Round two of the Temu challenge: after I criticised Temu in an earlier video, they asked for a right of reply and gave me a budget to review their stuff, so here’s another £150 or so on budget tools and parts, sorting the wheat from the chaff for retro electronics repair. This batch includes a USB light for my printer tent, a value pack of ICs, an RP2040 board, soldering tips, a clone of the Engineer SS-02 solder sucker and a cordless rotary tool, plus parts for a few future projects. Are they worth it?
USB LED light for the printer tent
A simple USB LED strip with multiple brightness levels and three colour temperatures, all quite distinct. The controller sits on the cable (claimed 1.8m, and it does seem long), far enough from the light that it can stay outside the 3D printer tent from the last haul. Passing it through the tent’s small rear opening was a squeeze at the controller, but the size is perfect and I’m happy with the output. It’ll get cable tied to the tent frame once I have space to set it up again.
A value pack of ICs
Unbranded, but so are the chips in plenty of off the shelf kit, and for the money it’s a lot of useful parts: ten 555 timers, five quad op amps, ten dual comparators, ten single op amps, ten JFET op amps, ten dual audio op amps, ten lower grade audio amps, ten optocouplers, five Darlington transistor arrays and five high current Darlington arrays. Straight into the parts bin.
An RP2040 board for a 3DO project
I paid £3.99 delivered, a good couple of pounds cheaper than elsewhere. Prices on Temu move quickly, but they have a 30 day price promise that credits the difference if it drops. It’s for a project around my big tub of 3DO spare parts, enough to build a whole 3DO: I want to build a USB to 3DO adapter so I can plug modern controllers and mice in.
Soldering tips and an SS-02 clone
A five pack of generic 900M style tips that fit my generic station and my Tenma. My usual chisel size isn’t included, but I use all of these, especially the big blade for drag soldering SMD parts. At this price you can afford to replace them often.
The solder sucker is a clone of my trusty Engineer SS-02 from Japan, at a fraction of the price of the genuine one (nearly £20 delivered). The genuine silicone tip is better quality, but the clone’s may be good enough. The latching action feels the same, and inside the clone looks surprisingly high quality; the original has a smaller hole, and no, the parts don’t interchange because the threads differ. On the scales: 48g genuine, 47g clone, and mine is well used and probably full of solder. Ethically I don’t know, but cost-wise there’s no reason ever to buy a rubbish solder sucker again.
Cordless rotary tool
I already have a Dremel 3000, but for my work it can be overpowered and the cable gets in the way. This one charges over USB-C, has a spindle lock, standard collets, five speeds and a built in LED, which my eyes will appreciate. It isn’t heavy duty and the quality isn’t fantastic, and I’d happily have skipped the accessory kit and the awful pencil case, but for cutting tracks with a fine bit when modding PCBs it should do.
Untested and future project parts
A 64MB Free McBoot card for the PS2, which lets you run software from a USB stick or hard drive. Inside there’s an epoxy blob chip and SK Hynix memory, but my PS2 is in storage, so it’s untested. For a Sinden light gun MAME build (my wife bought me the gun) there’s an M.2 to PCIe adapter card, which looks high quality and should let an older motherboard take an NVMe drive, and an open ATX metal case to mount in a plinth.
Finally, the one I can do soon: a transparent grape purple Nintendo 64 replacement shell. My N64 looks like it’s been kicked round a car park. The moulding quality is top notch, and it comes with a toolkit including a GameBit driver, reproduction stickers, a ratings plate (American), feet and the cartridge slot parts.
Was it worth it?
Mostly yes. The IC pack, RP2040, tips and solder sucker clone are genuinely good value, the light does exactly what I need, and the N64 shell looks excellent. I’m less sure about the build quality of the rotary tool, but it should suffice for the price. The Temu links and discount codes from the time are in the video description; codes like these change, so check they’re still valid.
More from the Temu tool challenge: Temu Quality Challenge: Can You Buy Decent Retro Repair Tools on Temu?.
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My main soldering station is the kit in my top 13 tools for fixing stuff, and the 3DO parts tub has history: fixing a dead Panasonic 3DO and a 3D printed gear for the 3DO laser.
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