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I bought a few LED replacements for the flouro lamps in the garage the other day and although they worked just fine I could not resist to investigate them a bit further.
Ok, how to open a sealed plastic tube to check what's inside??
The usual wiggle and pull did not do thing, same for just trying to pull the ends off.
A screw design was highly unlikely so I heated one end up and tried the pulling again, sure enough it was hot glue used and it came right off.
I was expecting a simple circuit to get voltage right and some sort of amp limiter with connections on both ends of the lamp.
To my surprise I found one end is simply bridged with a wire!
Sure enough a test with 240V on the other end alone gave me light
Since this makes it much much easier to use a simple power connection without fully dismantling the lamp, I will get a few more, make some stands for them and use them as portable light sticks wherever I need light.
Next step would be to feed the pwoer through the tub to the other end (while replacing the internal bridge) so the lamps can be stacked together for more light - there is always a reason for a party in the summer
Ok, how to open a sealed plastic tube to check what's inside??
The usual wiggle and pull did not do thing, same for just trying to pull the ends off.
A screw design was highly unlikely so I heated one end up and tried the pulling again, sure enough it was hot glue used and it came right off.
I was expecting a simple circuit to get voltage right and some sort of amp limiter with connections on both ends of the lamp.
To my surprise I found one end is simply bridged with a wire!
Sure enough a test with 240V on the other end alone gave me light
Since this makes it much much easier to use a simple power connection without fully dismantling the lamp, I will get a few more, make some stands for them and use them as portable light sticks wherever I need light.
Next step would be to feed the pwoer through the tub to the other end (while replacing the internal bridge) so the lamps can be stacked together for more light - there is always a reason for a party in the summer