Teardown of an illuminated wire USB charging lead.04:33

Did I say teardown? How about complete SHRED, because this thing didn’t give up its secrets willingly.
I initially thought this cheap illuminated charging lead was going to have a parallel array of SMD LEDs down the length of the cable because it seemed quite bright in the pictures, and it does actually appear quite bright in real life.
But no. It actually uses a central strand of polymer fibre optic with a single 3mm LED (pushed HARD) firing down its end courtesy of a small press fit alignment cap. The fibre has small abrasions cut into it at regular intervals giving the impression of a series of bright dots of light along its length, culminating in the open end finishing in the plug at the other end of the lead where it still bangs out quite a bit of light to make that illuminate too.
Well worth the money for the effect.