**A Closer Look at AliExpress: A Review of Several Interesting Products**

The board I received is quite compact and has an LCD display with several buttons, making it easy to navigate. The display shows various information such as battery voltage, temperature, and time. However, I did notice that the buttons are slightly stiff, which made me worry about accidentally shorting the battery. But even with these problems in mind, I would still highly recommend the board because of the offered features for this price.

Moving on to something mechanical, there's a set of 5 interesting looking drill bits which are actually damaged screw extractor drill bits that can be purchased for 4€. Now I think everyone who used screws before ran into the problem that a screw somehow got stuck and thus got destroyed with your drill bit while trying to remove it. At this point you are pretty much screwed; but maybe these extractor bits can help, according to the product description. Firstly, drill a hole into the screw head and then use the other side to remove the screw. I tried this with 3 screws, but sadly, I was neither able to drill a hole nor was the bit able to lift out the screws, meaning it didn't work for me, and thus I can certainly not recommend it.

**LCD Display and ESP32 Microcontroller Development Board**

Let's go back to electrical stuff with this board, which is not only an LCD but also a complete ESP32 microcontroller development board on the back for a price of only 10€. This board initially intrigued me because creating a graphical user interface with a microcontroller and touchscreen LCD can be quite cumbersome as I showed you in a previous video. But with this thing; you simply give it power, and can immediately see what it's all capable of because it comes pre-loaded with a demo sketch. Now mine comes with a resistive touchscreen, meaning it is not super duper responsive, but this thing is definitely good enough for many applications. And since there are libraries available for Arduino, HomeAssistant, and some more, and there is quite a bit of documentation; I feel like this is a really good board for projects that require a graphical user interface, meaning I give it a thumbs up.

**ATX Power Supply Breakout Board**

And last but not least, we got another, a bit bigger circuit board which is an ATX power supply breakout board that can be purchased for around 3€. Now as you might know having at least 3.3V, 5V, and 12V is crucial when it comes to working with electronics. Only problem is that even cheap lab bench power supplies cost a bit of money; but some of you probably have such a computer ATX power supply laying around for free. Now in a previous video I already showed you how to transform such an ATX power supply into a lab bench power supply, but with this breakout board it is way simpler because all you have to do is plug in the 24 pin connector, hook up the supply to power, push the on button, and there you go; we got all the voltage rails we need, and you can draw quite a bit of current from them with no issue because the copper traces and terminals are pretty beefy. And as a bonus you also get some USB ports for your USB devices, and the only thing which was a bit weird was that the product description mentions a Microcontroller; but in reality it is a 555 timer that gets apparently used in combination with an IR receiver to check if your infrared remote still works, what a random feature. But other than that, there is really nothing to complain about which is why it also gets a clear recommendation from me.

**Conclusion and Future Episodes**

And that brings us to the end of this episode, and I am happy to say that we found quite a few great products which you can like always find in the video description. This is not the end though because there are so much more interesting stuff on AliExpress; so stay tuned for future episodes. Until then don't forget to like, share, subscribe, and hit the notification bell. Stay creative and I will see you next time.

