Chinese Parts

[Specmaster]

I spent years working with salvaged parts and I can't be arsed these days. It's too much like hard work.

BTW china win: 200x 5mm UV LEDs £1.67. All work. RS = £69.60.

That alone has more then paid for your T12 now.

[Specmaster]

I obviously dont imply putting new pcb's together with salvaged parts, that would be... both time consuming, impractical etc but also plain crazy... but, when i need to repair say a motherboard with a fried mosfet another dead mobo has the same part and lies there, then by all means i will go into the trouble and make the effort to salvage it and do the repair (the alternative being ordering parts, waiting, paying too much on shipping for an otherwise cheap part and so on).... if it works and passes testing, stress test if possible etc then it's all good to go... customer saves a LOT of money, gets faster his board or computer or whatever and provided you tell them what you did and that parts used to repair are used etc, its all fine....

Back to CHINESE parts though, i have ordered quite a lot to make repairs... the bigger problem with customers was waiting for the part, their alternative being to pay 5-10-100x as much for parts to repair their product almost always makes that easier...  Most of the times i order multiples of the number required so i create a small stock of parts known to possibly fail (which costs ME nothing).... of course, i have tested vendors etc but for crucial, potentially dangerous parts etc i would either test each and everyone before using or go the high way and pay!

I always order more then what I need to do a repair with so that I can build up a small stock as well, makes perfect sense. I can also see the logic in what you say about robbing a part from a dead board to get another working. There are people who make a living out doing just that.

[bd139]

I spent years working with salvaged parts and I can't be arsed these days. It's too much like hard work.

BTW china win: 200x 5mm UV LEDs £1.67. All work. RS = £69.60.

That alone has more then paid for your T12 now.

Exactly and if it's as good as people say it is, I'll use my Weller to pay for another T12

[bd139]

I spent years working with salvaged parts and I can't be arsed these days. It's too much like hard work.

BTW china win: 200x 5mm UV LEDs £1.67. All work. RS = £69.60.

At this price the only thing you can expect is bunch of defective (like current leakage) and unreliable junk.

Seem ok to me as do the lowest bidding christmas lights we've had for nearly 10 years now.

45 of them:

[soubitos]

Indeed, like the infamous Louis Rossman who unless sourcing chips from donor pcbs would be next to impossible to fix apple products as he very well explains...  and that is a business in the middle of NY, USA you can imagine a hobbyist in the middle of nowhere in a village somewhere anywhere... where X distributor asks 20-30 euro just for shipping even if you only order a bunch of voltage regulators or caps to fix a dead monitor.....

[soubitos]

Quote from: wraper on Today at 07:04:43 PM

>Quote from: bd139 on Today at 06:47:28 PM

I spent years working with salvaged parts and I can't be arsed these days. It's too much like hard work.

BTW china win:

200x 5mm UV LEDs £1.67. All work. RS = £69.60.

At this price the only thing you can expect is bunch of defective (like current leakage) and unreliable junk.

At this price, what i would expect is a few of them to fail or arrive as DoA, you can always order more than you need, as a matter of fact, you should order more than you need LOL

[bd139]

At this price, what i would expect is a few of them to fail or arrive as DoA, you can always order more than you need, as a matter of fact, you should order more than you need LOL

Out of 200, none DoA. I needed 147.

Only took 2 weeks to get here as well.

The funny thing is if I hold one next to a decent high brightness red one from RS (Lite-On) they look EXACTLY the same, even down to the bonding and leads in the package.

[Specmaster]

That is more then likely because they also source theirs from China as well. I think you would find that a lot of the RS stuff comes China and the surrounding area.

[bd139]

A huge amount of semiconductors come from around there, Thailand, Japan, Malaysia etc. My Keysight U1241C was made in Malaysia

This is slightly fascinating: https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/how-leds-are-made

[Specmaster]

Fascinating, I had pictures in my mind of these being made automated machines in their 1,000s. When you consider just how many there are in a single light fitting, there must many many factories all churning these out in order to meet the demand for them.

[wraper]

Fascinating, I had pictures in my mind of these being made automated machines in their 1,000s. When you consider just how many there are in a single light fitting, there must many many factories all churning these out in order to meet the demand for them.

This is basically how LED dies are packaged in a Shenzhen garage, not reputable factory.

[wraper]

Maybe not the best, but still day and night compared with that garbage factory.

[Warhawk]

Indeed, like the infamous Louis Rossman who unless sourcing chips from donor pcbs would be next to impossible to fix apple products as he very well explains...  and that is a business in the middle of NY, USA you can imagine a hobbyist in the middle of nowhere in a village somewhere anywhere... where X distributor asks 20-30 euro just for shipping even if you only order a bunch of voltage regulators or caps to fix a dead monitor.....

Not all of them ask for 20-30 euro. Furthermore keep in mind that cost of human work is higher than the cost of the material. This is right, right? Or.. unless you want to live in China.

[bd139]

Fascinating, I had pictures in my mind of these being made automated machines in their 1,000s. When you consider just how many there are in a single light fitting, there must many many factories all churning these out in order to meet the demand for them.

This is basically how LED dies are packaged in a Shenzhen garage, not reputable factory.

And Hewlett Packard back in the day...

[Warhawk]

If you live in EU remember this date... 2020...after that year, ALL packaged from China will pass through customs and you can expect the cost of electronic components to rise sky high

Where does this information come from, please?

