CORRECTION!: After testing the cable stripping knifes, I realized that I had the perfect tool for it laying around. It is this one (also from Jokari, affiliate link): amzn.to/40ZBzWk No idea why I completely ignored it until now. Mistakes happen😅
Would adding a cap to the output on the power supplies be enough to squash the noise? That would be a good video as well. Fixing the output ripple on them.
Yes, I also taught abot that. It was probably more the shrinktube (which also has glue on the inside), than the solder holding those wires together. It showed reasonably good result on the resistance test thogh. But clean copper on copper contact always have low resistance - the problem is after some time with moving the cables and with some oxidation. If done properly, it will be a nice solid connection that doesn't degrade over time.
I actually use these quite often, and you’re right, in theory, you are suppose to heat up the solder more to completely melt it. But, in order to do that, you end up melting the wire insulation all around it which exposes the wire and negates the purpose of the connector. So it’s kind of a balancing act.
The little yellow stripper is designed to RJ45 wallsocket installation. The little metal part at the end is for stuff the wires into the contacts. It's just an accessory of an RJ45 crimper.
I would like to see if the output voltages would have stabilized with a simple electrolytic capacitor. It feels like they didn't even try to smooth the output and could be something done DIY?
I use the last one a lot, at least the controller part. Hooked it up to a 18V Bosch battery and use it for small electronic projects. Also perfect as you can see how much power your project draws. Way cheaper than a bench power supply and even portable :) Even used it to diagnose a broken windshieldwiper pump on my car :)
@MrMario616 This device is a switching (Buck) voltage converter, to get a more quiet output you need to place a linear voltage converter after it and of course noise absorbing capacitors, nowadays this get's done often because the overall conversion loses less heat than a full linear voltage converter. b.t.w. if you hook this up to a battery, then there is no noise as it is DC, the noise is the zero cross component of the AC source
of course, capacitors alone will not do the job, you need resistors too, go find the topic of explaining about rc filters here on youtube, but in the end you need to think about if you want to filter high or low frequencies, in audio you often want low frequencies filtered agains hum in the audio, and in computer related circuits you need to filter frequencies that interfere with device working frequencies to keep clean address and data busses.
The search is terrible. Often, instead of telling me there’s anything that matches my research, it shows me things I’ve already searched for in the recent past.
A side note on those small psu modules: 4-5 years ago when they started to get popular, Dave from EEVBlog made a couple of videos abut them. For the smaller DPS3003 he mesaured around 100-120mVp-p, for the RIDEN RD6006 he measured the noise levels being "at about 60mVp-p no load and about 100mVp-p at 6A". My point is that it matters which one you buy, I have 2 of these now and I bought them from their official shop and these perform based on Daves testing quite well, much better than the offbrand one you tried. Source: th-cam.com/video/Cw2AjcczHg4/w-d-xo.html
8:02 The grey one is mostly for coaxial cables. If you look inside of it you'll see that it has 2 blades. One cuts the outer insulation and the other cuts the inner insulation. The 2nd blade also has a small divot that the copper wire in the center goes through. The reason you cut coaxial cables with 2 different depths is so the end piece fits on perfectly.
Try to test the output with the short spring provided with the oscilloscope probes. Never try to measure noise or ripple with the black alligator clip because it is a long un-shielded wire that will pick up lots of noises that are not there. Although, the noise on that looks like the output has very little capacitance filtering and we can see the switchnode directly.
The shrinkable wire connectors look interesting, I have never seen those. Great if you only want to connect one or two cables and do not want to get out the soldering station. Plus, the heatshrink adds an additional layer of protection. Maybe I will order a pack :-)
The thing he missed but is present in the description - it's recommended to use a reflector nozzle for best results. I remember another TH-camr has had problems joining wires without it.
I use the grey/brown stripping tool with the orange insert all the time. It is SPECIFICALLY designed for stripping coaxial cables. It's not a generic cable stripper. If you were having poor results with it on normal cables where you only want to strip a jacket that is a few mm thick, I'm not in the least bit surprised. You wouldn't use a hammer to peel an orange, and you wouldn't use a knife to drive in a nail. Use the tool for what it's intended and you'll get way better results. The coax stripper is also only designed to cut the insulation and the dielectric. You must not use it to pull the material off the cable - do that separately by hand. It's easy once the cuts have been made. If you try to pull it off with the tool, you'll damage it. Changing sizes is intended for situations where you normally strip one size (say, RG6) but occasionally need to do a bit of RG59, for example. If you're doing a lot of both, get two tools and leave them set up differently.
@@greatscottlab I think you need to heat them a bit longer though. The ring of solder will fully melt and then the heat shrink squeezes the wires and solder together. I don't try to twist the wires if that is what you were trying to do. Just push them into each other. I suspect it will hold the solid wire too if you melt it longer, but haven't tried it myself. Either way they are a great product, particularly for cars and other outdoor wiring.
I've used the heatshrinks a lot for 12V wiring inside my glider. They are a joy to work with. I didn't twist the wires though. Tip: if you shrink them from the outside inward, you trap the solder nicely inside. If you then melt the solder core, it spreads out a bit and you have a lot of contact area.
Hey Scott, I just wanted to let you know that I think there was a translation error in this. It should be activated Carbon/Charcoal and not activated coal for the filter. Coal is the Oily/Tarry stuff from the ground. Charcoal is just made from burning carbon rich stuff like wood.
I love this series. Thank you for doing it. This has been my findings as well. Some items are amazing treasures and others are pure trash. I wish all the products had impartial reviews on them.
Theoretically you can solder extra sockets in parallel to existing sockets, it just takes longer to charge and the cell voltages have to match with 0,1V accuracy before inserting cells. And with output noise you can filter out by using low ESR capacitors and smaller ceramic capacitors in parallel at the output._
Rohde & Schwarz have some of the lowest noise floor spectrum analyzers last I knew. Ducting for the fan intake so the fan is slightly up higher along with the top of the duct and extra side width? Those UPS 18650 boards are great for solar cells or panels for use with devices like older models that use the AA or AAA where the only improvement beside the noise issue on that design is having like an adjustable output so those other buck boost modules aren't required to bypass the alkaline battery inputs.
The recomended method measuring dcdcs is to set 20MHz bw limit and to test it at the output capacitor terminals. I see big huge ground loop at 10:10. There are springs attachable to gnd of probe and the hook must be removed exposing the sharp probe. Area of this loop thus transformer effect is 30-100x smaller. Just see "correct methods of measuring dcdc output noise"
Some very interesting items in this review. At 6:38 I believe that filter material is PAN carbon felt and not 'activated coal'. It is a good idea to use as a filter as you recommend. Apparently, if you can find it, PAN graphite felt has better electrostatic properties than PAN carbon felt, but as lead is a diamagnetic material, it probably does not matter for filtering smoke from soldering. As it is commonly offered in different thickness, I will probably use 3mm as the filter, as the other sizes may be too thick to allow airflow. I used the link to order some of those fans for cooling LED COB grow light builds. Also I ordered some of those strippers, but I found another seller with a higher feedback rating that has a stainless version so I went with that. And as a last observation, I recall that Big Clive did a deep dive into those heatshrink wire connectors that may be of interest to some.
