Crystal Oscillators on eBay

[AlphZeta]

So, I bought ten 12Mhz crystal oscillators (HC-49) on eBay. But when I put it into the circuit I was building it didn't work. At first I was thinking it got to be something else as the oscillator portion is fairly standard. But after hours of trouble-shooting, I decided to switch to a different oscillator and the new oscillator worked perfectly.

So, I decided to check all the ten oscillators. As it turned out, 4 are DOA and the remaining 6 are good. Since the price is so cheap, I can't really complain, but just thought I'd share this so you might want to verify all your parts bought on eBay before using them.

[Achilles]

....seller from china?
For me it doesn't matter in terms of the price. Maybe you needed the oscillators for a small series and now you have to buy another pack...
If it is sold as new and OK, then they should work! Otherwise it should be described as unknown functionality or so. Probably the seller had some bad stock by his source and just sells the components.

When I buy things on ebay, especially when they are cheap like hell, I like to have a small look over them and test them. You can have luck or it goes wrong. I got a bag full with old AEG Scr's a few weeks ago. Three of them were used (but they were sold a untested), and all worked fine.

Well, for new parts a 40% DOA quote is a bit high I guess.....

[AlphZeta]

....seller from china?

Yep, where else? I agree, for critical stuff should just stick to the big suppliers like AVNet/Mouser/DigiKey etc,. Anyway, the items were sold as new and appeared to be new. One thing about buy cheap parts on eBay is that you will never know how the parts ended up with the seller. It could be that the parts were genuine, but more likely than not, they may be rejected/rebanded/remarked parts....

[Achilles]

Could also have been a clearance or so in the states. I often saw small packages sold pretty cheap in the states by private persons....

...well, maybe someone bought some junk out of the production and resells it. I think if there would be a batch in the production which has a higher amount failing in QM they will just dispose it and sell it as junk.
I am pretty sure that is like Christmas for some Chinese, Indonesian, Indian ebay sellers.