EEVblog Electronics Community Forum
Products => Dodgy Technology => Topic started by: jacksat on February 01, 2021, 05:06:55 pm
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This one is from diodegonewild today.
They use old caps with dents filled with wax and branded Nishicon.
UnFffin believable how far the Chinese go to screw western countries with shit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzM3-bnotgQ&t=630s&ab_channel=DiodeGoneWild (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzM3-bnotgQ&t=630s&ab_channel=DiodeGoneWild)
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No need to blame "the Chinese" here. If they manage to sell that crap and make money out of it, well, good for them.
I also buy chinese made power supplies in quantity (from the right supplier of course), and to be honest the experience I have is better than the one I made with an european OEM. Top quality, full independent certification, top support. They are NOT cheap, but definitely worth it.
If instead price is the priority #1 for a specific product, power supplies like the one in the video start to make sense. Not in my products, not in products I will ever want to own, but there is someone out there looking for that exact shit.
Well, good for them I guess :-//
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UnFffin believable how far the Chinese go to screw western countries with shit.
Could you be anymore sweeping with that statement? Shame.
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A well-known quotation from the famous curmudgeon John Ruskin:
“It's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. When
you pay too much, you lose a little money - that's all. When you pay
too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you
bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The
common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a
lot - it can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well
to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will
have enough to pay for something better.”
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I've seen such fake capacitors in PSU from EUR 30k sulfur/carbon analyzer CS-580A https://www.eltra.com/products/chs-analyzers/chs-580a/function-features/ (https://www.eltra.com/products/chs-analyzers/chs-580a/function-features/) made by German :palm: manufacturer called ELTRA. Salvaged e-waste wrapped into a new heatshrink sleeve. Of course PSU they used was bottom-end Chinese trash :palm:. Huge savings considering that similar PSU from Mean-Well and 100% Japanese caps costs less than EUR 50 @ qty of 1 (in EUR 30k device). Also there were different PSUs used in several devices but all of them contained fake high voltage capacitor. One on the photo was marked as 330uF but actually had only 220uF, and nope, it was not dry, ESR was OK.
(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/dodgy-technology/new-powersuply-from-china-if-you-think-you-saw-it-all-unbelievable/?action=dlattach;attach=1163412;image)
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It gets worse...much worse. :scared:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SXWV3JBNDl8
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China can do lots of things on price alone and when they do, they cut every corner possible and turn out steaming turds every time!
China can also NOT cut corners and when they charge a decent price for something that is worth the cost, well it's probably pretty good.
I too buy Chinese made products and sometimes I get burned by the steaming turds. I've bought Chinese PSU's like this one and 100% regretted it!
What I wish for is a way to tell the difference between the steaming turds and the better products.
No need to blame "the Chinese" here. If they manage to sell that crap and make money out of it, well, good for them.
I also buy chinese made power supplies in quantity (from the right supplier of course)
I have 2 things to say here:
1. Seriously?! You think it's OK to sell steaming turds? This damages the entire electronics industry! It creates distrust and real people get robbed for it!
2. Please post this Chinese seller that has good PSU's. I too buy Chinese made products and then ONLY from specific sellers that I can trust.
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I think what is scandalous about these Chinese products is not only that they cut corners or that their products are poorly designed,it is the systematic, deliberate intention to fool the customer. But to their credit, they're not alone in that, as some pointed out above.
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I don't see the problem.
We (the US) being too lazy or squeamish to do our own waste management and recycling, ship our garbage to China, among other places, to be recycled. And so they recycle it!
Then we (some of us) scour the internet to find the cheapest possible seller of no-name POS power supplies at prices an order of magnitude less than what a properly made supply should cost and no surprise, they ship out a no-name POS power supply with recycled parts. What else would a reasonable person expect?
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How did they solder aluminium wire in the first place ? Aluminium creates an oxide film on its surface which prevents soldering. Flux for aluminium ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR6eXWNJzoY (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR6eXWNJzoY)
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How did they solder aluminium wire in the first place ? Aluminium creates an oxide film on its surface which prevents soldering. Flux for aluminium ?
Multicore Alu-Sol... it takes most of your soldering iron tip plating away when doing so but does solder to aluminium
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I think what is scandalous about these Chinese products is not only that they cut corners or that their products are poorly designed,it is the systematic, deliberate intention to fool the customer. But to their credit, they're not alone in that, as some pointed out above.
I agree! It's dishonest at it's roots! The goal is to deceive people into paying money for a product that they know is a steaming turd! I despise this sort of thing...no matter who is doing it! The real name for this is despotism and thievery!
I don't see the problem.
We (the US) being too lazy or squeamish to do our own waste management and recycling, ship our garbage to China, among other places, to be recycled. And so they recycle it!