As the beginning of my PhD work (in the field of experimental high energy physics), I designed a boost power supply that will be providing bias voltage to silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs). The output voltage is adjustable from 49 to 58 V, with a 3.3V input (1mA max current). Since the gain of an SiPM strongly depends on the biasing voltage and temperature, a very precise power supply has to be used. Our target is to reach a noise level of 0.01V peak to peak, and even lower. Also the design goal is to measure the output current in tens of nanoAmp order accuracy! We are still working on it, and will hopefully publish my first research paper soon. My point here is that designing a switch mode power supply is easy. You choose the right components, design the schematic and PCB following the guidelines given in the datasheets, and get it manufactured. That's what I thought initially. Then I measured the noise levels, and it was a disaster. It's really difficult to get the switching noise out, especially at higher voltages. Trust me, I learnt it the hard way. There is no surprise that the power supply modules showed terrible noise levels.
You should make a video where you try to improve the adjustable power supply module to get rid of some of its noise. I have a slightly older version of it and could really benefit from such an improvement :)
Also, I kinda want to make a request because you are the only TH-camr I know that goes over AliExpress. Please test products on a seller basis too, for example there are a lot of electronics products that are branded TZT, but I can’t find anything about it online. Their products seem good, but they also offer very cheap transistors, so I wonder if they’re legit.
I'd like to see a similar board with more cell capacity so you could use it in projects as a power source. Imagine building a portable Bluetooth speaker, LED flashlight or any other project that needs portability. Just take this board, load it up with as many batteries as you wish and you've got a 5/12v power source that has USB recharging and over discharge protection. Of course, it wouldn't be viable for huge battery packs, but if you just wanted to power something small like 5-10W, you wouldn't have to mess around with a BMS, at least 2 buck/boost converters and hell of a lot of wire to get the same functionality as this one.
@@BerkmanLord Well, the best way to answer that would be to try it out. But I think it would be possible - it's just a question of how far are you willing to go with it? Most USB devices will function with this, as is. Hooking up a small capacitor/LC filter onto it might make it technically better but you wouldn't notice any real changes. I wouldn't use this for something sensitive, like audio amplifiers or medical devices, but if you intend to use it as an UPS for your router or some LED lights etc it should work just as fine.
@@lazar2175 what about if you were wanting to use it with something like a wyze cam? i already bought one not really knowing the difference but there is very limited options out there when it comes to something like a 5v UPS. this one just happen to look really convenient.
I bought some of the 18650 battery holders that had the built in chargers. I tested them with motion sensors on arduinos with wifi, and stuck them around the house. They did a great job. Of course, I did not check them on a scope for output ripple, but then again, I didn't buy the cheapest available either. I have used the solder filled butt joints for decades. I found that those with a bit of flux in them work much better, but again, they are not the cheapest available. When properly heated, you will not see the solder ring impression in the plastic any more. For the buck converters, I would only use those if I had a 12v supply in the project, and needed minimal 5v for running an arduino or a LCD. I wouldn't try to use them near max current load. If anything, I would add a couple filter caps to it and be done with it. Great reviews. It's cool to see some of the more useful items are still out there.
great stuff like always man!!! You know @GreatScott, you could do a follow up series where you get some of this products that almost could be very good and try to improve them, like the ups and the power supply, for exemple, making a adicional pcb to smooth the output, or change some components to make it usable. I would love to see something like that!!!
I use the heat shrink solder connecters on a daily basis. I'm an security technician and work a lot with small wires mostly around 0.6mm2. The connecters are amazing, they are tiny compared to other connecters and if I solder the wire together myself. I haven't had a problem with hard wires, maybe you need to heat it more, I tend to use a lighter, it's a bit easier to carry around. And for small wires you can connect multiple, I've connected up to 4 wires in a connecter.
I'd really be interested in more LED videos. There are so many options and so many small components that differ that can make the difference between buying or not that people just don't realize
the yellow tool is actually a punchdown tool (to connect telecom and network wiring in punchdown blocks), the wire stripping bit is almost an afterthought, and it shows. (the punchdown part is also pretty meh, but it's better than trying to punch cables in with the tip of a knife or a screwdriver.) For a few euro more, there are very nice punchdown tools, but I haven't needed mine since I got out of IT/Networking.
About the intro: that’s no mistery. Most people on AE leave reviews upon receiving, without even testing what they got. The Q&A section is always a dumpster fire, so that’s at least a great way to entertain yourself.
It's nice to see an electronics TH-cam channel using a fume extractor. Activated Charcoal filters are great. Breathing is important, so I approve your use of a fume extractor when soldering.
2 things. 1: The shrink-flex tube is better than you give it credit for. First off make sure the solder melts completely. ALSO - there is no good way to bind solid core wires - HOWEVER - use a pair of pliers to flatten both ends and give it an uneven surface to bind to, then add a tiny bit of solder in between and melt it, - now heat up the shrink-flex - make sure the solder melts - and now try it. Should hold up a lot better. Also a trick when using these with thin/flimsy wires: spread the core stands out on both ends. put them together so there basically only the length of the solder between the covered ends (the rubberized parts) of the wire. push the core strands down on the OUTSIDE of the wire. Twist half a rotation so you create "more grip" for the solder - but not enough to break fragile core strands. Place shrink-flex on top and shrink it (can be fiddly. use tongs to make it easier.) This will joint will now most likely be the strongest part of the wire - especially with thin/flimsy wires. (Sorry not a native English speaker - The point with this method is to create more friction area before failure of solder joint. this method ensures that you will need to actually tare the solder or rip apart the core strands to cause a failure - instead of the "normal" way where you can easily get a failure due to lack of friction/binding.) 2: That UPS is probably not meant for the "general public" - but rather designed for a specific device at some point - since "fixing it" would be very cheap. However it looks to be a very durable design which is why I'm thinking it's an industrial product. Never the less - it will work with most products even with that noise since most "high quality" products are made to tolerate "dirty power".
The solder heat-shrink connectors are great. While the instructions have you twist the wires, that is not actually necessary. The heat-shrink provides more than enough mechanical force to prevent the soldered wires from coming part.
I actually recommend the small yellow wire stripper. I use it all the time. Ive had mine for years and no cracks like yours. I think you may need to learn how it works , perhaps. If you put It on the wire, make sure it's one below the wire gauge. Use your master index finger to spin it around. Spin until the shell is cut. I use it for cat 5 all the time.
You can most certainly splice more than two wires together with the solder sleeves, and they're also good for hooking up a drain wire to a shielded cable. Also, you didn't heat them up long enough; the solder was not done flowing. There are much much higher quality solder sleeves available from Raychem and TE, but they're also much more expensive.
