WEBVTT

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get a load of this guy trying to make videos about useful affordable gadgets

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he's got no beard and didn't even know

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about any of this awesome stuff this video is brought to you by Wicked

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cushions and I have no idea how I lived

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without any of these handy Tech items under a hundred bucks starting with the

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AV Hersey ct3 I'm not even sure how to

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describe this thing it's a multimeter it's a power tester basically it tells

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you everything you want to know about anything USB just plug it in and you can

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monitor voltage and current both what supplied and what's used by whatever

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devices you have attached and it can even log that data over time so you can

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determine either for individual items or even groups of items the total charge

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capacity then there's the second view that shows you positive and negative

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voltages on the data lines bus voltage bus current bus power along with

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whatever fast charging spec you happen to be currently running which leads us

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into some much more interesting capability if we go into this menu here

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we can check the reported capabilities of any USBC cable by reading its e-mark

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chip you see as part of the USBC standard the e-mark chip is required if

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a C2C cable is anything other than a simple USB 2 cable that can handle three

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amps this chip lets the devices on either end of the connection know that

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the cable can safely handle the power or data speeds that they're trying to

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transmit so we just plug in one end of our USBC cable to the ct3 and select the

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e-mark reader if the chip is present we get a bunch of information about the

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cable if it's not well then we know it's a simple USB 2.0 cable capable of up to

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three amps what a Time Saver this is when you're trying to thin the herd

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going back to the menu again we can also see what types of charging a particular

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device supports it will identify Quick Charge 2 3 and 4 capabilities USBC power

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delivery and even dietary charging formats from the likes of Apple Samsung

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and others the ct3 can even go beyond that and let you trigger any of your

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supported charging protocols for your charger and lock them in say for example

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you were worried about reduced battery life time from charging your devices too

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quickly and you wanted to force your device to charge at a slower rate well

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you can totally do that just be sure you know what your device can accept because

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you can absolutely break things within correct settings and you'll need to

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remember too to release the charger from your trigger before you use it on

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something else we're really just scratching the surface with this thing it's scriptable via Lua so you can write

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your own charging routines for LiPO batteries it can pull data from OnePlus

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Dash cables and apple Chargers it can test cable resistance it has a built-in

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oscilloscope to show you the bus voltage over time and it's expandable with a

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load cell so you can do all of these tests and more with a specific load

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applied to the device and on top of all that it connects to custom software on a

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PC to give you even more granular control we need to move on but let's

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just say it is an amazingly capable device for just seventy dollars and on

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that note so is your old pair of headphones if only the ear pads weren't

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falling apart that is where these WC

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freeze replacement ear pads from Wicked cushions come in the pads that I've got

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here are specific to the steel series arctis Nova wireless headset but these

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are available for a wide variety of headphones and headsets starting at just

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thirty dollars it takes just a few minutes to swap out your worn out less

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comfortable or uglier ear pads with Wicked cushions and give your old

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headphones a new lease on life our set is a little thicker and a little firmer

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than the stock ones using a combination of cooling gel and memory foam with a

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breathable Sports fabric slash PU leather cover that noticeably improved

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Comfort however that can be a double-edged sword I mean it does solve

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a problem that some people have with this particular headset you can see there's an ANC mic that's inside each of

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the ear cups that kind of protrudes from the fabric here these can be really

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uncomfortable for certain people depending on your ear shape well by

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increasing the thickness of the ear cups you no longer feel them however changing

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the shape of a pair of headphones can have a negative impact on their

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performance thankfully after a quick round of testing from the Labs team we

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saw only a minimal impact on the frequency response of our arctis headset

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which is good because that was a requirement for us to accept their

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sponsorship for this video good job you guys and they look pretty cool too oh

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and good job Pine 64. you might know

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these guys from their Linux based Pine phone or their hundred dollar Linux

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laptops but they also make this the Pine

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Sol smart soldering iron you just put the handle and tip together tighten this

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little set screw then plug it in and you're ready to go it can be powered

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from a 12 to 24 volt Barrel Jack or even

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via USBC supporting both USB PD and

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Quick Charge 3.0 the Special Sauce here though is its onboard 32-bit risk 5 SOC

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that's running iron OS a smart soldering

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iron operating system that offers customizable automatic sleep motion wake

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temporary power boosting for right as you're touching whatever it is you want

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to solder to give you a little a little bit of extra help to get it flowing and

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even battery protection if you're running it off of a bank of lipo cells

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and that's all in your choice of 31 languages the interface is fairly

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straightforward to navigate on the small Auto rotating OLED display cool right

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and you can quickly dial in any temperature between 100 and 400 degrees

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Celsius and the tip will reach operating temperature in just six seconds going to