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enYou never know for sure what you're gonna get when ordering from AliExpress. Sometimes the product simply sucks, sometimes it  speaks Chinese and occasionally you find something really useful aka a hidden gem. And in this video series I search through all of AliExpress to find them; so let's once again  have a closer look at 7 more products to answer the question whether you should check them out  or simply ignore them.Let's get started!This video is sponsored by PVCase which is an all in all PV planning software;  but more about them later. Let's start off with these two displays here that I got for 46€ and 20€; so not very cheap. Now at first sight you might think that this one is a common 16x2 LCD that you often see  get used with an Arduino to either display information or be used as a user interface. Such common 16x2 LCDs are super cheap; so why is this similar looking one 23 times more expensive? Well, it is because it is a VFD which stands for vacuum fluorescent display and in a nutshell,  it is simply a different display technology that is quite a bit older than the LCD. And the cool thing about this particular VFD is, that it can be used with the exact same Arduino  Code as the LCD because it utilizes the same control IC; making it super easy to work with it. But as you might already noticed such a VFD can not directly get powered by an Arduino because it  needs way more current in comparison to an LCD.But on the positive side, such a VFD comes with  superior contrast and can be viewed without a problem at almost every  angle which is not always the case with an LCD.Combine that with the fact that they can react  quite a bit fast than LCD technology and withstand very low temperatures and  it should be clear why they are still being used today, especially in harsh environments. But then again they are also quite expensive; so I would only recommend them if your project  really requires them or you truly admire their look which I in fact kind of do. With that being said let's move on to the second product which are these blue clips  that come with cable shoe connectors and......OH NOOOO they want you to push  the clips around existing wiring and then crimp another wire to the cable shoe that you can then  hook up to basically split the power lines.Now before I get to the problems that come  with such a technique; let me tell you that I got my pack of 25 T-Splitters for around 3€. They claim that this one click technique is not only fast, but also if you do traditional wiring  with cutting, then this will greatly reduce the conductivity of your wire. And in case you are wondering; with traditional wiring technique they refer to cutting the wire,  stripping part of its insulation and then using something like a  WAGO terminal to add an additional wire.And I immediately got to disagree here  that the T-Splitters are faster to use because for that I need pliers,  wire strippers and a crimping tool to get the job done which takes time to switch around.With my Wago connectors however I only need a wire stripper and thus  I feel like it is twice as fast to use.Also the big problem of the T-Splitter  is that its metal piece which bits into the conductor is only one size. That means that if your wire is too thin, there will be no good connection and if  your wire is too thick, the copper conductor can get damaged; reducing conductivity once again. A Wago connector in comparison does not come with such a problem because it is spring loaded. But to keep it scientific though; I prepared a wire connection with the T-Splitter and  Wago connector and let 10A of current flow through them while measuring the voltage drop across them. After then deducting the voltage drop from the wires and doing some conversions, it turns  out that the T-Splitter comes with a 16% higher resistance than the Wago connector which debunks  the second claim of this product and thus overall I would certainly not recommend using it, please. OK; the next item I got myself because I am currently obsessed with solar panels and it  is this solar panel multimeter that you can get for around 78€, quite expensive. So is it worth it? Well, first off it does come in a nice pouch and  also with all the required wires for testing.So after adding extension cables to one of my  solar panels and throwing it in the sun; I hooked the definitely live wires up to the  multimeter to see that nothing happened.That was my fault though because I mixed  up the polarity and after fixing that, the multimeter still worked perfectly  fine and told me all important parameters about my panel like open circuit voltage,  and the MPPT voltage, current and power values which seem to update regularly, awesome. So the multimeter definitely works and can not only be a handy tool to find out if your  panel is faulty, but it can also help you to determine the perfect position and angle for it. The only problem really is its high price point; so once again I would only recommend  it if you are in dire need of such a multimeter.And speaking of Photovoltaic let me quickly tell  you about the sponsor of this video PVCase which is a next generation Auto CAD-based PV Software  that can be used to simulate the actual location of a solar plant from the earliest stages of  planning. And since it offers features for prototyping, electrical design, stringing,  shading analysis, terrain analysis and pretty much everything else that is involved when it  comes to solar power plants; it is the ideal choice for companies when it comes  to undertaking large utility scale, as well and commercial and industrial projects, including  roof tops. So If that sounds interesting to you then click the link below to try it out for free. OK; moving on to this well made little circuit board here that I got for under 1€. According to its product description it could be a perfect fit for battery  powered projects that require 5V to work.You see, all we have to do is wire up a USB  port to the Vin pin and GND and a Lithium Battery to GND and BAT and there you go;  by simply plugging in USB power the lithium battery gets charged up with a bit lower  current than what the description claimed.But not a big problem because charging worked  perfectly fine and the LEDs on the side tell you along the way how much your battery is charged up.Afterwards we then got 5V on the OUT 5V pin that we can turn on and off  with the help of this little push buttonAnd as you would expect we can use this  voltage to power our projects which by the way we can also use while the battery is charging. So next followed my usual power testing in which found out that the board can output a  usable stable output voltage up to 3.1A, very nice; its efficiency is around the 90% mark,  also very nice; the quiescent current really is 50uA like the description stated and thus  your hooked up battery will last quite a while without a charge, also very nice and  last but not least the LED indicator also reacted accordingly in discharge mode. The only two real complains I have is that the output turns off automatically if the load is  not big enough and the solder pads on the board are so close to one another that I occasionally  feared that I would short the battery.But even with these problems in mind I  would still highly recommend the board because the offered features are awesome for this price. Moving on to something mechanical though with these 5 interesting looking drill bits which  are actually damaged screw extractor drill bits that you can get for 4€. Now I think everyone who used screws before ran into the problem that a screw somehow got  stuck and thus got destroyed with your drill bit while trying to remove it. At this point you are pretty much screwed; but maybe these extractor bits can help which  according to the product description firstly drill a hole into the screw head and then can  remove the screw with the help of the other side.And this is exactly what I did with 3 screws as  well, but sadly I was neither able to drill a hole nor was the bit able lift  out the screws meaning it didn't work for me and thus I can certainly not recommend it. OK let's go back to electrical stuff with this board, which is not only an LCD but also a  complete ESP32 microcontroller development board on the back for a price of only 10€. This board initially intrigued me because creating a graphical user interface with a  microcontroller and touchscreen LCD can be quite cumbersome as I showed you in a previous video. But with this thing; you simply give it power and can immediately  see what it is all capable of because it comes pre-loaded with a demo sketch. Now mine comes with a resistive touchscreen meaning it is not super duper responsive,  but this thing is definitely good enough for many applications. And since there are libraries available for Arduino, HomeAssistant and some more  and there is quite a bit of documentation; I feel like this is a really good board for  projects that require a graphical user interface meaning I give it a thumbs up. And last but not least we got another, a bit bigger circuit board which is an ATX power supply  breakout board that can you get for around 3€.Now as you might know having at least 3.3V,  5V and 12V is crucial when it comes to working with electronics. Only problem is that even cheap lab bench power supplies cost a bit of money;  but some of you probably have such a computer ATX power supply laying around for free. Now in a previous video I already showed you how to transform such  an ATX power supply into a lab bench power supply.But with this breakout board it is way simpler because all you have to do is  plug in the 24 pin connector, hook up the supply to power, push the on button and there you go;  we got all the voltage rails we need and you can draw quite a bit of current from  them with no issue because the copper traces and terminals are pretty beefy. And as a bonus you also get some USB ports for your USB devices and the only thing which  was a bit weird was that the product description mentions a Microcontroller; but in reality it is a  555 timer that gets apparently used in combination with an IR receiver to check if your infrared  remote still works, what a random feature.But other than that, there is really nothing  to complain about which is why it also gets a clear recommendation from me. And that bring us to the end of this episode and I am happy to say that we found quite a  few great products which you can like always find in the video description. This is not the end though because there are so much more interesting stuff on AliExpress;  so stay tuned for future episodes.Until then don't forget to like, share,  subscribe and hit the notification bell.Stay creative and I will see you next time.