Fun fact: You can turn any USB power bank into a UPS with only two diodes and a male to female usb cable (or whatever connector type you want.) It works because when power is supplied, the power bank automatically cuts power output as it starts charging, when power supply drops out, bank is no longer charging so provides power. The diodes are used to prevent the power supply from powering the output of the bank and to prevent the bank from charging itself.
First, that >10 MHz ringing on the power supply outputs might be due to your probe's ground loop and coax impedance mismatch. Second, proper bench supplies' outputs have linear regulation even when their intermediate voltage is supplied by smps. This accounts for some of their bulk and cost. Third, RLC smoothing at the outputs would greatly blunt the hf components due to the fast edges. I like the idea and the additional board space of a 3-4 cell unit could address these 'faults' and add max voltage and energy endurance. A stackable enclosure would add convenience when deploying them in concert.
8:45 interesting. Got the grey one and love it. I actually never change the tool size, as everything small is stripped by the automatical wire stripper plyers, so only large cables are stripped with the grey tool :) I selected the "6" setting on it (largest diameter), put the blade to B and the spring to C and adjusted the screws to 1.88mm (blade) and 2.0 mm for the spring. Hope that helps.
I actually use one of those yellow strippers all the time. Works great for the very small range of wires it is suited for, I think I bought 5 for $5 or something (since it is Ali, getting 1 was about the same price and quality issues..). Not to say there are not better options, but they work for me :)
The wago connectors have a totally different use case than the self soldering splices. Wagos are for changeable connections and are mostly used for building electrical systems. The splices are to splice wires permanently for repairs or changes, so the better comparison would be crimpable splices. I have even seen them (well not from Aliexpress, but the same type) used in avionics, so they should be good and reliable if the quality is okay.
8:00 the stripping tools were probably misleading announcements, or even worse, subverted manufacturing... The first tiny yellow one is usually bundled with RJ-11/RJ-45 crimping tools, and the "grey one" is usually meant for different sizes of coaxial cables (it usually carries two blades, with center indents to allow for the central core to pass-through) - thus the "6" position would actually strip an RG-6 cable perfectly, ready to insert into a crimping lead...
Just a heads up on thosetrippers. The yellow one is made strictly for UTP data cables and nothing else. It works really well actually for its price. The grey one is made specifically for stripping coax cable. And it also works suprisingly well for the money. The red one is made for scrapping cable. Also works well for its purpose. If you want a tool to strip all kinds of shielding, a knife would be the best bet. Sadly there are no universal solutions as insulation thicknesses vary with different cables.
I ended up with one of those little yellow wire strippers in a kit of solid core wire, and I love the thing. So much easier than my old strippers. It's really only good for small wires, but it's pretty good for that.
Yeah, I use mine for CAT-5/6 cables, and it works great. The plastic hinge only applies a small amount of force on the blade, so I spin it a few times and the outer jacket pulls off with no nicks on the twisted pairs. Cheap and effective.
I downloaded and translated part of the datasheet for the LED IC. What's weird is that it's ALMOST exactly the same protocol as WS2812b. They're both RTZ signals at 800Kbps. The timing thresholds between lows and highs are slightly different but NEARLY compatible with each other. The FL1903 needs a relatively long reset of 200µs between chunks, but that's still in spec for WS2812. Besides that, the difference is the order that the colours are specified. R, G, B instead of G, R, B for WS2812. Should be really simple to get this working with existing LED controller software, but as someone else already commented: why did they bother with a different signalling protocol that's almost, but not quite identical to WS2812, and certainly has no improvements like increased data rate, improved colour resolution or built-in brightness scaling.
I regularly use Raychem solder sleeves for multi core shielded wire and have none of the issues you mentioned. The Raychem sleeves do have flux in them and we use teflon insulated wire. It looks you didn't get it hot enough for the solder to melt in a few of them.
I love those solder connectors and actually just used some to connect 3 wires together. If you don't require the fully waterproof part, they still work good for that.
Another great video, I love this series! I myself use a lot of ws281x pixel LEDs, and I'm not sure why anyone would break from such a mainstream protocol. I came up with a similar solution for a soldering fume-extractor: Cheap PC Fan on a regular 9V battery, with pre-cut 120mm Carbon Filter suctioned to the fan's grille. If you're just doing a small bit of soldering, it's extremely compact and works very well.
WS281x protocol is useful up to a specific number of LEDs and the frequency used. For bigger and more flexible installations you need APA102 or something else. WS281x is also limited to RGB, there is no RGBW (SK6812 or TM 1814 needed) or other variants.
HI, the jokari you left out is the absolute best for stripping large section cables, in fact it was one of the equipment of ENEL operating personnel, its blade, adjustable in depth, at least in the model I had, very similar to that of a deburring tool, can turn 90° on itself allowing radial cuts (to separate the part of the sheath to be removed) and simply by pulling the cable, cut the sheath longitudinally to be able to remove it easily. The fume extractor fan works, ok but whoever has never disassembled an ATX power supply casts the first stone and if he has thrown away the internal fan he really has no idea what recycling is; it will be at 12V and therefore at 5V it will turn slowly but maybe it's even better this way: we don't need a hurricane! ciao and I see You next videos
Those wire connectors are similar to what they used in ww2 to repair wires in the field. Was basically the same and would join the wires in a moment... very useful when under fire.
Yeah I’ve bought a couple of those 18650 power boards before, and I’m not sure that they are the exact ones that’s you tested, but the ones I got overheated really fast. I think those are a good idea though because I’ve got a bunch of 18650’s just laying around and would love to find a power board that takes those abs outputs to either USB or solder points.
Those heat gun wire connectors work even better if you dab a little bit of flux onto the naked wires beforehand. The solder completely liquifies and fills up the entire cavity. Usable either way, of course.
For the wire connector you can use heat shrink jackets to increase their diameter and make a better seal. Works even with solid wires. My favorite solution to stich two wires together
I've heard those solder sleeves (and soldered connections in general) can be bad for automotive applications because motion of the wires can cause breakage from the solder stiffening the wire. I believe regular crimp connectors are preferred.
12:23 what was the price of the thing you compared the 25€ powersupply to? :) are they world apart in regards for value per money given? or are there similarly priced things that have better quality in the output?
5:49 It work perfectly fine as long as you do as supposed by letting the solder completely liquefy and wick the cables! that is the reason it did not work since you can clearly see that solder didn't attached to the wire since it never had time to or more the temperature was so low or dirty wire.
That grey wire stripper is likely meant for coax cable, not really anything else. It should have 2 blades - one to do the outer and one for the inner. The spacing between the blades is fairly common across lots of coax connector types. And you're meant to adjust it for your cable type and leave it set. I keep one set up for RG6 and another for RG58... And I wrote that one them.
