Category Archives: Let’s Open

This is so close to being a good charging stand, except that the USB port is used to hold the phone in place! Its design is quite simple, as it’s just a USB 2.0 pass-through from a micro-USB port on the back of the dock to a male micro-USB on the front. There’s not much more to say about it in text, so check out the video to get a full look at it! And this does have the benefit of being one of my shortest videos, so you only need to invest about 2.5 minutes into it. :)

This video answers the age-new question: Can you solder to silver circuit trace ink? The answer is yes, but it probably would take some practice, and it doesn’t work all that well. Update: Overloading a Circuit Because the impedance of the silver ink was so high, I decided to try and overload it with far too much current to see what would happen. The video includes trying to power a 40W light bulb at 120 VAC through the paper circuit as well as a dead short at 30 VDC! The upshot is that it did not start a fire, and the silver trace failed in a controlled manner. That’s bad for the drama of a YouTube video, but a good … Continue reading

Hey look! A crate from Japan! (California, technically.) Japan Crate sends a box of surprise Japanese candy, chips, and other edibles to your door every month. For a fee, of course. The missus got a 3-month subscription for me as a birthday gift, and I’ve been sitting on the third crate for over a month waiting to do a video on it (much to her chagrin). It’s now come to pass. I like the Japan Crate crates quite a bit, to spoil the whole review right now. Update: In retrospect, I probably should have tried everything on camera, and then just edited out the uninteresting items. The stuff that I thought was root beer flavored hard candies were in fact … Continue reading

A company called Divine LEDs (now called Vont) got in touch with me out of the blue to ask if I’d be interested in doing a review of their Solar Motion Sensor Light. I said “sure”, but with the caveat that my review would be honest, good or bad. As it happens, I like this little light. It seems to be well designed, and does what it promises: Light up dimly when it gets dark, and then brightly when it detects motion. It has what looks like a LiPo cell inside that’s charged by the solar panel. Of course, only time will tell if the light is any good. I’ll save my final judgement until after it survives (or not) … Continue reading

The folks over at Creation Crate got in touch and asked me to do a review of their monthly electronics project subscription service. I like the whole “crate” concept, and I like electronics, so figured I’d go for it. This is an unboxing, review, and assembly of the whole thing, cut down to an unusually-short 16 minutes or so. Overall, I like the Creation Crate, though there are a couple of minor points with which I took issue. But if you’re looking for a gift that’s educational and fun (for those that find electronics to be fun, at any rate), then you could do a lot worse. I’m kinda basing this on my own childhood, but this seems like it … Continue reading

This is a quick very long video about two “smart” watches, one which isn’t all that smart and another which is more of a phone than a smartwatch. In case you want one for some reason, here’s where I got ‘em: Bluetooth U80 Smart Watch (AliExpress) KEN XIN DA W1 Smart Watch Phone (AliExpress) Don’t take those links as an endorsement, though I do kinda enjoy the Ken Xin Da watch for music and emergencies on the go.

A look at some possibly-fake random “NiMH” AA cells from AliExpress, comparing them to Panasonic Eneloop cells. From my somewhat limited testing, these little green guys had an actual capacity of about 342mAh, which is less than 10% of their claimed specification of 3800mAh (which is probably impossible anyhow for AA-sized NiMH cells. The part about them perhaps not being real NiMH cells? That’s not the weirdest thing. Unlike most of my AliExpress purchases, these shipped from The Netherlands, despite the seller being called Shenzhen DeKang International Trade.

I had been looking for a cheap and cheerful USB power supply for general charging of phones, tablets, and plenty of etcetera. Hence I ordered this ORICO 4-Port USB Charger with high hopes! I never have too much optimism when it comes to crap from AliExpress, but not only did this ship from California, it also seems to be a really good buy. Some of the testing I did on this was inspired by Clive at bigclive.com who does an absolutely obsessive number of teardowns on his YouTube channel. If you haven’t heard of him and you like that sort of this, give it a look! (Plus he has a much better accent than I do.) And finally, as promised … Continue reading

This video features a review and teardown of the Intel Mini PC G2 manufactured by — uhhh — Random Chinese Company 5000. Did it ship with tons of bloatware and malware? Is it too good to be true that it comes with a full copy of Windows 10? Are the specs worth a damn in the real world? Watch me ramble on about it to find out! If you want to buy this cylindrical masterpiece mediocrity, a link to the original AliExpress listing is below (which may be way out of date by the time you read this). Note that this is not an endorsement and I don’t receive one penny if you do end up buying it. http://www.aliexpress.com/item/In-stock-High-Quality-Windows-10-MINI-PC-Host-32G-Memory-Bay-Trail-CR-2-4G/32596403800.html Not … Continue reading

What follows is pretty much the script for the video. I mention this in case you have a sickening hatred for the medium of video, my voice, or are at work. Perhaps like you, I bought the Outtek charging stand for my night table. I usually charge overnight, and use my phone as my alarm. A stand like this would give me a much better view of the time and snooze/cancel controls in the morning. In the Amazon listing it looks quite sleek, and in person it doesn’t disappoint… too much. In real life it looks pretty good — though it lacks the luster of the pics in the listing, of course — but it also reminded me of one … Continue reading