Advice on cheap/good HDMI (toggle inputs) switch?

At this point that one little device will change things for the better over any other part I could buy.

Monitors at thrift stores are routinely under $10 lately and usually have one analog and one digital receptacle. I've already hoarded some DVI > HDMI adapters and have some of those 50-cent HDMI cables.

Because small linux boxes such as the beelink (armbian) displaying so much better in digital, just add a switch and at that point I'd have enough monitors if I share existing ones. That's the stickler, they're not easy to get to and easy to break stuff doing so.

If you search for HDMI switches on eBay, no doubt you'll see one that is rated badly and the person said it blew out his cinematic and horribly expensive TV. I sense it's because he plugged in the 5v jack (and maybe backwards at that) which is probably for sound and not video at all. I don't need to run audio that way, just go a safer route and avoid external power dangers.

So if you have recommendations, particularly Amazon because they take the Bluebird card (Amex debit) I can get back in orbit a little bit :-)

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/29/2018 02:58PM by JoeyPogoPlugE02.

Cool, a couple of these switches and some of these female > female HDMI adapters should have my monitors to fuller potential.

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JoeyPogoPlugE02 Wrote:
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> If you search for HDMI switches on eBay, no doubt you'll see one that is rated badly and the person said it blew out his cinematic and horribly expensive TV. I sense it's because he plugged in the 5v jack (and maybe backwards at that) which is probably for sound and not video at all. I don't need to run audio that way, just go a safer route and avoid external power dangers.
>
I bought an mini HDMI2Avi box a while back from AliExpress under US $5. It heats up fast and eventually went caput, i.e. video becomes out of sync.

Anyway, based on your above post, you are looking for some inexpensive HDMI switchers. I did search through eBay and found some as listed below. The 1st two are for a Full Definition (1080p) video while the last two are for a 4K video. If you don't have a 4K video TV, then the 1st one (sans a remote control) is rather inexpensive. While the last three do come with a remote control, I wonder if the remote control is compatible with any Android smartphone's software remote control.

1. Interruttore HDMI 3 Port Switch Splitter Switcher Full HD HDTV US $2.70 + Free economy S/H from China.
2. 5 Port HDMI Switch Switcher Splitter Full HD US $4.99 + Free economy S/H from China
3. 5Port 4K HDMI Switch Switcher C $9.00 (about US $6.90) + Free economy S/H from China
4. 5 Port 4k Switcher Video Selector US $7.00 + Free economy S/H from China

habibie Wrote:
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>
> Anyway, based on your above post, you are looking
> for some inexpensive HDMI switchers. I did search
> through eBay and found some as listed below.

Very nice; that will help somebody for sure and maybe even me in the future.

Note to Habibie: I use the Wal Mart/AMEX Bluebird card (debit, and FREE no charge to load any amount on the card). It won't work on orders outside the US unless companies make that provision - for instance MindSpring handles software purchases for a lot of companies so in that way I've bought British/German/Netherlands software but it's registered as a US transaction.

I have yet to have Bluebird/eBay work outside the US, but maybe there's a way.

To state the original problem: TVs may have an HDMI receptacle all nice and horizontal, but Thrift Store computer monitors usually have a DVI-D receptacle and its mounted in a hard to reach place. So now I'll have the HDMI adapter mounted and a 1FT HDMI cable going to the switch box.

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-= Cloud 9 =-



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/25/2018 06:00PM by JoeyPogoPlugE02.

All,

Perhaps Monoprice in the US is a better place to buy these? it's not as a cheap/inexpensive as HDMI switchers from Aliexpress. But Monoprice's price is usually lowest for good audio/video components, and quite reliable, as far as I can tell (I bought cable/charger/ethernet-switch/... stuff for many years from Monoprice).

Of course Joey is the authority here regarding audio/video equipments so let me know what you think :)

-bodhi
===========================
Forum Wiki
bodhi's corner (buy bodhi a beer)

JoeyPogoPlugE02 Wrote:
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> Note to Habibie: I use the Wal Mart/AMEX Bluebird card (debit, and FREE no charge to load any amount on the card). It won't work on orders outside the US unless companies make that provision - for instance MindSpring handles software purchases for a lot of companies so in that way I've bought British/German/Netherlands software but it's registered as a US transaction.
>
I believe you can use the Bluebird card with PayPal, can't you?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/26/2018 06:47AM by habibie.

bodhi Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> All,
>
> Perhaps Monoprice in the US is a better place to
> buy these? it's not as a cheap/inexpensive as HDMI
> switchers from Aliexpress. But Monoprice's price
> is usually lowest for good audio/video components,
> and quite reliable, as far as I can tell (I
> bought cable/charger/ethernet-switch/... stuff
> for many years from Monoprice).
>
> Of course Joey is the authority here regarding
> audio/video equipments so let me know what you
> think :)

That is a real nice resource bodhi and I'll be keeping an eye on them.

As for authority on audio and video, okay I'll rise to that occasion and recommend ONE earth-shattering piece of kit that makes more difference per dollar than anything else I can think of. You won't believe your eyes and ears how good this works. It's an electrical contact improvement spray and other methods called ProGold or more recently Caig DeOxit ProGold.