I ❤ this series. It gives ideas about the new modules in our market and give us info about which one is legit or fake. Waiting for more like this content 😊
That yellow wire stripper... I used it once, it was a very spesific tool, used to connect cat cables to the female receivers that goes in the wall. Never tried using it as a wire stripper though 😁
I have a few tools for Cat 5, but I use the yellow one most often, it is quick, easy to use once you get the feel of it an easy first choice for speed and consistency. No issues with quality as it's light use. Only does one job but does it well!
thank you for another helpful video! one suggestion though: when showing the noise on the dso, try to keep the same v/div range, otherwise it looks like the cheap power supply is only slightly worse than the high-end one.
Fun fact the solder heat shrink exists since WWII, it was done by a chemical reaction(you basically strike it like a matchstick or with one) to heat up the solder.
Hey Scott, i have a question about heat shrink connectors and i would like to get answer :D Everytime i see them i can see that they connect wires, but soldering is not the best, so have you maybe tried using some flux on the wires so solder could flow better and also bond better? As i can see on many videos they bond mostly on the surface and can't get proper penetration inside wires, which is big bummer for me, because they look really nice and are handy for many applications. Thanks for answer.
10:26 Yea but majority of ppl have no idea of anything, if it works it works, if it make havok with whatever you put it to they will notice when their thing breaks one day du to this.
I use the cheap power supplies like that. They work great if you don’t care about the noise. Half the time I’m just using them as lithium chargers, so that doesn’t care about noise. None of my other projects have gotten to the point where i would notice the noise. So I like them a lot. The high wattage output is great.
Would there be a way to clean up the noise from the output of the buck converter boards and turn it into a more functional cheap lab bench power supply?
Those grey wire stripper tools have been available in home improvement stores in the USA for at least 20 years. Over here, they're common and cheap without resorting to Aliexpress.
You've done many videos on things like power supplies, power banks, buck converters and such as this to prove a DIY 5v/12v UPS can be made easy and do a better job. The cost may actually be comparable as well.
Iam currently using heat shrink wire connectors from Berner (they cost more but they are a lot stiffer than cheaper). 2 years of use in truck repair jobs (especially lights, also not recomended CAN network and ABS sensors - without any problem). They can withstand a lot and iam a big cheater, i dont twist the wires, i simply slide them together in shrink tube and melt solder and glue with heatgun and its done. They still can hold pretty big forces like that.
Could you test/review some of the various workbench adjustable DC power supplies found on AlliExpress? I really want one, but there are so many and I don't want to waste the ~$50 they cost. Love this series so much!
the low voltage protection on your ups doesnt mean its bad at all, it just does mean it doesnt protect, all the components on the 5v ups are ones that are also found on desktop gpus, modern ones. they will be DAMN good at transforming power. its one phase for 13watts, gpus have 8 phases for 300w, this is genuinely a safe product.
and the psu had all cheap caps around it that screamed "we arent japanese" yet you only scolded it for its noise and even touched the caps without any warning for viewers, those 470uf caps arent gonna do danger at such low spec voltage but a cap can kill. you have 1,8m subs, teach them something and dont just go by your labs standards and the thought of "i know how not to die anyway" also, output voltage noise in both cases really is NOT important. what do you intent to do with a cheapo aliexpress psu? power up a small scale radio station?
The UPS that you mentioned at 8:40, I wonder if you had considered measuring the output after adding another low ESR capacitor in parallel on the output? I recall you mentioned adding a linear regulator (possibly on a different video about this UPS board?) but many projects don't need power that well regulated, and a linear regulator is a fairly large commitment to make on something battery powered (if/when serving its purpose). It almost seems like, that at the very least, it would be more efficient to just add more capacitance and then if the voltage spike is troubling, to zener diode shunt that to ground above whatever voltage # that you find troubling? Also did you make it clear at what output current the ripple is so large? I would not expect most people to buy that if they actually needed to power a 3A load, more likely some lesser current would be more common like around 1A if even that.
These heat shrink things can be really usefull when you just want to connect 2 wires together and dont want to pull out your soldering iron for just a simple task. Also you can pick them locally cuz theyre really common
![ลองสุ่มไอโฟน 990 โกงมั้ย? [ โกงมั้ยครับ ep.101 ] | DOM](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/bfsWe0j492k/mqdefault.jpg)
CORRECTION!: After testing the cable stripping knifes, I realized that I had the perfect tool for it laying around. It is this one (also from Jokari, affiliate link): amzn.to/40ZBzWk
No idea why I completely ignored it until now. Mistakes happen😅
Would adding a cap to the output on the power supplies be enough to squash the noise? That would be a good video as well. Fixing the output ripple on them.
Id love to See more 1865 UPS or other circuits involvong them
The solder didn't melt. You need to add more heat.
That's the tool I use at work they're fantastic for stripping multi core outer sheathing.
Can you feature digital fingernail clippers?
You need to heat the solder sleeves more. The solder should melt almost completely so you have a good solder connection :)
I also don't bother pre twisting the wires. Just twist the wires back and forth to get the solder moving around and it will look completely solid
Yeah that annoyed me too. Needs to be hotter.
There's only so much heat you can put in the solder-bead using hot hair through a plastic sleeve... each wire you try to solder acts as a heat-sink.
Yes, I also taught abot that. It was probably more the shrinktube (which also has glue on the inside), than the solder holding those wires together. It showed reasonably good result on the resistance test thogh. But clean copper on copper contact always have low resistance - the problem is after some time with moving the cables and with some oxidation. If done properly, it will be a nice solid connection that doesn't degrade over time.
I actually use these quite often, and you’re right, in theory, you are suppose to heat up the solder more to completely melt it. But, in order to do that, you end up melting the wire insulation all around it which exposes the wire and negates the purpose of the connector. So it’s kind of a balancing act.
The little yellow stripper is designed to RJ45 wallsocket installation. The little metal part at the end is for stuff the wires into the contacts. It's just an accessory of an RJ45 crimper.
I love them for work. I don't even take my proper punch-down tool anymore, this just does it in the palm of my hand.
I would like to see if the output voltages would have stabilized with a simple electrolytic capacitor. It feels like they didn't even try to smooth the output and could be something done DIY?
It seems like enough capacitance was there. Probably not ideal inductor and or pcb layout.
Yes please...see what it would take to clean up the output volts
@@greatscottlab Any thoughts on making 5/12 V ups diy?
@@greatscottlab Are you sure, that the same error as here: th-cam.com/video/gpwkiJC5hfU/w-d-xo.html hasn't happened in this video?
I would suggest a LC filter, but I don't really know if it would do anything.
The grey stripper is a coaxial cable stripper, it’s not intended for general stripping.
Yeah it seems unfair to not recommend a wire stripper because of the limited wire gauge range.
Exactly what I was coming here to comment on. It is a specialist tool and does its specific job very well.
Was about to say the same. It’s a great tool for what it’s designed for.
I use the last one a lot, at least the controller part.
Hooked it up to a 18V Bosch battery and use it for small electronic projects. Also perfect as you can see how much power your project draws.
Way cheaper than a bench power supply and even portable :)
Even used it to diagnose a broken windshieldwiper pump on my car :)
Thanks for the feedback. Sounds useful
I was wondering how much better you could get the output to look it you slapped on some condensations and spools?
