Components from the far east

[poppydog]

I need to order some resistors and diodes for some future projects I have in mind. Most of the projects almost certainly contain germanium diodes. I have trawled the internet and have found quite a few from the far east. You seem to pay not-a-lot for quite-a-lot! What are the perils, if any, of buying GE components or any other from the far east? There seems to be alot of components being sold on certain internet sites in this country and the sellers are charging quite alot per component plus postage. There are also warnings on some of the sites to beware of the perils of buying fake components when buying abroad and to buy their own genuine components. How would you tell what is and what is not a genuine component as there are unscrupulous sellers here and abroad? Would any of the members on here buy diodes and the like from the far east, and if not why not?
Regards
Poppydog

[broadgage]

In my, admittedly limited experience, the cheaper types of "low tech" component are usually fine. Small signal transistors, low power diodes, resistors and small caps etc are now so cheap that they are hardly worth faking or making to a lower specification.

In the case of larger and more expensive or highly stressed components than I am much more doubtful, there is enough money involved to make faking or wrongly labelled components profitable.
I have had large electrolytic capacitors fail very quickly despite being used well within the published ratings. Also large bridge rectifiers have broken down at well within the claimed ratings.

[Cobaltblue]

I would say boadgage's experiences match my own.

Resistors. cheap GP transistors and tools such as component analysers digital meter analogue panel meters have all been excellent value fast a very cheap.

Like Broadgage I would shy away from high power or premium devices.

Cheers

Mike T

[paulsherwin]

I have also bought jellybean transistors and commodity ICs from Chinese eBay sellers without any real problems. I always check seller feedback for anything that suggests fake or substandard components have been supplied in the past, including 'reading between the lines'. Usually the components arrive in 3-4 weeks. On one occasion the order never arrived but the seller resent it without too much fuss.

Beware of Chinese sellers pretending they are UK based.

[Ed_Dinning]

Hi Gents, I have large numbers of Ge diodes that I was thinking of passing on.
PM me with type numbers and I'll see what I have.

Ed

[poppydog]

Thanks for the replies, I have bitten the bullet and have ordered some diodes and resistors from the far east. Ed_Dinning I am about to pm you.
Regards
Poppydog

[dominicbeesley]

Another option for Ge stuff is to look out for Soviet NOS stuff. There's a lot around, seems to be excellent quality and usually arrives rather quicker from Ukraine than from China. I've bought quite a few batches of components including transistors, diodes, paper in oil capacitors and valves all have been as advertised and of excellent quality. I suspect they were from military spec stores.

[Terry_VK5TM]

One of my component suppliers got caught with Ge diodes from China.

Supposedly 1N34's, but when tested, they were anything but.

There are a lot of comments around the 'net about fake Ge diodes from China etc.

Terry VK5TM

[paulsherwin]

As I said earlier, it's important to check the feedback history. Dealers supplying fakes or substandard parts will eventually collect some NFB. I only buy from big sellers with a track record, even if they're not the absolute cheapest. So far, so good.

[RojDW48]

I have bought a few lots of motor starter caps for ancient RPs from China - all good so far and VERY cheap!

[Jonster]

I have bought a few low value components from China and they have been fine. The only exception being an obsolete Mitsubishi RF power module which I realised was a fake as soon as I unpacked it - it was only half the weight of the faulty one I had removed from a piece of equipment. Needless to say, it didn't work... lesson learned.

[mark pirate]

I have bought various values of poly caps from China, they are of decent quality and buying a hundred at a time means big savings over UK suppliers.
The only downside is waiting for them to be delivered, it seems 3-4 weeks is average.

There is no real profit in faking small passive components, all of the values I have bought so far check fine when tested. I would be wary of ordering electrolytics though.

Mark

[MrElectronicman]

I recently bought some DC to DC converters which were 5 for 7$, since they were really cheap I had my doubts, and so set a couple up on test with a 1 Amp load for 48 hours. They worked just fine, except when I was doing some more experimenting I blew them up. No problem I thought I will just replace the IC, well the cost of one IC was almost 3 times the cost of a new converter, so I ordered 5 more. These came from Amazon and arrived within a couple of days, must have had them in stock locally.

I have ordered various cheap cables and connectors from the far east and they took 3-4 weeks, but so far I have not had any problems with them

[McMurdo]

A mixed bag in my opinion. I bought some rare obsolete A-D converters for an early digital mixing desk and they all worked fine, I wouldnt buy stuff from over there that I can easily get here, as the risk isn't worth it. I've seen enough unbranded chinese components fail in chinese equipment as it is! An example would be capacitors failing near their rating (film capacitors in particular can be untrustworthy); power resistors; potentiometers, relays and transformers.
Some components, though not exactly 'fake' are meant to mislead. For example I've seen trim pots made by 'Bearns' and axial fans made by 'Senyo'. I've had western-branded semi's that dont perform properly eg noisy transistors, drifting op-amps and leaky schottky diodes. I once ordered a batch of NEC TO-220 power transistors, and although they looked the part, half were NPN and the other half were PNP! The whole lot went in the bin!

