Next up is a flame light bulb - the "field" has advanced quite a bit beyond the humble candle flicker LED.

I did a little experiment here: I fed the tear down photos into ChatGPT (GPT4-Turbo with Vision, assumingly) and asked to write a tear down report in the style of a hackaday.com post. I nudged it a little bit to investigate power supply and pointed to the phosphor converted LED, but the rest is as it came out.

It's a bit worrysome. Enjoy:

Hacking the Faux Flame: A Teardown of the LED Bulb That Glows Like a Hearth

So you’ve seen those LED bulbs that promise a flickering flame effect? Well, we got our hands on one and decided to see what makes it tick—or should we say, flicker. It's not every day you find a bulb that doubles as an electronic fireplace, so naturally, we were intrigued.

Kicking off our teardown, the first thing we did was fire it up to see the warm glow in action. It's quite the sight, and if you’re in the mood for some ambiance without the fire hazard, this bulb is your ticket. With the lights off, the LED strips are just hanging out, waiting for their chance to shine. It’s neat how something so simple can mimic the complex movement of flames.

Now, diving into the guts of the gadget, we unscrewed the top and gently removed the LED strip from its housing. It felt a bit like defusing a bomb, with less risk and more anticipation. Inside, a little PCB loaded with components like capacitors and resistors was nestled snugly. This tiny board is the unsung hero, transforming your standard wall power into something these LEDs can sip on without burning out.

As for the LED strip itself, laid out flat, it was a miniature runway of lights, each coated with an orange phosphor for that perfect flame hue. There's an art to applying that phosphor, too—it's not just about color, but about diffusing the light in a way that gives you that soft, fire-like quality.

The star of the show is the microcontroller, a piece of silicon that conducts the light orchestra. It dictates the flickering, and it's pretty sophisticated in how it manages to replicate the random, soothing dance of a real flame.

Let’s talk power supply. This bulb has a backstage crew that would make any roadie proud. The PSU takes the AC from your outlet, runs it through a rectifier like it’s putting it through boot camp, and out comes the DC—steady and ready to rock. The capacitors are there to make sure the output is smoother than a jazz solo, ensuring the LEDs perform consistently.

Wrapping this up, tearing down the flame-effect bulb felt like a journey back to the basics of what makes LEDs so darn cool. They're not just about brightening up a room; they can set the stage, create an atmosphere, and even calm a restless mind. The design is clever, and it’s a reminder that sometimes, the simplest things can be the most delightful to hack apart and ponder.

So there you have it, fellow tinkerers, a little bit of electronic warmth to brighten up your tinkering space or your next project. It’s amazing what you can do with a few LEDs and some clever engineering.