Why do so many people here go nuts over very low quality gear from China?

[james_s]

I don't buy based on specs because I know the specs are usually pure BS.

What are you talking about? - eBay/Ali "products" designed by hobbyist in best case? Everything is fine with specs of lab grade equipment from "big names" like HP Keysight, R&S, Anristu and so on.

I have no idea what you're getting at.

I don't care who it's designed by or for or how much it costs, specs should not be deliberately exaggerated. If an instrument claims 100MHz bandwidth and it only does 90 before performance degrades below reasonable levels that's one thing, but if it can't even manage 20MHz that's just flat out lying and deception. If a power supply is rated to deliver 10A but blows up if you draw more than 3A that is lying and there's no excuse for it. Same with batteries that claim 5,000mAh but can't manage 1,200, it's flat out fraud. Cheap isn't a license to pull numbers out of your ass. If you're going to claim a spec, at least make it close to reality.

[OwO]

Whether sellers lie about specs is mostly dependent on the platform. Not sure about oscilloscopes but ebay and aliexpress are filled with bloated spec lithium cells, while taobao is much more strict and listings for 18650s with incorrect labels usually even tell you that the indicated capacity is not the real capacity.

[james_s]

It's stupid that the cells are labeled with bogus capacities in the first place. What purpose does it serve other than an attempt to defraud?

[OwO]

Blame the OEM for that one. The *fire brands all have a policy of labeling capacity * X, where X depends on brand, explains one particular taobao listing. It's against terms to lie in a product listing, but beware that lying through omission is still seen as "fair game". If a listing doesn't state capacity, but only has a picture of the 18650 with a (false) label, arguably the seller didn't defraud you because they sold you a genuine *fire cell, but you didn't do enough research to know that that brand always overstates capacity.

[Kilrah]

I don't buy based on specs because I know the specs are usually pure BS.

What are you talking about? - eBay/Ali "products" designed by hobbyist in best case? Everything is fine with specs of lab grade equipment from "big names" like HP Keysight, R&S, Anristu and so on.

The topic is cheap Chinese tools, so obviously that's what we're talking about.

[BravoV]

As its too often seeing the blame that China is evil and culprits for all your problems, why don't start campaign like electing your political representative, that promise once elected will start border control to ban all Chinese import, starting like from your spoon, your underpant and etc, up to gadgets like VNA  , and demand everything must be manufactured locally or within region or allies.

Or its just a matter of convenient just put blame and escape-goating everything on Chinese ? 

[jklasdf]

There are other VNA projects that were significantly more expensive than the nanoVNA, but still successful. For instance the xaVNA, see https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1759352588/xavna-a-full-featured-low-cost-two-port-vna and https://xaxaxa-dev.com/xavna.cppsp



This was a >$200 USD instrument that was posted here on eevblog and successfully funded on kickstarter, and units shipped. Jadew's product is a bit more of a stretch though, since basically the only people that would be interested are those that already own a "real" spectrum analyzer and actually need better scalar network analysis performance and (more importantly) are willing to pay for it. Other people have already commented on this, but it's no surprise that the market for "real" (i.e. much more expensive) test equipment is smaller. Buying a fixable used vector network analyzer for $200 is fairly rare, I don't think many people would actually be able to just go out and find one for that cheap right now.

Overall, although jadew has some points (i.e. the post isn't as bad say treez), it would've been nice to know about the tracking generator project in the first post...I can't honestly make myself believe this question was asked in good faith.

[tautech]

Overall, although jadew has some points (i.e. the post isn't as bad say treez), it would've been nice to know about the tracking generator project in the first post...I can't honestly make myself believe this question was asked in good faith.

I can.
When a product is claimed to be suitable to 1.5 GHz usage then the dozens of buyers of them here on EEVblog report they are quite accurate to 300 MHz but not beyond it would only seem fair that it was instead advertised as suitable for 300 MHz usage.

[OwO]

Yes, the NanoVNA was originally intended as a 200MHz unit (si5351 is only specified to 200MHz, 300MHz is overclocking and some units can't go that high). I think it's very unlikely that aliexpress and taobao will do anything about it though because the units do actually reach 900MHz, just with bad accuracy that is not apparent with basic testing. I've mentioned the harmonic mode linearity issues before on the nanovna-users group, but as I have obvious vested interest in the GHz space it'll be up to other people to bring more attention to this issue.