Then we (some of us) scour the internet to find the cheapest possible seller of no-name POS power supplies at prices an order of magnitude less than what a properly made supply should cost and no surprise, they ship out a no-name POS power supply with recycled parts. What else would a reasonable person expect?
I tell you what, how about you buy all the Chinese crap out there and save all the rest of us the trouble of dealing with garbage that doesn't work as advertised! I honestly can't understand why you would even post such nonsense! You know full well you'd be pissed off if you got a POS like this and expected something much better! This isn't laziness on my part. It is dishonesty on their part!!! They lied and misrepresented their products! That is FAR from my fault! All this sort of thing does is damage the reputations of everyone and create distrust!
I'm going to be blunt. You think it's OK to cheat others. You think that deceiving others is OK. You also think that doing this to you is bad or wrong. That's commonly referred to as hypocrisy! There is no scenario where deceptive practices are EVER OK or acceptable! If it's wrong for it to happen to you, then it's wrong for it to happen to anyone!
On a related topic...I can't count how many times that bait and switch was used! The pictures and specs are right and then they deliberately ship some piss poor second rate product and hope you don't notice. GRRR!!! This is equally dishonest!!! You SHOULD have a BIG GIANT problem with dishonesty!
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The phrase “Caveat Emptor” was as valid a couple of millennia ago as it is today.
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The phrase “Caveat Emptor” was as valid a couple of millennia ago as it is today.
"a principle in commerce: without a warranty the buyer takes the risk "
I'm going to point out that you are a hypocrite!
You are OK with this as long as it doesn't happen to you!
The whole idea of "let everyone else get screwed over, just not me" is deeply flawed and hypocritical.
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They sell cheap crap because people buy cheap crap. If you buy the cheapest thing you can possibly find from some random overseas seller you often get what you pay for. Buy name brand products from a reputable supplier and you will usually get reasonable quality goods.
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How did they solder aluminium wire in the first place ? Aluminium creates an oxide film on its surface which prevents soldering. Flux for aluminium ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR6eXWNJzoY (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR6eXWNJzoY)
They didn't solder aluminum wire, they soldered copper clad aluminum wire. The copper skin also gives the benefit of making it look like copper wire if you aren't paying too much attention.
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I got screwed once buying a box of CAT5e that turned out to be copperclad aluminum. It did say "CCA" on the box but it didn't even occur to me that's what it that meant. It also clearly said CAT5e and the CAT5 spec mandates copper wire.
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They sell cheap crap because people buy cheap crap. If you buy the cheapest thing you can possibly find from some random overseas seller you often get what you pay for. Buy name brand products from a reputable supplier and you will usually get reasonable quality goods.
I agree...problem is who is the "random seller" and who is the legit seller?
So many crappy products coming out of China look identical to the much better grade of product. It's very hard to tell which is which!
And yeah...reputable sellers are worth it!
I got screwed once buying a box of CAT5e that turned out to be copperclad aluminum. It did say "CCA" on the box but it didn't even occur to me that's what it that meant. It also clearly said CAT5e and the CAT5 spec mandates copper wire.
Yes...you got lied to! Obviously the connectors you bought were not CAT5e. I would not have guessed that "CCA" meant Copper Clad Aluminum either.
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This one nearly cost me a keyboard, as I was sipping coffee while watching:
(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/dodgy-technology/new-powersuply-from-china-if-you-think-you-saw-it-all-unbelievable/?action=dlattach;attach=1188590;image)
:-DD
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This one nearly cost me a keyboard, as I was sipping coffee while watching:
(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/dodgy-technology/new-powersuply-from-china-if-you-think-you-saw-it-all-unbelievable/?action=dlattach;attach=1188590;image)
:-DD
Caption competition time!
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To be fair I’ve seen that fuck up in a Tektronix scope.
There was a more elaborate one in a linear power supply I bought a few years ago. The board was routed so one capacitor was always short. They must have shipped thousands of power supplies with a capacitor that wasn’t even used in any of them.
But let’s not blame the Chinese. This is just the end game for every race to the bottom. All we did was push it to the third world.
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Recently on German TV they compared prices of amazon offers to real shop offers and the picture was mixed. This image of China = cheap isn't true either. For example the author of those three nice videos could as well have bought some HP server power supplies that are even cheaper and often "like new" or refurbished. Currently the 12V 750W version can be found on ebay for € 14 plus postage. I bought two recently and they are working well, with the fans running slow and quiet. No need to bother with chinaware.
By the way in Germany there used to be a standard for "mains connected electrical appliances not intended for continuous use". This applied to kitchen equipment and the like. I don't remember all the details but there were mains transformers with two sets of specs, one for continuous usage, the other one for short time usage. Didn't check until now whether those HP supplies deliver the full 750 W for more than an hour. I think i tested like 200 W for 10 minutes or so.
Regards, Dieter
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No need to blame "the Chinese" here. If they manage to sell that crap and make money out of it, well, good for them.
