Quality, Construction Standard & Safety of Inexpensive Chinese Equipment!

[Chris56000]

Hi!

Mods,

I'm beginning this topic so everyone can discuss, present and offer:–

1) Pictures of Poor Construction standards, also examples of GOOD construction standards found in examples of Far Eastern pieces of electronic products, both T&M and more general!

(Highlight each example with pictures and brief description)

2) Opinions as what is good or bad in each case;

3) Suggestions, again with descriptions, pictures, or circuit-extracts as appropriate, as how bad practices can be improved or good ones made better!

I realize a lot of this is covered in teardowns/reviews, but I thought it might be a good idea to put these ideas like this into one easily found topic!

Chris Williams

[bd139]

Everything in my room is made in China. Some of it's good, some of it's shit!

My washing machine is made in Italy and is really good. My car is made in Italy and is shit!

Ergo I don't think it's specific to the location.

[SeanB]

They make good equipment, but often parts of the implementation are not so good. examples are using a 3 core mains cable to drive a 3 phase motor, using the red, white, green wires for phase  feeds, but not having a protective earth connection aside from the inverter and the motor being bolted to the same chassis. As well using 0.5mm wire for this, on a 500W motor. Control equipment can be hit and miss, who has heard of an industrial voltage of 36VAC, the standards are 110VAC, 110VDC, 48VAC, 24VAC, 24VDC, and then line voltage either phase to phase or phase to neutral.

[ralphrmartin]

OK, I'll bite. I have a MacBook made in China. The design is awful - when open, the front edge of the base has a really sharp edge, and after dropping it on my bare foot, I have a permanent scar to show for it. It's a real safety issue.

Perhaps this wasn't quite what you had in mind though, I forgot you had the "inexpensive" word in the title... 

[bd139]

  MacBook here as well. I haven’t dropped it on myself yet but it looks like I’ve been self harming after a while.

[Bud]

Quality of Chinese Equipment
Construction Standard of Chinese Equipment
Safety of Chinese Equipment

Sounds like a triple oxymoron to me.