Buying parts on eBay

[michouthefirst]

Are you confident on buying parts on eBay? Most of them come China and the surroundings, but nowadays most electronics parts come from China anyway.

Do you know very reputable vendors there? Ones I must avoid?

 

[s3tup]

Hit and miss.

Buy 1 before buying 10. Test it.
Buy 10 before buying 100, Test 'em. e.t.c.

Sometime the parts are marked nicely with fakes inside, sometime they do the opposite thing eek

The same seller may sell you genuine parts along with fakes

Your safe bet is to go digikey et al.

 

[xjr100]

Are you confident on buying parts on eBay? Most of them come China and the surroundings, but nowadays most electronics parts come from China anyway.

Do you know very reputable vendors there? Ones I must avoid?

Too general question - there are fakes and genune.

What you want o buy fro eBay?

 

[Roushon]

Another way to check is, if the item was purchased by many customers and reading their comments, assuming that all those customers are not the seller's friend....

Roushon.

 

[Bigun]

I have found that the time and effort involved along with shipping charges for buying small parts from eBay makes it worthwhile only if they are passive parts you can't easily find anywhere else - otherwise use Digikey. With active parts you really don't know what you are getting from ebay, just too many bad stories of fakes - for the sake of a few $ compared with all the time and effort you will put into your project just buy from a reputable source.