Bought some power mosfets off ebay and they died within 10 minutes.
I unplugged my soldering iron and the glitch down the mains killed them.
So replaced them with genuine parts from RS components and amp is still working 18 months on despite loads of plugging in and out of items.
I looked for a LCD display at RS and cheapest one was £5.50.
I had a look for similar displays on ebay and found one for £1.74. So bought it and it worked great.
Wanted some 4700uf 35v caps and they were £2 each at RS but 50p if I bought 10 on ebay and these worked fine.
It seems care is needed if buying ebay or Chinese parts.
The power items sometimes have smaller dies and so pop easier.
I unplugged my soldering iron and the glitch down the mains killed them.
So replaced them with genuine parts from RS components and amp is still working 18 months on despite loads of plugging in and out of items.
I looked for a LCD display at RS and cheapest one was £5.50.
I had a look for similar displays on ebay and found one for £1.74. So bought it and it worked great.
Wanted some 4700uf 35v caps and they were £2 each at RS but 50p if I bought 10 on ebay and these worked fine.
It seems care is needed if buying ebay or Chinese parts.
The power items sometimes have smaller dies and so pop easier.
I “bought” some mosfets from Mouser last month. Normally I don’t put my order in for something that’s out of stock, but I don’t want the entire allocation to get ordered up and have to wait on the NEXT. They were part of a larger order that needed to go out anyway or other projects would just be sitting.
I played that game and won with the speaker drivers I ordered from PE on the Black Friday site wide sale. Could have backfired and I’d still be waiting but they aren’t as critical as the mosfets are, and 10% savings on a $1300 order was worth the gamble. The SSR has been designed into the board, and the big mechanical contactor won’t fit in the chassis so now the mosfets are a commit. Let’s just hope they can ship before the credit card expires.
I played that game and won with the speaker drivers I ordered from PE on the Black Friday site wide sale. Could have backfired and I’d still be waiting but they aren’t as critical as the mosfets are, and 10% savings on a $1300 order was worth the gamble. The SSR has been designed into the board, and the big mechanical contactor won’t fit in the chassis so now the mosfets are a commit. Let’s just hope they can ship before the credit card expires.
The best approach is never buy semiconductors from such sources, they are to a close approximation all fake. Yes there are some good suppliers, but unless you know who they are you are very likely to have a bad experience like this.
Just to repeat (especially for the newbies), Mark gives the best advice.
Remember that advice your parents probably gave you:
"You get what you pay for" and "if it seems too good to be true, it probably is!"
But then, on the other hand, if you fancy yourself a gambler in addition to a hobbyist, well, caveat emptor!
Took a gamble on some Sankens to fix a friends ROTEL receiver (one channel) and got them off eBay.
He was a US seller and looking at everything else he sells it appears he has genuine items so felt comfortable
And that channel has the lowest DCO out of all the other 4 channels now
But if it was an Asian vendor I would never waist my time and really Mouser/Digikey is always first choice
unless as usual you can’t find them there or NOS
He was a US seller and looking at everything else he sells it appears he has genuine items so felt comfortable
And that channel has the lowest DCO out of all the other 4 channels now
But if it was an Asian vendor I would never waist my time and really Mouser/Digikey is always first choice
unless as usual you can’t find them there or NOS
RS Components is a parts waste land at the moment.
A lot of stuff is out of stock or alternatives are very expensive.
A lot of stuff is out of stock or alternatives are very expensive.