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

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.

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.

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.

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…

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

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

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

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.

About the laser tape measure, at the end, I would consider having a rechargeable battery to be a minus. A product like that is something that I would only use occasionally, and I would expect to keep it for 10 years or more. Unfortunately, with the built-in rechargeable battery, I wouldn't expect the battery to still be able to hold a charge after 10 years. So for my application, AAA batteries are far better.

The wireless HDMI is something I have been looking for a long time. Wanted to find something that was tested and preferably by someone I trust. Thank you! That will work fine for our old projector that has been in a box for years because I don't want to or can't route cables to it in our living room.

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

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.

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.

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

I wish Scott would create a DIY heating stirrer project for European chemists, as many of us struggle to find affordable, used equipment. His expertise could greatly benefit our community.

Really love this series, always fascinated to see what you find!

I love these videos.. Awesome work.. You keep finding real gems here.. The USB female to laptop adapter has been a keeper for Lenovo laptops with square pins.

Great stuff! Thanks for the reviews! It's very useful to know what works rather than wasting money and waiting forever for some crap product...

Can you try one of the $40 42cm holographic fans in the next episode? From what I've heard they're cool tech but with bad UI/UX, would love to see an indepth review of one

This series is my favorite, you managed to get me hooked on aliexpress electronics!

Have the same battery balance charger - love it. So much functionality packed into a small form factor with a pretty nice UI

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.

the wireless hdmi could also be used for remote digital signage or high up in the air. walk out with the laptop , update the display . or from the comfort of the office instead of running out to the sign itself

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

I enjoy this series immensely.

These USB-C Adapters for notebooks are working just fine, I have them for a surface, an HP Elitebook that came out long before USB-C Charging and now a Lenovo Slim Tip version (the funny square one). They are great up to 100W and for smaller notebooks they get you through the day even with a super small 65w USB Power Supply.

I love these Ali product videos because you tend to show products I have considered purchasing about half the time. It allows me to know if it was junk or not, lol. This video had two items I already have in my cart, sitting as I debate taking the plunge.

The pd adapter is very useful, i have the same exact model and been using it for over a year. You have to set the laptop to the power saving mode when charging if you have that chunky laptop, afterwards you can switch to balanced mode. The tip with power meter overheats when plugged in the converter, you should plug the other way. The first problem is those al cheapo chinese power supplies have short lifetime, they die within a year. Second issue is straight usb plugs can be easily broken when somebody hits while sitting in a cafe, you should buy the one with the 90 degree connector on the other end.

Just wanted to comment that i really like this series! Wish there was more of it for all kinds of product categories haha.

I appreciated the ducted-fan BLDC motor. For some applications biscuit fans don't have enough pressure head, and compressors don't have enough flow rate.

I really enjoy this series. Thank you for making this video as i was debating whether or not to buy a lot of these products.

ty op for making a video segment on the laptop charger i was thinking about testing to see if my gaming laptop could work with it like that but u proved me wrong that it wouldnt work any way so TY...good work on your yt video

I LOVE your Hidden Gems episodes!

You should check out the handheld oscilloscope. Pretty neat for basic diy home needs.

One of my favorite video series on youtube! keep it up!

The ISDT C4 is a very good battery charger for standard sized cells. AA, AAA, 18650, 26650. NIMH, Li-ion, LiFe. Charge discharge storage cycles. It really does it all. It works well when you need to exercise NiMh or to test the capacity of lithiums.

Actually got one of those wireless HDMI dongles for our meeting room. One of these is a lot cheaper and a lot less hassle than having tons of 20m HDMI cables(just look up the prices, gets expensive quickly) layed from the floor to the ceiling where the beamer hangs. Not to mention having input source selection gets weird past 3 inputs. Plus it's great when you have a table situation where you can reangange your tables, opening you up to simply not knowing where the person presenting will sit.

That issue with the USB C turning on and off during use can happen when the laptop demands more power than the system is rated for. I found that plugging it into a 65W charger rather than 100W solved this issue for me.

The best series on RU-vid for tinkerers. None-barred.

