Inside eBay's cheapest LED 'street light' - with schematic

This little LED street light is so cute that I had to buy one. It does make me wonder if they actually use things like this in China, as street lights in rural areas, or just as yard lights.

It's probably the most basic thing you could mount onto a pole outside and call a street light. But I'm not convinced that it's truly water resilient, and the complete lack of an earth/ground connection is unfortunately standard for this style of light.

There's a commonly spouted piece of misinformation that "electricity takes the path of least resistance", and that is WRONG! Electricity takes ALL paths of resistance, and while the most current will flow in the path of least resistance, enough can flow through other resistance paths to kill you.

Simply assuming a metal pole stuck in the ground is an acceptable "grounding" is not correct. In the event of a fault, the pole can become live, and while some current will flow to ground it may not be enough to trip a breaker. That would mean the pole was still live and touching it could result in you becoming another current path with fatal results.

A rather horrible example of that in the UK is a council worker who was fatally electrocuted while working on a street light where he or someone else had used ground as the neutral due to the proper neutral connection being damaged underground. That is VERY taboo, as a broken ground connection then makes all the associated metalwork on that section live with respect to ambient ground.

This is where I'll have my obligatory rant about the one day G39 slideshow that is often used in the UK to facilitate the use of lower wage labour to do work in one of the most dangerous electrical working environments possible. (lots of exposed metalwork and wet ground). It's a very unpleasant example of the Dunning Kruger effect, where an individual will be over confident in doing electrical work because they have been given an "electrical qualification".

I'd rather all workers in that industry got a deeper education so they understood the hazards of what they were working with. Especially when things are not "normal".

If you choose to use one of these lights, be aware that it DOES need an earth/ground connection added to avoid associated metalwork becoming live in the event of leakage to ground.

This also keeps the channel independent of YouTube's algorithm quirks, allowing it to be a bit more dangerous and naughty.

#ElectronicsCreators

[tncorgi]

We need a Big Clive bingo card, check off each discrepancy in products... no ground? Check. Danger of electrocution? Check. Overrated battery capacity? Check. Poor high voltage separation? Yup. Head-scratching Chinglish instructions? Sure. And so on.

[the_tux]

Well they’re not lying when they say: the product must be grounded (because they didn’t do it).

[tonyweavers_MSHG]

That should last about a week before it fills with water.

[JDfromWitness]

You know you've been watching Bigclive a long time when you can recognize all the various burn marks on the bench and remember what they were and when the occurred! Might be fun to do a board game when you match the burn to the episode.

[wisheruk]

Very common for no earth connections I’ve found, well the cost of a crimp connector, a post and a screw must be high!
Thanks Clive really enjoyed it

[markmurphy]

I’m loving these “street light” series of videos.
So many basic designs that are really quite good but also quite dangerous in equal measure.
I hope you don’t live next to an airport. Your garden must be drenched in LED lighting with the amount of things ebay and temu have available!

[GeorgeZ]

Based on 7-8 W, looks like they might be under driving the LEDs. Good if you want street lights to last several years without frequent repair/replace.

[Electronzap]

Sometimes I wonder if hobbyists are best off getting stuff that is easy to mass produce at a low price, then making modifications to it after it arrives to make it behave more like a high quality device that would have been more expensive.

[LftyOne]

4 in the morning/night upload, dope! Perfect to watch to go to bed

[SeanBZA]

Yes would definitely use them indoors as workshop or area lighting, remove the mount, and place inside a round bulkhead fitting to do a retrofit. 7W will be more than enough light.

[cortanajpn]

When I was a child, I help rewire a marionette theatre (we were switching from a very dodgy/exciting manual lighting system that involved two-pin plugs and massive rheostats that gave you a nasty zap if you touched anything other than the Bakelite handles to a programmable system). One of the main things I did for the switchover was to rewire everything for three-pin plugs and thoroughly test the grounding. We designed the switch panel in house, and I learnt about making sure to sand the contact points for the earth connections to ensure everything was properly grounded.

[Jimmyfisher]

I like that light I would like it for the back of my boat, so thank you Clive.

[gregorythomas]

These would probably make good work lights for garages & shops...something inside and not exposes to weather.

[MmmHuggles]

lol this reminds me of some really cheap led spotlights I ordered off Aliexpress some years back. I wasn't expecting much since they were about $3 each. However, to my surprise they were about 10 watts, good cases, and the grounds were actually connected. I put two of them outside to replace my porch light and some years later running 24/7 completely exposed to the weather, they still work just fine. I guess I lucked out.

[LftyOne]

Actually good product for that price. Good value!

[jeffdayman]

Shocking, about the bad grounding. Cheers!

[braddofner]

Amazing! There is no way this is a municipal street light!! Or even an outdoor

[Blinkerdd]

Me every time....

Clive: "let's check for earth continuity"
Me (saying outloud): "No chance"

[gavinminion]

Clive: "No earth - this is not a surprise"
Also Clive: "Holding the ungrounded case."

Quite possibly the worst design for a weatherproof enclosure I've seen. Was there any mistake they didn't make?

[paulturner]

That looks like a nice and warm place for nest building! :-)