Shopping List – 6 things I bought in December 2017

This is the first post of this type, I thought, I will try to have some regular features on my website since all other content is randomly generated in my head as I go, without planning. I’m going to share with you all the purchases I made in the last month with small snippets of information about the items, purpose and maybe a quick feedback if the item arrived already. The Shopping List will be published in the first week of each month.

Shopping List – December 2017

Let’s face it, some of the items here will be posted with a 30-day delay, so don’t use this as your typical ‘deal alert’ post. They are not listed in any particular order so let’s take a look what I have been up to in December. With a small exception, I excluded the xmas gifts as no one wants to read about warms socks and chocolate on here! With that said, here are the 6 items I bought in December 2017:

Logitech R400 Wireless Presenter

It’s not what would you expect to find on this list. It’s a (requested) gift for my other half. After sophisticated research, I picked this one. It has a laser pointer and a button to blackout the screen, which I rather use for swapping the displays. Needs no setup, works straight out of the box, there is very little chance that I will get any troubleshooting calls from my wife.

(AmazonUK £26.99 / AmazonUS $34.99)

KATSU 852D Soldering station

If you have seen the soldering station unboxing, you know I have returned this item to Amazon. The heat gun was faulty. It turned into a light-saber within seconds. I can’t recommend the product despite the positive reviews on Amazon. I have a bigger soldering project going on and I burned through my 8W USB Soldering iron. If you feel brave and want to give it another chance – here are the links.

(AmazonUK £45.99)

YIHUA 992DA+ Soldering Station

This is the expensive replacement for the item above. I have to say I have been limited to what I could buy by as I needed it quick. The item has no reviews, but my first impressions from 2-3h soldering session are positive. The only negative so far I can think of is the noise it makes when you crank the air stream up. You can watch the full unboxing here.

(AmazonUK £179.99 / Banggood $229.99 / AliExpress $230.00)

Double Row Straight 5-pin Female Headers

It’s a small misplay on my part, as I rather have 2×4 than the 2×5 layout of these headers. My last headers have been used for the ESP8266 smart socket & for the ESP8266 adapters. It’s ok, I have been trimming them down to the desired size with a Dremel tool. I will order other sizes too at some point. They are very useful to have if you play with ESP8266-01.

(AliExpress $0.75 2×5 / Banggood $0.64 2×4)

Colorful Heat Shrink Tubes (5 colors, 8 sizes)

Until now, I have been using the good old electrical tape for everything. Since I have a heat gun I can go pro and get some fancy shrink tubes for my wires. You will still see me playing with tape from time to time. After seeing at the hackspace how quick and easy shrink tubes are, I decided to give it a go myself.

(AliExpress $3.50 / Banggood $5.50)

That’s sums up the list for the December 2017. I’m already making sure that I have something to write about in February! Use social media to let me know if you came across something you think I might be interested in.