This statement makes no sense.
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I don't understand why some Chinese sellers bother to re-mark the chips? I would happily buy recycled unmodified chips... they are doing a lot of work for nothing, in fact they make it less likely that any of us buy their otherwise good stuff when we have to spend a lot of time testing for idiots in the supply chain.
Now, I have to check anything I buy, and raise a claim in eBay (which always gets granted within milliseconds of raising it... they know!) - waste of everyone's time.
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Lets admit there may be cultural gaps that may be not be understood.
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I wonder how much effort goes into finding the labels and putting them onto the capacitors.
Doesn't sound to me like it is worth it but it reminds me of a video some years ago when Dave found a dodgy audio system in the dumpster with these Nippon Chemicon and Elna caps that he questioned if they were genuine but I think he captioned later about them being recycled.
(https://i.imgur.com/LmhsoTH.jpg)
EEVblog #671 - White Van Speaker Scam Teardown 14:48 and 18:44 in the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3B_KKyntQE&t=888s (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3B_KKyntQE&t=888s)
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I don't understand why some Chinese sellers bother to re-mark the chips? I would happily buy recycled unmodified chips... they are doing a lot of work for nothing, in fact they make it less likely that any of us buy their otherwise good stuff when we have to spend a lot of time testing for idiots in the supply chain.
But by that time they'll have your money already, it will by someone else's sales that will suffer and reputation degrade. It's not like we don't have that same mentality in this country, lots of people are self centered and short term thinkers. They do what is in their own best interest now, regardless of how it hurts them or others in the long run.
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I don't understand why some Chinese sellers bother to re-mark the chips? I would happily buy recycled unmodified chips... they are doing a lot of work for nothing, in fact they make it less likely that any of us buy their otherwise good stuff when we have to spend a lot of time testing for idiots in the supply chain.
But by that time they'll have your money already, it will by someone else's sales that will suffer and reputation degrade. It's not like we don't have that same mentality in this country, lots of people are self centered and short term thinkers. They do what is in their own best interest now, regardless of how it hurts them or others in the long run.
They don't have the money, though... if people raise a case on eBay it will be granted instantly...
Perhaps not enough people catch it and complain, making it worthwhile overall...
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How did they solder aluminium wire in the first place ? Aluminium creates an oxide film on its surface which prevents soldering. Flux for aluminium ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR6eXWNJzoY (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR6eXWNJzoY)
Ask Joseph Lucas!
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Crap work happens "in the best of families!"
When I was, for a time, the Electronics Tech at the Chemistry Dept of the University of Western Australia, we had a German built NMR device which incorporated a "RF generator" (actually a transmitter) which, from memory, produced 300watts at around 60MHz.
This device had an interesting fault, in that, every now & then, it started out at full power, as normal, then gradually faded away, making accurate NMR tests impossible.
On investigation, it appeared to have been worked on previously, but none of the parts that had been looked at seemed to have been the cause of the fault.
It turned out that the UWA had obtained it for a reduced, but still substantial price, from the importer, after it had been returned by another institution where it was somehow "no longer needed".
After looking at all the "usual suspects", I was left with the Vcc power supply connection to the RF PCB.
This was bypassed to ground with two sizeable electrolytics in parallel with a couple of much smaller value ceramics.
At first sight, all looked well, but I decided the electros were worth a closer look.
I was ready to assume they were both the same value, but thought "Better check".
One was mounted with the label side facing the metal chassis (they were axial caps), but by dint of a little "butchery", I was able to turn it enough to read the value.
To my surprise, the case of the electrolytic had a "bloody great dent" right where the label was.
Removing that cap, & digging around amongst the random, dusty capacitor spares I found a rather scruffy looking, but suitable, replacement, & all was well.
The question now arises------how did a reputable company allow something like this out of the factory, especially as it looked like there had been a deliberate attempt to conceal the capacitor damage?
"Friday night" or "Monday morning" production run?
Somebody leaving & making an "up yours" statement?
Who knows?
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Ok, ok guys. I asked a silly question. Btw, where can I delete my account ? ;D
/me embarrassed... :palm:
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They don't have the money, though... if people raise a case on eBay it will be granted instantly...
Perhaps not enough people catch it and complain, making it worthwhile overall...
Only a small number of people get around to putting in a claim, and that relies on them having the knowledge to realize that the thing they bought is crap. It only has to work for a few weeks to get past the window where a refund can be requested since the first month can be consumed by shipping.
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This one nearly cost me a keyboard, as I was sipping coffee while watching:
(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/dodgy-technology/new-powersuply-from-china-if-you-think-you-saw-it-all-unbelievable/?action=dlattach;attach=1188590;image)
:-DD
Caption competition time!
Okay, I don't see the problem here. This is one of those non-binary gender fluid capacitors living its best life. Use the proper pro-nouns when addressing
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Never mind, sorry
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I wonder how much effort goes into finding the labels and putting them onto the capacitors.
