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Chinese/Electronic and computer goods

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Revision as of 23:34, 21 January 2017 by Transience (talk | contribs) (→‎Batteries: Add UltraFire warning)
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Amateur radio

  • Baofeng handheld radio. Warning, a lot of analog signals are going digital so you may not find as much on the airwaves as before. Use open source program Chirp to program in frequencies. Good for prepping due to its lengthy battery life and ease of use. You WILL need to replace the antenna with a new one like the Nagoya NA-771 as the included antenna is useless.
  • RTL-SDR dongle: SDR stands for software defined radio and is a dongle with antenna which connects to software on your PC. Highly customisable with endless add-ons, you can do fun things like chart airplanes passing overhead or listening to some digital signals if you're savvy. Also works with Raspberry Pi and other Linux based devices. Can get as autistic as you want (roof mounted antenna and other madness).

Battery chargers (for either or both of NiMH and Lithium rechargeables)

  • Miller ML-102 v8
  • Xtar MC1 (I will add more notes here later, but there are many more Xtar chargers out there I recommend. Generally speaking I think they offer better values than the Nitecore brand)
  • Nitecore i2 and i4 (d2 and d4 if you like to additionally have a display or LiFePO4 charging)
  • Klarus C2 (also can be used as power bank)
  • Opus BT-C3100 (preferably v2.2+)
  • Skyrc MC3000
  • Liitokilla

Batteries

NiMH AA/AAA:

  • Hobbyking's Turnigy (Eneloop alternatives, high-end, check which warehouse you buy from!)
  • GP ReCyko (Ikea Ladda alternatives, low-end)

Lithium rechargeables:

  • Buy LG/Sanyo/Panasonic. Not necessarily Chinese in origin, but Chinese resellers are often the cheapest way to get smaller quantities shipped. Avoid UltraFire 18650s for anything other than flashlights, especially vaping.

Bicycle computers

Bike lights

  • SolarStorm X3 + Kaidomain 6-cell battery pack. (the X3 is a cheap and bright light, but the stock batteries are shit. Kaidomain sells Panasonic battery packs that have a high capacity and last much longer) Or if you want to DIY a little: a four cell waterproof battery pack (like this one: http://www.ebay.com/itm/172228583406) with 4x 3400 MAh cells will give you long runtimes AND easily replacable cells. And you can also use it as a power bank!

Drawing Tablets / Digitizers

Drones / Quadcopters

Electrical DIY

  • [2] and Yihua 936 soldering station (double check ground)
  • A-BF GS60 and GS90 soldering irons (GS120 uses hard to find larger tips that are expensive & harder to find, better avoid that one)
  • TS-100 soldering iron (has been getting more expensive lately)
  • All-sun multimeters
  • KCX-045 USB voltage meter
  • Uni-T (anything, official spec sheets are correct)
  • Fluke multimeters meant to be exclusively for the Chinese market (Fluke 15b and 17b)

Google "Cardboard" VR Glasses

Microphones

Condenser microphones

Note: Condenser microphones are good for demanding use-cases where recording quality needs to be good (podcasts, streaming, YouTubing etc.) but are bulky, sensitive and require special knowledge to be set up.

There are Chinese clones of popular mics (BM-800, BM-700, BM-8000), which are usually (but not always) significantly cheaper than the originals and hence what you should be after if you're looking for acceptable value for money out of Chinese microphones. Although those microphones are going to work barebone when plugged into a computer, being equiped with a phantom power and external sound card combo (or an audio interface) is a must. Without those you're never going going to get decent quality recording out of a condenser microphone with a 3.5mm jack.

USB condenser microphones: Condenser microphones sold as USB microphones are significantly easier to set up as they don't require use of other external tools. They are essentially plug an play, and the middle ground between sound good quality and ease of use. From more expensive to cheaper, the following are USB condenser microphones can be found in Chinese stores: MK-F100T, SF-922B, SF-940, SF-555b

Desktop microphones

Desktop microphones are generally cheaper and easier to setup, but don't expect much in terms of sound quality. It's what you should go for if all you want is to IM and game. Unfortunately, Chinese desktop microphones are no-name, no-brand products so there aren't any real references. If you search for desktop microphone you will see several results, including clones of microphones that are considered half decent, but there aren't going to be any real reviews due to the microphones not even having a model numer.

Note: Clip-on Chinese microphones can be extremely cheap but are the lower hanging fruit in terms of sound quality.

Mousepads

Cheap mousepads can be bought from various Chinese websites but the marketplace nature of Aliexpress will give you a wider range of options and most of the time better prices too. Browse through Aliexpress's dedicated mousepad category to only view listings labeled as mousepads. From there, you could apply further filters, sort and even search within the results for more specific terms.

Tips for quality

  • An easy way to determine the quality of a mousepad is to look at its materials. User review pictures are usefull for this purpose, try to find closeups on the fabric and rubber.
  • Some Chinese mousepads have a seam at their ends, this might not look as slick but it's usefull. It keeps the fabric from unsticking itself from the pad's ends, something that happens often even with brand mousepads.
  • Knockoffs should be avoided, most cost more than what the average mousepad goes for and are usually of the same (or worse) quality.

Custom designs

Several Aliexpress stores will do custom mousepad prints. Look for one of the following keywords (or similar) while searching withing the mousepad section: DIY mousepad, custom mousepad, custom print, your image.

