Not exactly a ‘Rube Goldberg’ by rhoing

Not exactly a ‘Rube Goldberg’

… but definitely over-complicated. Although this is electrical/electronic connections rather than mechanical, I like Allison Williams’s 2012 characterization of a Rube Goldberg mechanism.

These cables power the lighting for my foldio photo box or photo studio. The LED strip is now lighting at only about 30% of its capacity because ten of the 18 diodes have failed completely, 6 are dim, leaving only two that seem to light up at full power. This is the photo I took to share with Orangemonkie to show what cables I have, so that they might help me figure out what I need to do with currently-available components to get back to full lighting.

Originally, the light strip was powered by a 9-volt alkaline battery. When something went bad, they sent me the short cable and the wall outlet adapter. Clearly, the 9-volt battery system was not popular with users, so they were trying something else.

The current solution USB-A and micro USB connections. Of course my SIL says (correctly) that everything should be USB-C now, but that's another conversation; see “Research”.

Corrected the yellowish tint with Whites 47 in ON1.

» Rube Goldberg Institute
» “Rube Goldberg” at Wikipedia

[ PXL_20240125_200250917_12x9tm :: cell phone ]

January 25 posts
  1 year ago: “What heavy snow can do”
 2 years ago: “BOGO”
 3 years ago: “New furniture and carpet marks”
 4 years ago: “Taste testing”
 5 years ago: No post
 6 years ago: “‘Still the gold standard’ [Filler]”
 7 years ago: “And the needles go tomorrow!”
 8 years ago: “Arctic poppy”
 9 years ago: “‘Faucet Facets’?”
10 years ago: “Suzanne”
11 years ago: “’Twas a 3-frame day…”
12 years ago: “Another dry day”
13 years ago: “Green, green, it’s green, they say…”
Oh my! But then it will take someone like you to figure it out!
January 29th, 2024  
*Sigh* It's a shame that things have to age out even if they are still working.
January 29th, 2024  
I like the hight contrast and the "lab" look of the picture.
You are determined in finding a solution. My husband would also work hard to save the subject. I'd be encline to retire it for a newer, shinier one :)
January 30th, 2024  
Ah, I'm with Kathy. It is a shame that "connections" keep changing making what might me simple fixes, expensive!
January 30th, 2024  
@randystreat But the light strip isn't working, so I have to do something. The choice is between getting one or two new light strips ($8 + shipping or $16 + shipping) or upgrading to the next-larger photo-box ($79 + shipping).
January 30th, 2024  
@corinnec The upgrade is pricey $85ish versus replacement lighting that's only $20ish... The shinier, fancier one is tempting, but how much do I use it? Seventy-four posts, so far (since getting it in 2015), https://365project.org/rhoing/tags/foldio
January 30th, 2024  
@thewatersphotos At least they realized that users weren't happy with the original lighting setup. But when they decided to go away from the 9-volt battery source, they had to acknowledge that a bunch of users out here had the 9-volt connector on their light strip. So users like me ended up with the setup shown above.
January 30th, 2024  
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