[ogden]

I don't care who it's designed by or for or how much it costs, specs should not be deliberately exaggerated.

That's your problem that you don't care who's designed, buy cheap shit and then complain that specs are exaggerated. I am saying that big brands do not exaggregate specs because instruments are subject to calibration, in 3rd party labs. If you know what's calibration you will understand that cheating with specs in such case is dumb idea.

[bd139]

Some of the expensive shit has exaggerated specifications too so that point is moot.

[ogden]

Some of the expensive shit has exaggerated specifications too so that point is moot.

Be specific. Otherwise it's just      

[bd139]

Take any Dyson product.

[ogden]

Same with batteries that claim 5,000mAh but can't manage 1,200, it's flat out fraud. Cheap isn't a license to pull numbers out of your ass. If you're going to claim a spec, at least make it close to reality.

LOL. That is ridiculous to complain that Average Joe in his garage in China manufacture fake batteries with fake capacity numbers.

[ogden]

Take any Dyson product.

LOL. Serious? IMHO Dyson is home stuff manufacturer and it does not manufacture instruments that are subject to calibration, in 3rd party labs. If I am mistaken, please name Dyson oscilloscope, multimeter or spectrum analyzer with exaggregated specs..

[Kilrah]

LOL. Serious? IMHO Dyson is home stuff manufacturer and it does not manufacture instruments that are subject to calibration, in 3rd party labs. If I am mistaken, please name Dyson oscilloscope, multimeter or spectrum analyzer with exaggregated specs..

Since when is the topic only about T&M equipment? Valid for anything with overstated specs...

[jadew]

Overall, although jadew has some points (i.e. the post isn't as bad say treez), it would've been nice to know about the tracking generator project in the first post...I can't honestly make myself believe this question was asked in good faith.

I think I made it pretty clear from the original post that I'm directly affected by this, as proven by the following quote (from the opening post):

I'm kind of annoyed by this, because I've been bit by it several times already and I have suspicions that some of these sellers are also behind a recent attack against my server.

Why is this happening and how can you work against it - is it even worth it?

The TG was just one of the examples I could have given, so it's not the only product I canceled because of unfair competition of this type.

[ogden]

LOL. Serious? IMHO Dyson is home stuff manufacturer and it does not manufacture instruments that are subject to calibration, in 3rd party labs. If I am mistaken, please name Dyson oscilloscope, multimeter or spectrum analyzer with exaggregated specs..

Since when is the topic only about T&M equipment? Valid for anything with overstated specs...

Thread is Ferrari performance parts manufacturer crying that bicycle manufacturers from china put him out of business. BTW bd139 replied to my post where I say following:

I am saying that big brands do not exaggregate specs because instruments are subject to calibration, in 3rd party labs.

[SiliconWizard]

(...) Lying about having good specs and not standing by your product if it fails to meet them is free.

It's free until it puts you out of business. Which, for almost any western company, is what eventually happens if you do this.

The problem when buying cheap products from China that don't meet their rated specs is that 1/ either the product was so cheap that you won't even bother calling the company on it (because your time to do this will cost you more than the product itself), or 2/ if you do, the company is likely to not even answer. Either way, given the often huge market those companies address, and the difference in laws, angry foreign customers are very unlikely to harm them in any significant way. This is a very significant difference in how business works for them compared to most western companies, and this is the real problem here.

Of course as said above, not all cheap products from China are crap, so we're talking about products that don't meet their advertised specs only.

Another obvious point is that in most cases, as long as you're a decent engineer, it's possible to at least reasonably "guess" that what is advertised can't be true, based on price, description, company's profile, etc. Even chinese companies can't seriously sell a given product under a certain price tag, at some point it just doesn't add up, and knowledge about the electronics market should help you with this. If you're fooling yourself, it's YOUR problem.

Now for the more general question of why people tend to go for the cheapest they can find these days, putting cost over almost anything else, the answer seems pretty obvious. It's either out of limited means, or greed.

[james_s]

Same with batteries that claim 5,000mAh but can't manage 1,200, it's flat out fraud. Cheap isn't a license to pull numbers out of your ass. If you're going to claim a spec, at least make it close to reality.

