12 replies to this topic

[atari8warez]

I know this is not the place to post this but I wanted to warn Atariage users who may be potentially buying these at eBay.

When I said "I can't guarantee my SIO2PC/10502PC" had I ordered my PCB's cheap from an obscure manufacturing facility this is what I meant,
well it's not a PCB but  it's unbelievable what you can buy for cheap

[Mirage]

<cheap parts rant> Yeah, you pretty much get what you pay for. I especially wouldn't ever cheap out on car parts. Your life depends on it. So many car parts now (like everything else) are cheap Chinese-made crap. It's almost completely impossible to buy brake rotors or drums made anywhere but China now... they moved all the factories there. I haven't been able to find any that are decent anymore... you go to press the hubs in, and they warp and need to be turned. Garbage. Soon, unless something changes, all the cars on the road will be driving around with the cheap Chinese brake parts, which are not quite, but close to the equivalent of these headlight bulbs! </end cheap parts rant>

Edited by Mirage, Wed May 23, 2012 8:04 PM.

[Rybags]

He's saying they're Xenon globes but the packaging says Halogen.

[Bryan]

I bought a timing belt kit off ebay and the belt came apart after 10K miles and destroyed my engine. There are some times when cheap will do, but that wasn't one of them.

[atari8warez]

Bryan, on Wed May 23, 2012 9:13 PM, said:

I bought a timing belt kit off ebay and the belt came apart after 10K miles and destroyed my engine. There are some times when cheap will do, but that wasn't one of them.

ouch!!, I too did buy one of these... now I am wondering if I should get it installed at all.....

Interestingly enough this is not the first time I bought headlights from a chinese ebay store. My first experience was positive, nice bright lights (very similar in shape and look to those shown in the link - well I mean their look before I used them :-))), they only lasted a year but didn't complain given the price I paid. With this far east stuff you never know what you're gonna get regardless of price. My recent purchases of electronics parts were all very inexpensive and good (switches, breadboads, prototyping boards etc...). We're just taking a gamble with each purchase, it's just scarry when it endangers one's driving safety like these headlights do.

Edited by atari8warez, Wed May 23, 2012 10:38 PM.

[atari8warez]

Rybags, on Wed May 23, 2012 9:01 PM, said:

He's saying they're Xenon globes but the packaging says Halogen.

Nothing he's saying about these lights are true, except maybe that they are rated 100/90 watts, the light output though is a completely different story. I had hard time telling that my headlights were on while driving.

Edited by atari8warez, Wed May 23, 2012 10:43 PM.

[Mclaneinc]

Jeebs, that's bad selling at a new low....

Its a shame, sometimes and I do mean sometimes you get a good thing from the Chinese dealers but sadly the other times its fake / dangerous stuff. Sorry to hear you were stuffed there and as always in hindsight you really should buy better when its something so important but we all make mistakes and who would have thought someone would screw you over light bulbs...

[130XE]

All of us knows that dealers buying the cheapest stuff ... so you  are even does not know wht is the chinas product.

[Keatah]

I've bought several fake flash memory products.

[sloopy]

most of the suppliers for the stuff i sell is from China... best thing to do is test and order a sample... this is how i found the few companies i have ealt with, make a small test order and then go from there. I have some cheap China crap, but i also have decent products i have ordered from China... overall i spent about $30 in 'chinese education' and am about $2000 ahead in 'quality chinese products'

you have to remember, China doesnt corner the market in cheap POS's, they just have a lot of sellers of it... My supplier of PCB's, I have ordered over 200 pcb's from them, and have had only ONE issue... they were recommended to me by someone in the C= community, and that person has over 100 PCB's ordered with no faults, and two others have 200-300 PCB's ordered and delivered with no faults... out of 500-600 PCB's ordered, one mistake, and they sent me 30% more PCB's then I ordered to make up for this mistake... I cant complain...

on the corrollary of this, I used a US PCB manu... I had mask chipping issues and some of the via's didnt have barrels in them, and as such didnt have connectivity unless they were soldered with a component in the hole (or short wire if it was not a component hole)

cheap can be produced anywhere, quality can be produced anywhere... reserch your suppliers, get recommendations from people is your best defense...

If it wasnt for the one IC supplier I have, VBXE's would be about $40USD more then what they are now... and also, Newark over Digi-key ;')

sloopy.

[charliecron]

For me anyway, no more American cars = no more playing with brakes all the damn time.

[Mirage]

I should clarify... not ALL Chinese-made stuff is crap. But so much of it is, that I've found that unless I can inspect myself first, I won't usually take a chance. But then, this also has something to do with my philosophy that's served me well of always buying quality product in most cases, even if it costs more. For things like tools, hardware, it definitely pays to buy quality unless maybe if you're only going to use it one or two times and it can get the job done.

Edited by Mirage, Thu May 24, 2012 4:28 PM.

[tschak909]

sloopy, on Thu May 24, 2012 2:17 PM, said:

If it wasnt for the one IC supplier I have, VBXE's would be about $40USD more then what they are now... and also, Newark over Digi-key ;')

sloopy.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck Digi-Key, and their overpriced EVERYTHING.

-Thom