@MrMario616 This device is a switching (Buck) voltage converter, to get a more quiet output you need to place a linear voltage converter after it and of course noise absorbing capacitors, nowadays this get's done often because the overall conversion loses less heat than a full linear voltage converter.
b.t.w. if you hook this up to a battery, then there is no noise as it is DC, the noise is the zero cross component of the AC source
@@BasBurger-o5pHi! Can I use capacitors between ac-dc converter and this one dc-dc to filter noice? Thanks
of course, capacitors alone will not do the job, you need resistors too, go find the topic of explaining about rc filters here on youtube, but in the end you need to think about if you want to filter high or low frequencies, in audio you often want low frequencies filtered agains hum in the audio, and in computer related circuits you need to filter frequencies that interfere with device working frequencies to keep clean address and data busses.
Aliexpress is terrible to navigate. This series needs to be supported.
True. It is hard to find the good stuff.
Aliexpress have power to make every ad into sextoy ad.
Yeah, though its definitely manageable if you been there for quite sometime unlike some other site(e-commerce or not) that I've experienced
The search is terrible. Often, instead of telling me there’s anything that matches my research, it shows me things I’ve already searched for in the recent past.
@@iXenox well the sorting system on AE is bad anyways, so I might give it a shot. Thanks!
A side note on those small psu modules: 4-5 years ago when they started to get popular, Dave from EEVBlog made a couple of videos abut them. For the smaller DPS3003 he mesaured around 100-120mVp-p, for the RIDEN RD6006 he measured the noise levels being "at about 60mVp-p no load and about 100mVp-p at 6A". My point is that it matters which one you buy, I have 2 of these now and I bought them from their official shop and these perform based on Daves testing quite well, much better than the offbrand one you tried.
Source: th-cam.com/video/Cw2AjcczHg4/w-d-xo.html
I love Rhode & Schwartz TH-cam vidéos. They helped me when I was doing EM Fields and TM Line class.
good tip about the rohde and schwartz youtube videos. and I love these hidden gem type videos !
8:02 The grey one is mostly for coaxial cables. If you look inside of it you'll see that it has 2 blades. One cuts the outer insulation and the other cuts the inner insulation. The 2nd blade also has a small divot that the copper wire in the center goes through. The reason you cut coaxial cables with 2 different depths is so the end piece fits on perfectly.
Try to test the output with the short spring provided with the oscilloscope probes. Never try to measure noise or ripple with the black alligator clip because it is a long un-shielded wire that will pick up lots of noises that are not there. Although, the noise on that looks like the output has very little capacitance filtering and we can see the switchnode directly.
The shrinkable wire connectors look interesting, I have never seen those. Great if you only want to connect one or two cables and do not want to get out the soldering station. Plus, the heatshrink adds an additional layer of protection. Maybe I will order a pack :-)
Go for it👍 I like them.
I wonder how did you get early access to this video ? 🍓
The thing he missed but is present in the description - it's recommended to use a reflector nozzle for best results. I remember another TH-camr has had problems joining wires without it.
@@LabArlyn Patreons get early access to videos.
@@RicoElectrico Thanks for the info. Sounds reasonable, since the solder probably requires higher temperature to melt correctly.
I use the grey/brown stripping tool with the orange insert all the time. It is SPECIFICALLY designed for stripping coaxial cables. It's not a generic cable stripper. If you were having poor results with it on normal cables where you only want to strip a jacket that is a few mm thick, I'm not in the least bit surprised. You wouldn't use a hammer to peel an orange, and you wouldn't use a knife to drive in a nail. Use the tool for what it's intended and you'll get way better results.
The coax stripper is also only designed to cut the insulation and the dielectric. You must not use it to pull the material off the cable - do that separately by hand. It's easy once the cuts have been made. If you try to pull it off with the tool, you'll damage it. Changing sizes is intended for situations where you normally strip one size (say, RG6) but occasionally need to do a bit of RG59, for example. If you're doing a lot of both, get two tools and leave them set up differently.
I'd love to see more dc-dc power supplies tested. They make buck-boost converters as well which can take the input voltage and step it up or down
The UPS looks like a really cool item, can you try to find one that is actually quite? Or how would you solve the noise issue?
The link doesn't work anymore :( really wanted one
I love this hidden gems videos. I have been looking at those Heat Shrinkable Wire Connectors myself, so I will definitely get a set of those.
Glad you like them!
@@greatscottlab I think you need to heat them a bit longer though. The ring of solder will fully melt and then the heat shrink squeezes the wires and solder together. I don't try to twist the wires if that is what you were trying to do. Just push them into each other. I suspect it will hold the solid wire too if you melt it longer, but haven't tried it myself.
Either way they are a great product, particularly for cars and other outdoor wiring.
I've used the heatshrinks a lot for 12V wiring inside my glider. They are a joy to work with. I didn't twist the wires though.
Tip: if you shrink them from the outside inward, you trap the solder nicely inside. If you then melt the solder core, it spreads out a bit and you have a lot of contact area.
Hey Scott, I just wanted to let you know that I think there was a translation error in this. It should be activated Carbon/Charcoal and not activated coal for the filter.
Coal is the Oily/Tarry stuff from the ground. Charcoal is just made from burning carbon rich stuff like wood.
Looked it up, the German word “Kohle” means carbon, coal, and charcoal. So perhaps in German you’d just understand by context.
I love this series. Thank you for doing it. This has been my findings as well. Some items are amazing treasures and others are pure trash. I wish all the products had impartial reviews on them.
I would really like to see one of those "UPS" boards that you can load up with at least 6 cells (minus the noise 😆)
I will see what I can find ;-)
I got one with 4...but it causes my RPi4 to stop working after a bit...too much noise on the output...needs much better filtering/smoothing
@@greatscottlab Can't you just add a capacitor or two on the output?
@@onix331 He probably just measured wrong. Impedance matching is a real thing.
Theoretically you can solder extra sockets in parallel to existing sockets, it just takes longer to charge and the cell voltages have to match with 0,1V accuracy before inserting cells. And with output noise you can filter out by using low ESR capacitors and smaller ceramic capacitors in parallel at the output._
Rohde & Schwarz have some of the lowest noise floor spectrum analyzers last I knew.
Ducting for the fan intake so the fan is slightly up higher along with the top of the duct and extra side width?
Those UPS 18650 boards are great for solar cells or panels for use with devices like older models that use the AA or AAA where the only improvement beside the noise issue on that design is having like an adjustable output so those other buck boost modules aren't required to bypass the alkaline battery inputs.
