Flood of new Agilent 82357B GPIB-USB adaptors on eBay the real deal?

[ElectroIrradiator]

Tried searching but apparently this hasn't been discussed yet.

Does anyone know whether all those new Agilent 82357B GPIB-USB adaptors on eBay are the genuine article? At $120 (USD) or so the price is right if they are the real deal, but the origin, multiple sources plus the sheer number of them makes me suspicious. Well made fakes? Factory workers moonlighting? Somebody found a pile of the genuine article in a warehouse?

With no old school PCI slots in my lab PC I'm considering buying one of these 82357Bs for some experiments, as otherwise I'd probably have to buy a new PCIe GPIB adaptor from NI at full list.

[dadler]

Here is the seller I bought from:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/261397671097

Edit: Not so sure it's not counterfeit anymore. Took it apart and it seems hand-soldered on the inside. I've probably been tricked. 

[Bud]

Well made fakes? Factory workers moonlighting? Somebody found a pile of the genuine article in a warehouse?

Rebranding?   

[ElectroIrradiator]

The adapter works great and is authentic.

Excellent, thanks!

Rebranding?   

Alien technology sent down to prepare for the coming invasion? 

[HighVoltage]

I got one of these low cost items as well and it is real deal, the same as others that I paid much more for.
They work extremely well for all kinds of Agilent gear in combination with BenchVue

[anotherlin]

Here is the seller I bought from:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/261397671097
The adapter works great and is authentic.

I hope you guys are right. I just made an offer at $100.
According to the eBay listing, 165 have been sold.
May be the guy is cleaning up the remaining stock of the OEM Agilent/Keysight contractor ?

[ElectroIrradiator]

I hope you guys are right. I just made an offer at $100.
According to the eBay listing, 165 have been sold.

166.

[dadler]

Here is the seller I bought from:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/261397671097
The adapter works great and is authentic.

I hope you guys are right. I just made an offer at $100.
According to the eBay listing, 165 have been sold.
May be the guy is cleaning up the remaining stock of the OEM Agilent/Keysight contractor ?

I didn't even think to make an offer and paid full price 

[ywara]

I would guess the flood is due to rebranding. Opening one of these up is rather disappointing, and they fail on me at a rather high rate so I suspect they do not cost Agilent/Keysight more than a few 10s of dollars to make. Probably cheaper to build more than to pay someone slap a sticker over the Agilent name.

[anotherlin]

I didn't even think to make an offer and paid full price 

Got a deal for $118, shipping included!
169 sold !

[macboy]

Yes, I bought one and it is real. In brand new sealed Agilent packaging, with the correct CD and accompanying manuals.

Here is the seller I bought from:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/261397671097

The adapter works great and is authentic.

I bought from the same seller as the above link in 2013 (nettcy168). Definitely genuine Agilent, and new in factory sealed box. It was just what I needed to allow replacement of my defunct lab PC with an old ISA-slot GPIB card. I got a good deal with make offer and by accepting a slowing shipping method. Still paid a little more than the current price.

This is a very good deal and is a much better option than a PCI card. Soon, old-school PCI slots will go the way of the ISA slot (see above). You can still get a modern motherboard with PCI slots, but you can also get them without. Soon, you will pay a premium to get one, then they will be gone. With USB you can just plug it into any computer you have in the lab. Despite Apple's efforts, USB isn't going anywhere any time soon.

[linux-works]

just fyi, some motherboards have issues with usb.  the last rev (from 6mos ago) of the haswell intel chipset has shown some usb problems.  specifically, many usb audio devices (that need timing-specific constraints) do not work, while they work on previous generations just fine (ivy bridge, etc).

don't just assume that a usb port means your chipset will work.  it SHOULD but you need to verify and be prepared to reject/return if the chipset is not working out.

fwiw, it is a chipset issue as both linux and win7 show the same identical issue with my usb uac2 sound dongle.  I had to use another older pc for my audio stuff even though I bought the haswell mobo just for this task ;(

just be aware.  until you see things work, don't just assume it will.  things are complex and not every vendor really does their work properly (I'm looking at YOU, intel!!)

[EEVblog]

Does anyone know whether all those new Agilent 82357B GPIB-USB adaptors on eBay are the genuine article? At $120 (USD) or so

US$138 for me:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/261397671097

[EEVblog]

Ripoff ones are here:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/82357B-GPIB-USB-Interface-Compatible-with-AGILENT-82357B/251641990975

Genuine used ones here:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/One-Used-HP-Agilent-82357B-High-Speed-USB-GPIB-Interface-USB-2-0-Tested/221792394818

[ElectroIrradiator]

US$138 for me:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/261397671097

Excellent, thanks Dave and everybody else. I now have one of these in the mail en route to Denmark, from the very same seller.