[poppydog]

Just a quick update, I ordered 1N270, 1N60P diodes, a load of 1/4 w metal film resistors of assorted values, and some 2SC1417-G transistors. Used a couple of diodes and a couple of transistors so far, and so far they seem to be ok (they were used a while ago now). They all came surprising quick and were well packaged, however I was short on some of the diodes, but for the price I paid for all of it I wasn't that worried. I have read quite a few posts on the internet about substandard far eastern components but the stuff I ordered seems to be ok, however as was mentioned in previous posts trawling through feedback and reviews is good advice.

Thank you to all those who posted with their advice.

Regards
Poppydog

[MrBungle]

Watch the low value cheap metal film resistors. I've had some with a completely insane temperature coefficient. Decided to buy quality from RS after some naff ones. £0.35 including delivery for 10 TE LR1F resistors delivered next day means I don't have to carry stock.

[Andrew B]

I bought a huge bag of mixed value 1/2W resistors.
They came on paper tape sections, 50 of each value, all values 1 ohm to 1 meg, including the rare values (E48 series), all were neatly packed in individual hand labelled plastic baggies..£4 including free postage, 10 days to get to me.

The values seem "on the money" according to my Chinese component tester, having a slight distrust of the stability issues, I just parallel up a pair of them to the required value, for £4 I don't believe that any company in the UK would go to so much trouble with the packaging and labelling.

[MrBungle]

You don't pay a LOT more for UK shipped stuff: https://www.rapidonline.com/truohm-c...or-kit-13-0260

[poppydog]

Originally Posted by MrBungle

Watch the low value cheap metal film resistors. I've had some with a completely insane temperature coefficient.

I did see your recent thread on those film resistors and it did make me think I wonder if mine are going to be the same. Nearly everything you buy now comes from the far east, even the big retailers are stocking stuff from far away lands. I did a country of origin search over the weekend of branded bits and pieces and the results raised my eyebrow a little as I've read that some of the elitist members on here swear by or will only use certain brands of components.

Regards

Poppydog

[MrBungle]

A lot of the branded stuff I buy is made in China, Thailand or India (Vishay in particular). However the main thing to consider is the supply chain.

When you buy direct from China, your supply chain is surplus stock or night runs which are done on the cheap or from independent factories without a high budget and then farmed out to one of the electronic supermarkets. Someone then buys bulk, packages these up and sells them to another person who acts as a distributor on ebay/aliexpress. This is why you see lots of people selling the same things on aliexpress. Even some of the no brand retailers you see in the UK that sell components source from this supply chain. Scarily enough, most of these aren't RoHS compliant even though they are marked. My father was actually importing this stuff and clone computer parts in the 1990s from Taiwan/HK etc and has lots of horror stories.

Then there's RS/Farnell. They have two ranges: Pro/Multicomp and branded. Pro/multicomp is the same as above with a guarantee, that is all. The rest... They deal with large corporates who own their own factories. For example Vishay bought out everyone between the 1980s-2010s. When you buy a Vishay BC capacitor (formerly Mallory/Philips!), you will get something made in China, but it will be done at an inspected, wholly managed and owned by Vishay factory with known QA standards. These are shipped in rolls by the pallet load to RS/Farnell directly who will pack and stash the whole thing. If there are any QA problems (it does happen but rarely these days) then the chain is traceable, stock disappears instantly and recalls are issued. Plus you know the breakdown voltage, drift, temperature coefficient and general temperature ageing characteristics of a labelled part. These are actually really important.

I can't find it but there is a video on Youtube somewhere of a typical no-brand LED factory. They buy the silicon from a fab, cut it themselves, package and bond it entirely by hand and then sell these by the bag load. This is 1970s production with no automated QA other than it lights up, and sometimes that is even skipped if the run is late as evidenced by a friend of mine who bought a bag of 500 LEDs from China and none of them lit up (edit: to confirm, they were packaged with the legs the wrong way round and did work if you inserted them backwards!) Surprisingly this still makes sense in China where labour is cheap.

So you're paying for: decent QA, removal of part variation caused by hand assembly, fully known and tighter specifications, higher production quality, RoHS compliance, local supply and fast turnaround.

Where it is made isn't that relevant. Look at Plessey electrolytics - awful things.

One notable exception is CDIL (Continental Devices India). They make transistors that all the other main fabs don't find profitably any more. If you want a TO-18 2n2222a it's probably going to come from them. Their stuff is *really* good, sometimes better specified than the originals!