I tried finding Hidden Gems on AliExpress AGAIN! (Part 7)

“Mysterious guests under the table” is just one weird product description of many when it comes to products from AliExpress. But even though the descriptions are sometimes confusing, I still loving shopping there because pretty much only there you can get the newest, weirdest and sometimes also super useful stuff. But getting those useful hidden gems can be a gamble sometimes because there is also lots of garbage out there and that is why in this video series I will once again have a look at 6 more products in order to find out whether you should check them out or simply ignore them. Let's get started! This video is sponsored by Rohde & Schwarz; one of my trusty test equipment manufacturers who not only create awesome gear but also publish super useful information for free about certain electronics topics. And today I want to show you their definitive guide to understanding the technology behind vector network analysis that you can download as a PDF. Now granted this subject is not super simple to grasp; but with this PDF you get one step closer to understanding the black magic technology known as radio frequency. So have fun with it. Now the first thing I got actually needs two products to function which got recommended to me on my discord server. And those products are a 9.7 inch replacement LCD for an ipad 4 that you can get for around 26€ and the other item is of course a fitting driver board for that LCD that you can get for around 16€. So combined this set costs around 42€ which is quite a bit cheaper than other premade 10 inch screens you can get on the market. And not only that, this put together set also comes with a higher resolution of 2048 by 1536. That means it could be promising for gaming, raspberry pi projects or generally as a portable mini monitor. So let's finally stop talking about the theory and finally connect the LCD to the driver board and power it all with a 5V Power Supply and USB C cable. And initially I thought my LCD was damaged because nothing happened. But soon I realized that I was being stupid and inserted the flex connector the wrong way around which immediately fixed the problem. So for a first test I hooked this screen up to my PC and powered it all with a powerbank. And I got to say this worked beautifully because the whole screen got used, the colors were crisp and vivid, the possible viewing angle was quite big and you can fine adjust the most important settings in the menu. Combine that with the fact that the screen only requires around 1.2A maximum at 5V and you got yourself an awesome mini screen that in combination with my PS5 can also be used for gaming without a problem. And the last positive thing I want to mention here are the 4 mounting tabs of the screen which makes it very simple to create an enclosure for it all. On the negative side though, I have to say that the speaker output comes with a gentle but annoying high pitch hum, listen: So here I would definitely recommend using the 3.5mm audio jack instead and last but not least I have to say that I was not able to inject a video signal through the given USB C port. But besides those nitpicks, this screen is definitely usable for tons of projects meaning it gets a big thumbs up from me. Ok moving on to a product that is maybe not that spectacular, but for me as a maker these USB C connectors, that you can get 10 pieces of for 1.56€, just looked amazing. I mean it is pretty simple stuff, you got a USB C socket into which you can plug your USB C Cable and then you get 5V on the output that you can use to power your projects. But the little details here that the socket is well bonded to the mounting PCB and that you can use M2.5 screws to attach it to a housing for which the product description also offers mechanical dimensions, makes it super useful to me. But sadly this product is not perfect because its maximum current output is limited by the USB-A output of your power supply and it does not work with the USB-C output. To get around this limitation though we can get ourselves the connector with the data pins broken out. Here we simply have to add a 5.1kohm resistor between each data pin and GND and short this one data pin to its neighbor CC pin and badabum badabang we can use USB-C power supplies and draw the maximum available 5V current. So yeah like I said, this product is not perfect but certainly nice to have around if you are a maker. And with that being said we come to the third item which is this beefy hidden wireless charger that supposedly can do long distances and you can get it for around 24€. And yes this was the product with the mysterious guest under the table and it is apparently also a black technology blessing, whatever that means. So let me spare you from the rest of the production description and summarize that this thing can do wireless charging alone up to 25mm between charger and phone and up to 45mm when inserting this pad in between phone and charger. Now I initially got interested in this product because I always use wireless charging to fill up my phone during the night since that puts less strain on the USB C connector and thus therefore will hopefully hold up longer. Only problem is that this charger needs to be extremely close to the phone to work, making it impossible to hide it in a drawer or similar. So this product could be a remedy for that and coincidentally I had a 24mm thick piece of wood laying around for testing the smaller distance and my 41mm thick workbench for testing the bigger distance. And long story short