LOL. That is ridiculous to complain that Average Joe in his garage in China manufacture fake batteries with fake capacity numbers.

Are you on drugs or are you having difficulty comprehending English? What are you even talking about and how did you get that from what I said?

[james_s]

As its too often seeing the blame that China is evil and culprits for all your problems, why don't start campaign like electing your political representative, that promise once elected will start border control to ban all Chinese import, starting like from your spoon, your underpant and etc, up to gadgets like VNA  , and demand everything must be manufactured locally or within region or allies.

Or its just a matter of convenient just put blame and escape-goating everything on Chinese ? 

China is not the problem, lots of good stuff comes from China. The problem is low end stuff purchased directly, nearly all of which comes from companies based in China. When people complain about "Chinese junk" they are referring to a specific category of goods, not everything made in the entire country. Unfortunately some people are extremely pedantic and unable to infer this without having it laid out in explicit detail.

[james_s]

I don't care who it's designed by or for or how much it costs, specs should not be deliberately exaggerated.

That's your problem that you don't care who's designed, buy cheap shit and then complain that specs are exaggerated. I am saying that big brands do not exaggregate specs because instruments are subject to calibration, in 3rd party labs. If you know what's calibration you will understand that cheating with specs in such case is dumb idea.

Again you have completely failed to comprehend what I was saying,  you are going off about something else entirely.

Is this really so difficult to grasp? Blatant lying about specs = bad. Can you really not understand that there is a large area between high end expensive gear with guaranteed specs verified in 3rd party labs and low end gear with specs that are grossly exaggerated?

Maybe another example will help you grasp this? Let's say there are 3 power supplies. One comes from a reputable brand like Agilent, is rated to produce 30V at up to 5A continuous and comes with detailed specs on noise, regulation, etc. The performance is excellent, the specs are complete and fully trustworthy and the price is high.

Now a reasonable low cost power supply, also rated at 30V 5A, it doesn't include much in the way of other specs and probably doesn't perform as well but simple tests verify that it can produce 30V and deliver 5A into a load without blowing up. Maybe the regulation isn't as good, maybe the output is noisier, maybe it can't quite reach 30V into the full rated load but it's close, maybe you see a bit of variation from one unit to another but it works reasonably well, it's acceptable for the price. It's an inexpensive economy device and doesn't claim not to be but it can on the most basic level do what it says it will do.

Now the third option, the low cost device with fake specs, say it's the same internally as the second PSU but this one proudly proclaims it can deliver 0-50V at 10A continuous. These specs are obviously complete BS, the true performance is not even close. The specs are a lie, it is fraud, there is no way to tweak it to perform anywhere close to the claims. This is what I'm complaining about. The cost to produce example 2 and example 3 is identical, the hardware is the same but if I buy example 2 I feel I got what I paid for, if I buy example 3 I feel cheated. Perhaps the issue is the manufactures of stuff with fake specs like you do not understand this very important difference.

[bd139]

Seeing as Ogden wanted examples, the keysight E36xx supplies suffered overshoot and oscillation problems. The newer ones such as the U8001A latch up into CC mode and don’t recover. Those are specification violations.

[ogden]

Again you have completely failed to comprehend what I was saying,  you are going off about something else entirely.

Is this really so difficult to grasp? Blatant lying about specs = bad. Can you really not understand that there is a large area between high end expensive gear with guaranteed specs verified in 3rd party labs and low end gear with specs that are grossly exaggerated?

Can't you comprehend that deception about product quality and specifications exist since invention of trade and it will be so forever. Whining that there is fraud in shady places where anybody can sell anything is just laughable. If today you are unable to find consumer reviews or comprehend how it is so that obscure brand can manufacture 10x better batteries for 2x lower price compared to leading chemical companies, then learn it hard way

[ogden]

Now the third option, the low cost device with fake specs, say it's the same internally as the second PSU but this one proudly proclaims it can deliver 0-50V at 10A continuous. These specs are obviously complete BS, the true performance is not even close. The specs are a lie, it is fraud

Yes I get that. There are small battery-powered portable pocket radios that claim 1500W PMPO output power as well. Such products exist. How do you suggest to "fix it"?