You can probably buy them at the same place that sells the fake Panasonic 18650 sleeves.
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This one nearly cost me a keyboard, as I was sipping coffee while watching:
(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/dodgy-technology/new-powersuply-from-china-if-you-think-you-saw-it-all-unbelievable/?action=dlattach;attach=1188590;image)
:-DD
>:D >:D :wtf:
Hilarious!!!
Just wow!
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I got screwed once buying a box of CAT5e that turned out to be copperclad aluminum. It did say "CCA" on the box but it didn't even occur to me that's what it that meant. It also clearly said CAT5e and the CAT5 spec mandates copper wire.
Well Technically the electrons flow only on the surface and not in the core so Its very ingenious on their part to have done it. >:D
;D
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The demand for cheap stuff is fulfilled by producing and selling cheap junk. But the cheating - often also resulting in dangerous products - seems to be a Chinese tradition (some do that, not all).
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I got screwed once buying a box of CAT5e that turned out to be copperclad aluminum. It did say "CCA" on the box but it didn't even occur to me that's what it that meant. It also clearly said CAT5e and the CAT5 spec mandates copper wire.
Well Technically the electrons flow only on the surface and not in the core so Its very ingenious on their part to have done it. >:D
;D
Only for high frequency. Unfortunately I needed PoE and in that application the higher resistance of CCA substantially increases the losses. It's also less durable and more prone to breakage if it gets flexed. Bottom line is if it's not copper all the way through, it's not CAT5e.
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I got screwed once buying a box of CAT5e that turned out to be copperclad aluminum. It did say "CCA" on the box but it didn't even occur to me that's what it that meant. It also clearly said CAT5e and the CAT5 spec mandates copper wire.
Well Technically the electrons flow only on the surface and not in the core so Its very ingenious on their part to have done it. >:D
;D
Only for high frequency. Unfortunately I needed PoE and in that application the higher resistance of CCA substantially increases the losses. It's also less durable and more prone to breakage if it gets flexed. Bottom line is if it's not copper all the way through, it's not CAT5e.
I know! I was only joking :P
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The demand for cheap stuff is fulfilled by producing and selling cheap junk. But the cheating - often also resulting in dangerous products - seems to be a Chinese tradition (some do that, not all).
I'm not ready to "blame China" since 99% of the SMPS come out of China. :D
But there are a number of suppliers there that used "recycled materials" to manufacture their parts and that's where you run into issues.
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We have seen that Watt is an inflationary currency for a long time in the audio sector. So now it happens with SMPS. Maybe it happened years ago with PC power supplies named for 800 W that were good for 300 W only.
Once you know, you can just apply some derating factor, e.g. 10. Maybe that so-called 600 W china branded supply could survive 60 W continuous load. I mean 5 A is already something, isn't it? If you really want 50 A continuous, don't buy $ 23 chinaware. Everybody knows it is impossible.
Regards, Dieter
PS: By the way, operation of those simple-minded supplies without PFC at power levels above 200 W or so is illegal in many western countries.
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The typical derating factor is 2-3. ;)
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Yes, we should really have a thread here on the EEVblog similar to the multimeter one, where the supplies can be tested / rated / commented on - so we can reward the good suppliers with our business, and avoid the bad ones!
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I don't think there is a need for such complex analysis like with the meters. It seems that all these cheap off brand supplies are at minimum poorly assembled from partially recycled parts, and sometimes outright overrated. I guess probably because the BOM cost would otherwise be more than the $20-$30 the finished product gets listed for on ebay. I suspect the answer after any investigation will be the same it is now, buy a surplus server supply for 12V, Meanwell from authorized distributor for other voltages.
I'll hazard a guess that since industry in general is full of these things there must be some company(s) in China building decent ones out of reputable parts, but at that point they aren't going to cost $30 delivered. As an example, Mouser sells the Mean Well SE-600 line for $74-$90 qty 1 depending on voltage, can a 600W SMPS module really be built legitimately and sold for less?
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I actually don't mind stuff being made out of recycled parts, if it is for a non-critical hobby project and is fixable if it blows - what's not to like about saving $$$?
Harder to justify using subpar stuff in a commercial product, though...
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I somewhat agree with that, I have one of these cheap supplies, I think I paid $20 for 12V/20A, and it's done many hours near full load without issue. The problem wasn't really the fake/recycled high voltage electrolytics or probably used transistors, it was the damn thing was full of solder balls, the heatsink attachment was half-assed, the transformer core rattled and buzzed under load, and this thing was sold as ready to run with all those problems. I knew I was buying a kit, but I'm sure many dont check such things or know how and let the smoke out or worse.
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I actually don't mind stuff being made out of recycled parts, if it is for a non-critical hobby project and is fixable if it blows - what's not to like about saving $$$?