Wow this is such a good reviews, detailed and very informative!

About the charger converters - The original barrel connections actually have onewire chip in them (the barrel is mostly 3 pin connector, not 2 pin connector) It will advertise to laptop what wattage charger you are running so to set power modes and charging speeds. Depending on model , the laptops act - no charging or running at all, only charging while off and while on running from charger(sometimes cpu clocks are set to minimum because of unknown charger). Seems MSI is making assumption if there is no correct onewire data it will treat it as 65w charger which is almost always minimum for these barrel jacks. As it's not sure if it can hold the power while chargin and running it will turn off charging so that you battery won't get spikes of charging-discharing. So the real reason to have "per brand" charges is to have correct onewire communication which states correctly what wattage charger is connected. I have this for my lenovo laptop with square connector and it works fine with 65w and 100w type-c chargers and battery banks just like OEM.

Used those usb-c adapters on my laptop in the past, they definitely work like a charm on lower powered laptops.

4:23 hell of a smooth transition 🤌🏽

Thanks for the video, I love these. I need one of those USB laptop chargers, I didn't know those existed... I was always travelling with my clunky laptop PSU!

One note regarding ISDT-Chargers! They are great for about 3-4 months and then quality issues start to arise like crazy. From faulty connections to the selectorwheel/button registering wrong inputs as well as cancelling charging processes multiple times during a charge due to „abnormal battery connection“. I have had 3 of these chargers and all of them had the same issues. Friend of mine who also had about 3 also reported similar problems!

Looking forward to that teaser of the magnetic pogo connectors you showed at the end! I love these devices and the prices now are starting to finally drop

The small PD adapter is awesome! Specially for small laptops which only need up to 100W

How useful would that motor be for say like, a fume/exhaust hood for soldering etc instead of using a fan and duct? For the USB C barrel jack connector, you could use that to power other things with a barrel jack, not just to charge laptops, but a PD trigger board might be needed to activate it.

10:15 - Your laptop is trying to draw more power than the adapter can provide, causing it to cycle power on and off. I had the same issue, but it works fine if I remove the battery or if the battery is already fully charged. 100 watts isn't enough to power a high-demand laptop and charge the battery simultaneously

Ooo two other gems, one a all metal pen with a set of calipers built in has become my most used tool at the mo, the other is a delightful £15 Portabler Air Compressor kit which came with a tidy little 5v powered air compressor, two very nice airbrushes, paint tanks, cleaning tools etc and has done duty spraying watch dials and hands already and the output quality of the paint is extremely good with what seems to be the internals of the brushes all stainless steel meaning I can retire my 1970's Badger airbrushes having done tons of work over the years... def recommend the air compressor air brush kit :)

10:26 I bought the same adaptor from Amazon de for €2! For a Thinkpad which needs 230w. It was the same result. Can not charge the laptop when it's on but charges it perfectly when turned off. I also measured the power the original charger draws when the laptop is on idle and that's only 60W. So it's definitely the software that's not allowing it to be charged with 100W.

3:38 I love it, when you said: "And das ist pretty heavy" 😂😂

its always cool to learn about new technology, idek high voltage lipos existed either which is super cool to know about for UAVs and other stuff i like to do

13:40 If the batteries are rechargable I prefer AAA batteries because they are easier to replace than a glued in battery.

Thanks for the video :) I had a solar setup for my thinkpad which uses USB-C and therefore I tested power consumption of that laptop quite throughly. My laptop has 65 watt power supply and was using something like 15-20 watt's while running on idle windows when fully charged, but if its charging value was closer to 45's on same idle windows setup. So your laptop may also work well with that 100 watt power supply if fully charged.