[wraper]

Fascinating, I had pictures in my mind of these being made automated machines in their 1,000s. When you consider just how many there are in a single light fitting, there must many many factories all churning these out in order to meet the demand for them.

This is basically how LED dies are packaged in a Shenzhen garage, not reputable factory.

And Hewlett Packard back in the day...

Like in 60's - 70's, except they did it in a clean room.

[Warhawk]

My experience with LEDs from ebay (China) is bad. I bought a bag of white LEDs, all of them have terminal marking reversed. Some of them fail after 20 minutes or during vibrations.
My friend used another ebay LEDs for homemade hall-light (white and blue, pretty ugly). All of them failed after about a year. They still consume current but don't lit any more.

No thank you China, I am not going to support this. I actually reduced buying products directly from China to bare minimum. <rant> People there deserve better life and I am not going to support this government supported counterfeit slavery business </rant> 

[bd139]

Fascinating, I had pictures in my mind of these being made automated machines in their 1,000s. When you consider just how many there are in a single light fitting, there must many many factories all churning these out in order to meet the demand for them.

This is basically how LED dies are packaged in a Shenzhen garage, not reputable factory.

And Hewlett Packard back in the day...

Like in 60's - 70's, except they did it in a clean room.

It most likely wasn't actually a clean room. The wafer fab wasn't even to start with; that didn't come in until integrated circuit production. The LEDs in the article above are just packaging wafers they buy in from the fabs.

Fairchild's relatively primitive diffusion apparatus for example:



Your nice Mullard transistors made into the 1970s for example were assembled by old ladies with hair nets as the main precaution. If you took a good sniff at a fresh crate of them you could smell the nicotine.

[Specmaster]

Most of today's big and well known companies started of in a shed, garage or similar so how can judge them for that? Here is proof that there are also companies in China, even in Shenzen that are world acclaimed for quality and have the certificates of approval to prove it. 

[ez24]

One method I just started using with Aliexpress, is sort on orders.  I think it might help.  I then look at the description and buy if they make sense.  Seems I may have better luck if I buy something from someone who has sold a lot of them and not from someone who has not sold any.

What I have found out, it is easy to order but hard to track.  Anyone got any suggestions on how to track Aliexpress orders.  I have about 100 outstanding orders and it takes me a long time to check in an item.  What irritates me the most is "Fund Processing".

[wraper]

Anything to back your shit up?

Well at least if you look ar led modules on ebay, most of them are assembled from defective LEDs. Also look a Warhawk post obove about expierience with such leds. It's just much easier to notice defects when they are put in module if running those modules on low current.

[paulca]

On the flip side, I moved into an appartment with a 400W uplighter that uses flood light bulbs.

I was buying them at £5.99 each from Homebase.  They were blowing every 3-4 months.

I decided to buy a 5 pack of 300W bulbs from china on ebay...  5 years later I am still on the first bulb.  None have blown.

[SkyMaster]

Remember 99.9% of the "branded" components are made in China.

First of all, this is not true at all. If you said in order of like 50%, then I would probably agree. Secondly, don't mix the things together, China is very different, and you should separate what is sold on legit marker and what in Shenzhen sewers.
EDIT, I just took a few reels of components lying nearby:
Country of Origin: Singapore, Mexico, USA, Ireland, Malaysia, Japan, Thailand, China. Actually China seem to be in minority there, and those are pretty cheap components.

Wraper is totally right; the vast majority of the genuine electronics components (semiconductors) are NOT made in China.

I would add Philippines and Taiwan to the list wraper made. The Country of Origin is always specified on components bought from Mouser or Digikey.

 

[SkyMaster]

The funny thing is if I hold one next to a decent high brightness red one from RS (Lite-On) they look EXACTLY the same, even down to the bonding and leads in the package.

This is how counterfeit components look like 


 

[Specmaster]

Remember 99.9% of the "branded" components are made in China.

First of all, this is not true at all. If you said in order of like 50%, then I would probably agree. Secondly, don't mix the things together, China is very different, and you should separate what is sold on legit marker and what in Shenzhen sewers.
EDIT, I just took a few reels of components lying nearby:
Country of Origin: Singapore, Mexico, USA, Ireland, Malaysia, Japan, Thailand, China. Actually China seem to be in minority there, and those are pretty cheap components.

Wraper is totally right; the vast majority of the genuine electronics components (semiconductors) are NOT made in China.

I would add Philippines and Taiwan to the list wraper made. The Country of Origin is always specified on components bought from Mouser or Digikey.

 

My understanding of that quote (in red) was that not components but finished electronic equipment, many for well known international brands are made or assembled in China and sold worldwide under the known brand name, just look on the back of equipment like TV, radios, tablets, mobile phones, calculators etc etc. I think the percentage is wide of the mark however but certainly there is a huge amount of stuff on sale in the shops that originated from China in one form or another. This clearly demonstrates that they have the technical know how on how to produce some first class gear/equipment. Anyone who ignores this is in denial, China is one of the worlds great industrial country's and has a huge economy and standing in the world rankings.

You can buy shitty items made locally in your own country even, its up each one of us to do our own homework and decide what to buy and from where and if you choose not to buy Chinese thats up to you, but I for one will continue buying their products if I deem them to be suitable for my requirements and take advantage of the savings to be had while they last.