Massive AliExpress Haul - Arduino & Electronics Edition (2024)

it was around the end of November 2023 when I started feeling the stress and anxiety of everyday work so I thought I'd relieve it by doing some online shopping I loaded up AliExpress and started adding all sorts of stuff to my shopping cart Arduino Pro micros buttons switches everything I wanted to build stuff I was tired of working my day job and letting my ideas rot in my brain as quickly as I hit the pain now button I forgot about my purchase and went on being busy with work again until one day at the end of February I got a package the next day I got another one the day after that I got a few [Music] more then the whole month of March I've been collecting these packages [Music] [Music] in the meantime I quit my day job as a software engineer and decided to start this YouTube channel [Music] [Applause] [Music] hi my name is risto and welcome to my channel here I'll build various Electronics projects mostly arduno based media controllers or macro keyboards and I hope we'll get to see some guitar effects pedals as well subscribe to support me and join me on this journey as we build cool projects together that's all for the channel intro now let's move on to the unboxing and inventory first off we have tiny nud demium magnets I got these so I can use them as a closing mechanism for LDS for project boxes instead of Designing a latch I would make tiny holes for the magnets so all project boxes can easily be opened next we have black and red elastic wire to be used for the positive and negative Connections in our circuits I ordered lots of pcbs in different sizes to accommodate every type of project we might ever built I have used the same ones in the past so they are pretty good at making the project [Applause] permanent I got this transistor kit because I needed to make an LED strep driver board but I have actually no idea what are all the values that I got with the kit and what I can use them for but I guess it's good to have them just in [Applause] case next up we have a batch of good old jumper wires we would use these to test out our projects on a breadboard I got all kinds of them short long male to male male to female and female to female now one of the most common components we're going to use when building macro keyboards or media controllers with lots of keys is a 1n 4148 silicone switching diode it will help us prevent ghosting when building key switch Matrix that's why I got so many of them plus they are very cheap these Lio batteries will be my introduction to using rechargeable batteries in projects especially when I want to add Bluetooth connectivity imagine a DIY Med controller that works over Bluetooth am I right or am I right to be actually able to use the batteries we also need a TP 4056 charger module so we can charge them I got these 10 segment bar graph displays so I can use them in a future project and I'll let you in on the idea I got them so I can use them as a volume Pig display for a DJ controller that's going to be a very interesting project to build so make sure to subscribe to be the first to see it I got a few step down modules as well because I think we're going to need external power to power some of the components in our projects but also power the arduinos these arcade buttons would most likely go into the DJ controller as well but that's it I'm not revealing any other upcoming projects the these push buttons are really small and tactile and could come in handy in so many different situations so I think I got like 50 of them they come with different cap CS when we are in the buttons category we've got to have slide switches these can be used to turn a project on or off or to switch different functionalities like a Windows Mac OS toggle when we are in the slide switches category why not get three-ways why it switches these can also be used to switch different functionalities like a Windows Mac OS Linux switch and finally we have some rocking toggle switches these look straight up from a science fiction movie out of the spaceship's mission control panel now if we take a turn into the home automation space we must have relays these are very useful for turning one or a few things on and off I have actually no idea why I got these transistor radio dial potentiometers so I'm just going to leave it at that now this item is an absolute must for every build this is a resistor kit that includes all the most commonly used resistors these are various displays that we can use with many Arduino boards although a couple of them are specifically made to work with the wios D1 Mini Pro I had to get a bunch of capacitors even though I didn't know how to use them yet I know that we're going to have to use capacitors when building guitar pedals so I hope I have at least some of the required values in these kits so we have both electrolytic and ceramic capacitors the item I'm holding in my hand is a joystick as soon as I saw these I knew they would make a great addition to a custom MIDI controller we'll see how that goes I got four of them so we can try them in multiple builds [Applause] of course we also need some pin headers to solder components too now if we want to use many buttons in our build but our microcontroller doesn't have enough pins and we also don't want to build a matrix we can use multiplexers so these are eight channel multiplexors which allow us to connect eight inputs or outputs and only use three pins from the Arduino I also got these sockets so I don't have to solder the multiplexers directly on the PCB similar to the8 channel multiplexers these are 16 channel multiplexers and they use up only four pins on the Arduino these are really exciting components and the first time I actually learned how to use them is when I actually fell in love with building Electronics projects if we are to ever build midi controllers we definitely want to include slight potentiometers they are used to control volume panning effects and so much more and it's also a real pleasure having so many of them in one place same with all the other components and no I don't own a store I got them specifically to build projects for this YouTube channel make sure to subscribe and let me know in the comments if there is a specific project you want to see build [Applause] [Applause] now finally we have reached the good part these components are the heart of every project I don't have much to say about the Arduino Uno except that everyone should get at least one and start learning the basics of electronics but this next guy that we have here this is my personal all-time favorite we've been through thick and thin together but it always pulls through this is the Arduino Pro micro this guy can be a keyboard a macro pad a hacking tool a midi instrument or a plant moisture monitor it is extremely versatile it is Tiny and it has lots of pins that's why I got so many of them stick around and you'll be seeing it in almost every project I don't even know if I'm ever going to use a different Arduino okay so next we have an old MCU this board supports Wi-Fi so we can use it for home automation projects the wios D1 mini pro is a tiny microcontroller which also has Wi-Fi on board and it also allows us to connect an antenna to boost the signal this is a very interesting board if we ever want to build a Wi-Fi deor the wios D1 mini is similar to the mini pro but I've never used it before so I don't know how it will perform the Arduino Nano is like a bench Mark for Arduino boards most of the projects on the internet use an Arduino Nano board so I had to get one I also got a bunch of food containers in two sizes stay just a bit longer and you'll find out what they are for oh this this is the part we were missing every macro pad and even every midy controller deserves to have mechanical switches and that is what we're going to see mostly on this channel so for the switches I got pink and green key caps and this is what the food containers are for I wanted something see through for the keycaps and switches something jar wi but I didn't want it to be glass so I got the next best thing this listen to The Joy of sound they make [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] now when it comes to the key switches I got a few types I got these gold switches and mind you I had no idea whether they were going to be clicky or not so turns out they are tactile but not like the blue ones [Music] next I got a few of these silver switches they look more gray than silver but that's what the description says these ones are very soft to the touch and make almost no sound you may compare them to normal red switches none of these are whooped I can go oops I I forgot one pack of the gold [Applause] ones these green switches are even less tactile than the gold ones but you can still feel the clip and now for my favorites the blue tactile switches I got like 100 of these because I like how they feel when they click you can hear the click in the other room and so can my girlfriend and I like to annoy her very much [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] that wraps up our mega unboxing I know it was a long video but I promise the next one is going to be way more interesting I've sorted everything into these handy containers here and we're ready for a full year of projects you can find the full list of components and links to where to find them in the video description thank you for watching and I will see you next time

Channel: Risto Innovates

Views: 3,061

Keywords: arduino, unboxing, aliexpress, electronics, macropad, midi controller

Id: 5kIYqDRG7g8

Length: 16min 57sec (1017 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 20 2024