Product review: Durapower 500lm Rechargeable LED Work Light Bar Cordless

This work light exceeded my expectations. I did not fully understand how versatile it is until I began using it.



✔ I can hang the light horizontally using magnets on my HiLoft storage system. HiLoft shelves are a metal grid. The magnets are strong enough that they work even with this "sparse" support. The magnets work great on a solid sheet of metal, of course, like a hood of the car.



✔ I can hang the light by one or two hooks, providing me light either horizontally or vertically depending on the space I need to light. I have a long a narrow area behind the furnace where I every few months we need to change the filter, it is always a struggle to see what is happening because the furnace shades the overhead light and it is difficult to hold a flashlight while changing the filter. Now the problem is solved.



✔ The light can be rotated so the light provides the light to an area but not beam into my eyes.



✔ The light runs on a rechargeable battery, so when I use it I don't need to have it plugged in. (In fact the manufacture warns not to use the light while it is being charged).



✔ It has two modes low and high, both of modes are quite bright.



When I first opened it I wondered where the hooks are. Turns out they are hidden within the ends and can be either extended or retracted. The next puzzle was to find the port for charging, it is hidden on the end of the light and you need to rotate the hook to expose the opening. I show it in the video, as it is easier to show than describe. When the light is charging you red LED light is on, when the charging is done the red LED is turns off. The manufacture recommends not leaving the light charging continuously.



Overall, I am very pleased. Good amount of light and it can be mounted in many different ways.



You can find it on Amazon by following this link.







AshopZones review ★★★★★

Product review: YOTOSAN Smart 16-Outlet Home Vertical Power Strip

This outlet tower fits perfectly behind my computer. I don't have a lot of room there and need a lot of outlets - both AC and USB powered - and this tower is perfect in that space. There are 15 AC outlets and 2 USB outlets. The AC outlets are well spaced out. I am able to mount two large chargers next to each (see video), no outlets are blocked! This is a very clever design.



The two feet power cord can be coiled in the base of the tower and I can release only what I need. This reduces the cord jungle I have behind the computer.



I tested each USB port with a current monitor an Android device and an Apple device. Both ports are 1A ports. They charged my Android devices at the optimal rate, and my Apple devices below optimal (since they need more than 1A to perform at the optimal rate). I do my tests with the devices charged to the same level, running the same applications and using the same cables to keep everything the same. This allows me to compare them to each other in a fair way. I use the current monitor to see what current is delivered to each device which tells me how well each external battery is working.



Samsung Nexus phone:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1 port: 0.97A/5.03V (excellent)

2 port: 1.01A/5.01V (excellent)

(for comparison the best charging monitor result for this phone is 1.00A/5V)



iPad Mini tablet:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1 port: 0.93A/5.02V (average for 1A)

2 port: 0.93A/5.01V (average for 1A)

(for comparison the best charging monitor result for this tablet is 1.70A/5V)



I love the shape of this power strip, it gave me more than enough outlets in the area which barely has any space.



You can find it on Amazon by following this link.







AshopZones review ★★★★★

Product review: Koch Dimmable "Book" LED Lamp

Update: In about 1 months the book light stopped working. I am no longer able to charge it. Even if I charge it for 24 hours it does not turn on.



Original 4 star review follows. The rating has been changed to 1 star.



This is a neat looking light. I saw a similar looking product on Shark Tank but this one is made by a different company. When closed this light looks like a book, when opened it provides light with an option of having 4 different colors. The intensity of the light is not dimmable, but each color provides a different level of lighting. The white light is the brightest but it is still not bright enough to read under. I would classify this light as a night light or a mood light. In my video I show the light in various configurations. I also show the reading of the lux meter which measures the intensity of the light.



The lux meter right next to the light shows 519 lux.

The lux meter at 12 inches shows 49 lux.

For comparison a 60 watt light at 12" produces a reading of 1110 lux.



The light is charged with a regular micro USB cable. When it is charging the light next to the port is blue, when it is fully charged the light turns off.



After I fully charged the light, I turned it on timed how long it stayed on. The light stayed on for 12 hours. It took 5 hours to fully recharge it.



This is a fun novelty light and a good looking night light.



You can find it on Amazon by following this link.





AshopZones review ★☆☆☆☆

Product review: Balichun Supreme Collection - High Quality 100% Cotton 4-Piece Bed Sheet

Balichun cotton sheets have a tight weave and a smooth finish. Detracting from the fine fabric is the finish of the seams that has a lot of hanging threads. The seams don't seem to be unrevealing (the sheets have been through two washes as I write this review) but the stitching is little sloppy. I show an example in attached photo.