Wow, half of the products in this video are either ones I got for myself, once I was eyeballing, or ones I have a variation of - caught me by surprise ! I can confirm these USB-C to laptop power adapters can do wonders even in edge cases - I have a Lenovo laptop that comes with a 120w power brick, but it never actually reaches that power ceiling so I gave the adapter a shot a while back. It really works with all my 100w type c power supplies, and I haven't touched my bulky laptop charger in forever. As you said they're not auto wins, but they're worth the gamble imo

You know, that wireless HDMI thing can come in handy for certain streaming purposes. For example, I put my PC in a ventilated cabinet to be tidy. If I want to plug in my capture card, I would have to extend cables everywhere and open my cabinet, which is not ideal for a tidy space. If I got this kit, I could keep my capture card plugged in, put away, and all I'd have to change is the console that is outputting a signal. No big mess of wires. That's really cool, and I'm glad it works at such low latency.

The usb-c charger trigger board is great for modern laptops that aren't usb-c PD compliant. I keep a 90w usb-c power supply in my laptop bag, and i use one of these trigger boards with my Asus vivobook. So i can use the PS with my Asus and my Dell (which is PD compliant)

Wireless HDMI is mostly used today for content production. There are expensive solutions that are high quality for being able to locate a camera remotely from the ingest station, or have remote monitoring of the camera output. Many high end camera monitors have a remote viewing capability for secondary displays or phones/tablets.

in the country where i live, the wireless HDMI adapters are actually commonly used here, oddly enough in churches, where multiple cameras are connected to them and wirelessly stream the feeds thru a capture card and into the displays in the church and livestream it on social media

That fan would be fun as an RC boat thruster

The USB-C PD trigger laptop chargers are very cool, I got the same idea a while ago, not knowing they already exist.

regarding the battery options, I used to be a fan of such built-in battery devices like the laser meter you shown in the last. But they age just like myself, and eventually the battery life become so short that I basically have to bring a power bank with me. And it's almost impossible to find replacement battery because they are almost always custom designed. Therefore nowadays I tend to buy devices that use standard AA or AAA batteries.

As a truck driver, that wireless hdmi thingy will be great for my built-in tv, so i dont need to have an hdmi cable attached to my steamdeck dock.

great series loved it keep making vidoes in that series

I'm in China, and the items you mentioned, I can get them from e-commerce websites here at only 1/2 to 1/6 of the price you pay! This is also why China's manufacturing industry has progressed so rapidly.

If anyone is curious about why the TX HDMI device uses almost no power and the RX almost too much, is because the TX module is getting most of the power from the HDMI device, and the RX module has to provide power to the connected output device.

4.5V voltage drop at 5A @28V nominal is "just fine"? Is that still within USB spec? I don't think so! I would have loved if you could have provided more context here why it failed the 28V test. Are your battery cells the limiting factor? The cables? Or the tested board itself? Was it overheating? Can you change it so it advertises 28V3A max instead of 5A?

I did recently get a SkyRC B6neo charger in addition to the Q6 nano. It is comparable in functionality, yet the UI is a bit worse, but it does have a enter button, so that is a plus. It does offer some really compelling features though. Native USB-C PD input and checking cell voltages without a input hooked up (simply connect the balance cable). Super neat for portable usage with a powerbank. The bigger fan makes for a more pleasant noise floor when charging, while being smaller in size overall. The low resolution LCD sucks a bit, but honestly, nitpicking for the price.

this one is very valuable in terms of information , true gems

Lot of sellers on chinese platforms sell these air blowers/vacuum packaged in 3D printed body cases, like the one you quickly showed, yes. Regarding the wireless HDMI, it's clearly not for you, but useful for many use cases (carrying devices is not a solution when you have to do it few times a day).

you should get one of those hobby 4 cylinder engines and see if it can work as a supercharger. that'd be very cool to see

the hadmi link would be supper neat for portable streaming setup with decent camera! maybe like a church or wedding!

Everyone loves this video series!

I've used those USB-PD to barrel adapters a fair bit with a Lenovo 5 pro (300W brick). Having the battery full beforehand, and IGPU only mode makes it work far more reliably. Otherwise it often tries turning on the DGPU which spikes power draw, overloading the charger which shuts off. Then the DGPU shuts off, the charger resets, and it just cycles like that. DGPU only can also work since it only spikes once.

