Impossible Ebay Item - Or not?

[uzernaam]

okay so i found this item on ebay... it looks like what i need for building a small amp

6*10000uF/80V high quality power supply board for amp - eBay (item 120617370427 end time Nov-03-10 02:45:27 PDT)


the problem is that i looked up the prices for those capacitors: around $8.00 each. six of them would mean that the board should cost upwards of $50.00, yet it's on ebay, including the pcb and several other components for $32.00 plus $16.00 shipping.

is this a clear fake?

[DF96]

Not necessarily. Quantity discount? Remember that retail prices for components are much higher than wholesale prices to manufacturers. However, buying direct from China is always a lottery: you might get a bargain, you might get rubbish, you might get nothing.

[theAnonymous1]

I've purchased from that seller twice and can say you will definitely receive anything you buy from them. That still leaves the issue of whether the caps are authentic or not.

[uzernaam]

The whole china thing leaves me with the vibe I felt when I was in high school and got involved with this girl from a trailer park. She was hot, so I wanted her, but half of me kept saying "don't touch."

Aside, is Connex electronic based in China?

[ticknpop]

Chinese electrolytics are notoriously bad quality so you get what you pay for

[Mankysteve]

nothing wrong with stuff made in china as long a its made properly. Problem is determining what's been made properly and what hasn't.

[benb]

Originally Posted by uzernaam

okay so i found this item on ebay... it looks like what i need for building a small amp

6*10000uF/80V high quality power supply board for amp - eBay (item 120617370427 end time Nov-03-10 02:45:27 PDT)


the problem is that i looked up the prices for those capacitors: around $8.00 each. six of them would mean that the board should cost upwards of $50.00, yet it's on ebay, including the pcb and several other components for $32.00 plus $16.00 shipping.

is this a clear fake?

The seller says it's new (actually the full "Item Specifics" looks like a general blurb for all the seller's parts), but it could be a surplus board, "new" as in unused, manufactured to be an assembly in some product, but for whatever reason - sales fell, product design change, the maker went out of business - the were surplussed by the maker and the seller got them. I've seen a large amount of electronic parts, at least from US eBay sellers, that fall into this category, though admittedly they're in original packing and not assembled onto boards. Authorized parts distributors have strict return policies to keep from receiving fraudulent components as returns (though I understand these policies may not always work). Clearly products soldered to a board can't be returned to a distributor. As a result, these components can only be sold on the surplus market, where buyers are likely to be as suspicious as the OP, and the attraction is the reduced price over the same quantity from a distributor. The seller/surplusser at least gets SOME amount of money for these parts rather than storing or trashing them.

So, yes, it could be fake, but could reasonably be perfectly good products at a discount price.

Originally Posted by ticknpop

Chinese electrolytics are notoriously bad quality so you get what you pay for

There's certainly been problems with electrolytics from China, and it lasted many years, as this thread discusses;
Tale of bad capacitors taking a company down
From what understand by reading news stories on the problem (linked to in that thread), people stopped seeing this particular problem (the infamous bad electrolyte formula) in parts manufactured around 2007 and since.

So there's no guarantee that capacitors from China (or any product from anywhere through eBay, especially when you order internationally) are good, but it appears that specific "capacitor problem" no longer exists.

[stigs]

As benb stated it's probably for real. However you get what you pay for. I just purchased a supply from Cristi at Connexeltronic and it works great. Take a look at his PS10K100 and for not much more money it uses 100v caps and it is fused too. When ordering from China be sure to check shipping options because with standard shipping mine arrived after 28 days. UPS or DHL would quicker and is insured.

[theAnonymous1]

Both items I purchased from them arrived in a little over a week.

[random007]

Browse through their ebay feedback. If their kits are very bad quality, buyers will complain.

Without test equipment to verify if the capacitors meet manufacturer's specs, the only way you can tell a fake is if the part exhibits an obvious mistake - spelling mistakes and printing that rubs off with alcohol are goods indicators.