Counterfeit electronic components

[atgeek]

Very often I buy electronic components on aliexpress, but I've heard that many of them are recycled or fake. Do you buy components from China or prefer to avoid them?

[AndersJ]

I try to avoid everything chinese.
I've had my share of product fails caused by fake components.
Octal low side drivers and FET's for instance.

[wraper]

Depends, generally you should avoid them if you care a little bit about them being genuine. Especially avoid buying transistors, opamps, voltage regulators, branded electrolytic capacitors as there is pretty slim chance receiving genuine parts.

[CraigHB]

I buy most of my stuff from the usual vendors like Mouser and Digikey.  I have heard of people getting counterfeit components buying direct from China.  You wouldn't think someone would go to the trouble for the relatively small amount of money involved, but it seems they will counterfeit anything.  There's some savings to be had buying stuff direct from China, but the risk is there.  For small quantities I wouldn't be too concerned, but if I was producing something and buying reels I'd be more careful.

I think you also need to differentiate the level of counterfeiting.  Some will go to the point of putting slugs in copied packages.  Others will just copy parts where those copies still function adequately.  So you're probably more likely to get non-genuine parts than non-functioning slugs.

[joseph nicholas]

Almost all the transistors, mosfets, capacitors and resistors work from china.  My experience with large value capacitors is mixed.  I bought a few 63v 1,000uf capacitors which were marked new from aliexpress and the were taken from other circuits used.  That being said, they worked fine. 

[JanJansen]

I use ebay for :

LCD displays ( very cheap )
heatsinks
breadboard cables
rotary encodes ( cheap, only i dont know how long they will last, i will replace them one day if gone bad )
i also buy 10uF ceramic capacitors ( very cheap ), only others tell me not to buy that, i see no problem yet!
For the rest someone told you can also buy pin headers from china.

Active components not recommended, they fake labels.
I also bought "germanium" diodes, they are fake, its skotsky diodes not germanium.
They sell whatever the market wants.

[wraper]

So you're probably more likely to get non-genuine parts than non-functioning slugs.

And this is the worst in it. You will get transistors with 5x smaller die, opamps with much worse specs. And this will bite you after some time, when your devices will start to fail at field. Would be much better if they were not functioning right away.

[wraper]

Almost all the transistors, mosfets, capacitors and resistors work from china. 

"Work", before they fail. Especially higher power devices when decently loaded.

[atgeek]

The problem is spot the original components. Many store out the China sell fake products as genuine.
Would be also interesting create a thread listing counterfeit/used components and the store selling them

[BravoV]

Why ? You want 100% genuine stuff and really cheap (cheaper than the mfgr's price like the common per 1K price) ?

Live with it.

The problem is spot the original components.

Nowdays, using your eyes, finger, nose as for sniffing  wont work anymore as they've perfected the cloning.

Many store out the China sell fake products as genuine.

Then do NOT buy from there, go to Digikey, Mouser etc.

Would be also interesting create a thread listing counterfeit/used components and the store selling them

Again, why ? They can make "another" new store again even they're blacklisted for thousands of times.

[Tomorokoshi]

I like to post this link whenever a counterfeit thread shows up. It's a few years old now, and things have gotten only more sophisticated:

http://www.asq.org/asd/2009/03/compliance/counterfeit-parts.pdf

[JoeN]

Paying a genuine price usually gets you genuine parts

Especially if you buy it from Digikey since at the s"genuine price" level, Digikey will be competitive.  And for me, the postage on 8 oz or less of parts is like $3.50 and comes in 3 days.

I'm not bothered by the counterfeit parts controversy as far as hobbyists go.  Hobbyists get what they pay for and are mainly making projects to see if they work and then they end up in a box somewhere.  What bothers me is that sometimes OEMs get screwed here, and frankly I can't see how it happens.  Why are they buying from some dodgy middleman and then putting those parts into devices that cost 1000x as much as the part that is going to fail at a high rate and screw up their product for many users and kill the OEM's reputation?  It's not worth it.  And to avoid it, all they have to do is buy directly from manufacturers or from well known distributors (Digikey, Mouser, Arrow, etc.) that have a policy of only buying from manufacturers and never middlemen or liquidators.

[amitchell]

I like to post this link whenever a counterfeit thread shows up. It's a few years old now, and things have gotten only more sophisticated:

http://www.asq.org/asd/2009/03/compliance/counterfeit-parts.pdf

I like the pile 0402 caps, hard to believe you can make money doing that with 0402.

