Chinese verse Genuine

[Appyasme1]

I have listened to the the Forum for quite some time now and I have some concern as to the quality of the the components of the circuit boards.Be the machine be Yellow,Orange or Blue.To me ,the cheapness seems to be over taking the quality.Is it now all about profit!

 

[hotponyshoes]

Not at all. You can buy some very good quality stuff from China. I expect you can also get some very good stuff from anywhere the world by big names with a lot of the internal components coming from China anyway!

Downfall of a lot of the cheap chinese kit seems to be the human part, the machine made boards may not be the best designs as they tend to just copy something from a big name and then work out how to produce it cheap. I expect many of the components are the same though!
If you do get anything like that it's worth checking it over to make sure all the connectors are crimped properly and everything is done up to the correct tension and so on.
I have a cheap plasma cutter that I always felt was low on power, it stopped working after the first few uses and I had a look and it turned out that one of the wires on the back of the power switch was badly crimped. Sorted that and it's been working fine for 5yrs or so now.

On the other hand, if my hypertherm had given up within the warranty period I would have to wait for it to be sent away, fixed and delivered as I wouldn't want to be opening it up myself!

 

[ukracer]

I have listened to the the Forum for quite some time now and I have some concern as to the quality of the the components of the circuit boards.Be the machine be Yellow,Orange or Blue.To me ,the cheapness seems to be over taking the quality.Is it now all about profit!

In my experience yes.....but its our own fault. lol for example I needed a USB cable a while back. I could not get one locally so decided I would have to wait6 for one from tinternet. It came and I tried it and it worked fine.
Then over the next two weeks I started having intermittent issues with Octoprint and raspberry Pi. Being as its all built to some degree its better than a complete machine stopping working and having to let others charge me to fault find...especially as its not a case of using a new cable ...running it and saying its fixed. I must have printed 10 items and only 2 have failed mid print.
SO printing one or even more items does not mean its going to stay working.
Anyway I racked my brains to find out what I have altered . It makes matters worse when I appear to have TWO issues which may be totally unrelated as the Pi and Octoprint are used for the very reason that if the Network fails or PC fails it can be rebooted whilst the Pi running Octoprint keeps running the 3D printer.

Anyway....a lad Facebook mentioned low quality printer/USB cables and I remembered I had swapped out the long cable I had been using to connect the Pi to the 3D printer purely as a precaution even though the cable I used seemed to work fine. I always like to run as short a USB as possible anyway. (Its even more exacerbating as the long cable would not run my Car diagnostic unit but ran the 3D printer and the few days I used it I did not have a print fail) (I only had failures with the NEW shorter cable I had purchased 2 of and they both run the diagnostics unit fine.)

SO I set about trying to locate a some "high quality" cables as its both annoying , time wasting running a mission critical process wasting money and having to wait hours top print another that can fail at any time. BUT wow. Its an absolute minefield. I usually find Belkin stuff is good so looked for that. Checkout the feedback and it was clear they were selling fakes. (My biggest annoyance about ebay)

SO to answer your question directly everyone is having to shave pence off to compete...we ALL want to pay the least we can for something that works. I am the worst for it I will freely admit BUT when trying to buy quality gear it is an ABSOLUTE MINEFIELD and price means nothing.

 

[Appyasme1]

In my experience yes.....but its our own fault. lol for example I needed a USB cable a while back. I could not get one locally so decided I would have to wait6 for one from tinternet. It came and I tried it and it worked fine.
Then over the next two weeks I started having intermittent issues with Octoprint and raspberry Pi. Being as its all built to some degree its better than a complete machine stopping working and having to let others charge me to fault find...especially as its not a case of using a new cable ...running it and saying its fixed. I must have printed 10 items and only 2 have failed mid print.
SO printing one or even more items does not mean its going to stay working.
Anyway I racked my brains to find out what I have altered . It makes matters worse when I appear to have TWO issues which may be totally unrelated as the Pi and Octoprint are used for the very reason that if the Network fails or PC fails it can be rebooted whilst the Pi running Octoprint keeps running the 3D printer.

Anyway....a lad Facebook mentioned low quality printer/USB cables and I remembered I had swapped out the long cable I had been using to connect the Pi to the 3D printer purely as a precaution even though the cable I used seemed to work fine. I always like to run as short a USB as possible anyway. (Its even more exacerbating as the long cable would not run my Car diagnostic unit but ran the 3D printer and the few days I used it I did not have a print fail) (I only had failures with the NEW shorter cable I had purchased 2 of and they both run the diagnostics unit fine.)

SO I set about trying to locate a some "high quality" cables as its both annoying , time wasting running a mission critical process wasting money and having to wait hours top print another that can fail at any time. BUT wow. Its an absolute minefield. I usually find Belkin stuff is good so looked for that. Checkout the feedback and it was clear they were selling fakes. (My biggest annoyance about ebay)

SO to answer your question directly everyone is having to shave pence off to compete...we ALL want to pay the least we can for something that works. I am the worst for it I will freely admit BUT when trying to buy quality gear it is an ABSOLUTE MINEFIELD and price means nothing.

