Test equipment from Ali Baba is so much cheaper.....is it ok?

[Faringdon]

Hi,
We are in for the following test kit...its often more than 4 times cheaper from Ali Baba or "China-via-ebay"

Do you know of problems with these items sourced from AliBaba

Flux
Leaded solder
HV Diff probe
Kynar wire
Kynar stripper
100:1 probe
Mains Safe block
ESD mat with htab and cord/earth plug
ESD wrist strap and plug/cord
ESD footstrap
Polyamide tape
Transformer coil tubing
7/0.2mm wire
Various Enamelled copper wire
0805 book
isolation transformer 230/230...100VA to 2200VA

[AVGresponding]

Quality is random, and if you receive something sub-par, customer service is a long way from ebay standard.

[TomKatt]

China is a crapshoot - you need to get by the product description lies before you can even begin ascertaining quality...

Thank goodness I'm just a hobbiest - because I still do not know how to identify real copper wire from all the plated crap listed as solid copper.

Even if the origin was China, if the use was commercial, I'd be sourcing from a place like Digikey etc.

[bd139]

General rule is don’t buy anything that can kill you or you can’t afford to immediately throw away from China.

Polyamide tape is usually ok though.

[graybeard]

Polyamide tape is usually ok though.

The tape cheap enough from Amazon prime and returnable for free if it sucks.

[Shock]

Flux
Leaded solder
HV Diff probe
Mains Safe block
isolation transformer 230/230...100VA to 2200VA

Those I wouldn't get due to OHS, the 0805 book is ok for prototyping but not production and everything will be dependent on quality. if your goal is to sell a product you need factor in the risk of using low quality components. You get a few things returned or deal with customers on the phone troubleshooting and those cheap components become costly.

[f14]

try aliexpress( same company with alibaba)
HV diff probe from micsig they have good price with some nice voucher

[tooki]

Hi,
We are in for the following test kit...its often more than 4 times cheaper from Ali Baba or "China-via-ebay"

Do you know of problems with these items sourced from AliBaba

Flux
Leaded solder
HV Diff probe
Kynar wire
Kynar stripper
100:1 probe
Mains Safe block
ESD mat with htab and cord/earth plug
ESD wrist strap and plug/cord
ESD footstrap
Polyamide tape
Transformer coil tubing
7/0.2mm wire
Various Enamelled copper wire
0805 book
isolation transformer 230/230...100VA to 2200VA

Polyamide (Nylon, Kevlar, etc) or polyimide (Kapton)? They’re different things.

My experience with Chinese Kapton is that the adhesive is very substantially weaker than that of name-brand Kapton tape. But it’s also a tiny fraction of the cost.

There are numerous discussions here about Chinese solder, mostly describing it as utter garbage. Why anyone would bother with that when even the most expensive solders make up a negligible part of the cost of a project or product, I don’t understand. Why risk ruining expensive parts to save some tiny fraction of a penny on solder?

Flux seems to be ok. But given how cheap name-brand flux can be, again, why bother?

[abdulbadii]

kits ok 90-95%
equipment i.e. device ok 70-80%

real point is we can't easily to determine which class of imported products

China has two class export for two targets; rich/developed countries & mid/poor/undeveloped ones
so there'll be ~95% or more the same product but actually more 50% of the material quality of significantly different ones of the two

[DH7DN]

Polyamide (Nylon, Kevlar, etc) or polyamide (Kapton)? They’re different things.

This makes no sense 

Kapton is a trademark of DuPont for a polyimide film.
Nylon etc. = polyamide

[SiliconWizard]

It's surely a typo. =)

[aronake]

I live in Hong Kong so have quick access to taobao / alibaba. Around 4 days from order until arrive. I buy lots of things from there. Generally its good, but need to be observant and develop a skill for what is probably good or bad. And many things so cheap, so just to put an order, and if not good, just throw away.

[BrokenYugo]

I would not buy anything safety critical and difficult to properly evaluate, e.g. isolation transformer, straight from China. That stuff should come from sources you can easily drag into court if the device ends up trying to kill you.

[tooki]

Polyamide (Nylon, Kevlar, etc) or polyamide (Kapton)? They’re different things.

This makes no sense 

Kapton is a trademark of DuPont for a polyimide film.
Nylon etc. = polyamide

D’oh!

It’s fixed now.

It's surely a typo. =)

Indeed. The formatting tag buttons here are super buggy on iOS, which I frequently use to do my everyday browsing, and so I instead copied the tag pair with the clipboard and forgot to change the letter! 

[BeBuLamar]

General rule is don’t buy anything that can kill you or you can’t afford to immediately throw away from China.

Polyamide tape is usually ok though.

What do you mean? Most electronics stuff come from China. Do we really have choices?

[bd139]

General rule is don’t buy anything that can kill you or you can’t afford to immediately throw away from China.

Polyamide tape is usually ok though.

What do you mean? Most electronics stuff come from China. Do we really have choices?

Yes:

China -> quality control -> distributor with a reputation to protect -> customer

China -> customer

[Fungus]

Generally its good, but need to be observant and develop a skill for what is probably good or bad.

Yes, you have to develop a sense of what's good and what's bad.

I've bought a lot of good stuff on there though. In the long term you'll save a money even if you get a dud every now and again.

[bd139]

Yeah same as my point above. You have to do your own quality control.

I got a good strip of 10x working new AD8307 log amplifiers from China for $10. They are £15 each here!

[Fungus]

I know there's a few things you should never buy on there, eg. 18650 batteries and power MOSFETS.

Anybody have any others...? 
 

[nctnico]

Anybody have any others...? 

Faringdon should only be buying stuff that is made locally. 

[tautech]

Anybody have any others...? 

Faringdon should only be buying stuff that is made locally. 

Quite right too as he can't distinguish the wood from the Treez !