (whether it be LED, CFL, tungsten, halogen, etc) then returned to the pub and given them the replacement to fit. That way, they can see you're helping them out rather than giving them cause for concern.

The landlord knows which pub it was 😆

Had about 4 of these fail in a luminaire (but Morrisons were pretty good about replacing the early life failures). The other two are still going strong after 4 years though, wonder why?

Just the video I’ve been waiting for Clive! I’ve got the guts of one of these bulbs with the same fault lol

I, too, went out for Sunday lunch with my daughter today, and am also stammering and slurring a little! Sunday lunch today, Clive?

Neat. And good to see the filaments on their best behavior for the rest of the video hehe.

It was still intoxicated Clive good job you rescued it lol.

Like opening a can of cornered beef. Amazing how much stuff they can cramp into a little E14 fitting. Capacitor survived very well next to that 2-Watt heater resistor.

Had one of these sitting on a shelf for ages, after it'd broken just like this one. Thought it was just typical dry solder joints but now I know! ...that the rest of them in the house will probably go the same way.

Brilliant thanks Clive quite interesting how it suddenly started working, maybe the burnt glue was going conducive?

The big bear with a cink palculator has snaffled a bulb.

Speaking early about them cramming bits into the small base, do you think we'll be seeing a change in the near-ish future where lights have a new socket type to better work with leds? It really seems that advancements have moved beyond the classic screw in styles, but also seems to be a set in stone to them because so many exist in households.

You could have a reference of how it's supposed to look inside - by the magic of stealing two of them :)

Stolen - The lamp that was hot even before you turned it on!

it isnt stolen, it is being recycled for educational purposes

Lesson learned: If you have Big Clive in your pub, make him do a handstand before letting him leave. 😉

At my work we have LED wall clock that stop working. They find faulty 1A power adapter with USB-A socket and order new one. But it take month until they order and new arrived and faulty one was still laying around clock untouched so I bring it home for check. It show 5V voltage but switching on and off quickly. Visibly two bad capacitor on low side I change them with same capacity but little higher voltage because dont have same. I test it on full load for few hour and no explosion. I'm not sure it's save to use with smartphone, expensive equipment or loved electronics or without supervision on it but happy for repair it and keep it like better alternative then cheap chinese charger that came with something.

That black stuff is called assembly gunge, found in all defunct electronics.

"f a bar of ill repute." Oh Clive

Bravo on you for not setting this up as a "Prank Video" where you stole all the 💡 from the business; Then took them apart as part of your normal content as way to get the views of both types of content.

"There's a capacitor" he says, then sticks his finger in the end of the lamp, without checking that it's discharged. 😊

Yeeheee! 😅 Nobbled it from the pub. I think many people might perhaps done similar. Cheers Clive. Good days.

@0:18 - Light it like you stole it - Big Clive

Could you do a video on how these dimmable bulbs actually dim on a triac dimmer? I would have assumed that the current regulator and sensing resistors would essentially maintain consistent light all the way until the waveform became too scarce to provide adequate voltage, then you get flicker. This seems to be how non-dimming lamps react to a triac. I've read that expensive LED drivers are measuring the phase of the triac dimmer and translating that into a pwm duty cycle, but surely this cheap bulb in this video is not doing that. So what's it doing?

I have a full string of these type led bulbs , courtesy of a lightning strike , because I am curious if any survived the little bit of an over voltage event . Be interesting to play around with anyway . I am amazed at how many components they managed to stuff in that tiny lamp base there .

I have been in the restaurant industry for 30 years and I have seen so many people "nicking" bits and pieces from many of the places I have worked, I never say anything, I feel as if they wanted a momento

Only BIgclive would go to a pub and take....A dead LED bulb! I endorse this activity 100% 😜

"The light is coming back." No Clive, I don't think it is...

It is an E14 socket, Clive.

"Today on BBC News - Isle of Man's Man's Man Steals A Dead Lightbulb, THOUSANDS affected!"

Putting LEDs inside socketed bulbs like this is like insisting that cars have buggy whip holders to maintain the livelihoods of whip manufacturers...

I love the peeling

Did my own tear of a G9 pagazzi 3.5w led 240v. Bridge rectifier, 2 resistors , 1 capacitor? And an unknown chip. Couldn't find chip details. No great signings of overheating but lamp still blown.

Awesome Video big clive

Potentially you also stopped a fire from happening. Good job you did borrow the bulb. 🥴👍

The original background, good to see that again rather than the black.

Why is the power module doesnt having a main smoothing capacitor with the diagram? ...and I feel the theory of LED lamp lifetime seems to fail in everywhere.

Dood that is nuts!

I wondered why pubs are always so dark. Its Clive nicking all the LED bulbs.

I was watching some Bell LED lamps flickering today and ended up just fading them off completely as they were distracting in the room. I'm now tempted to take one of them down and see what's inside. Did your one only flicker when dimmed to a particular level?

How would one go about sending you a little circuit device the size of a quarter to look at?

All the electronics in the base, zero electronics in the glass cone/drop/bulb. That makes this lamp appealing and looking like an incandescent lamp. 😉

Please make lamp-fairy videos… 😂

Just like old Christmas lights, one goes out so does the whole string. My understanding is the LED's are over driven thus pulsed. Way back when I remember indicator LED's just got 12 volts DC.

When Big Clive removes a VAS chip from a lamp, is that a VAS-ectomy?

You've made my day I've always wanted to know how get inside a light bulb without breaking the glass now I know as I wanted make a quirky torch using a light bulb glass 👍

I had a dimmable Amazon E26 LED lamp in the kitchen spotlights that would run for about 30 mins, then shut down. I thought it had died until I left it out for a while and reinstalled it. It worked again then shut down. These lamps from Amazon had some weight to them but they were CRAMMED with soft thermal goo, the entire circuitry was encased in it, it didn't survive my prying!

I wonder if the lamp was rated for 120 V and was miss sold into the 240 V market. By the way, was this bulb from the pub 2 with disco lights in the loo?

The way it was randomly working, then not, then randomly flickering---it was ready for Halloween 🎃

Didn't think I would ever see a led lamp with a brass base

interesting. always slightly concerned when you take the snippers out and like that sharp bit and such, them fingers