Dead on arrival

[pucho812]

Never thought I would have a new in box dynamic  mic show up doa from a known manufacture but it happened.
Sorted it down to a broken connection on a solder tab and once reconnnected the mic was working.
No matter how much qc goes on, there still could be issues.

 

[JohnRoberts]

A marginal connection could pass QA but fail later due to shipping stresses.

JR

 

[pucho812]

A marginal connection could pass QA but fail later due to shipping stresses.

JR

yes...

 

[okgb]

My daughter worked at best buy and a large amount of stuff got returned , not working right out of the box

I'm never surprised to see where chinese products cut corners, but one friend insists that it's how the product is spec'd
in regards to components & such . Another friend who works at a music store says that  product can be purchased with different
levels of QC , 
I've stopped being tempted to buy ultra low cost free postage ebay internet stuff , there's always something about it
like buying dollar store stuff, that's not worth it unless you are expecting disposable  , and even then.....

 

[PRR]

Old-old story: holiday lights bought wholesale with a "95% good" clause. Every 100-box had 5 dead bulbs in the same corner of the box. Obviously they were making 100% good bulbs, but only fulfilling the 95% promise, and making-up the 100-count with dead bulbs.

OTOH some TV importers gave-up even smoke-testing in Asia because so many good TVs went bad on the trip over the ocean. You'd think they would collate causes (vibration, drop, salt air) and improve the product for shipping; I heard they just shipped un-tested TVs and did the weeding-out in the US.

 

[JohnRoberts]

My daughter worked at best buy and a large amount of stuff got returned , not working right out of the box

No product is so cheap that a major percentage will be tolerated DOA, but onesy-twosey failures happen.

I'm never surprised to see where chinese products cut corners, but one friend insists that it's how the product is spec'd
in regards to components & such .

That depends on the failure mode. A solder fault like this post is about is likely (factory) process management, design (solder connection integrity), or lastly material (cheap solder)

Another friend who works at a music store says that  product can be purchased with different
levels of QC ,

QC (or QA) is an after the fact barrier test to find faults, not very efficient. In manufacturing I prefer SPC (statistical process control) where you constantly sample and tweak the manufacturing process to be near perfect, never allowing the process to deteriorate to the point where outlier faults occur.

With a global supply chain, surviving the stress when a container gets dropped onto a dock from tens of feet high, robust design, and good packing design matters.  I worked at Peavey last century even before the China manufacturing became pervasive. We shipped containers world wide and it becomes part of the process to build stuff well, and design it to survive. Even then stuff happens. I recall wrestling with the last generation of heavy iron power amps. The new lighter weight switching stuff made the shipping pack a lot easier to deal with.

Many premium small company products would incorporate a level of QA after landing in the destination country to cull out infant/shipping failures. Cheap products don't justify the extra cost of an extra barrier test, but like I said the market will weed out too many failures in a single SKU.

I've stopped being tempted to buy ultra low cost free postage ebay internet stuff , there's always something about it
like buying dollar store stuff, that's not worth it unless you are expecting disposable  , and even then.....

You generally get what you pay for  (BTW there is no such thing as free shipping... I recall pricing sacks of cement with free shipping that cost like $20 compared to <$5 picked up at the hardware store).

Unfortunately we live in an age where repair of many goods is impractical. One of my solar powered driveway lamps went out... for only a couple dollars, in what world does it make sense to repair it (while I did repair them several times over the years out of curiosity more than actual benefit.).

JR

 

[JohnRoberts]

Old-old story: holiday lights bought wholesale with a "95% good" clause. Every 100-box had 5 dead bulbs in the same corner of the box. Obviously they were making 100% good bulbs, but only fulfilling the 95% promise, and making-up the 100-count with dead bulbs.

I worked QA in my first co-op job back in the 60s. The statistics of AQL testing (acceptable quality level) are not obvious.

How many workers would accept 95% accuracy in their paychecks? (rhetorical... none would). 

OTOH some TV importers gave-up even smoke-testing in Asia because so many good TVs went bad on the trip over the ocean. You'd think they would collate causes (vibration, drop, salt air) and improve the product for shipping; I heard they just shipped un-tested TVs and did the weeding-out in the US.

This can be problematic, especially if a manufacturing error could be nipped in the bud... by process control in the factory.

Paying a factory to build equipment that doesn't even have to work before leaving the factory is a recipe for disaster, and unlikely to happen more than once, to the same buyer. It cost money to have boots on the ground in SE Asia to monitor factory and products before shipping. The asian factory generally gets paid (by letter of credit) when the container leaves the dock, not weeks later when it arrives here and gets checked. 

I knew a guy who was going to make himself rich by buying a container load of cheap guitars (sight unseen, using overseas connections he made while working at Peavey) and then reselling them in the US at a huge profit... He figured he could inexpensively make minor tweaks and set them up here....    His plan looked good on paper but you can guess how this story ends. He lost his entire investment and more with a container load of mostly unsellable kindling. 

[edit- I forgot to mention that the sample guitars he received were perfect.. :  /edit]

JR

 

[abbey road d enfer]

Never thought I would have a new in box dynamic  mic show up doa from a known manufacture but it happened.
Sorted it down to a broken connection on a solder tab and once reconnnected the mic was working.
No matter how much qc goes on, there still could be issues.

I would think you could have it repaired/replaced for free, but you preferred to do it.
There's always a possiblility for something to go wrong.
That's one of the positive things about Amazon/Alibaba/Thomann...; you can refurn a duff product (or even if you don't like it!) at no cost.
There has always been some transshipping, where you colud get a product cheaper from a foreign country, but in case of problems you had to ship back at your cost.

 

[pucho812]

What I preferred was it work right from the get go.  However  since it didn't I preferred the next best thing,  not sending it out for repair as time is tight. 

 

[abbey road d enfer]

What I preferred was it work right from the get go.  However  since it didn't I preferred the next best thing,  not sending it out for repair as time is tight. 

next time you order two, so you have a good chance having one that works...

 

[JohnRoberts]

next time you order two, so you have a good chance having one that works...

Actually pretty common practice to carry back ups for live sound reinforcement.

The early US space program used three redundant computer systems and took a vote... Odds of all three being wrong was far less than just one.

JR

 

[scott2000]

The early US space program used three redundant computer systems and took a vote... Odds of all three being wrong was far less than just one.

JR

Aha.... Now I know what to tell my wife ;D

Just hope my Son never sees this.......