The recomended method measuring dcdcs is to set 20MHz bw limit and to test it at the output capacitor terminals. I see big huge ground loop at 10:10. There are springs attachable to gnd of probe and the hook must be removed exposing the sharp probe. Area of this loop thus transformer effect is 30-100x smaller. Just see "correct methods of measuring dcdc output noise"
Some very interesting items in this review. At 6:38 I believe that filter material is PAN carbon felt and not 'activated coal'. It is a good idea to use as a filter as you recommend. Apparently, if you can find it, PAN graphite felt has better electrostatic properties than PAN carbon felt, but as lead is a diamagnetic material, it probably does not matter for filtering smoke from soldering. As it is commonly offered in different thickness, I will probably use 3mm as the filter, as the other sizes may be too thick to allow airflow. I used the link to order some of those fans for cooling LED COB grow light builds. Also I ordered some of those strippers, but I found another seller with a higher feedback rating that has a stainless version so I went with that. And as a last observation, I recall that Big Clive did a deep dive into those heatshrink wire connectors that may be of interest to some.
As the beginning of my PhD work (in the field of experimental high energy physics), I designed a boost power supply that will be providing bias voltage to silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs). The output voltage is adjustable from 49 to 58 V, with a 3.3V input (1mA max current). Since the gain of an SiPM strongly depends on the biasing voltage and temperature, a very precise power supply has to be used. Our target is to reach a noise level of 0.01V peak to peak, and even lower. Also the design goal is to measure the output current in tens of nanoAmp order accuracy! We are still working on it, and will hopefully publish my first research paper soon.
My point here is that designing a switch mode power supply is easy. You choose the right components, design the schematic and PCB following the guidelines given in the datasheets, and get it manufactured. That's what I thought initially. Then I measured the noise levels, and it was a disaster. It's really difficult to get the switching noise out, especially at higher voltages. Trust me, I learnt it the hard way. There is no surprise that the power supply modules showed terrible noise levels.
You should make a video where you try to improve the adjustable power supply module to get rid of some of its noise. I have a slightly older version of it and could really benefit from such an improvement :)
Also, I kinda want to make a request because you are the only TH-camr I know that goes over AliExpress. Please test products on a seller basis too, for example there are a lot of electronics products that are branded TZT, but I can’t find anything about it online. Their products seem good, but they also offer very cheap transistors, so I wonder if they’re legit.
Thanks for the feedback. That topic sounds interesting. I will keep it in mind for later videos.
I'd really like to see a properly functioning 18650 based mini UPS like that. It would be a very good fit for a lot of RaspberryPi based projects.
I'd like to see a similar board with more cell capacity so you could use it in projects as a power source.
Imagine building a portable Bluetooth speaker, LED flashlight or any other project that needs portability. Just take this board, load it up with as many batteries as you wish and you've got a 5/12v power source that has USB recharging and over discharge protection.
Of course, it wouldn't be viable for huge battery packs, but if you just wanted to power something small like 5-10W, you wouldn't have to mess around with a BMS, at least 2 buck/boost converters and hell of a lot of wire to get the same functionality as this one.
@CME @helltp Would hooking up some caps at the output help? Curious!
@@BerkmanLord Well, the best way to answer that would be to try it out.
But I think it would be possible - it's just a question of how far are you willing to go with it?
Most USB devices will function with this, as is. Hooking up a small capacitor/LC filter onto it might make it technically better but you wouldn't notice any real changes.
I wouldn't use this for something sensitive, like audio amplifiers or medical devices, but if you intend to use it as an UPS for your router or some LED lights etc it should work just as fine.
@@lazar2175 Many thanks!
@@lazar2175 what about if you were wanting to use it with something like a wyze cam? i already bought one not really knowing the difference but there is very limited options out there when it comes to something like a 5v UPS. this one just happen to look really convenient.
I bought some of the 18650 battery holders that had the built in chargers. I tested them with motion sensors on arduinos with wifi, and stuck them around the house. They did a great job. Of course, I did not check them on a scope for output ripple, but then again, I didn't buy the cheapest available either.
I have used the solder filled butt joints for decades. I found that those with a bit of flux in them work much better, but again, they are not the cheapest available. When properly heated, you will not see the solder ring impression in the plastic any more.
For the buck converters, I would only use those if I had a 12v supply in the project, and needed minimal 5v for running an arduino or a LCD. I wouldn't try to use them near max current load. If anything, I would add a couple filter caps to it and be done with it.
Great reviews. It's cool to see some of the more useful items are still out there.
great stuff like always man!!! You know @GreatScott, you could do a follow up series where you get some of this products that almost could be very good and try to improve them, like the ups and the power supply, for exemple, making a adicional pcb to smooth the output, or change some components to make it usable. I would love to see something like that!!!
I use the heat shrink solder connecters on a daily basis. I'm an security technician and work a lot with small wires mostly around 0.6mm2. The connecters are amazing, they are tiny compared to other connecters and if I solder the wire together myself. I haven't had a problem with hard wires, maybe you need to heat it more, I tend to use a lighter, it's a bit easier to carry around. And for small wires you can connect multiple, I've connected up to 4 wires in a connecter.
I could watch these AliExpress review videos all day. I think you can have contents for months with this series.
The new design line from R&S looks awesome. Hope my old RTM won't read this and become jealous.
Hope so
I'd really be interested in more LED videos. There are so many options and so many small components that differ that can make the difference between buying or not that people just don't realize
Yeah, he hasn't tried the truly addressable CoB LED strips. No segments or external ICs!
the yellow tool is actually a punchdown tool (to connect telecom and network wiring in punchdown blocks), the wire stripping bit is almost an afterthought, and it shows. (the punchdown part is also pretty meh, but it's better than trying to punch cables in with the tip of a knife or a screwdriver.)
For a few euro more, there are very nice punchdown tools, but I haven't needed mine since I got out of IT/Networking.
9:45 - I have a suggestion and better solution. Create a laser device that blinds the person that said they look unappealing
About the intro: that’s no mistery. Most people on AE leave reviews upon receiving, without even testing what they got.
The Q&A section is always a dumpster fire, so that’s at least a great way to entertain yourself.
Haha good to know.
It's nice to see an electronics TH-cam channel using a fume extractor. Activated Charcoal filters are great. Breathing is important, so I approve your use of a fume extractor when soldering.
2 things.
1: The shrink-flex tube is better than you give it credit for. First off make sure the solder melts completely.
ALSO - there is no good way to bind solid core wires - HOWEVER - use a pair of pliers to flatten both ends and give it an uneven surface to bind to, then add a tiny bit of solder in between and melt it, - now heat up the shrink-flex - make sure the solder melts - and now try it. Should hold up a lot better.
Also a trick when using these with thin/flimsy wires: spread the core stands out on both ends. put them together so there basically only the length of the solder between the covered ends (the rubberized parts) of the wire. push the core strands down on the OUTSIDE of the wire. Twist half a rotation so you create "more grip" for the solder - but not enough to break fragile core strands. Place shrink-flex on top and shrink it (can be fiddly. use tongs to make it easier.) This will joint will now most likely be the strongest part of the wire - especially with thin/flimsy wires.
(Sorry not a native English speaker - The point with this method is to create more friction area before failure of solder joint. this method ensures that you will need to actually tare the solder or rip apart the core strands to cause a failure - instead of the "normal" way where you can easily get a failure due to lack of friction/binding.)
