[sdiy] Dealing with China

[Mike Bryant]

Well obviously if LCSC have it then use them - they're larger than many of the Western distributors now.

The smaller suppliers aren't actually distributors.  You order from them and they go and buy the parts in the market in the video, then post them to you.  And that market is far bigger than all the Mouser warehouses put together.  Remember your supplier will be on the lookout for dodgy parts as well - it will be them refunding you if they are fake.   I've only had two batches of fakes, one of which was at a too good to be true price so I ordered to see if they really were.

But I've also had a surprise when a third order for a reel-end of OPA2134s at a knockdown price really were OPA2134s !  So just order the parts and if they arrive faulty just ask for a refund.  Aliexpress is far better than eBay for doing this - it's almost immediate.

And that market is almost the only source now for older parts such as the older AKM or Cirrus Logic convertors.  Companies are getting more aggressive at obsoleting parts so that they can shut old fabs, so the only place you can find them is on the surplus market.  That is where the Western resellers will be getting their supplies of these same parts, just they charge ten times as much for stocking them.

I think a lot of negative comments are more towards mechanical items.  They're not fakes but clones.  And they simply aren't made to the standard of an Alps or Bourns component such as pots, or the better brands of jacks.  But they obviously cost much less.  So you need to decide how much the 'feel' of your product justifies the higher quality but far more expensive part.
________________________________
From: Synth-diy <synth-diy-bounces at synth-diy.org> on behalf of Dave Kendall via Synth-diy <synth-diy at synth-diy.org>
Sent: 12 January 2024 22:28
To: SDIY <synth-diy at synth-diy.org>
Subject: Re: [sdiy] Dealing with China

Is it that the larger distributors (like LCSC for example) have a good rep, but that smaller suppliers are more likely to sell B stock, rejects and fakes ?
What have people’s experiences been ?

I’m looking to source some through-hole components that are getting harder to find - DACs and 74HC mostly.

I  only have limited experience of buying mechanical parts from China so far (connectors mostly), but have seen a lot of comments and negative reviews criticising eBay and AliExpress vendors selling ICs.

Dave

On 14 Dec 2023, at 13:13, Mike Bryant <mbryant at futurehorizons.com<mailto:mbryant at futurehorizons.com>> wrote:

I've got all my established contacts and find them excellent, but I still see comments here obviously not trusting Chinese suppliers and paying over the odds instead to suppliers who probably get their supplies from China anyway.

Even if you don't buy the book, it's well worth watching this video just to appreciate the scale of the Shenzhen market and how it totally dwarfs anything in the West.  There's also huge warehouses backing up these operations which she doesn't show, and of course all the PCB manufacturers and assemblers.

https://www.crowdsupply.com/machinery-enchantress/the-new-essential-guide-to-electronics-in-shenzhen

In over 20 years of buying thousands of packages from China, I've had one faulty set of ICs due to bad packaging, and two counterfeits.  All three refunded.



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