[Tomorokoshi]

I like to post this link whenever a counterfeit thread shows up. It's a few years old now, and things have gotten only more sophisticated:

http://www.asq.org/asd/2009/03/compliance/counterfeit-parts.pdf

I like the pile 0402 caps, hard to believe you can make money doing that with 0402.

That's BS. The PDF comes from a Yankee company that wants to show how danger it is to get things to make in China, of course that PDF is biased.
In reality, no one makes money by selling fake 0402. It doesn't even worth it to put them in reels unless you have a massive quantity and you do it in a fully automated fashion.

Specifically what is biased about it?

Yet, there they are, sorted and ready for packaging.

Look at page 51 of 76. Reels of 0603 and 0402 are there for sale.

[Tomorokoshi]

1. Specifically what is biased about it?
2. Yet, there they are, sorted and ready for packaging.
3. Look at page 51 of 76. Reels of 0603 and 0402 are there for sale.

1. An US assembly house reporting Chinese fake is biased. Their pictures are carefully chosen to give an illusion that all these parts shown at the end of presentation come from previously shown recycle process.

The presentation shows different aspects of the counterfeiting process. The parts being cleaned on the sidewalk were there. There were definitely analyzed parts that were counterfeit. Numerous instances of counterfeit parts have been documented on this site. It's relatively easy to purchase counterfeit parts and analyze them.

2. ICs and large branded capacitors being sorted and sold? Possible. Chip passives? No way.

What is the basis of the claim that in no way would passives not be resold?

3. These look like new reels of parts to me. Just because they are parts in reels and being sold in Shenzhen doesn't indicate anything about them being genuine or fake.

The plastic reels may be new, but that's all that is new in them.

[Stephen37]

My rules are the following :

There are Chinese copies of original chips that work even better than the original, for instance, the XL6009 regulator, the SS3x Schottky diodes or the CP210x/CH340 FTDI clones. But if you buy NE5532 opamps or LM7805 regulators you better test them before using in production because they might be from a failed batch, but you can get genuine parts from some sellers on ebay. They would still work but not in the spec of the datasheet. (which sometimes is a problem and sometimes not)

[CJay]

I've had very few instances where components have turned out to be fake though admittedly I only buy as a hobbyist who repairs things for friends, if I were buying for manufacture (again) I'd definitely be taking time to check my supply chain more stringently and approaching verified distributors as a first source.

I've bought many modules and bare components via eBay and Ali which have been and are working, to the best of ability to measure, at least to spec, without making any particular effort to choose vendor other than checking their feedback.

The only parts I've spent time selecting and vetting suppliers for are RF transistors so I've been lucky in all but two instances where my chosen suppliers haven't been able to help, a 'Mitsubishi' RD16HHF1 device turned out to be a bipolar device that'd been remarked and a bag of 2SC2078s were bipolar transistors of some description but most definitely not RF amplifier transistors.

I think there's a lot of FUD propagated about Chinese suppliers, mostly by those who have a vested interest in muddying their names.

[wraper]

CP210x/CH340 FTDI clones.

They are not clones and have their own drivers.

[wraper]

because they might be from a failed batch, but you can get genuine parts from some sellers on ebay. They would still work but not in the spec of the datasheet. (which sometimes is a problem and sometimes not)

Which is widely spread bullshit. You have very slim chance getting rejected components, just imagine how many rejects should be produced to fill that market  . Usually you get either counterfeits or used components sold as new.

[Siwastaja]

This is a constant subject of speculation and  on the internet forums, which is funny, because there is a lot of community experience on the matter, if people just were listening.

Anyone who has actually built things using China Ebay components for some time will know very well that they are totally unusable, end of discussion. Still, people don't want to believe this and want to act like some Counterfeit Component Justice Warriors .

So, it seems to take some time to find this through trial and error. I happily used Ebay parts for some time, and have seen others do it, until they realize.

Reasons why this is not obvious right away include:

1) Not all parts are counterfeit/broken - some parts are genuine and OK! I think it's generally around 50% (but depends hugely on the category, ranging between 0% and 100%). If you happen to be lucky for the first few times in the row, it may take a year or two until you notice if you are not that avid.
2) Not all parts are totally broken - they appear to work first. Very typical examples: power components with wrong printings, it is the right type of component, but cannot do the current it's specified to (usually not even nearly so). Or, the necessary protections are totally lacking, which won't be seen right away.
3) Some parts have much worse specs, but happen - by sheer luck - to be usable in that particular application.
4) Some of the parts end up in the parts bin, not being used at all for some time, or ever, due to the nature of the hobby. People are left satisfied by the "good service".

