inside a USB rechargeable head torch, and a hack to improve it. 

+muh1h1 You missed out the word Night - "Charge induction cap lamp night fishing expert". Crazy isn't it that google can translate the words.

I'm pretty sure it said "stupid round eyes buy any junk".

+JJayzX Hahaha!

That's a funny story, made me chuckle. Thanks for sharing.

+xAlphaAx I checked with the camera on my phone, and the clear LED was the emitter. The receiver also has three terminals for power and signal out.

bigclivedotcom Oh okay, never seen a receiver like that and I have some IR led's lying around which look exactly like the one you didn't cut off, so I thought that didn't really make any sense. Thanks for checking!

+Alan McG The IR LED is modulated by an output pin on the 8-pin chip via a resistor, so I don't think it would really have drawn much current or would add much light if you put another white LED there.

It's a fashion brand in the UK. Their overalls are nothing like the American ones.

@@bigclivedotcom I have some of their trousers, lots of pockets, pretty cool! 😀

+zaprodk I considered that but thought it might have had an internal pull-up or down function and could leave the processor switch line floating. It's passive current will probably be negligible.

+Joshua Nicoll Or copying from the ebay listing and changing the background colour to make it less obvious....

Hell, that's the most professional thing I ever seen, companies steal each others promos all the time kek.

I guessed it would be modulated, and the receiver will be the typical demodulating type with logic output as often used with remote control systems to filter out ambient IR.

+bigclivedotcom Well yes, but it's not just as simple as looking for the reflected IR carrier. Due to the way the AGC and data slicer in the receiver work its output hangs on (low) for a very short time after the end of the received IR. This time is to proportional to the strength to the received IR which in turn is proportional to the distance of the target, all other things being equal. We were looking for a punter standing in front of a display screen for a certain time. This method proved to be far more reliable than simply looking for the main returned signal and had other advantages too. Worked with several IR receiver types we tried when this project was live eight years ago and we later found references to it online.

***** Well when you remove the lens filter off the iphone the photos get blown out around the edges

+SWEetYo2B Yes. It didn't do anything. Even when held in for various lengths of time up to 20 seconds.

+Felix Automaton Yes, it seems to respond to any modulated IR.

Probably not a good idea to equip a security force with them then. One tech-ninja with a Headlamp-B-Gone box could slip right past them.

+888johnmac And the hand dryers go berserk too. I had to explain to site management on a site that the reason the new dryers were false triggering was because if the high viz stripes reflecting the IR like a mirror. They were about to have them all stripped out as being faulty.

oh yeah, forgot about them.. greetings from edinburgh

Quiescent. The standby current. Preferably in the low microamps.

+Geoff wilson It means you're going to lose it in the dark! (Had Light)

+Stinky Cheese Work a long shift with a high power head light and you'll suddenly realise that battery life is very short indeed. I prefer low intensity for many hours than high intensity for less than one. There's a good chance the high power light would spend most of the battery curve putting out less light than the little three LED one.

+bigclivedotcom If it were many years ago you would have a point. Today, there is no reason to settle for this trash. Don't get me wrong, I am old school and watched LED light progression for a long time. If anything, the best option today is to benefit from the great advances in LEDs. This is not an exclusive club. You can do it too.

+Stinky Cheese I didn't know that law of conservation of energy is no more valid (only in that case your arguments hold water). In best case with commercially available LEDs you will get less then 1.5 hour of of 100 lumens light intensity from AAA battery. LEDs did evolved in last years but only in laboratories (Cree in laboratory produced 303 lumens per watt LED and MIT demonstrated 230% electrical efficient LED) but they are not commercially available (best Cree LEDs on market produce less then 90 lumens per watt)

Petar Petrovic Conservation of energy? You must be joking when the core purpose is enough light to do *something* and frankly, I've suffered through many past years of the low powered LEDs in a product that had only 10 lumens. If energy was expensive on this scale I'd see the point, but literally it is pennies to recharge a battery, and batteries only a couple dollars themselves for NiMH rechargables. It is true that I get less than 1.5 hours out of a AAA at 100lm, but that's what LOW mode on the flashlight is for, or even medium for that matter, or why if I need more time I can just carry and additional battery with both the light and extra battery being smaller than this light. LED evolution is about what is in inexpensive products. This type of 3 x 5mm encapsulated 100mW LED has been around for 20 years. They are now perhaps 50% brighter but it's not enough when the total is still a mere ~10 lumens. If you want to limit yourself so severely to so little light, so be it. I can only tell you what works for me, but it was only one example. I also have a fairly small (Akoray K-106) 1xAA light with a clip I reversed to use as a headlamp, with programmable power levels such that I could get the most light for any runtime I want. It will not run for days at a time. I have never needed a headlamp to run for days at a time. If something isn't a headlamp then mass and volume isn't an issue so a larger heavier battery can be used. Perhaps it is all beside the point which was to analyze the product and in that light it was a worthwhile video. It just seemed there was a little too much enthusiasm for the design when in the end, it pales in comparison to other (more expensive yet still) reasonably low cost alternatives. The question is what would it take to improve this? A 1W LED could be used at less than $1 (bulk manufacturing volume price) and a modest 5 cent piece of aluminum for the heatsink. It could then be 80 lumens. Would it then be worth $1.05 more? You may not think so but I do.

+Dan Dart less harsh on the cells

+Jasper Waale It's probably modulated at around 38kHz and not necessarily with an overall on/off ratio anywhere near 1:1.

+hrxy1 It's a USB logger that monitors voltage and current and logs the time it takes to charge a load, and the mAh used.

+David Stanton I absolutely HATE auto flushing toilets. I've got broad shoulders that extend well into the sensors position so they just flush continually while I'm sitting on them. And the taps invariably just do their own thing randomly. Particularly when the warranty period has expired.

+Mod Mod Consider using a standard phone battery. The Nokia batteries are commonly used in quite a wide range of equipment other than phones. You can solder onto the connections and the cells usually have a protection circuit built in.

+bigclivedotcom Thanks for the reply - the one in the tear-down looks to be just the size needed. You now what they say, electronics is never the problem, the problem is always mechanical. I've ordered one of these torches now, anyway - thanks again for making me aware of its existence. BTW, not wishing to teach granny, but, have you considered reviewing electronics kits, eg Quasar, Velleman, etc? You do have the knack of explaining things so well and come across so naturally - it's a pleasure to see someone so gifted at work.

Why?