If you need a good mousepad right now and don't care about a custom design

  • Go for the Xiaomi XL Mousepad, it comes in black or blue and is extremely high quality as well as having some meme Chinese writing on it [3]

Gaymen Mice

  • James Donkey 112 (wireless version also available, look for James Donkey 102)
  • 99c mouse (often pops up in the thread and great value for the money - Generally found on Ebay rather than AliExpress)
  • Razer Deathadder

Keyboards

Chinese sellers have some of the widest variety of mechanical keyboard goods available. You can pick up keyboards with Cherry clone (e.g. Gateron) switches for a fraction of the cost of a real Cherry switch switch keyboard, often of equal or even better quality.

Mechanical Keyboards

  • AULA F2012
  • Motospeed Inflictor
  • Ajazz Geek AK33 (beware, non-standard space bar and arrow keys so some keycap sets won't work. Magicforce is made by the same company and is 100% compatible with custom keysets)
  • LingYi Black Widow
  • Magicforce 68 Keys (cheaper on Amazon)
  • Lolita Spyder (cheaper on Amazon)
  • Royal Kludge RK61 (60% bluetooth with cherry or kailh blues - much cheaper on TaoBao)
  • Anne Pro ($80, 60% RGB mechanical keyboard with Gateron switches)
  • tada68 (about $65, mechanical keyboard from Taobao with Gateron switches)

Switches

The Chinese have done a rather impressive jobs of cloning the German-made Cherry switches, and many in the mechanical keyboard community would argue that certain Chinese Cherry clone switches are even better than the original. You can pick up Chinese made switches from AliExpress and Taobao for some extremely compelling prices.

  • Gateron - These are widely regarded as the best Cherry clones out there, even said to augment the characteristics of Cherry switches that make them feel and sound appealing. The most distinctive attribute of these switches is that they're commonly perceived to be smoother than Cherry switches, the latter being regarded as more scratchy feeling. They can be found in most cheap-but-not-so-cheap Chinese mechanical keyboards, such as the Qisan Magicforce and Anne Pro.
  • Outemu
  • Kailh

Building a keyboard

Because of the large variety of keyboard parts you can buy from AliExpress or Taobao, it is entirely possible to build a mechanical keyboard using solely parts bought from China. It may not sound very assuring at first, but you would not be sacrificing build quality at all as long as you don't pick the cheapest chink shit you can find.

To build a custom mechanical keyboard, you would generally need the following:

  • Case - there are plenty of acrylic and aluminium options on AliExpress
  • PCB - the Satan GH60 is a popular choice for 60% keyboards
  • Plate - for mounting the switches
  • Keycaps - go for PBT if you can, as it lasts longer before the oil on your fingers polish it to a degree where it starts to shine
  • Switches - Gaterons are always a good bet, and you can pick up a pack of 65 for £18 on AliExpress
  • LEDs (optional, 3mm)
  • A soldering iron and some solder might help, I think

The rest is self-explanatory. Just solder the switches onto the PCB and put it together. Some Taiwanese guy made a video of the process on YouTube if you really need help.

Headsets

  • Clone headset

Music / MP3 Player

  • RuiZu X02 - Flash AGPTeK's firmware on it, the version is A02 1.07 [4]
  • XDuoo X2 - AliExpress also sells a matching Xduoo headphone amp which works well with the X2 [5]
  • XDuoo X3 - Uses high end components. Rockbox capable.
  • FiiO - M3 budget model, X1-X3 are higher end models with the best build quality out of China

Networking

Note: The 'Youth'/Nano edition is substantially cheaper but does not support 5GHz dual band wireless.
Note: The routers above does NOT support Gigabit Ethernet.
  • Xiaomi MI WiFi router 2 (NAS functions, Gigabit Ethernet, dual band wireless with AC867)
Note: Xiaomi routers run a modified OpenWRT. Some can be flashed with OpenWRT through various methods, including an official one.

Sports cameras

over 200$
  • Xiaomi Yicam II 4k
under 200$
under 100$

Tablets

  • Cube tablets
  • Cube i9 is considered the best chink tablet and an almost identical clone of the Microsoft Surface 4 tablets for 1/3 of the price. It also has Core M3 so can play games as well as a sizeable 128gb SSD.
  • Cube iWork10 Ultimate is the best price/performance with a 10.1" 16:10 1920x1200 screen and a dock for most USB 2.0 tablet keyboards. Used primarily for real work hence the name.
  • Chuwi tablets
  • Chuwi Hi12 is the most recommended Chuwi tablet as it has a 1440p display and is a clone of the Microsoft Surface 3. Also comes with Windows 10/Android dual OS.
  • Uses the same retina display as iPads, has a wide support for custom roms and has great build quality. If you're in the market for a budget iPad replacement this is it, if you have money to spare go for the Mi Pad 2.
Pros
  • Great build quality
  • High PPI screen, no gap between device and screen like most
  • 9-10 hour battery
  • Doesn't get very hot
  • Speakers are clear and bassy, no distortion at high volumes
Cons
  • 2GB RAM means it lags at having Youtube, Windows store, a couple of tabs and Evernote all open together. You'll see it slow down quite a bit with switching tabs etc.
  • No micro SD slot
  • Only one USB type C port with no video out support
  • Reported screen flickering at higher brightness and certain colours, as well as faint vertical lines at the bottom centre of the screen
  • Minor build quality issues; one anon reports creaking noises when cold at the bottom left of screen like it's not fully fitted

Universal programmers

  • MiniPRO TL866xx series programmers (works on Linux and Windows)

USB chargers

  • Orico. Orico generally makes quality stuff.
  • Tronsmart
  • Xiaomi's power rail (the version that has USB ports)
  • Aukey USB chargers
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