It looks more like a reseller than a counterfeiter.
$42.16 approximately at today's exchange rate, so if genuine, convenient for someone in that part of Asia who wants a board, quick, without waiting for shipping from USA.
Win W5JAG
$42.16 approximately at today's exchange rate, so if genuine, convenient for someone in that part of Asia who wants a board, quick, without waiting for shipping from USA.
Win W5JAG
I looked up the phone number. It's a cell phone in India. So a reseller of counterfeit boards? Possibly made in India or China?
jeff
Probably a genuine board. Purchased in small quantity to be sold locally. Buying and importing single pcb is expensive.
The board in the picture looks identical to a genuine SPP board that was made by the US supplier I used up until March of 2021. The supplier was a small shop in Chicago who sold boards under at least three different names including Overnite Proto. The board in the picture is either genuine or an exact copy of an Overnite Proto board with an early December 2014 date code. Exact copies of a two layer board like this are possible as I have done it back when I had a big Motorola plant to play in. It usually takes 3 or 4 samples to regenerate the artwork photographically and the boards are destroyed in the process. Fancy milling machines and photographic equipment are needed. I don't believe that this is the case here, as it would be far easier to lay out a copy from scratch. This would be slightly different and would not carry Overnite Proto's symbol.
All of the early Tubelab PC boards were made by AdvancedPCB in Colorado USA until I was informed that my boards were "too big to run on their standard line" so I would need to pay almost $20 per board for them to be produced on their "exception" process. I switched to the small shop in Chicago in 2007 where the boards were $10 to $15 each in 20 to 50 board quantities.
Here things started to go wrong little by little until about 2020 when screw-ups became the norm. One of the screw ups was an order for SPP boards that I never received. They claimed that they were made but could not produce a valid Fedex tracking number. After much argument they "found the missing boards" and sent them, but the date codes were too recent. I assumed that they just forgot to make them, but a diversion could have occurred. The missing boards would have carried late 2020 or early 2021 date codes.
Shortly after that I got a batch of unusable TSE-II boards which they claimed that was my fault because I use an old version of the Eagle layout program. The fact is that I sent them the Gerber files only back in 2019 and NEVER changed the board. They refused to replace the batch. I sent the same Gerbers to JLCPCB and got good boards.
The SSE did change in 2010, so there are two versions of the SSE board. All other Tubelab boards never changed throughout their lifetime. All genuine Tubelab SPP boards are exactly the same. The original TSE went away and was replaced by the TSE-II which is a physically larger board.
All Tubelab boards have been made in China at JLCPCB since early 2021. They are much better boards and there have been zero screw ups. The shipping costs more than the boards, but the combined total is on par with the US vendors. It's unclear what the tariffs will do. AdvancedPCB keeps bombing my email box asking for my business and warning of tariff induced mayhem. I will send them the Gerbers for a quote, but anything over $15 per board will not fly.
I did purchase 60 SPP boards from Overnite Proto in December of 2014, which would have the 1448 date code (48th week of 2014) seen in this picture. I did not restock SPP's until early 2017. I do not see any shipments to India in 2014, 2015 and 2016. I did send two of each of my boards to China in 2016 which would have carried the 1448 date code. There are people in Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore that tend to buy several different boards in small quantities sporadically. There were three such orders in 2016
All of the early Tubelab PC boards were made by AdvancedPCB in Colorado USA until I was informed that my boards were "too big to run on their standard line" so I would need to pay almost $20 per board for them to be produced on their "exception" process. I switched to the small shop in Chicago in 2007 where the boards were $10 to $15 each in 20 to 50 board quantities.
Here things started to go wrong little by little until about 2020 when screw-ups became the norm. One of the screw ups was an order for SPP boards that I never received. They claimed that they were made but could not produce a valid Fedex tracking number. After much argument they "found the missing boards" and sent them, but the date codes were too recent. I assumed that they just forgot to make them, but a diversion could have occurred. The missing boards would have carried late 2020 or early 2021 date codes.
Shortly after that I got a batch of unusable TSE-II boards which they claimed that was my fault because I use an old version of the Eagle layout program. The fact is that I sent them the Gerber files only back in 2019 and NEVER changed the board. They refused to replace the batch. I sent the same Gerbers to JLCPCB and got good boards.
The SSE did change in 2010, so there are two versions of the SSE board. All other Tubelab boards never changed throughout their lifetime. All genuine Tubelab SPP boards are exactly the same. The original TSE went away and was replaced by the TSE-II which is a physically larger board.
All Tubelab boards have been made in China at JLCPCB since early 2021. They are much better boards and there have been zero screw ups. The shipping costs more than the boards, but the combined total is on par with the US vendors. It's unclear what the tariffs will do. AdvancedPCB keeps bombing my email box asking for my business and warning of tariff induced mayhem. I will send them the Gerbers for a quote, but anything over $15 per board will not fly.
I did purchase 60 SPP boards from Overnite Proto in December of 2014, which would have the 1448 date code (48th week of 2014) seen in this picture. I did not restock SPP's until early 2017. I do not see any shipments to India in 2014, 2015 and 2016. I did send two of each of my boards to China in 2016 which would have carried the 1448 date code. There are people in Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore that tend to buy several different boards in small quantities sporadically. There were three such orders in 2016
That is my guess also.
That one has a very high probability of being one of mine, though it's 10+ years old. Since it is one of mine, and I did sell it originally, I will answer whatever questions arise from its resale or use. Someone occasionally lists one of my PCB's on Ebay with a $99 price. Good luck!
If someone DIY's their own copy of something I put here, even a clone of a TSE, SSE, SPP or another one of my creations, I will answer what I can, when I can. There have been several DIY versions of those three using point to point wiring. Again, I will help when I can.
When an email or forum post starts off with, "Your design sucks, I built it with far better PTP construction than you will ever get from a PCB and it hums like crazy." I won't waste my time. Fortunately there have been few of those. I should have saved the picture that came with an email about an SSE that "sucked." I decided that posting it here would just be fanning the flames into a flame war.
However, when someone copies the circuit for the SPP, which like anything that I have posted, is in the public domain, does his own layout, and posts it on a board sharing site, where he does make a small fee, I can't do much about it, since he technically did nothing wrong or illegal. What he DID do wrong was to call it a Tubelab board. Tubelab Inc is a Florida corporation in the USA, and using the Tubelab name without permission is a violation of US law. I will not support that, and I have not, and will not answer any questions about his PCB layout, and I have received several. I have sent emails to the poster (in Ukraine) and PCB Way (China) asking them to remove the Tubelab name without response or removal. His BOM and schematic are also mostly my work, and a violation of US, and possibly Australian copyright law. Australia?
Back when the Tubelab SPP was being born, I had sold a few boards and made a crude schematic. In a Dumm Blonde Moment I had networked my PC's together in Florida, including the PC that was connected to my Ham Radio repeater and antenna system. Being in the lightning capital of the world, the inevitable happened and the ensuing big bang wiped out several hard drives. The worst part was losing thousands of irreplaceable pictures, but the SPP schematic was also a goner. I asked the world to look for any of my board schematics, BOMs and other useful info and send it to me. Forum member Ian444 had redrawn the original schematic, and his version is now the official version, with his permission. Ian is in Australia.
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