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photo of an electrical socket, behind the plastic cover the wires glow bright orange. blue flashes escape from the edges of the cover

  • Foxfire@pawb.social
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    3 days ago

    If there was a video game where you upgraded outlets, this would definitely be like a tier 4 power generator with bonus abilities.

  • AdrianTheFrog@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    it would be really funny to set this up with LEDs to freak out any electricians who come in my house

    total: $11.60 with shipping

    i’m probably not going to actually do this, and if I was I would probably get a more trustworthy power supply (like this, would be an extra $3.40 for some more peace of mind)

    • ThomasCrappersGhost
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      2 days ago

      To be fair you’d only need the LEDs. Switched spurs for example that have an LED to show that they’re on just have flying leads that go to the legs of the LED.

      Unless there’s some other feature you want that I’m missing.

      • AdrianTheFrog@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        I chose the led strips because they’re individually addressable, cheap, and already arranged in nice lines that it’s easy to attach wires to

        I want the microcontroller so I can program colors and blinking patterns

        Now that I think about it some (quiet) sound might be nice too, to add to the realism

    • chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      3 days ago

      If you have to plug it in though it’s gonna be kind of obvious, might want something powered by a coin battery so you could put it behind the outlet plate without the risk of actually messing with wiring anything up

      • AdrianTheFrog@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        those leds draw 10w maximum though, they shouldn’t need to be at full brightness (I know from having some of those that they’re extremely bright) but a coin battery isn’t going to last very long if you use all 30 (using more means you don’t need as thick of a diffuser and can separate the colors more)

        the idea is you would partially disassemble the charger to put it and the microcontroller in a custom, miniaturized case, and remove the outlet and usb connectors from the charger so you can solder and wire everything yourself

        • chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          2 days ago

          Ah I see, makes sense. With one of those full led strips I think it would be tough to cram everything in there if you’re leaving the outlet in tbh, I installed a wifi controller for an outlet a while ago and even just that seemed like kind of a tight fit. Idk how to realistically do it smaller though.