[0:00] There’s a new kid on the block Temu or Temu is a new website for ordering things

[0:04] directly from China it’s been billed to me by some people as an Amazon killer

[0:08] and by other people as a scam site that can’t be trusted but is it any better

[0:13] than AliExpress let’s give it a go I’ve been on the lookout for a new magnifying headset

[0:18] for a while now as my current one is on its last legs the light has never been

[0:22] particularly good and it’s now completely broken and the lenses are a bit wobbly
[0:29] I’m also in need of some more USB power from my bench and I thought to might as well chuck some

[0:33] breadboards in the basket along with some ready cut jumper leads apparently I’ve saved over 19

[0:38] pounds not sure how that’s calculated but whatever it’s nice I placed the order on the 8th of July

[0:45] and it arrived in just under a week on the 14th not bad at all it’s not prime one day delivery

[0:50] but it’s slightly faster than AliExpresses normally packaging wise is pretty much what

[0:55] I’d expect lots of tape and hard to get into all the bits I ordered have arrived so that’s pretty

[1:01] good the magnifying headlamp looks okay I’ve plugged it in to charge up the light seems to

[1:06] be nicely adjustable I’ll leave it on charge and we’ll have a look at the USB power supply I must

[1:11] admit to having some doubts about this already it claims to be quick charge compatible and it’s

[1:15] got various voltages and outputs specified on the side but then it also says it outputs 3.1 amps on

[1:20] the sockets let’s see if any of this is true I’ve hooked up to my USB tester let’s see what it says

[1:29] well that’s not too promising it doesn’t seem to support anything apart from five

[1:33] volts let’s see what we can actually get out of it maybe it will do the claimed 3.1 amps

[1:39] well that’s also not great it craps out at 2 amps let’s have a look at what’s inside I’ve used my

[1:46] advice to crack it open and well this does not look like a high-tech USB charger at all there’s

[1:51] really not a lot to the pcbs we have the full Bridge rectifier and then we have the switching

[1:57] regulator an S7133B I couldn’t find a date sheet for this chip but I did find this which seems to

[2:03] match up with our measurements 2 amps maximum output it will work but none of the claims on

[2:08] the box match up to reality we definitely can’t get any voltage other than 5 volts out of it

[2:13] and we’re limited to 2 amps maximum output but is this any better or worse than what we could find

[2:19] on AliExpress we paid 2 pounds 98 on Temu and got free shipping I managed to find exactly the

[2:26] same charger on AliExpress for one pound 46 plus one pound 24 shipping just under 30p cheaper so I

[2:34] guess that’s the win for AliExpress but given how crap the charger is I’m not sure anyone is really

[2:39] winning having said that it is amazingly cheap so it will work for charging your USB devices it just

[2:46] won’t do it particularly quickly amazingly I also found what looks like exactly the same listing on

[2:52] Amazon it’s on for 7 pounds 99 but we could get prime one day delivery I’m not sure I’ll bothered

[2:58] to be honest while we’ve been playing the glasses are now fully charged the current has dropped down

[3:03] to almost Zuma let’s see if we can have a look at what’s inside there’s a bunch of screws to remove

[3:08] and using the magic of Television I’ll do the unscrewing in super quick time the battery is

[3:13] a 380 milliamp hour cell which seems reasonable for the size we could probably fit a 500 milliamp

[3:19] hour cell in the same space and we’ve got something quite entertaining at some point

[3:23] someone has got their polarities wrong and we’ve got black connecting to red and red connecting

[3:28] to Black there’s also no heat shrink to be seen it’s a short circuit waiting to happen good job

[3:33] the battery has a protection PCB built in the PCB cover pops off with a bit of spudgering and Brute

[3:39] Force I’ll disconnect the battery and then get the PCB out and we can see the red wire is connected

[3:45] to the negative terminal and the black wire is connecting to the positive terminal there’s two

[3:50] ICS of interest on the board something labeled 57c6 and a mystery chip the 57c6 is the battery

[3:57] charge controller and from the pin out it looks like a clone to the tp4057 IC I’ve done my best

[4:03] big Clive impression and reverse engineered it it’s quite nice we’ve got a dual color red green

[4:09] led to indicate charging and standby and assuming the IC is a clear into the tp4056 will be charging

[4:15] the battery at 300 milliamps which given our 380 milliamp hour battery seems okay the schematics

[4:22] for the LED driver are slightly more confusing you have the power coming from the battery via a 20

[4:27] Ohm resistor the switch pulls pin 4 of the mystery IC to zero volts and the LED’s negative terminals

[4:33] are connected to pins 5 6 and 7. in theory I think we could adjust the brightness of the LEDs by

[4:38] modifying the 20 ohm resistor either to make them brighter or dimmer overall Without Really knowing

[4:44] what the mystery chip is and ignoring the swapped over polarity and lack of heat shrinking it seems

[4:49] like a decent product I picked these up on Temu for seven pounds 19 and I found the same glasses

[4:55] on AliExpress for nine pounds 46. I also found them on Amazon for 13 pounds 99 so it’s a slight

[5:02] advantage to Temu but by a very small margin now obviously this is a very small sample size

[5:07] but what have we learned for me I’m not sure there’s any reason to switch from AliExpress

[5:12] AliExpress still seems to have a much wider range of electronic components and PCBs and the quality

[5:18] of products seems to be the same it’s definitely a case of bio be aware one thing that is very

[5:23] obvious is that there’s absolutely no quality control on Amazon you’re getting the same products

[5:28] that you’d find on AliExpress or Temu along with the same misleading product descriptions

[5:32] and design flaws it’s definitely a case if you get what you pay for paying a few pounds for

[5:37] a USB charger and expect to get a higher quality quick charger it’s just not realistic and finally

[5:43] you can’t trust any of the reviews on any of the sites so Caveat Emptor and happy shopping