I was pretty disappointed because the maximum charging distance without the pad was only around 15mm and charging through my workbench was not possible at all. And worst of all while charging through the piece of wood with the given extension pad, my power supply required a total of 22Wh to get my phone from 50% to 100%. In comparison my so far used wireless charger requires 18Wh for this job and a normal USB C cable only 11Wh meaning this long distance charger does not only break its description promises, but it also quite inefficient; meaning thumbs down from me. The only thing I found interesting was the construction of the extension pad which is basically just a coil with attached capacitor to form an LC resonance circuit. Ok; next we got a product that I have seen on Tiktok and it is this Electrician Twister tool that you can get for just 4€. The idea is that you can insert 2, 3, 4 or 5 copper wires and then simply twist them together to create a permanent connection. And I got to say that after using this tool for a bit, I was actually pleasantly surprised because it works like advertised and you save a bit of time by not having to strip the insulation of every wire. Now granted the results can look a bit messy, but the copper connection were all very strong and solid. So I bet this connection method comes with a lower contact resistance than when using my favorite Wago connectors. But I would still prefer using those because I feel like that with enough cold hot cycles this mechanical connection can loose a bit of tension, while the wago with its spring loaded connector will always hold on tight. And also keep in mind that this twister tool does not work with stranded wire as well as too thin wire. So in conclusion Wago is king; but I feel like this twister tool could be the next best thing so I kind of have to give it a thumbs up as well. So moving on to this coin cell like thingy which I got from holyiot and it is actually a Bluetooth Beacon that you can get for around 11€. I got interested in it after I did a video in which I used a future tech Bluetooth board as a positioning system that sadly though was very expensive. So I thought maybe this thing can do indoor location detection for cheap and to find that out, I of course firstly had to open it up, be happy about the good quality PCB, insert a coin cell, download the given app for it and then connect to it. And it seems like the accelerometer on the board as well as the push button seems to work just fine. But sadly all temperature related stuff didn't work even though the production description made it look like that should work too. And even worse I still had no idea how to do location detection because as it turns out for that I required another app. But even with that and after doing some calibrations, the accuracy of how close I was to the beacon was all over the place and certainly not precise at all. So I don't know; I don't really see the point in using such a beacon even when it is truly low power and thus only requires around 20 to 100uA. But if you got a good application for it then definitely let me know in the comment section, but for now it is a thumbs down from me. And last but not least I got myself this beefy 12V power supply here and stop closing this video because this is not your ordinary 12V power supply since it is completely adjustable and can be bought for around 58€. Now for a power supply with a 500W power rating that is still pretty expensive; but after hooking it up, you can see that by using the potentiometer here, you can easily fine adjust the output voltage between 0V and 14.5V. I think this is really handy if you want to use it as a universal power supply for various different projects. And I know that you can hack a normal power supply to also make it adjustable; but let me tell you that this solution right here is much safer. So I did some testing with 3.3V, 5V and 12V as the output voltage and drew various amounts of current on the output while looking at the output noise as well as the required input power. And I got to say that the output noise was never a problem, but I was not super happy with the efficiency of the power supply especially at low output voltages in combination with low currents. But then again on the plus side, it was super simple to adjust the maximum current limit meaning this product is a bit of a mixed bag but I still give it the thumbs up. And with that being said we are done with testing for now and I am happy to say that I found some new hidden gems you might see in future videos. And like always this is not the end of the show because there is so much more stuff to go through, so stay tuned for the next episode. Until then don't forget to like, share, subscribe, hit the notification bell and consider supporting this show on Patreon to keep it going. Stay creative and I will see you next time.

Channel: GreatScott!

Views: 585,380

Keywords: aliexpress, hidden, gem, treasure, greatscott, greatscott!, electronics, electronic, gadget, review, test, testing, try, tried, find, finding, gems, buy, lcd, ipad, screen, monitor, mini, portable, gaming, raspberry, pi, project, camera, hdmi, driver, board, diy, do, it, yourself, tutorial, guide, beginner, beginners, usb, usb c, usb-c, connector, power, data, pin, pins, wireless, charger, long, distance, wire, twister, tool, tiktok, instagram, made, me, cheap, copper, twist, wago, beacon, bluetooth, ble, supply, adjustable, voltage, current

Id: yj3DhasbTfE

Length: 13min 44sec (824 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 03 2023