As usual your vlogs are the best. I do enjoy your reviews and take note of the interesting items for personal projects.

greatscott proves once again the level of germans sense of humor

Those small USB-C adapters work fine, especially with 65W laptops.

I bought that mini laser rangefinger last year, used it maybe a dozen times, haven't charged it in 8 months, and it's currently still showing a 2/3 battery charge. Quiescent current/self-discharge seems pretty good. Not sure how the battery would hold up to more frequent use, but it's great for my occasional use. Hat-tip to Benn Jordan, who I first saw using the device in his video about hunting for reverb samples in a cave.

We use the HDMI transmitter and receiver at our church to transmit the steam from our Atem Mini to the nursery for the nursery workers to see. Works great.

Holding a 10,000 RPM metal blade in your hand is brave. Even with an aluminum shell, those fins will go right through it.

Cool Stuff... Thanks for the review. I think I would not like the Fan motor (Way too loud). I really like the HDMI Extender idea, but the limit of 1080p pretty much makes it useless for me. The USB Charger for laptops looked really cool.

Love this series of videos, keep em up!

The barrel jack adapter only really works for laptops that need less than 100w. I have one, and its really nice. Form my laptop, it doesnt work with a 35w brick but works with a 65w brick.

13:49 that's the same UI as the "EMOS" brand in Europe. Probably same OEM.

Alright, so, I have additional vote for USB-C charger, and for reasons that might be unintuitive. We use those things in field/wartime/outage conditions, because they work seamlessly with "crude solar" charging setups when power grid is not available. Our "crude solar" is basically a solar panel that can output 12V-30V, hooked up directly to DC power charger designed to work with car batteries (those thingies with usb-c/usb-a charging ports that you can install in your car and plug into car battery - we just hook them up directly to solar panels instead). So solar panel -> directly to usb-c outlet that receives 12-24v inputs -> usb-c cable -> into that kind of USB-C charger = laptops with such converters and any kind of usb-c powered tech, powered directly from solar panel, anywhere, without solar controllers or batteries involved anywhere in the loop. It is absolutely king of crude and cheap "I want to power my portable electronics from solar" setups. In fact, because I was buying those things, I have a feelings that's why algorithm even recommended me your video. If you were to go with traditional solar controller+battery setups, the cost is like triple/quadruple, and efficiency is reduced because power goes trough multiple systems before coming to your components. But directly feeding solar DC into gadgets designed for a car that take that DC, then using them with things like that USB-C dongle, pretty much comes out to the cost of just solar panel and maybe like 10% of more cost on top of it. Not to mention you can salvage such gadgets from disabled cars, if you are in warzone conditions. So yeah, here is my perspective on those things. They are very useful, and that whole "for people who don't want to carry chargers with them" is only part of the story on why those things exist.

The HDMI extender is very good for the cases where you have a TV box with 1 subscription, and want to look on that on multiple TVs. You need a IR extender tough, so your remote control works in "the far end" aswell. Have done that solution for many people, that want multiple TVs (for example one in bedroom and one in living room) but not have to pay for subscription of 2 TV boxes.

If you are interested in Joule Thieves, look into the A2SHB MOSFET with low turn on voltage. I built a MOSFET Joule Thief with a 2N7000 and it needed at least 1.0 VDC to work, but the same circuit with the A2SHB worked at 0.6 VDC and will light a 9 Volt LED. The FET is very small and I had to make a special mount to use it in a breadboard, but it was well worth it.

4:18 You can also use it to build a hairdryer.

thanks , very helpfull post , we value your truthfulness and honesty , in these cash strapped times its appreciated and a help , thank you .

really love this format! thank you.

The laptop USB C adapter is a brilliant idea for something to have for emergencies. In a crunch you could much more easily get a USB charger than a specialized charger... I would 100% get one if I was travelling with a laptop.

I bought a couple of those power to USB-C adaptors for my Lenovo laptops (old round and old rectangular) work great , although the round one is slightly loose, Want to do it to all my other electronics that have bulky PSUs.

The HDMI dongle would be a good solution for a remote server monitor if the server is in a different room