[edavid]

Ripoff ones are here:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/82357B-GPIB-USB-Interface-Compatible-with-AGILENT-82357B/251641990975

Why do you call the clones a ripoff?  As far as I know, they work just as well as the Keysight ones.  Is it just that you think they should be cheaper?

[tooki]

Oxford dictionary:

rip-off
noun informal
• a fraud or swindle, especially something that is grossly overpriced: designer label clothes are just expensive rip-offs.
• an inferior imitation of something: rip-offs of all the latest styles.

See the second definition.

[edavid]

Oxford dictionary:

rip-off
noun informal
• a fraud or swindle, especially something that is grossly overpriced: designer label clothes are just expensive rip-offs.
• an inferior imitation of something: rip-offs of all the latest styles.

See the second definition.

OK, then what is inferior about them?

[amc184]

I think they might be counterfeits.  The boxes and packaging are really convincing, but there's tonnes of counterfeits out there with as much attention to detail.  There has been clones around by Beiming and others for a while, I'm not really surprised to see someone take the next step and put Agilent labels onto them.

For people who ask what's wrong with the clones / counterfeits, here my view:

• A big chunk of the development cost of these devices is the PC software, Agilent IO Libraries.  It's also the thing that makes them really useful, compared to something like a Prologix.  It'll definitely be against the license of IO Libraries to use one of the freeloading clone adapters.
• Agilent probably tested their USB GPIB adapters with a huge range of equipment during development.  I wouldn't trust Beiming to have been so thorough.  That said, I've heard that Agilent adapters aren't 100% compatible with older gear in some situations (more a hardware than software issue), so I guess you just can't win.

I've used a Beiming clone before, and it worked fine for me.  I use an HP E2050A now, it's great.

[dadler]

They aren't just Agilent labels. They are screenprinted with Agilent logos, the enclosure has the molded Agilent logo. They have serial numbers that match the high-quality labels on each box. The plastics and hardware are high quality.

They are manufactured in Malaysia and come in boxes that are themselves made in Malaysia.

The included disc and documentation is exactly what you would expect to get with any other Agilent product.

The disc does have some Asian text on it in addition to English, so I suspect these were intended for the Asian market. I doubt they were ever intended to be sold in the West.

If they are "fake", then they are made on the same tooling and assembly line as the real ones. That could be, but so could it be with any product then.

I have examined my unit in detail, and there are just too many tiny details that would be so very difficult and expensive to clone. Why fake such a product, which is certainly a low-volume, niche item? There would be no way you could expect to recoup the cost of investment on tooling and exactly duplicating the included documentation/product look and feel.

Though quite a few have sold on eBay, USB-GPIB adapters aren't like Beats headphones with universal appeal.

[anotherlin]

• Agilent probably tested their USB GPIB adapters with a huge range of equipment during development.  I wouldn't trust Beiming to have been so thorough. 
  

Beiming is very probably the OEM manufacturer of the Agilent !
The Linux driver code for both is the same.

[amc184]

They aren't just Agilent labels.

I didn't mean that so literally.

I think it would be worthwhile to counterfeit them, there's a fair few selling on eBay, as well as most other auction sites.  I've purchased a product before that came with a similar set of bumf (manual, warranty card, box, etc), found it was totally fake.  It was only when I got it side by side with a real one that it was really noticeable (and subtle even then, you had to know where to look).

One suspicious thing I noticed is that every listing I saw on every Chinese website these are listed on (eBay, aliexpress, taobao, etc) that shows the box has a datecode of 20091102.  Either there was a huge batch that went to Chinese sellers, or the guy who made the counterfeit labels didn't think the move the batchcode around.

The Linux driver code for both is the same.

Because it's a clone.  It needs to appear the same so Agilent software will work with it.

[dadler]

Date code on mine from eBay is (second post in this thread) 20141016.

I tried to find the least-shady seeming seller on eBay. Not the cheapest, but best feedback and other buyers indicated they received legit product.

This is such a niche product that I will be very surprised if these are being cloned.

[amc184]

Maybe they're real, you got a great deal if they are. Even if they are counterfeit it's not a bad price for what you get.

I wanted to clear up the terms I was using; by clone I mean a functional equivalent that doesn't claim to be the same thing, like the Beiming S82357.  By counterfeit, I mean a non-Agilent made device that claims to be an Agilent 82357B.

The Agilent 82357B is definitely being cloned, but only possibly being counterfeited.

[pascal_sweden]

Sometimes clones are better than the original product.

But I agree that it should be sold as a clone and not as a counterfeit, so the consumer can make the decision to either buy the original or a clone, and that there are no surprises afterwards.