I tried finding Hidden Gems on AliExpress AGAIN! (Part 9)

Those USB-C adapters will also perform the ID function on Dell and HP laptops. Most Dells will not charge if you simply give them the 19V they are looking for. It does a handshake with 1-Wire EEPROM to define charger capabilities. Those adapters will emulate that EEPROM. This will tell the laptop how much power to attempt to pull, and if it pulls more than the USB-C charger can deliver, the charger will cycle, as you experienced. Ive used it on a few. A smaller Inspiron that takes a 45W charger works fantastic. A big Precision workstation that uses a 180W charger will not charge the battery while turned on, as you experienced. I actually mounted one inside the Inspiron so I can just plug and USB-C PD charger into it. Very useful for having to switch between a MacBook Pro and a Windows computer.

The usbc barrel adapter can power anything that demands less than 100w. Using it daily with a dell laptop and a 45w gan charger.

I'm civil engineer who has a bit of experience with these two laser tapes. Both are great to work indoors but the Bosch one is way better at outside work cause it has a stronger laser pointer that doesn't get faded easily by sunlight. Also it seems more heavy duty and some people say (not me) that the AAA batteries are more reliable in field work because if it runs out of juice you can just change the batteries and keep going. In my experience the rechargeable cheaper one lasts way more than you need in a full shift of work, it is cheaper to maintain, easier to carry around just in case and more environmentally friendly. That is, the expensive one only outcasts the cheaper one if you need to measure great distances at direct sunlight.

The Aliexpress hidden gem series is awesome! So please continue it!

The problem of USB C laptop charger adapter is that most USB C power supplies trigger overload protection when total power riches maximum allowed. That is why you wasn't able to charge your powerful laptop, as the power to charge was about 65w and only 35w was left to power the laptop itself. Anyway the adapter can be used to power fully charged laptops (in the case of extending battery life from power bank) as fully charged laptops will drain the energy from the powerbank first (as charged batteries does not require power) than after the power bank emptied will use the battery.

From someone who had this charger for 3 years: It held up very well, but I've also seen some negative reviews of burned ones. Other than that: The UI sucks, because you cannot long press the button to change e.g. the charging current quickly. Meaning, if you want to change the current to 8.0A, you have to click that mushy button 80 times without EVER accidentally long pressing it, because then you have to press it 80 times again because the list always starts at 0. Secondly, when you are in Power Supply mode, you cannot have fast current jumps. When I power my Pinecil from it, it sometimes says overcurrent just because the current rises to fast. So don't put PWM LED strips on it or so. But for just static or mostly static power output it works just well. Generally, for Lipo charging, get the SkyRC B6 neo. Smaller, better UI and additional USB C power input. Not sure whether it has the DC-DC mode though.

8:18 "50 m without any walls in between" immediately goes outside and closes a sliding glass door XD

1:45 thanks for featuring my suggestion! Now i understand what they meant in the listing, time to get one.

I feel like giving the PD3.1 powerbank PCB negatives because it required a new trigger board and cable was wrong. It worked great with the PD3.0 compatible trigger and cabels that you had. That you required newer trigger boards and cables was a limitation of your tools, not the board, and will be true for everyting supporting PD3.1 per spec.

Wireless HDMI tranceivers would have been great to have at my previous job: I worked in a public research lab working on VR simulations for emergency response during crises. We would run demonstrations to various actors to show off the prototype (as we didn't have the funding nor the people to make a full-fledged application) and our demo room setup was constrained by the length of HDMI cables we had to mirror the simulation output onto large screens…

You can buy whole blowers with that motor, battery, USB-C charging for about 30 euros, I got one from amz to replace compressed air cans

For the wireless HDMI extenders, the answer is projector usage ;) if you have a two digit cable run going from our presenter table through the floor, wall and ceiling to the projector, those are awesome.

Love this series -- definitely will look into getting that charger (I have two decade-old ones, that are similar to yours).

13:40 for me having AAA batteries is actually advantage. Cause you can use the product for longer. Internal battery will degrade over time.

200mA Rx, 10mA Tx? Sure that's not backwards? Never heard of any system where the receiver uses more energy than the transmitter.

We need an episode where you show us how you find these things haha. I have tried numerous times to just go find random 'cool stuff' on ali express and just get greeted with pages of nonsense. Unless i search for exactly what i want, i won't stumble across any of this stuff

14:00 I wonder how long until we see “a little bit of wiggle room” in Chinese marketing material? 🤣

Good rule of thumb: if it looks too good to be true it probably is, but if it looks like a bargain, it probably is.

Super grateful for these series! Thank you! Word of caution about the iSDT Q8 and why i'm getting rid of mine... I bought three of them a while back and all of them have a problem where they deeply discharge one cell of the battery if the balance cable remains attached after charging finishes, even if the input power to the Q8 is removed. It's as if the last cell that it was balancing gets stuck in discharge mode. It also has an annoying auto-off timer if you're using it as a DC power supply that you can't turn off. It's my experience that issues like these don't tend to get fixed but i'd like to hear if your recent purchase is any different. I replaced them with the SkyRC B6 Neo which has none of those problems. Only downside is you don't have as many voltage options for balance charging and 1 of the fans out of 3 devices had a fan that needs replacing at some point.

I do love these when theres just hidden gems. As it brings more ideas to current projects i.e. BLDC cooling fan for 3D printer. Of course the bad products should be called out as well. I suggest you next time to also include some electronics tools for the next episode. Maybe building a basics electronics lab for cheap could be a branch from these series.