Woolworths are clearing out a lot of their memory cards, USB goods and other computer accessories.
The brand of this USB 3.0 hub is 'Hub IT' which is their in-house computer accessories brand, so hopefully there is some basic quality control involved.
On clearance for $5, so stock levels will vary (was $20)
Challenge accepted, I failed. Have an upvote for engaging me.
Powered?
Does it look like it?
No don't think so - comes with a standard cable as far as I know but no adapter.
Grabbed one with the shopping and will open it later tonight.
non-powered from looking at packet in store
Hub is woolies trademark & low quality.
Stock will be limited - none online for me.
Haven't seen in any local Woolies. Rang a few stores - no stock.
Yeah there's a quite a few that do that, especially the cheaper ones. The charger will cost more than this device to produce which is why it isn't included.
Argh got 2 of the 32gb flash drives yesterday, wish i knew about this.
thanks for the memories
You're faster than The Flash
Town Hall, NSW. No hubs left, about 4 fans left. USB 2.0 but has data pass-through - https://www.woolworths.com.au/shop/productdetails/792851/hub…
some basic quality control involved
There isn't.
You would think Woolies would be smart enough to cover themselves with some basic qulaity control requirements for any device which could potentially short out and/or damage expensive equipment. Operative word being "Hopefully" No promises though lol
money back guarantee on Hub products… rather than quality control
Was more thinking about the potential damage to other equipment a poorly designed or shorting USB device can cause (quite a lot) but hey, its Woolies el-cheapo special. No miracles but fingers crossed hopefully better than no name eBay specials
@King Tightarse:
Yes, putting low quality hub into a good computer & connecting expensive USB devices… Could be recipe for data loss & disaster.
Sorry only covered for $5 worth of guarantee😠
@Infidel:
Right. I see that all the time and wonder why people spend $900+ on an iPhone then go use a $3 charger.
It's a generic Genesys Logic GL3520 based hub, you can pay 5 or 150 dollars but likely it'll be either GL35xx or VIA VL81x reference design.
This particular hub is missing 100uF capacitors next to ports though, might affect devices draining high currents.
@DainB:
Cool, so it comes down to physical build , actual components used, quality of cables and connectors, soldering.
You must have opened it and seen the missing capacitors?
This hub does not have a single latch, there's really nothing to open, just gently pry top cover. And yes, it's a decent quality hub and good cable with only inexplicable part is that they decided to save like 2 cents on 5 capacitors, those are a dollar for 50 from Ali with free delivery.
Quality KT?
Was in a small Brissie Woolies & found these Hub devices - bought 1 to try.
Also
$14.50 Bluetooth speaker (only bt speaker I've used that stutters)
$2.50 fan with 4 usb2 port (fan spins but almost no airflow held almost against face!)
discounted memory cards (eg $8 tiny 16GB USB2 OTG).
Quality - good enough to return immediately 🚽
Hey my statement was more one of hope than any kind of endorsement.
If it's any consolation, I would think that each of these may well be sourced from whichever supplier had the best price so quality may well be up and down product to product.
Me, I am using the hub right now and it works perfectly, build quality - soldering, cable construction etc all seem fine but with the caveats: for me, for now and most of all…for $5
@King Tightarse:
Not meant as any criticism of this product or you, as you had already questioned quality. Just annoyed how bad other Hub products are (a fan with such poorly designed blades that it does not create a breeze). Had returned to edit comment to make that clearer after opening this device & finding it appear well made.
Just quality is questionable across the range of Hub rebranded products - what my comment was meant to highlight.
Like Aldi trademarked electronics, likely sourced from different manufacturers as you suggest - bought primarily on price. Some may be good & this may be the exception.
Good to read it is working well. Yet to try mine, so above quality statement did not cover this device.
Opened up - looks well made. May add some low voltage capacitors (plenty on hand).
Have suitable USB cable (eg from 50c Hub Tower fans) for powering, although unlikely to take full 4A.
So good value at $5 with easy returns. Upvoted deal now I've got 1 😁
@Infidel:
Haha not a worry, former Bruce, not a worry.
You are game getting in there with the soldering iron. So what's the go with the capacitors? Something from power to ground to pick up ripples/spikes? Any idea of the suitable capacity?
@King Tightarse:
Yes, caps are designed to be installed across external power supply at each USB port. (Checked with multimeter.)
Having considered the need for caps below, it would be recommended if using high drain devices. Best to install these at start up & add low power devices as needed. Will install later.
Would filter minor ripples in power supply, but 4 x 100uF would more likely be used to handle sudden major drains like inserting a USB device.
Inserting a device with high drain (eg portable HDD) might temporarily drop power to other inserted devices (considering likely thin power cable used to power hub may not be adequate to handle sudden increased load). This could cause drop outs of data as noted in a comment.
Cap at each port would help ease this for all inserted devices. Well that's my guess why provision for caps has been made. So best to have adequate power supply & heavy duty cable in first place if wanting to use as powered port.
Circuit board just comes out after cover is popped off from indicator light side (used my fingernails). Note there is a metal cover stuck on plastic just for decoration.
While open consider covering led to decrease intensity. (I used 2 layers of white electrical tape but paper would also work.)
Position for caps & polarity is marked on circuit board (hatching designates ground, unhatched is 5V). Easy to solder as uses plated through holes accessible on underside.
