I got this Sandisk Pro-Dock 4 card reader holder and laptop dock a while back for a bargain, hoping it would be somewhat slapdash in its electronics such that I could “convert” it to be used as a simple USB 3 card reader apparatus. Turns out, it’s so Thunderbolt that Zeus himself is scared.

The engineers at Sandisk (and/or Western Digital) did an absolutely masterful job with this hardware, though the product appears to have been let down by poor software/driver support. It seems to be discontinued now, which is a shame.

In this video, I tear down the thing and check out its components. Relatively high-res photos of the two internal circuit boards:

I test out the USB ports on a couple of Addtam power strips, then for good measure I take them apart and lecture everyone about the importance of non-shite power strips. How fun?

I got this because it looked like a cool little project, and a neat (if tiny) gift for the missus. So that’s about the extent of my motivations. If you’re trying to put one of these together, I’m hoping that this video might answer a couple of your questions. It’s not really meant to be an educational video, though; More a demonstration of what’s involved in assembly for anyone considering a purchase. Speaking of which, if you want one you can pick one up for about 5 bucks over at banggood.com.

And in case you were wondering, this is not a paid advertisement. I actually paid them for this thing, so it’s pretty much the opposite. (If this kit were complete crap I would tell you.)

2D Version

3D Version

For viewing with Google Cardboard, Samsung Gear VR, Rift, etc.

A couple of people have rightly told me that you can just set a 3D video to 2D viewing mode, and therefore don’t need to upload 2 versions of the same video.

There are a couple of problems with simply uploading one 3D video, however:

• Because the two sides of the video are compressed horizontally, viewing it in 2D stretches one of the “eyes” to full screen. That means it’s much lower quality with half the horizontal resolution versus a regular 2D version.
• As far as I can see, YouTube defaults to anaglyph (red/blue) mode when browsing 3D videos on a regular monitor. That’s a potential turn-off for any viewer that doesn’t know about the switch to view it in 2D instead.

If I’m off base here, please let me know. I’m still learning this whole 3D creation process.

This one went up on the ol’ Extras channel because, to be completely honest, it’s not a very good video.

I know you might ask, then why bother uploading it at all? Or, why not re-shoot it?

Good questions, and ones I ask myself. But I figure that a) there’s a lot of worse crap on YouTube anyway, and b) it’s not really worth re-shooting because the subject matter is never exactly gonna be thrilling. This is a bit of a tangent, but here’s why I’m making YouTube videos in general: Because I like making videos.

I don’t so much like being on camera, though. I like planning, lighting, camera setups, editing, and all the little stuff in between. So reviewing a random piece of crap from AliExpress is just a vehicle for video production.

I also used to be a big-time perfectionist, and that would stop me from getting anything done. A few years ago I’d never have been able to release this video, and I would have driven myself crazy over it.

So now you get to sit through a sh|tty video in the interest of my self-improvement. And that’s the internet.

I decided to start another YouTube channel. Not because my main channel was getting out of hand, but because I want to bang out a bunch of quick videos just to get practice. And also there’s stuff that I cut out of some of my main videos that I wanted to share.

Annywhoo.. This video is about an Anker Powerline+ USB cable that came in a needlessly elaborate package.