2: That UPS is probably not meant for the "general public" - but rather designed for a specific device at some point - since "fixing it" would be very cheap. However it looks to be a very durable design which is why I'm thinking it's an industrial product. Never the less - it will work with most products even with that noise since most "high quality" products are made to tolerate "dirty power".
Love this series, hope it never ends
The solder heat-shrink connectors are great. While the instructions have you twist the wires, that is not actually necessary. The heat-shrink provides more than enough mechanical force to prevent the soldered wires from coming part.
I actually recommend the small yellow wire stripper. I use it all the time. Ive had mine for years and no cracks like yours. I think you may need to learn how it works , perhaps. If you put It on the wire, make sure it's one below the wire gauge. Use your master index finger to spin it around. Spin until the shell is cut. I use it for cat 5 all the time.
You can most certainly splice more than two wires together with the solder sleeves, and they're also good for hooking up a drain wire to a shielded cable. Also, you didn't heat them up long enough; the solder was not done flowing. There are much much higher quality solder sleeves available from Raychem and TE, but they're also much more expensive.
Fun fact: You can turn any USB power bank into a UPS with only two diodes and a male to female usb cable (or whatever connector type you want.)
It works because when power is supplied, the power bank automatically cuts power output as it starts charging, when power supply drops out, bank is no longer charging so provides power.
The diodes are used to prevent the power supply from powering the output of the bank and to prevent the bank from charging itself.
First, that >10 MHz ringing on the power supply outputs might be due to your probe's ground loop and coax impedance mismatch. Second, proper bench supplies' outputs have linear regulation even when their intermediate voltage is supplied by smps. This accounts for some of their bulk and cost. Third, RLC smoothing at the outputs would greatly blunt the hf components due to the fast edges. I like the idea and the additional board space of a 3-4 cell unit could address these 'faults' and add max voltage and energy endurance. A stackable enclosure would add convenience when deploying them in concert.
8:45 interesting. Got the grey one and love it. I actually never change the tool size, as everything small is stripped by the automatical wire stripper plyers, so only large cables are stripped with the grey tool :)
I selected the "6" setting on it (largest diameter), put the blade to B and the spring to C and adjusted the screws to 1.88mm (blade) and 2.0 mm for the spring.
Hope that helps.
I actually use one of those yellow strippers all the time. Works great for the very small range of wires it is suited for, I think I bought 5 for $5 or something (since it is Ali, getting 1 was about the same price and quality issues..). Not to say there are not better options, but they work for me :)
It works great for me too.
No clue why he shit talked it when he didn't even use it correctly.
The wago connectors have a totally different use case than the self soldering splices. Wagos are for changeable connections and are mostly used for building electrical systems. The splices are to splice wires permanently for repairs or changes, so the better comparison would be crimpable splices. I have even seen them (well not from Aliexpress, but the same type) used in avionics, so they should be good and reliable if the quality is okay.
8:00 the stripping tools were probably misleading announcements, or even worse, subverted manufacturing... The first tiny yellow one is usually bundled with RJ-11/RJ-45 crimping tools, and the "grey one" is usually meant for different sizes of coaxial cables (it usually carries two blades, with center indents to allow for the central core to pass-through) - thus the "6" position would actually strip an RG-6 cable perfectly, ready to insert into a crimping lead...
Just a heads up on thosetrippers. The yellow one is made strictly for UTP data cables and nothing else. It works really well actually for its price. The grey one is made specifically for stripping coax cable. And it also works suprisingly well for the money. The red one is made for scrapping cable. Also works well for its purpose. If you want a tool to strip all kinds of shielding, a knife would be the best bet. Sadly there are no universal solutions as insulation thicknesses vary with different cables.
I ended up with one of those little yellow wire strippers in a kit of solid core wire, and I love the thing. So much easier than my old strippers. It's really only good for small wires, but it's pretty good for that.
Yeah, I use mine for CAT-5/6 cables, and it works great. The plastic hinge only applies a small amount of force on the blade, so I spin it a few times and the outer jacket pulls off with no nicks on the twisted pairs. Cheap and effective.
I downloaded and translated part of the datasheet for the LED IC. What's weird is that it's ALMOST exactly the same protocol as WS2812b. They're both RTZ signals at 800Kbps. The timing thresholds between lows and highs are slightly different but NEARLY compatible with each other. The FL1903 needs a relatively long reset of 200µs between chunks, but that's still in spec for WS2812. Besides that, the difference is the order that the colours are specified. R, G, B instead of G, R, B for WS2812. Should be really simple to get this working with existing LED controller software, but as someone else already commented: why did they bother with a different signalling protocol that's almost, but not quite identical to WS2812, and certainly has no improvements like increased data rate, improved colour resolution or built-in brightness scaling.
I regularly use Raychem solder sleeves for multi core shielded wire and have none of the issues you mentioned. The Raychem sleeves do have flux in them and we use teflon insulated wire.
It looks you didn't get it hot enough for the solder to melt in a few of them.
Great to see R&S in here!
I love those solder connectors and actually just used some to connect 3 wires together. If you don't require the fully waterproof part, they still work good for that.
I love Aliexpress but my electrical knowledge is hobby level. Your reviews are CRUCIAL for someone like me. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
Another great video, I love this series!
I myself use a lot of ws281x pixel LEDs, and I'm not sure why anyone would break from such a mainstream protocol.
I came up with a similar solution for a soldering fume-extractor: Cheap PC Fan on a regular 9V battery, with pre-cut 120mm Carbon Filter suctioned to the fan's grille. If you're just doing a small bit of soldering, it's extremely compact and works very well.
WS281x protocol is useful up to a specific number of LEDs and the frequency used. For bigger and more flexible installations you need APA102 or something else. WS281x is also limited to RGB, there is no RGBW (SK6812 or TM 1814 needed) or other variants.
Your buy or don't buy videos are a welcome site. Have you ever run across any gear that helps find house wiring in the wall?
This is a fantastic series, surprised no one else is doing this.
Hi Scott , i worked few years in Rohde & Schwarz Vimperk in Czech , they make very nice oscilloscopes
00:44 The Smile. Awesome 100% Thanks
HI,
the jokari you left out is the absolute best for stripping large section cables, in fact it was one of the equipment of ENEL operating personnel, its blade, adjustable in depth, at least in the model I had, very similar to that of a deburring tool, can turn 90° on itself allowing radial cuts (to separate the part of the sheath to be removed) and simply by pulling the cable, cut the sheath longitudinally to be able to remove it easily.
The fume extractor fan works, ok but whoever has never disassembled an ATX power supply casts the first stone and if he has thrown away the internal fan he really has no idea what recycling is; it will be at 12V and therefore at 5V it will turn slowly but maybe it's even better this way: we don't need a hurricane!
ciao and I see You next videos
Those wire connectors are similar to what they used in ww2 to repair wires in the field. Was basically the same and would join the wires in a moment... very useful when under fire.
