Midweek Banggood Round-up

First item in today’s postbag – my new. And what’s special about that? We have a mains powered mosquito/fly killer which sits in front of the bedroom and runs all night – had it for some time now – we also have disposable battery-powered swatters which act on the press of a button (and for reasons beyond me are all rounded off so they constantly fall over when left by my desk in-between uses).

These insect killers are very popular, particularly here in Southen Spain where we get every size of flying insect imaginable. We have meshes on our doors but the tiny ones Americans call “no see ems” get by the door invisibly as you go in and out and seem to be able to get through even fine mesh.

Armed with the above, why would this unit fom Banggood appeal?

Well, for one thing, it’s a single unit that does the lot and for another it uses a rechargeable battery instead of regularly contributing to the local dump when the swatter batteries die as they do regularly. Finally, this new unit has a base in which to perch the unit when doing it’s overnight protection.

As the link has all the details, I’ll just give you the basics here… 2700v output, built-in lithium 450maH USB rechargeable battery electric mosquito swatter with night light. Dual mode: can be used for indoor and outdoors (though I’d recommend avoiding using it in the rain!!!) by pressing a button as needed or left “on” constantly, complete with blue light for overnight use. Colour: subtle green..

Don’t get sidetracked by the fluorescent green fly swatter shown in the photo top right – that’s one of my local Chinese store units which go through batteries at an astounding rate and break easily. The new swatter is shown on the left below and has a 3-way switch – off – swatter mode and constant mode with blue light.

Time will tell how good this device is. The (English) information that comes with the swatter states that the wavelength is 380-400nm, that the charging voltage should be 5V (USB, lead provided) and that charging time will be about 4 hours. The leaflet states that the swatter should be turned off when charging.

For now, the new swatter is sitting in the living room and tonight when it is dark, the purple/blue light will be the only light in the area and hopefully by midnight it will have claimed at least one first victim.

Instructions in English cover two sides and I have to say the translations are poor and mention mosquitos only – maybe they’re a big problem in China – here it is more a case of flies and very small flying insects but I have every confidence they’ll die just as easily.

The second item in today’s postbag is a nice ABS + PC . This smooth round RGB + warm white bedside lamp comes complete with USB lead and again assumes you have a USB supply of some kind “lying around”.

I tend to keep USB supplies from defunct gadgets under the principle of “you can never have too many USB supplies” – I’m not sure if lack of a supply would put others off buying this lamp.

So, features include no-touch control – you simple swipe your hand past the lamp to turn it on to warm white, again to RGB sequencing and again for off. Moving your hand toward and away from the lamp vertically will cause an action which depends on the mode you are in. The lamp internally uses 16 RGB LEDS in 5050 form. White is claimed to be fixed at 2800-3200K, brightness 80 lumens and off-charge, the unit has a working time of 5-6 hours.

The on-off switch on the underside turns the unit on or off (i.e. power-saving) – long-press to turn on, short press to turn off. That’s about it. Oh and fixings and a plate are provided in case you wish to wall-mount this rechargeable unit.

And finally in the mid-week roundup, a Lithium-powered soldering iron. A WHAT? Well, I often end up doing outdoor repairs needing wire soldering and rather than drag a mains cable around, I generally resort to using a gas soldering iron. If you’ve never used one of these before, they can be quite finnicky in the wind, the heads are expensive to replace and you generally need a lighter or match to get them started – they also oxidise quickly and can be dangerous if left lying around.

The can apparently achieve a maximum of 450C and uses around 5W according to the side of the unit though the printed instructions state maximum power 8W and the iron uses an internal (supplied) 18650 Lithium battery. Instructions were entirely in Chinese but as there seem to be no adjustments that’s no big loss – also you can get an English “manual” online which refers to a European site for spares – didn’t do me any good so I ended up back in China (AliExpress) for spare tips. The iron has 2 WHITE forward-facing working LEDs and a top-facing RED power indicator.

The unit is screwed together and the tip is easily removed though I did not get any spare tips with it – I initially thought of this iron as suitable for the odd outdoor/remote area job but as you’ll see, it is capable of much more. Charging is via micro-USB (lead supplied – the instructions show a USB supply but mine didn’t come with one).

Two small reels of solder come with the unit as well as a small blue sponge (I generally soak these in water before use to easily remove oxidation and excess solder from the iron and a spare sponge would have been nice but there’s nothing special about the material, any old cut piece of sponge will do – I’m sure Bangood will have spares).. The supplied solder reels are 1.0mm and 1.5mm respectively. I think if I were storing this iron in a work-box, I’d be removing the tip for storage just in case it got bent – but it does look decently made. For the kind of work I do, the supplied solder is a bit on the large diameter side.

The iron is solid with a soft rubbery feel to the sides and a slight lip at the top to prevent accidents. See the short video below of my first attempts – I like it! Spare tips are on the way.