Kmart lied to me, so I hacked their lamp [video]

https://www.thestockpot.net/videos/whykmart for those who do not want to watch a video like me.

Isn't the use of USB-C promotion without at minimum basic USB compatability disallowed?

I have a few devices which have a USB-A to barrel plug, but they do not advertise anything and afaik that is perfectly fine. And they also only work with a normal USB charger, not the fancy ones.

Kmart DGAF they’re the primary junk purveyors in Oceana.

[flagged]

> The ESP32 has its own charging circuit.

What?

_reads on_

Turns out, he uses a specific ESP32 breakout board (AFAIK a Lolin one) that includes a charging circuit for a 1S battery. It's a really nice board, but to say that ESP32 includes a charging circuit is wrong, for anyone else curious.

> for those who do not want to watch a video like me.

Thanks! It made me read his other articles. I liked this one more: https://www.thestockpot.net/videos/3dprinteddownpipe. A 3D printed downpipe. Because that's what the solution he was able to do.

I don't entirely agree with the paint colour. Which is really nitpicking, or said in another way: I'm quite impressed!

Downvoted because he's in Australia and there was no reason for you to bring your personal political axe grinding into a tech discussion.

Sure but the sheer quantity of goods being imported makes it impossible to verify compliance proactively. You need someone like him to discover the violation and speak out about it (which he has beautifully). Someone could contact Australia's customs service, the USB Forum, or the electronics certifying agencies to get the device recalled and blocked but it likely wouldn't stop another similar item from being imported under a different name and design.

Thank you!

As an aside, while I'm trying to read the page, and it is a fun page, I kept getting distracted by the 'load-on-scroll' images and text.

My eyes kept darting down to what loaded, rather than keeping with the text I'm trying to read

Everyone in the know already understands this.

Anyone how does the conic pyramid drill he is using in this image is called and what's its use ? (drilling probably but why the shape ?):

https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67b67e84acd181...

It's called a step drill bit. It's basically a hole saw but for metal.

YouTube features Transcripts for most videos now, including this one. So simply click through to that, and you can read along with virtually anything, including linked time stamps.

Yes, it was my mistake assuming he was in the US. I only read the blog post and did not see this was KMart Australia. The poster asking "Isn't the use of USB-C promotion without at minimum basic USB compatability disallowed?" is explicitly a social/political issue. KMart lying about its products is explicitly a social problem thats larger than just one person replacing a circuit board in his lamp. Hopefully there are legal remedies that can be taken in Australia for violating industry regulations.

"Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

To be fair, I took a very specific (yes, offtopic) tangent!

I hear you! but I would still call it generic in HN's sense of the word (which I admit is a little specialized - is that ironic?). "Generic tangent" means something like swapping out a specific/curious topic (USB-C rules) for a larger/more-general one (rule of law in a specific country). This almost always goes along with increasing indignation levels too.

Interestingly, we had two such hops in this thread—the comment you were replying to had already done a version of the same move, going from a more specific/curious topic (hacking a lamp) to a larger/more-general one (USB-C rules).

I hope it's clear how threads tend to get less interesting as discussion moves in this direction! If there's one point I've been trying to get across for years here, and never quite feeling like it lands, it's that one.

Sometimes I describe these 'hops' as the thread getting pulled by the gravity of larger and larger masses (like topic planets!) and ultimately into the black hole of one of the major flamewars. I'd say "the current general state of rule of law in the US" is either one of these black holes or one hop away from one; a dangerous place to fly.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...