All of this delays the realization that the Chinese Ebay parts are 100% unusable crap, because even if 50% of the stuff is OK, you never know. Even for a hobbyist doing one-offs, this percentage of failure is at least an order of magnitude, if not two, too high.

For me, it took some 2 years, with hundreds of dollars worth of components. And BTW, the Ebay list prices are usually not better than at real distributors. Free or cheap shipping was the enabler for me, when you just need $5 worth of components at the time.

The need to buy everything twice or three times, writing complaints to Ebay and waiting for the new parts for 2-3 weeks at every step starts delaying projects so much that at some point, you realize it's easier to use that same 2-3 weeks to design and think what you are going to need in a next few projects, or gather some more people, and then order the miminum order from a real distributor.

Nowadays, I only order the China Ebay components when the normal distributors fail to sell the product at a sane price, and the product is such that I know from experience it is most likely going to be OK - a typical example would be a pin header.

[madires]

For my hobbyist needs I buy things like LCD modules, pin headers and LEDs from China. So far I haven't had any issues as I don't expect too much, only that it works and the LCD controllers to be compatible. For cheap LED modules I assume 1/2 or 1/3 of the stated power rating, until I've checked them myself. This "1 Chinese Watt = 1/2 Watt" rule works quite well for most cheap stuff.

[CraigHB]

I think it's all pretty amazing it comes to this.  China is like the wild west of industry.  You can get good stuff probably more often than not, but there's always the unscrupulous sellers you have to watch out for.  The spectrum ranges from used genuine parts packaged as new, copied stuff with lower quality, or flat out fakes with no working circuits inside.  Unfortunately there's really no way to evaluate the level of trust you can place in a China seller.  There's so many of them on places like Ali and eBay there's just no way to know who's solid and who's sketchy. 

Big companies do get burned by this and I've heard stories of whole production runs that have been scrapped due to bogus parts.  I think it's a legitimate problem in electronics and a lot of it stems from the bean counters trying to skimp on overhead any way they can.  For the hobbyist it's only an annoyance, but it can be a disaster for large production runs. 

There is one thing that really dissuades me from buying parts on Ali and eBay even though there's no real loss of money involved.  For bigger projects I have had issues that take quite some time to troubleshoot.  To introduce those issues only because I wanted to save a dollar or two on parts in low quantity doesn't seem worth it to me.

[CJay]

There is one thing that really dissuades me from buying parts on Ali and eBay even though there's no real loss of money involved.  For bigger projects I have had issues that take quite some time to troubleshoot.  To introduce those issues only because I wanted to save a dollar or two on parts in low quantity doesn't seem worth it to me.

I think as a manufacturer you'd have to be desperate (or a moron) to buy parts from China on eBay, it's a hobbyist marketplace, at best for a manufacturer it's possible to buy things without having to buy a reel but even then I'd much rather go to the manufacturer and beg for samples or buy an eval board.

As a hobbyist, I love ebay, it gives me access to all sorts of oddball stuff, things I can't lay my hands on any other way or without paying for thousands of and I tend to take my lead from other hobbyists who have already tested the parts and provided reviews/links. It's hardly the end of the world if a $1.50 board fails, it's a little frustrating but that's about it.

For repair parts like RF transistors, as I've said, I have a couple of Ali sellers I trust and have never been let down by but I'm not ordering a particularly wide range of esoteric parts.

Ali can be good for manufacture as there are verifiable parts available direct from the manufacturers in China, it's a handy place to find small manufactuers of things like switches, LED modules, small TFTs and in my non hobbyist role I have ordered LED displays direct from one such supplier, as far as I know they're still performing sterling duty to this day.

It really depends what you are looking for and how much time you have on your hands.

[CraigHB]

I think as a manufacturer you'd have to be desperate (or a moron) to buy parts from China on eBay, it's a hobbyist marketplace, at best for a manufacturer it's possible to buy things without having to buy a reel but even then I'd much rather go to the manufacturer and beg for samples or buy an eval board.

OEMs don't always buy direct from the manufacturer.  Some of the name manufacturers like Microchip and Texas Instruments have a wholesale outlet, but more often they don't.  OEMs typically source from a distributor.  They're not immune to getting a hold of bad parts either.  Not sure how it happens, maybe those distributors are sourcing parts form the gray market where counterfeits make their way into stocks.

[Stephen37]

It's definitely not worth it for a company to buy directly from China, you can go to resellers that have partnerships with Farnell,TME... and will provide you with a price 60-70% (even 90%) lower than specified on the non-partner website.