Here is the link, be impressed:

Figure about $20 for a can that will last many years! It doesn't take much. Supposedly the science is that there's a tiny, tiny bit of gold alloy in there, and so you spray contacts, rub them a bit, then turn the power on and it does a faux gold plating where the electrical contact is and improves the connection. So in my case running music, you spray the mic connector, other end of mic cable, preamp ins and outs, next, all mixer sliders, on and on. It always shows itself to have changed things., You couldn't believe the things I've fixed with this since 25 years ago when I had to get a wholesale account just to afford it. Mixer sliders need spraying once every three years instead of every year, and the action, sound and resilience to humidity is perfect.

As the Caig people shows us, these companies would agree with me, so if I ever advise one thing, get this stuff and spray every contact that isn't soldered! You'll realize your equipment is a lot closer to the original blueprint. Oh, the companies:

Airbus
American Airlines
Amtrack
BMW
Boeing
Bombardier
Bose
Caterpillar
Crown Lift Trucks
Daktronics
Defense General
Delta Airlines
Diebold

Emerson Electric
Federal Express
Ford
Foxconn
General Dynamics
General Atomics
Google
Harley Davidson
Harman Kardon
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Honda
Honeywell
IDI Interconnect

Ingersoll-Rand
Intel
Jet Propulsion Labs
John Deere
Johnson Controls
L-3 Communications
Logitech
McIntosh Labs
Microsoft
NASA
Northrop Grumman
Peavey Electronics
Philips Medical

Pratt & Whitney
Rane Corporation
Raytheon
Roland
Schindler Elevator
Switchcraft
Tektronics
Tyco Electronics
Union Pacific Railroad
UPS
Xerox
Zero Motorcycles
And thousands more!


Full circle, now that I expect to access my monitors with the little Linux boxes it's pretty normal for me to want to gently unplug anything I can on that DreamPlug, spray it and there's a 95% chance that will fix whatever made the glitches. Real neat stuff.

2nd Edit: Having said that, here's a couple afterthoughts. Caig makes many contact sprays. The Gold one is the only one I liked. Just make sure what you order is that. The other thought is how many connections improve, even headphone/ear bud plugs! Now you can turn them in the socket and get no crackles.

(I'll go sit by the mailbox and wait for my HDMI switches LOL)

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-= Cloud 9 =-



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/26/2018 12:25AM by JoeyPogoPlugE02.

Joey,

Caig DeOxit ProGold sounds impressive indeed! thanks for the advice. It'll come in handy in many occasions. Perhaps even more when I retire and move to an ocean-view bungalow somewhere :)

-bodhi
===========================
Forum Wiki
bodhi's corner (buy bodhi a beer)

JoeyPogoPlugE02 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> As for authority on audio and video, okay I'll rise to that occasion and recommend ONE earth-shattering piece of kit that makes more difference per dollar than anything else I can think of. You won't believe your eyes and ears how good this works. It's an electrical contact improvement spray and other methods called ProGold or more recently Caig DeOxit ProGold.
>
I heard if ProGold before, but never use it.

Isn't ProGold some sort of an acid based cleaning solution to remove an oxide layer gradually built on a metal contact? If so, it will also remove a very thin layer of any metal contacts, i.e. very thin layer of gold on most electrical contacts? Since we are talking about a thin layer of gold plated on a (copper) metal used as an electrical contact (that mostly gets heated up beyond a room temperature), perhaps these two articles (1 and 2) will warrant the use of ProGold as the cleaning agent, won't they?

bodhi Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Joey,
>
> Caig DeOxit ProGold sounds impressive indeed!
> thanks for the advice. It'll come in handy in many
> occasions. Perhaps even more when I retire and
> move to an ocean-view bungalow somewhere :)

Somewhere near Steve Wozniak (last I heard he was in a wireless dead zone!) and you can beam him access to our neighborhood doomsday server LOL


habibie Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
ProGold before, but never use it.
>
> Isn't ProGold some sort of an acid based cleaning
> solution to remove an oxide layer gradually built
> on a metal contact? If so, it will also remove a
> very thin layer of any metal contacts, i.e. very
> thin layer of gold on most electrical contacts?
> Since we are talking about a thin layer of gold
> plated on a (copper) metal used as an electrical
> contact (that mostly gets heated up beyond a room
> temperature), perhaps these two articles
> (1
> and
> 2)
> will warrant the use of ProGold as the cleaning
> agent, won't they?


It may hold true for their regular DeOxit - years ago there was DeOxit and ProGold, and even Radio Shack used to sell a little twin pack of tiny little 1/2 ounce ProGold and DeOxits. The latter, you'd need to spray the part and wait overnight.

Also I don't believe ProGold is overly acidic. I don't remember seeing any precautions for handling. Full disclosure, my own background is High School chemistry, so I can follow this discussion a little before it gets out of my league.

My first applications for ProGold were extreme-high gain old school rock guitar amps, and the first vacuum tube in the series is the most sensitive by far. Seems to me it's a magnitude of amplification 10,000 times from that point on and anyone can tell the difference the signal is more solid and less prone to all kinds of interference. I used the ProGold pen for tube pins.

The ProGold data sheets explain a lot more than I could - I'm just the end user and have no affiliation with Caig.

But if there are three products that I think are magic, it's eCigarettes, Absolut Citron (don't you dare mix it :-D) and ProGold.

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-= Cloud 9 =-



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/26/2018 03:29PM by JoeyPogoPlugE02.