Harder to justify using subpar stuff in a commercial product, though...
If I know it's made of recycled parts, sure. I don't want to pay for a new product and get one made of recycled parts though. I recycle parts frequently for my own projects, although I rarely use recycled electrolytic capacitors unless I need to repair something and don't have the correct new part on hand.
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[...] I knew I was buying a kit [...]
That's pretty much how to look at it, I think. If it works without issue the first time, it is just a bonus. That has happened to me a few times with cheapo stuff. Sometimes, though, things can be so bad they are not worth the effort of fixing.
For example, I purchased a cheap heat gun that turned out to be designed for 220V, so it never gave more than 1/4 of the heat it was supposed to on 115V... all they had done was put a new plug on the cable for 115V, nothing else! I opened it up with the expectation that it was probably designed so it could be modified (heater elements in parallel instead of series, that kind of thing) but no... it turned out it was impractical to rearrange the heater elements. The eBay return policy is good in such cases! "Not as described" - the listing clearly says 115V, but the label on the item clearly says 220V!
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The demand for cheap stuff is fulfilled by producing and selling cheap junk. But the cheating - often also resulting in dangerous products - seems to be a Chinese tradition (some do that, not all).
I have a theory, which is probably wrong, but which tends to fit the observed problem.
I wonder if, back in the day, when, the only real customer for electronics, & other technically advanced products was the Chinese Government, some people may have purposely made crap stuff as a way of "sticking it to the Man"----------not a wise path in those harsher times.
Perhaps this hit a popular vein, as a (slightly) safer way of protesting against the govt for any perceived wrongs.
This slowly became imbedded in popular culture, until it is regarded by many in that country & out as "tradition", even though the customers are now spread throughout the world.
Looking at the tradition of China over hundreds of years, of high quality products, & mighty engineering achievments, I find it hard to believe that making crap is really a tradition.
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I don’t think the Chinese discriminate who they screw.
As long as they get paid and are untraceable, all sales are final.
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The demand for cheap stuff is fulfilled by producing and selling cheap junk. But the cheating - often also resulting in dangerous products - seems to be a Chinese tradition (some do that, not all).
I have a theory, which is probably wrong, but which tends to fit the observed problem.
I wonder if, back in the day, when, the only real customer for electronics, & other technically advanced products was the Chinese Government, some people may have purposely made crap stuff as a way of "sticking it to the Man"----------not a wise path in those harsher times.
Perhaps this hit a popular vein, as a (slightly) safer way of protesting against the govt for any perceived wrongs.
This slowly became imbedded in popular culture, until it is regarded by many in that country & out as "tradition", even though the customers are now spread throughout the world.
Looking at the tradition of China over hundreds of years, of high quality products, & mighty engineering achievments, I find it hard to believe that making crap is really a tradition.
Have you seen some of those videos here in the forum where people in developing economies do things like fix car batteries by opening them and replacing the plates by hand... or rebuild radiators that would be discarded anywhere else...
Basically, when the cost of labour is very low, it can make sense to have someone sit and weld new pins on scrap components.
China is still an emerging economy - or, at best, a very recently emerged one. So, I think the reason for all the "crap" is more of a case of China still having a large number of people used to emerging economy ways of doing things, while at the same time having quite modern "solid" industry going on as well... so basically, it matters who you deal with in that country!
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Perhaps this hit a popular vein, as a (slightly) safer way of protesting against the govt for any perceived wrongs.
That's the fallacy of viewing China from a Western democracy's perspective, which certainly does not model China correctly. In China, being able to work at a state owned business is an honor, it means you have been sorted out of many competitors.
I wasn't really thinking of modern China, more like 40 or so years ago, but you would know the history of your country much better than I do.
In Australia, we used to have a fair number of State & Federal govt "businesses".
When I worked in the old PMG's Dept one of the work cars had a persistent rattle in one door.
We had sent it to "Auto Plant" section multiple times to no avail (it seems cars weren't really their "thing"-----ditchwitches, trucks, bulldozers, but not cars!).
Anyhow, the Guys decided to have a look themselves.
The fault was nothing much, & soon fixed, but they noticed while in there, that the door panel was a poor fit, & inside was scrawled "Reject or Commonwealth".
I guess I was thinking along those lines!
Everyone wants to work for the state, the pay is okay-ish (but the perks are awesome, overall you don't get a single cent less than working for a private business), no overtime, every labor force protection law is carried out by the letters (which is a privilege foreign owned businesses and state owned businesses have compared with private businesses), and the union actually has some power.
Also, unless some extreme events happened, nobody gets fired or demoted in a state owned business or at the government, which is certainly a contrast compared with private business, in a well paid private business they will fire common, non-essential workers once they are around 35~40 since their body will not allow them to work overtime that much and they start to develop diseases. So they are forced to either work for a low pay business or as a contractor, which has no protection.