I really like the "hidden gems" series, please keep making them
The grey/orange stripper is used for coax cable c12, c9 and c6
Yeah I’ve bought a couple of those 18650 power boards before, and I’m not sure that they are the exact ones that’s you tested, but the ones I got overheated really fast. I think those are a good idea though because I’ve got a bunch of 18650’s just laying around and would love to find a power board that takes those abs outputs to either USB or solder points.
Those heat gun wire connectors work even better if you dab a little bit of flux onto the naked wires beforehand. The solder completely liquifies and fills up the entire cavity. Usable either way, of course.
For the wire connector you can use heat shrink jackets to increase their diameter and make a better seal. Works even with solid wires. My favorite solution to stich two wires together
Nice overview on lab equipment, lighting effects and sourcing issues.
You know that you've made it as a TH-camr when you get sponsored by R&S. You received the accolade from the king.
I've heard those solder sleeves (and soldered connections in general) can be bad for automotive applications because motion of the wires can cause breakage from the solder stiffening the wire. I believe regular crimp connectors are preferred.
12:23 what was the price of the thing you compared the 25€ powersupply to? :)
are they world apart in regards for value per money given?
or are there similarly priced things that have better quality in the output?
FINALLY another episode of my favourite series rn!!!
The best series on TH-cam for mad scientists.
5:49 It work perfectly fine as long as you do as supposed by letting the solder completely liquefy and wick the cables! that is the reason it did not work since you can clearly see that solder didn't attached to the wire since it never had time to or more the temperature was so low or dirty wire.
That grey wire stripper is likely meant for coax cable, not really anything else. It should have 2 blades - one to do the outer and one for the inner. The spacing between the blades is fairly common across lots of coax connector types.
And you're meant to adjust it for your cable type and leave it set. I keep one set up for RG6 and another for RG58... And I wrote that one them.
I ❤ this series. It gives ideas about the new modules in our market and give us info about which one is legit or fake. Waiting for more like this content 😊
I love these videos because you never know what your gonna get.
Haha yes. I thought some of the products would be great.....but nope.
That yellow wire stripper... I used it once, it was a very spesific tool, used to connect cat cables to the female receivers that goes in the wall. Never tried using it as a wire stripper though 😁
I have a few tools for Cat 5, but I use the yellow one most often, it is quick, easy to use once you get the feel of it an easy first choice for speed and consistency. No issues with quality as it's light use. Only does one job but does it well!
For the longest time I always thought this site was a scam. Glad that you're highlighting the gems.
The cable stripping knife at 7:54 is for ethernet cables, that's why it only works well with certain sizes
i want to see you review equipments like soldering stations and multimeters
I feel like I'm watching somebody monetize their shopping addiction.
thank you for another helpful video! one suggestion though: when showing the noise on the dso, try to keep the same v/div range, otherwise it looks like the cheap power supply is only slightly worse than the high-end one.
Fun fact the solder heat shrink exists since WWII, it was done by a chemical reaction(you basically strike it like a matchstick or with one) to heat up the solder.
Hey Scott, i have a question about heat shrink connectors and i would like to get answer :D Everytime i see them i can see that they connect wires, but soldering is not the best, so have you maybe tried using some flux on the wires so solder could flow better and also bond better?
As i can see on many videos they bond mostly on the surface and can't get proper penetration inside wires, which is big bummer for me, because they look really nice and are handy for many applications. Thanks for answer.
10:26 Yea but majority of ppl have no idea of anything, if it works it works, if it make havok with whatever you put it to they will notice when their thing breaks one day du to this.
I use the cheap power supplies like that. They work great if you don’t care about the noise. Half the time I’m just using them as lithium chargers, so that doesn’t care about noise. None of my other projects have gotten to the point where i would notice the noise. So I like them a lot. The high wattage output is great.
Love this series! Keep doing it bro, please check more products in one video it's really useful
Would there be a way to clean up the noise from the output of the buck converter boards and turn it into a more functional cheap lab bench power supply?
I will find that out in a future video ;-)
@@greatscottlab Try to add a few caps on the output , then again that board layout seems BAD
@@sanjikaneki6226 The noise could probably be a measurement error: th-cam.com/video/gpwkiJC5hfU/w-d-xo.html
@@greatscottlab Any chance to still get this video ? :) I bought the power supply last year thanks to your video.
Those grey wire stripper tools have been available in home improvement stores in the USA for at least 20 years. Over here, they're common and cheap without resorting to Aliexpress.
You've done many videos on things like power supplies, power banks, buck converters and such as this to prove a DIY 5v/12v UPS can be made easy and do a better job. The cost may actually be comparable as well.
Iam currently using heat shrink wire connectors from Berner (they cost more but they are a lot stiffer than cheaper). 2 years of use in truck repair jobs (especially lights, also not recomended CAN network and ABS sensors - without any problem). They can withstand a lot and iam a big cheater, i dont twist the wires, i simply slide them together in shrink tube and melt solder and glue with heatgun and its done. They still can hold pretty big forces like that.
Could you test/review some of the various workbench adjustable DC power supplies found on AlliExpress? I really want one, but there are so many and I don't want to waste the ~$50 they cost.
Love this series so much!
the low voltage protection on your ups doesnt mean its bad at all, it just does mean it doesnt protect, all the components on the 5v ups are ones that are also found on desktop gpus, modern ones. they will be DAMN good at transforming power. its one phase for 13watts, gpus have 8 phases for 300w, this is genuinely a safe product.
and the psu had all cheap caps around it that screamed "we arent japanese" yet you only scolded it for its noise and even touched the caps without any warning for viewers, those 470uf caps arent gonna do danger at such low spec voltage but a cap can kill. you have 1,8m subs, teach them something and dont just go by your labs standards and the thought of "i know how not to die anyway" also, output voltage noise in both cases really is NOT important. what do you intent to do with a cheapo aliexpress psu? power up a small scale radio station?
The UPS that you mentioned at 8:40, I wonder if you had considered measuring the output after adding another low ESR capacitor in parallel on the output? I recall you mentioned adding a linear regulator (possibly on a different video about this UPS board?) but many projects don't need power that well regulated, and a linear regulator is a fairly large commitment to make on something battery powered (if/when serving its purpose). It almost seems like, that at the very least, it would be more efficient to just add more capacitance and then if the voltage spike is troubling, to zener diode shunt that to ground above whatever voltage # that you find troubling?
Also did you make it clear at what output current the ripple is so large? I would not expect most people to buy that if they actually needed to power a 3A load, more likely some lesser current would be more common like around 1A if even that.
Wonderful testing and explanations. Good job.
Thank you!
These heat shrinkable wire connectors are fantastic for motorcycle wiring repair. They are easy to work with and the repairs do last fine over time
These heat shrink things can be really usefull when you just want to connect 2 wires together and dont want to pull out your soldering iron for just a simple task. Also you can pick them locally cuz theyre really common