ANCEL BS200 Super Starter Review

ANCEL BS200 Super Starter Review

Have you ever tried to start your car and it just wouldn’t turn over? There is now a pretty great solution to that problem. Enter the ANCEL BS200 Super Starter. (currently $199.99 with a coupon at $164.99). Buy now in case that coupon expires!

The great folks at ANCEL (official site link) sent me their BS200 which is a essentially a super capacitor capable of supplying sufficient cranking amps to start an engine with a highly degraded battery state.

Did you ever hear your refrigerator compressor kick on? The concept here is kind of the same. That compressor will not start without a powerful jolt of electricity stored in a very large capacitor.

As it is with the ANCEL BS200 Super Starter. It is a very simple device that connects to your car battery using two simple leads. A positive and negative lead connected to your battery terminals. Once that super capacitor gets charged it can supply enough amperage to start your engine with even the most degraded battery.

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Werewolf VFLEX Adapter Review

Werewolf VFLEX Adapter Review

Werewolf VFLEX Adapter

In a world full of power bricks along comes something that provides power with far less clutter. If you are currently using a bench power supply to provide power to your gizmos the Werewolf VFLEX Adapter system may be for you. I recently bought several items from them and hope to share what I’ve learned.

But first let me give you a real world example. I’m a photography nerd. In the mid-2000’s I bought a device called a Nikon Coolwalker. It was designed for the days of low capacity Compact Flash cards. Fill up your card on a shoot and then dump the photos into the Coolwalker. Format your card. Shoot. Repeat.

That device had some crazy battery in it called the Nikon EN-EL6. It was only made for the Coolwalker. And of course after 20 years that battery is deader than dead. And there are no 3rd party EL6’s available even today.

I needed to feed it around 6 volts to start it. At first I did it with a bench power supply and some barrel connectors and bread board wires. It was ugly, messy, and probably dangerous (to the Coolwalker). Then I saw a review video from Jeff Geerling on his “Level 2 Jeff” YouTube channel showcasing the VFLEX system. If you don’t know who Jeff is, it is worth your time to check out his channel. He’s probably one of the world’s best Raspberry Pi and Kubernetes geeks and he isn’t constrained by those two things at all. His network timing and atomic clock and GPS synchronization videos are awesome to me. Especially, since I play with GPS modules and Pulses Per Second (PPS) while getting time sync from GPS satellites.

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The Ultimate Floor Cleaning Solution – UWANT D100

The Ultimate Floor Cleaning Solution – UWANT D100

On my blog here I do tech. Computers, cameras, Raspberry Pi stuff, laser engravers, etc. I was debating whether or not to agree to review the UWANT D100 Wet Dry vacuum ($239.99 currently) when they reached out to me.

Subsequently, I showed my wife the product link and she told me “that looks amazing, and please say yes”. I was in the Navy and know how to follow orders. I received the UWANT D100 approximately 2 weeks ago and my life hasn’t been the same since.

I’m retired, and my wife works. She gently encourages me to run the vacuum daily despite the fact that I’m a very important person on the internet. 😆. I find myself using this wet dry vacuum on a daily basis because I WANT to use it. It’s fun. And it is pretty doggone amazing.

Our house has hard wood floors, linoleum, tile, and carpet. And it’s a pretty big house. We have every kind of cleaner, mop, and vacuum you can imagine. We have struggled though with keeping the hard wood floors clean around here. No more.

Also it needs to be stated that at no time has UWANT attempted to influence my review. They did provide some testing recommendations which were more than reasonable to showcase the D100, but gave me free reign to do as I saw fit. Let’s take a peek at why I love this machine so much.

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Accsoon TopRig S40 Review – Is It Worth It?

Accsoon TopRig S40 Review – Is It Worth It?

Accsoon TopRig S40

I have to say right away that I am NOT a professional photographer. And I don’t know much about this stuff. Anyway, I picked up an Accsoon TopRig S40 Camera Slider to try to improve my blog photos

and videos. A little motion, similar to the Ken Burns effect, really makes things pop when done correctly.

Camera sliders can be pretty expensive. I did a ton of research and landed on the Accsoon TopRig S40 partly due to some reviews I saw, and partly because the price was right at $249. I bought this with my own money. Most things I review here are sent to me.