If you know anyone working at a Chinese state business and is fucking around and is not fired, please let me know. I'm glad to have one more retirement option.
Most people in Oz who had never worked for the govt, believed that everybody who did, sat around doing nothing & drinking tea, served by a profusion of tea ladies.
We worked overtime, but got paid a fair rate for it, were hard to sack, had a few perks, but then again, were quite likely to be dispatched off to some desolate "cow town" thousands of km from home, for
"in the first instance" 3-6 months (maybe to be extended).
Sitting in such "temporary" appointments, we watched people in the mining industry being sent to less horrific places & making big money, whilst we were paid the same as in the city.
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The demand for cheap stuff is fulfilled by producing and selling cheap junk. But the cheating - often also resulting in dangerous products - seems to be a Chinese tradition (some do that, not all).
I have a theory, which is probably wrong, but which tends to fit the observed problem.
I wonder if, back in the day, when, the only real customer for electronics, & other technically advanced products was the Chinese Government, some people may have purposely made crap stuff as a way of "sticking it to the Man"----------not a wise path in those harsher times.
Perhaps this hit a popular vein, as a (slightly) safer way of protesting against the govt for any perceived wrongs.
This slowly became imbedded in popular culture, until it is regarded by many in that country & out as "tradition", even though the customers are now spread throughout the world.
Looking at the tradition of China over hundreds of years, of high quality products, & mighty engineering achievments, I find it hard to believe that making crap is really a tradition.
Have you seen some of those videos here in the forum where people in developing economies do things like fix car batteries by opening them and replacing the plates by hand... or rebuild radiators that would be discarded anywhere else...
Both of those things were done on an industrial scale in Australia, until relatively recently.
There is nothing wrong with the car battery case, & if you put new "guts" in it, you have a cheaper new battery.
Before radiator tanks started to be made out of plastic, it was quite economically viable to remove the top & bottom tanks, clean them & fit them to a new core.
Both the battery guts & radiator cores had scrap metal value-----win, win!
Now, you are stuck with "new" stuff which is crappier than the perfectly good rebuilds of yesteryear.
Basically, when the cost of labour is very low, it can make sense to have someone sit and weld new pins on scrap components.
China is still an emerging economy - or, at best, a very recently emerged one. So, I think the reason for all the "crap" is more of a case of China still having a large number of people used to emerging economy ways of doing things, while at the same time having quite modern "solid" industry going on as well... so basically, it matters who you deal with in that country!
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That's the fallacy of viewing China from a Western democracy's perspective, which certainly does not model China correctly. In China, being able to work at a state owned business is an honor, it means you have been sorted out of many competitors.
Nope. What you are describing is what was prevalent years ago with either state-owned companies or highly regulated monopolies. The West got rid of most of it when it was clear that those state-owned companies and monopolies were highly inefficient due to lack of competition, among other things.
The West today is just China tomorrow.
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Are there genuinely any good, cheap power supplies from China? I keep seeing a bunch on Amazon and my fingers always twitch over the add to cart button! :D
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That's the fallacy of viewing China from a Western democracy's perspective, which certainly does not model China correctly. In China, being able to work at a state owned business is an honor, it means you have been sorted out of many competitors.
Nope. What you are describing is what was prevalent years ago with either state-owned companies or highly regulated monopolies. The West got rid of most of it when it was clear that those state-owned companies and monopolies were highly inefficient due to lack of competition, among other things.
The West today is just China tomorrow.
It was never "clear" that they were highly inefficient.
In most cases, competition was not going to happen, as they were sold off complete to the Private Sector, who continued to have a monopoly.
Now, of course, instead of being managed by Senior Public Servants, who were paid about three to four times the average wage, they had CEOs who were paid up to 100 times the average wage.
The Privatised Telstra took 7 years to replace a simple POTs lead in from the street pit to our house, a job that would have been done the first visit by their "inefficient" publicly owned predecessor.
Ultimately, after suffering noise problems for years, with numerous visits, the time had come for connection to NBN's "Fibre to the curb", so I tried again to get it fixed before the changeover, as it was still to be used.
Finally, a real Tech came out, & in half an hour, did what nobody else had been able to do---pulled a new cable through!
I knew what the problem was, could have done the job myself, but it was illegal for me to do so! >:(
Just about everywhere that public utilities have been privatised, the costs have skyrocketed, & service levels fallen.
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Are there genuinely any good, cheap power supplies from China? I keep seeing a bunch on Amazon and my fingers always twitch over the add to cart button! :D
Meanwell makes some pretty decent power supplies.
I've run several for years close to their rated max power with no trouble whatsoever.
[edit] Missed the bit where you said "cheap" I think if you cheap out, then you get what you deserve. Good quality power supplies aren't expensive because of overly fat margins, they are expensive because their parts and design are chosen to be fit for purpose. That costs more than picking parts that barely meet specs.
