"Cheap Chinese" Components Vs. "Quality" Components (made in china)

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thecr4ne

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There is a  lot of talk about improving quality control from China, and many gear manufacturers will frankly remind folks that most things are made in China, and maybe overseen or assembled in US/Europe, wherever.

So what's your experience? Have you had great successes or massive failures buying no-name components from Aliexpress instead of the trusted names from trusted sources like Mouser and Digikey?  Are there specific components you are or aren't comfortable sourcing on the cheap?  Anyone done head to head measurements?

I welcome your input.



 
China stuff can be very good. But it's a roll-of-the-dice really. I once bought a bunch of DC converters (like 10 for $20 or something like that). The build quality was bad. Some parts were not soldered flush. One didn't work at all. Another one died after a few minutes. But when my MOTU Traveler power supply died, I cobbled together one with a laptop supply to make the right voltage and shoe-horned it into a little metal box (another HDMI / analog audio splitter box that I got from China/Ebay - can't recall if it died or if I just gutted it for the enclosure). I figured I would get the proper supply later. That was like 3 years ago. Of course now that I've posted this, it will probably burst into flames tomorrow.
 
thecr4ne said:
There is a  lot of talk about improving quality control from China, and many gear manufacturers will frankly remind folks that most things are made in China, and maybe overseen or assembled in US/Europe, wherever.

So what's your experience? Have you had great successes or massive failures buying no-name components from Aliexpress instead of the trusted names from trusted sources like Mouser and Digikey?  Are there specific components you are or aren't comfortable sourcing on the cheap?  Anyone done head to head measurements?

I welcome your input.
I wouldn't ever buy no name electronic components from anywhere...

People tend to make sweeping generalizations about made in china but you rarely get more than you pay for, often less, so why buy cheap anything?

In large scale manufacturing pennies matter but even then component sourcing requires sampling and sometimes even production tests. I had one very annoying purchasing puke trying to get me to give engineering approval for his new cheaper vendor for potentiometers.  He might have been saving a penny or two each, but when you use millions of components it can add up. He was motivated to win a cost saving award, I was motivated to get him off my back, but i still refused to approve his part without a 1,000 piece production test...  Inside mixers that use tens of pots each, this was not a huge production test, but enough to reveal that his new cheaper pots were not up to the task. The factory line workers who had to remove and replace 1,000 pots were not very happy with me, so I invited the purchasing agent to visit the factory with me during my weekly visit, so they would know who to blame.  :eek:

In the course of sourcing/approving Chinese contract manufacturers to build Peavey SKUs last century, I spent some time in Hong Kong and mainland China, kicking the tires inside a few factories. Of course they didn't show me anything bad but if anything their ISO 9000 factory was spectacularly clean and delivering PPM reject level quality.

You get what you specify... For Peavey our contract manufactures only used components we specified and approved, built to the same standards we used inside the US. The China factory was UL certified just like our US factories.

JR
 
My wife's family orders some staff from Chinese factories, my relatives who run the business visit the country regularly. So basically,

JohnRoberts said:
People tend to make sweeping generalizations about made in china but you rarely get more than you pay for, often less, so why buy cheap anything?

JR

There are lots of decent products there, but they cost money. They are cheaper, than "made in *put any Western country here*" equivalent, but not THAT cheap.

The major problem with the Chinese that they don't give a slightest f* about your intellectual property. Consider any design that you order to make in China as a gift to the nation.
 
thecr4ne said:
So what's your experience? Have you had great successes or massive failures buying no-name components from Aliexpress instead of the trusted names from trusted sources like Mouser and Digikey?  Are there specific components you are or aren't comfortable sourcing on the cheap?  Anyone done head to head measurements?

I welcome your input.

Every major company like TI has public prices. If something is cheaper, it's a fake, guaranteed. If it's not why bother? Respected and trusted sources get you covered.

Rare and obsolete parts from China are 99,9% relabeled fakes.

There is "opa627" from China after starring in a gearporn.

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dbelousov said:
My wife's family orders some staff from Chinese factories, my relatives who runs the business visits the country regularly. So basically,

There are lots of decent products there, but they cost money. They are cheaper, than "made in *put any Western country here*" equivalent, but not THAT cheap.
the wages earned by Chinese factory workers have increased over the years so China is not as cheap as China any more... Viet Nam is one beneficiary of the shift.
The major problem with the Chinese that they don't give a slightest f* about your intellectual property. Consider any design that you order to make in China as a gift to the nation.
One feature of the recently negotiated phase one trade deal with China includes stepped up enforcement of IP protection.  Of course time will tell if they deliver. Right now they are dealing with other major problems. 

In Chinese culture it is considered clever to take advantage of other people's ideas. As I have shared before, hundreds of years ago, American manufacturers were notorious for stealing European IP.  As China matures and develops more of their own IP they will have more skin in the game and behave accordingly like we did a few centuries ago.

JR
 

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