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sleep when it's idle to save your workspace and any unsuspecting pets or

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children who might accidentally come across it at just 25 direct from Pine 64

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the pine cell is a must add to your Tech Sac for any on-the-go repairs you might

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need to make speaking of which do you have your Tech sack yet check it out at

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lttstore.com and check out our next little tool to stuff into it a portable

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storage Drive is still one of the most useful things that a tech can carry in

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fact you might even have one on your keychain but you might be surprised to

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learn how cheaply you can DIY a really

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high performance with one these days I am talking two terabytes of speedy 10

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gigabit per second storage for less than a hundred dollars all you got to do is

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combine a nice 69 NVMe drive with a 16

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enclosure and you're ready to go I'm not

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gonna pretend you can't get a random two terabyte thumb drive for less money than

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this but in spite of the blue connectors that many of those have there is no way

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you are getting anywhere near the read and write speeds of this guy and they're

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also nowhere near as rugged like man

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good luck beating this thing up oh here's another you already have one but

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uh this one is better item whether it's for your switch your steam deck or your

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laptop you already know how useful a type c dock can be for connecting

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multiple devices to a single port and for getting back connectors that

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manufacturers have decided you just don't need any more like say for example

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USB a ports or additional HDMI ports

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well doc cases smart hubs not only look sick but they expand the basic

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functionality of a dock with an integrated display when you plug in a

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device it shows you the USB standard and maximum speed of whatever you just

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plugged in it'll also show you details on USB power delivery and the edit info

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for just about any monitor that's connected to the HDMI port but wait

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there's more using this button we can view more detailed information about the

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HDMI connection as well as manually setting HDMI EQ parameters which can

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help improve the connection quality for longer high-speed runs and like the ct3

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that we showed off earlier it allows you to manually configure USB power delivery

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specifying which PD version to use and

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how much of the up to 100 watts of power to reserve for the dock itself which

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effectively lets you dial in the exact level of power you want to provide to

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the host device the single button interface does take a little getting

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used to you have to use a mixture of short long and double clicks to navigate

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around the UI but most of the time you're going to be just looking at the

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data that's displayed on the main screen not actively tweaking settings now this

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is the Explorer Edition of the Smart Hub which lets you get a peek at the

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internals and starts at 90 dollars with free usbas a USBC all capable of five

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gigabit per second and HDMI port and an additional USBC for up to 100 watts of

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power delivery and for an additional 10 there's a pro version that swaps out one

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of the USB a ports for gigabit Ethernet or for fifty dollars less than this one

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you could just get a similar dock from ugreen that has all the same

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connectivity but doesn't have a screen I mean look I didn't say any of this stuff

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was essential I just said that it was handy now just because our last video in

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this series is old enough to start kindergarten in the fall doesn't mean that we've forgotten the most important

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part the full disclosure section these handy Tech videos are much more of a hey

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you should think about buying this thing compared to our normal videos so we want

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to make sure we're transparent about how we choose the items and how we acquired

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them Wicked cushions sponsored this video and sent us half a dozen sets of

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cushions for this steel series headset our writer Jordan who gets paid the same

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regardless has been wearing these things for a couple of weeks and gave them a

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thumbs up that's good enough for me the pencil soldering iron was recommended by

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several of our staff and it turned out we had actually already purchased one

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for a different video so we snuck It Off the Shelf to show you guys today the ct3

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power meter has been kicking around our writer's room for long enough that we're

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honestly actually not sure whether we bought it or it was sent to us by the

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manufacturer it's so cool though I'm surprised we haven't shown it off before

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and given the features it offers we're probably going to buy even more of them

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and the NVMe drive and enclosure were purchased from Amazon for this video and

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finally both versions of the doc case explore were sent to us by doc case for

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an unrelated video and we just liked them so we included them here just like

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we also included this Segway to our sponsor Wicked cushions Wicked cushions

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want to bring you the best replacement ear pads on the planet their WC freeze

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cooling ear pads use two pieces of cooling gel one under the PU leather on

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the inside of the ear cup and one under the breathable Sports fabric on the face

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of the pads to help keep your ears cooler for longer if they eventually get

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too warm or you accidentally leave them sitting in front of a hot PC exhaust all

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you need to do is pop them in the fridge for a couple minutes to reactivate the

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cooling gel Wicked cushions are available for more than a dozen headphone manufacturers and in a variety

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of patterns from simple black to these 90s style ones that are perfect for

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watching Saved by the Bell reruns Wicked cushions are a great way to Breathe new

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life into Old headphones or improve comfort and add Flair to your new ones

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use the link and coupon code in the description for 15 off your order if you

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liked this video we've got a whole series of Handy Tech videos and we're

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going to link the latest one here for you to check out