I like:

~~~~~~~~~



1. Tight weave

2. Smooth sateen finish, very nice to touch

3. The fitted sheet has an elastic all the way around (not just two sides like some sheets) this results in a very good fit regardless of the size of the mattress. The pocket size is 14". Our mattress is 11". However because of the good elastic I get a very nice tight fit which is not always the case with 14" pocket and a thinner mattress.

4. Simple but elegant edge decoration. It appears on the pillow cases and on the flat sheet. I show a close-up in my photos



I don't like:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1. Not wrinkle free straight out of the dryer

2. Workmahip of the seams, they have a lot of dangling threads



Overall, even though not perfect this is a very nice sheet set and after sleeping on it for a couple of weeks I give it thumbs up.





You can find it on Amazon by following this link.





AshopZones review ★★★★☆

Product review: Kinps 20000mAh Portable Power Bank

' size: 8.25" x 5.5" x 1.5"

' weight: 1 pound

' number of ports: 3 universal ports

' flashlight: no

' cables: 1 charging cable



This external battery performed very well charging both my Android phone and Apple iPadMini tablet. Each port of this battery is universal, i.e. each of my devices does equally well on each port.



To see how well different chargers and external batteries charge my mobile devices I use a Nexus phone and an iPadMini to test each of them. The current drawn from the battery depends on each device using the battery. The port rated with maximum capacity of 2A does not always deliver 2A, what is actually delivered is controlled by the device based on many factors such running apps, level of charge, and so forth. I always use the same two devices and I do my tests with the devices charged to the same level, running the same applications and using the same cables to keep everything the same. This allows me to do a relative comparison of each battery and identify the ones that do not perform well. Note that these tests are not testing for the maximum current each device can draw on each port as neither of my devices can max out the port.



I check if the cable that came with the battery is a charging cable (i.e. capable of charging at full AC rate or if charges at slower USB rate). This is easy to tell by using a current monitor and I happy to report that this package includes a charging cable that works at AC rate.



Samsung Nexus phone:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

port 1: 1.02A / 5.10V (excellent comparing the performance of the same device with other chargers)

port 2: 1.02A / 5.09V (excellent comparing the performance of the same device with other chargers)

port 3: 1.02A / 5.10V (excellent comparing the performance of the same device with other chargers)

(for comparison the best charging monitor result for this phone is 1.00A/5V)



As noted above these tests are not designed to test the maximum capacity of the port, so 2A port not showing 2A is not an indication of a problem



iPad Mini tablet:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

port 1: 1.23A / 5.08V (good comparing the performance of the same device with other chargers)

port 2: 1.15A / 5.09V (good comparing the performance of the same device with other chargers)

port 3: 1.35A / 5.10V (good comparing the performance of the same device with other chargers)

(for comparison the best charging monitor result for this tablet is 1.70A/5V)



The battery has a nice capacity and fast charging rate for oth Android and Apple devices. I use it to power a 4" speaker which is used several hours a day and it runs for many days without needing a recharge.



You can find it on Amazon by following this link.







AshopZones review ★★★★★

Product review: BlueDriver - Bluetooth OBDII Scan Tool

I give 5 stars to the hardware and 2 stars to the BlueDriver app. Luckily, there is an excellent free app called Torque that works very well so I am only deducting 1 star from the rating because there is another option to replace the app that comes with BlueDriver. In attached video I show both apps, including Torque running while the car is being driven.



The Bluedriver app even though it initially connected constantly lost connectivity so I could never get past the first screen. I have spent quite a bit of time on testing it on two different cars (Honda CRV and Chrysler 300C) and never got past that first screen. Torque app, however, connected instantly and had a lot of information about the car as you see in the video.



The scanner is simple to install and simple to use. A lot simpler than I expected, frankly. All cars and light trucks built and sold in the United States after January 1, 1996 were required to be OBD II equipped. Once I looked up what the OBD-II connector looked like it was easy to locate it. The connector is very distinctive looking, I am including a picture of it in my video for reference. In my car the connector was located under my dash, slightly to the right of the steering wheel.



The OBD II scanner is fairly small: 1.75" wide, 1.74" tall, and 0.875" wide.



You can find it on Amazon by following this link.





AshopZones review ★★★★☆

Product review: Chafon Cf-UPS008 Portable Backup Power UPS

Charon UPS documentation claims a very impressive performance. To verify the numbers I started by testing Chafon performance with my laptop to see if it comes close to the documented performance.



Chafron documentation states that they expect a 13" laptop to run for 6 hours. I took out the battery from my laptop, set the power options to never go into sleep mode and not to shut down the screen and measured how long it can run after I charged Charon UPS to its full capacity. The laptop ran from 5:50 pm to 12:25 am, for a total of 6 hours 35 minutes. For the last 5 minutes the battery level was shown as 0% and blinking, so I had a warning that it was about to run out of juice. This is the best case power usage scenario as I was not running any programs on the laptop other than the idle mode of the operating system. If the computer was doing some more intense work the power consumption would be higher and the battery would last less time. Never the less my test confirmed the numbers stated in the documentation and this backup battery has an impressive performance.



Once I exhausted the battery in my laptop experiment, I timed how long it took to fully recharge the Chafon battery.



8:20am start - 3% full

9:30am - 56% full

12:30pm - 88% full

1:00pm - 100% full



It took 3 hour and 40 minutes to fully recharge the battery.



I like how Chafon clearly identifies how long the battery will last. They state that it produces 288 WH, which means it can produce 288 watts per hour. To find out how long any devices will run on this battery you have to divide 288 watts by the amount of power a device draws. A watt is current multiplied by voltage. For example, if I measure my USB fan with a current monitor I get 0.40A and 5.05V which is 2.02 watts. This means this fan should run for approximately 144 hours (6 days) before this battery is exhausted.



The unique feature of Chafon UPS its portability. The Chafon box comes in a case with a handle, it weights 7 pounds and 1.2 oz, and its size is 11"L x 4.25"WS x 5.25"H.



Chafon has both AC and USB port. I found many uses for this large portable battery from using it as a back up when the power goes out at home to re-charging my Ghost drone (its battery requires an AC plug so my other battery chargers could not do it).



It lives up to the numbers they promise.



You can find it on Amazon by following this link.







AshopZones review ★★★★★