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Just about everywhere that public utilities have been privatised, the costs have skyrocketed, & service levels fallen.
Of course, YMMV. In other places of the world privatization has played out very well. Prices didn't skyrocket, you had an influx of investment, services and availability improved.
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Just about everywhere that public utilities have been privatised, the costs have skyrocketed, & service levels fallen.
Of course, YMMV. In other places of the world privatization has played out very well. Prices didn't skyrocket, you had an influx of investment, services and availability improved.
Please give a couple of examples, so we don't have to feel so despondent! :D
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Are there genuinely any good, cheap power supplies from China? I keep seeing a bunch on Amazon and my fingers always twitch over the add to cart button! :D
Meanwell makes some pretty decent power supplies.
I've run several for years close to their rated max power with no trouble whatsoever.
[edit] Missed the bit where you said "cheap" I think if you cheap out, then you get what you deserve. Good quality power supplies aren't expensive because of overly fat margins, they are expensive because their parts and design are chosen to be fit for purpose. That costs more than picking parts that barely meet specs.
Good point. I meant cheap compared to, oh, let's say, $300+. I only need max 5V for the usual ESP32/ESP8266 and various sensors.
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Please give a couple of examples, so we don't have to feel so despondent! :D
It seems the examples are everywhere except in Australia. At least when it comes to telecom.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haImi4cWau0 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haImi4cWau0)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDPV9mdOYEM (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDPV9mdOYEM)
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Define efficiency.
Wait a minute! I was not greeted with the Widlar salute this time. This is not blueskull. Whoever you are, we want our blueskull back!!!
With everything deregulated we would have multiple Texas power outages already.
Anyway. Deregulation has nothing to do with privatization. We need to tell the Texans.
If not largely funded by the government, how do you expect any for-profit business will do something that the market doesn't need for now and will take years to mature?
Bell Labs comes to mind.
Government-funded is not the same thing as government-owned.
I would say China has more likely learned from Japan than the West,
Uh... How can I say this? Japan is part of uh, you know, the West. Their constitution was written under the supervision of Gen. MacArthur just after the WWII and has not been amended since.
However, none of this is what I'm talking about. You seem to claim things about China that we either see or have already seen in the West as if they were original.
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[...]
Uh... How can I say this? Japan is part of uh, you know, the West. Their constitution was written under the supervision of Gen. MacArthur just after the WWII and has not been amended since.
However, none of this is what I'm talking about. You seem to claim things about China that we either see or have already seen in the West as if they were original.
While I get where you are coming from, you can't undo all of Japanese culture with a document (constitution)!
It seems fair to say that Japan recovered from the WWII defeat by adopting a good chunk of Western culture, but the result is a unique mix of Japanese and Western. - Germany had a similar recovery. It seems like if all the aggressive populist loudmouths of a country are wiped out, the country does very well for itself afterwards! :D
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Speaking of which,
from a bystander view, I see Germany is switched to self destruct mode. Not as a country but as a nation. This is mind boggling.
/me went to low-profile mode :-X
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Speaking of which,
from a bystander view, I see Germany is switched to self destruct mode. Not as a country but as a nation. This is mind boggling.
/me went to low-profile mode :-X
Many countries would be happy to "self destruct" like Germany... LOL! :D
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Speaking of which,
from a bystander view, I see Germany is switched to self destruct mode. Not as a country but as a nation. This is mind boggling.
I'd rather say, we learned our lesson of "nationalism leads nowhere, at least not into the future".
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Just about everywhere that public utilities have been privatised, the costs have skyrocketed, & service levels fallen.
Of course, YMMV. In other places of the world privatization has played out very well. Prices didn't skyrocket, you had an influx of investment, services and availability improved.
Please give a couple of examples, so we don't have to feel so despondent! :D
I agree with bsfee, YMMV. Brasil and Argentina are two examples that I know had services improved but, due to some differences in politics and regulation during this process, Argentina fared much worse due to the absolute lack of checks and balances from Menen and their populist Peronist idiots.
Ar least in Brasil, both in telephony and the local energy distribution sectors (the two that I had access and practical experience), the crews were better trained (judging by the quality of service in their distribution panels) but they would be so capped in numbers that a service order would take forever to be fulfilled. Not to mention the absolute mess that it was to get a new phone line, for example (they were so expensive and limited that you had to declare them as an asset in your tax return) or the absolute slowness in modernization. All this changed radically after the privatization. A similar scenario was found in the electrical distribution, where local blackouts or expansion and new intallations were frequently hit by crew capacity and lack of modernization in infrastructure.
Was it all roses? Of course not, as you could clearly see from the degradation in the quality of work on the panels. However, the benefits easily surpassed the hurdles (availability, reduction in tariffs). This was also possible due to the enforcement regulation that Brasil applied to the new incumbent companies, so it could avoid massive layoffs and dilapidation as it happened in other places (the one I remember vividly was in Argentina and their national airliner after was purchased by Iberia).