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Foxwell Borescope Review

Foxwell Borescope Review

Foxwell Borescope

I first learned what a borescope is in the early 1980’s when I was an aircraft mechanic in the US Navy. To me it was a marvel of engineering and almost seemed like science fiction. Today you can buy a Foxwell Borescope (FY406D) that is probably a thousand times better than the one I first saw and certainly a heck of a lot less expensive ($189.99 currently on Amazon).

There is a less expensive version called the Y400 which you can buy for $129.99.

When given the opportunity to review this I jumped at the chance. Conversely, I have several really good uses for it. Additionally, I believe every homeowner should have one of these. Not too long ago we figured out rodents had tunneled into our flexible duct work under the house. I had it all ripped out and replaced. Additionally, I plan on using this borescope to routinely inspect the ductwork as far as the probe length allows. This could end up paying for itself quickly. And it provides proof to my wife that the critters have not returned.

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ACMER Ascarva 4S CNC Upgrade

ACMER Ascarva 4S CNC Upgrade

Recently I reviewed the ACMER Ascarva 4S entry level CNC machine. It is a great first machine but is greatly improved by adding a beefier power supply and faster spindle. The ACMER Ascarva 4S CNC Upgrade kit replaces the existing spindle which is a 70 watt, 8,000 rpm motor.

The upgrade kit adds a 500 watt and 12,000 rpm air cooled spindle. This will give the Ascarva 4S a lot more bite.

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Sainlogic Weather Station SA6 Plus Review

Sainlogic Weather Station SA6 Plus Review

Sainlogic Weather Station

I got my hands on yet another Sainlogic Weather Station to review. Enter the Sainlogic SA6 Plus.

I love all of them but this one has one feature that stands out. A visual monitor. With most stations you can set your sensor outside and get real time conditions from your own yard.

Then you can retrieve that data from the Weatherseed application on your smart device. But let’s be honest here. If you pick up your cell phone there is probably a weather widget on the home screen that can give you plenty of weather information for you location. The advantage to using a Sainlogic Weather Station is that you are PART OF SOMETHING if you upload your data to the WeatherUnderground API.

But how much better is it that you don’t have to grab a phone and navigate to an app? All you need to do with the Sainlogic SA6 Plus is to look at the connected display.

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2025 Piece Of Fucking Shit Award

2025 Piece Of Fucking Shit Award

It’s been a while since I’ve done this. And to make it worse I have tried real hard to behave in a manner in which would make me and others around me proud. But every once in a while you need to call out a POS. So before the year ends I aim to award the coveted John’s Tech Blog Piece Of Fucking Shit Award to the biggest POS out there.

This year it goes to a company called Sidio or SidioCrate. They can’t really make up their mind what they are called.

I’d love to tell you the stackable crate I ordered was a POS however I don’t have it yet despite the fact that I ordered it on Nov 29th. They made a label on the 8th but it didn’t actually show up to a shipping point and actually move for a few days after that.

Allow me to clarify: IT TOOK THEM 10 DAYS JUST TO MAKE A SHIPPING LABEL.

Oh, and I forgot the fact that I paid $7.99 for that shipping.

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Best Gear Of 2025

Best Gear Of 2025

And yet another trip around the sun is near to completion. What was the Best Gear of 2025? These are a few of my favorites. Let me know in the comments what your selection for the best gear of the passing year is.

Computer Hardware

I should have added this to the bottom as a grand finale, but it also fits nicely at the top. For 2025 the Beelink Me Mini is one of my top picks for Gear Of The Year.

It is a high capacity NAS that is SILENT and uses NVME M.2 SSD drives for data storage. While the Beelink Me Mini is inexpensive, sadly memory prices have exploded. I got mine just in time it seems.

Equipped with 16 GB of built in RAM and four 4TB drives nets you about 12TB of storage in a RAIDZ1 configuration. Even better is that you can install TrueNAS on this device. This is replacing my very noisy QNAP NAS appliance.

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BeVigor CR123A Battery Review

BeVigor CR123A Battery Review

BeVigor CR123A

The battery manufacturer BeVigor reached out to me recently and asked if I would be interested in reviewing some batteries, and if so, which ones. I opted for the BeVigor CR123A Battery. I’m one of those unusual people that use a LOT of CR123A batteries. Not only are they expensive usually, the ones I have used just don’t last that long.

The Company

I’m told the company name “BeVigor” is a play on words for “be vigorous”!

And sure enough my volt meter does imply strength and energy. I supply the enthusiasm. Allow me to demonstrate my enthusiasm by reading on.

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