Nice reply.You buy cheap,you pay twice

 

[ukracer]

Nice reply.You buy cheap,you pay twice

AH AH Ah but thats my point . That old adage is not necessarily the case any longer. Yes in general I suspect its true but its the small% that means its not.

 

[mr haynes]

Ultimately WE are the problem! The Chinese will make anything we ask them to make and to any quality asked of them. They have no issue producing substandard, it's all paying work.
Apple are happy to build their products in China to a quality that is good enough for them.

Ebay IS caveat emptor

 

[Appyasme1]

AH AH Ah but thats my point . That old adage is not necessarily the case any longer. Yes in general I suspect its true but its the small% that means its not.

Sad really

 

[Appyasme1]

Ultimately WE are the problem! The Chinese will make anything we ask them to make and to any quality asked of them. They have no issue producing substandard, it's all paying work.
Apple are happy to build there products in China to a quality that is good enough for them.

Ebay IS caveat emptor

That`s no good to the guy that has to go to Sellafield with a machine ,he thinks ,is the bees knees.

 

[grim_d]

Ultimately WE are the problem! The Chinese will make anything we ask them to make and to any quality asked of them. They have no issue producing substandard, it's all paying work.
Apple are happy to build there products in China to a quality that is good enough for them.

Ebay IS caveat emptor

We are the problem, things cost so damn much that we don't want to pay what little we have left in our profits or pay packets for the good stuff, that in turn makes the good stuff cost even more as they try and compete with China.

China is the leader and the finest manufacturer of things on the planet....if they are paid to do so.

If your favourite manufacturer of something moves to China and the standards drop it's got nothing to do with China....and everything to do with the accountants or greedy CEOs.

 

[MattF]

Half the time nowadays, Chinese is the genuine thing. Personally, I have little problem with Chinese gear. Any country can produce crap as well as good gear. How many times have we produced Friday afternoon specials, back in the day, for example?

 

[brightspark]

Half the time nowadays, Chinese is the genuine thing. Personally, I have little problem with Chinese gear. Any country can produce crap as well as good gear. How many times have we produced Friday afternoon specials, back in the day, for example?

a lot of British firms get there goods produced in china. they are of good quality . most electrical goods are produced there by reputable firms and brands . they have strict quality control and test a number of produced items from various batches . they also produce stuff that isn't checked in the same factory and just sold worldwide cheaper and not with reliable parts. honda get there engines made over there and the factory got bollocked for producing cheap copies. the chonda

 

[ukracer]

Half the time nowadays, Chinese is the genuine thing. Personally, I have little problem with Chinese gear. Any country can produce crap as well as good gear. How many times have we produced Friday afternoon specials, back in the day, for example?

Thats not the point. Its about how to sift the wheat from the Chaff.

 

[ronan]

Don't forget that the chinese government subsidises a lot of manufacturing in china. If they drive everyone elses manufacturing out of competitiveness and business, they can wind up with a virtual monopoly. They have also been buying up huge amounts of American debt, so they take over companies by stealth.

 

[MattF]

Thats not the point. Its about how to sift the wheat from the Chaff.

That's different from any other scenario how? You never know whether you're getting ****e or quality unless you buy equipment you know is controlled, quality wise.

 

[Pigeon_Droppings2]

To be fair I've been duped with German "quality" which turned out to be poorly made and poorly designed...never again...and I paid through the nose too! If I want quality tools I buy vintage made in England....never disappointed....otherwise buy cheap and expect it to break.

 

[brightspark]

I often wonder if german tools are all good . if something wasn't up to much the old man used to say it was Gerry built all the old folk used to say it

 

[ukracer]

That's different from any other scenario how? You never know whether you're getting ***** or quality unless you buy equipment you know is controlled, quality wise.

it is no different except ebay allows negative feedback to get converted to Neutral or make sure it does not impact on the dodgy sales.

PLUS if you buy from China it does not matter if its shoddy as you wont bother sending it back. If you buy locally and can see it you have a fighting chance. problem is no shops selling the stuff I need exist locally any more...or if they do its next day delivery to store.

 

[ronan]

I bought German tools years ago and they were junky, they looked good but were not. Older British or American tools are my fav's, but a lot are getting long in the tooth and as everyone wants them, expensive.

 

[colnerov]

I often wonder if german tools are all good . if something wasn't up to much the old man used to say it was Gerry built all the old folk used to say it

Hi, The origin of 'jerry built' is unknown, one source refers to the walls of Jericho which fell to the sounds of Joshua's trumpets. More commonly it's in reference to a firm of builders in Liverpool from the 19th century.

Colin

 

[MattF]

PLUS if you buy from China it does not matter if its shoddy as you wont bother sending it back. If you buy locally and can see it you have a fighting chance.

You just need apply common sense & check up on things before buying. If you buy an unknown, you need to have the attitude that it's a 50/50 chance you're taking.