The two major remaining government monopoly companies in Brasil (Correios and Petrobrás) and lots of state owned credit unions have been target of massive corruption scandals after the privatizations of the 1990s.
So yeah, from my perspective, the government owned companies are the most inneficient and the privatized ones must be regulated by powerful government agencies so they don't fall (too much) to greed.
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Just about everywhere that public utilities have been privatised, the costs have skyrocketed, & service levels fallen.
Of course, YMMV. In other places of the world privatization has played out very well. Prices didn't skyrocket, you had an influx of investment, services and availability improved.
Please give a couple of examples, so we don't have to feel so despondent! :D
I agree with bsfee, YMMV. Brasil and Argentina are two examples that I know had services improved but, due to some differences in politics and regulation during this process, Argentina fared much worse due to the absolute lack of checks and balances from Menen and their populist Peronist idiots.
Ar least in Brasil, both in telephony and the local energy distribution sectors (the two that I had access and practical experience), the crews were better trained (judging by the quality of service in their distribution panels) but they would be so capped in numbers that a service order would take forever to be fulfilled. Not to mention the absolute mess that it was to get a new phone line, for example (they were so expensive and limited that you had to declare them as an asset in your tax return) or the absolute slowness in modernization. All this changed radically after the privatization. A similar scenario was found in the electrical distribution, where local blackouts or expansion and new intallations were frequently hit by crew capacity and lack of modernization in infrastructure.
Was it all roses? Of course not, as you could clearly see from the degradation in the quality of work on the panels. However, the benefits easily surpassed the hurdles (availability, reduction in tariffs). This was also possible due to the enforcement regulation that Brasil applied to the new incumbent companies, so it could avoid massive layoffs and dilapidation as it happened in other places (the one I remember vividly was in Argentina and their national airliner after was purchased by Iberia).
The two major remaining government monopoly companies in Brasil (Correios and Petrobrás) and lots of state owned credit unions have been target of massive corruption scandals after the privatizations of the 1990s.
So yeah, from my perspective, the government owned companies are the most inneficient and the privatized ones must be regulated by powerful government agencies so they don't fall (too much) to greed.
It's almost like we need a good private sector, and good government - both - ... like two wings of a bird... in order to fly! :D
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It's almost like we need a good private sector, and good government - both - ... like two wings of a bird... in order to fly! :D
Yes, that would be certainly the ideal world :-+
My dad made his career on the public sector and I remember his and his friend's stories about the ups and downs created by the environment and employment. I work on the private sector and have been identifying similarities and differences between the two. Nothing is perfect, unfortunately.
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For small, cheap, one off projects that may get cannibalized or integrated in a bigger project, I recommend power modules from Mornsun, a well established industrial power module vendor in China.
Whenever I need something like a small isolation module or an aux power supply for prototyping, I go to them. They operate in the US, so you can get samples quickly.
I found this LS01-K3B05SS from mornsun but the damn thing needs a 1.2mh inductor and two 220uf capacitors for the input pi filter. The inductor from murata itself costs more than the power supply module. What would be the solution in this case?
The caps and inductors are a problem not just cost wise but in terms of form factor also
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For small, cheap, one off projects that may get cannibalized or integrated in a bigger project, I recommend power modules from Mornsun, a well established industrial power module vendor in China.
Whenever I need something like a small isolation module or an aux power supply for prototyping, I go to them. They operate in the US, so you can get samples quickly.
I found this LS01-K3B05SS from mornsun but the damn thing needs a 1.2mh inductor and two 220uf capacitors for the input pi filter. The inductor from murata itself costs more than the power supply module. What would be the solution in this case?
The caps and inductors are a problem not just cost wise but in terms of form factor also
Have you considered several smaller/cheaper inductors in series, and caps in parallel? Sometimes that works out cheaper and/or easier to package.
I guess the choice is between something that works at a high frequency with smaller components, or at a lower frequency with larger ones.
Maybe the higher frequency chips become more expensive to make up for the smaller external components...
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Yes but CKL0514-1.2mH/K has a max current of 180ma and an ESP8266 on full rf power requires 170ma. That leaves nothing to do anything else.
Its difficult to balance form factor and cost.
Also the LS-K series from mornsun is great in terms of form factor but it defeats purpose if it needs a huge inductor for 1W to suppress ripple.
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Have you considered several smaller/cheaper inductors in series, and caps in parallel? Sometimes that works out cheaper and/or easier to package.
I guess the choice is between something that works at a high frequency with smaller components, or at a lower frequency with larger ones.
Maybe the higher frequency chips become more expensive to make up for the smaller external components...
Yes I have, thats one alternative I have reserved for the end when there is no other way