Very little remains unmodified with me😱
@Infidel:
Right! 100uF was pretty much the low voltage go-to ripple catcher when I build 9-12v devices but I know a little less than nothing about USB electronics. Actually some of the more delicate builds would mirror that at 100nF for even tinier spikes but that was audio heading out to major amplification mostly so the tiniest pop needed to be caught. Cheers
@King Tightarse:
Yes, usually many uF in power supplies & nF for low power audio signals. Have stacks of caps from building circuits over many years.
Just unpacked cable for this device - of course caps filter the same way if device is plugged into USB of computer etc without using external power.
Thanks Op, got the last one on shelf at Adelaide CBD store.
My local Woolworths had a few left on the shelf with no Clearance Tag. Scanned at the register as $5.
Nice, thanks to slow staff :)
These are crap. Replaced mine with ones from K-Mart because they keep dropping and reconnecting my USB drives. Since changing to the ones from KMart no such issue. Still it's $5 if you're willing to put up with that and don't have critical data and set up the drive caching so that it doesn't corrupt if disconnected.
Yep. And the buttons are freaking fantastic. No wear and tear on USB ports and cables to disconnect then reconnect.
But as you can see, it's 3x the price.
Thanks syousef, good to know. When you had problems were you running close to the power limits of a single port shared 4 ways ie 900Ma?
No. Strictly used these on powered desktop hard drives. WD and Seagate. It may well be related to the chipset or drivers. My mobo is getting long in the tooth. All I know is the dropouts went away when I changed.
Did the Kmart one come with a power adapter?
You really don't want to know what those switches do to GHz circuits.
Think of 4 high frequency antennas picking up everything from microwave radiation to wifi signal. There's a reason why USB3 circuits has to be traced on the same side of circuit board with USB connectors and why traces have to have very precise length and shape, it's to avoid all these interference issues. Adding 4 cheap-ass buttons does not help it at all. Saying that, the worst effect you will notice would probably be jammed nearby 2.4Ghz wifi.
Mmmmmm hubba hubba
They also have 16GB class 10 SD cards going for $5 (bought one the other day).
Got it as emergency storage for the DSLR when on holidays, might be good enough for the old Wii U as well.
Just testing one of these now using h2testw, and it's slow. 15Mb/s write.
I don't know if I would trust it for photos. Maybe in a kids play camera. If you're not doing anything fancy with the WiiU I'd guess it would be okay for that.
They're clearing out the Lexar cards though. They're slow too (about 20Mb/s write, 40 read), but I'd trust them first. $10.50 for the 16GB. $16.50 for 32GB. Better than I see on Staticice.
Edit. Read speed is very good!
h2testw results:
Warning: Only 15398 of 15399 MByte tested.
Test finished without errors.
You can now delete the test files *.h2w or verify them again.
Writing speed: 15.3 MByte/s
Reading speed: 67.7 MByte/s
H2testw v1.4
Just to be clear that h2testw was for the Woolworths "Hub" branded card.
That's cool.
I honestly expect it to not be very good at all, but as I'm going overseas soon, thought it'd make a decent emergency card for the DSLR.
It might not work very well, but if I fill the 64GB card we're taking with us, it'll be better than the alternative (ie nothing).
Good to see decent read speeds.
My worry would be the card failing and taking pictures with it. If you do use it I hope that does not happen and that you have a great holiday.
Probably not even worth $5 because of the hassle when they break.
OK so got home and opened it - well, it is physically light but the cable and construction seem ok.
I just got it to tidy up a bunch of non-critical USB cables into one and its functioning fine. Oh and it comes with a pretty long USB cable and very bright blue LEDS which i will put some gaffer over in a minute (annoying)
Got the second last unit at Camberwell. One left at 7.20 pm
Just want to warn people to not plug devices in that don't have their own USB over-voltage protection(loading). This hub is stupidly wired in a way that a power surge of any sort will effect all devices, the rails are continuous throughout all the connectors inside. They cheaped out badly on capacitors aswell ..
So it's pretty much exactly the same as it's done on motherboard of your computer. Agree with capacitors part.
I got one, just need a computer with USB3 capability now… Looked for the Jackson 4xUSB 4X switched power board but the store I visited had every model EXCEPT for that one. The range is 20% off but none of the other models had both switches and USB charging.
No great deals on LED lights at the moment.
Interesting points. If these units are of iffy quality, then are their well-priced USB3 hubs you can recommend? Should I go for a powered hub?
Quality is fine for most things. The only point that seems an issue is that they don't have caps presumably for power filtering.
mmmm The Blue LED is intense…I put cardboard and tape over and still shining thru……
Noted while monitor OFF the USB on it sends out power!
you can turn off USB power when your computer is off by enabling "ErP/EuP" in your BIOS settings.
On some laptops it's called Always On USB which lets you charge smartphones even when the laptop is turned off. Disable this to get rid of the always-on light.
Newtown Tasmania store has a full display box of them left, still tagged at $20 but comes up at $5 at the register.
Epsom (Bendigo) had a full box of hubs and a few of the 16gb otg, 16gb and 32gb flash drives after my purchase today.
thx OP. I just got one from my local woolworths. It shows $20 on the shelf but when I did price-check, it comes out $5.
There were four at the Woden ACT shop, but listed at $14. Price checked and confirmed that it was $5, so picked up two of them. If they're not taken by Tuesday I'll grab the last two.
Hub Four Port Hub
say that 10 times really quickly