I ordered one from this seller:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/261397671097
$115 for me.
After all the speculation, of course I couldn't keep the lid on.
Like the others, mine had a lot of excess flux on the board, but ONLY on the Agilent 1822-0639 GPIB controller, the Cypress CY7C68013A-128AXC USB controller, the Xilinx XC9536XL CPLD, and a 5-pin SOT labeled "LTKS" that appears to be part of a switching power supply. These were all clearly hand soldered, and the way the pads look I believe they are replacements.
All the other components appear to have been machine placed with good alignment and the board was properly reflowed and cleaned. There was a small amount of flux on the GPIB connector pins, but not nearly as much as the chips above. It seems likely the connector was originally hand soldered after reflow.
My box was unsealed, but the serial number on the box matched that on the unit. Mine also came with a CD and manual, both in pristine condition.
My guess is that these adapters were either repaired or re-manufactured by Agilent (or possibly someone else) to correct a defect.
The adapter works ok under linux-gpib, but the driver is reporting occasional errors accessing registers on the adapter. I'm not sure yet if the adapter is at fault or if it's the driver.
So, I don't think they're counterfeit, but it's surely stretching ebay's definition of "New: A brand-new, unused, unopened, undamaged item in its original packaging." There's no question these units have an unsavory history.
And if they are counterfeit, it's a pretty good one. Someone went to an awful lot of trouble.
So, I bought mine from this same seller. Mine was boxed and sealed in the box with "Agilent Technologies" paper tape.
I truly thought it was real, grey-market, yadda yadda. Now I truly think it's entirely counterfeit. I still don't know why someone would go to such effort to clone these things, as I can't imagine the market for these devices is that large. GPIB is a pretty niche interface, at least for the general public that buys stuff on eBay. Real companies, that depend on their tools, would never source test equipment like this on eBay.
Parts of my board are certainly hand-soldered, and there is a lot of flux on the tops of the various ICs. However, some of the soldering may be reflow-soldered--hard to tell. Some of the SMT caps and resistors look to have been hand reflowed, perhaps to fix faults.
In comparison to "real" devices posted by others, the facets that concern me are:
- These suspect devices have ICs with date codes years after the "warranty" date associated with the serial number on the device/packaging.
- Serial numbers all seem to be from a short sequence of "real" devices from 2009. I don't even know how many unique serial numbers are being assigned, could only be 10 different ones as far as I know.
- PCB quality, differences in font in the word "Agilent, some of the pcbs missing the "Agilent" branding altogether, PCBs have lots of component designations (e.g. R5) that are not found in authentic versions
- When I tried to pierce the serial number label to get to the screw underneath, the ink/pigment smeared. Hard to describe, but not confidence inspiring.
- Phillips head screw holding case together
- No shielding on the inside of the case
- Many of the SMT passives are misaligned
- Re-evaluating the software/driver disc that came with the unit, I realized the printing is out of focus/blurry. The quality of the disc does not match other Agilent discs that I have.
- The "Agilent Technologies" box that the unit came in, was imperfectly "stamped" with the text "Agilent Technologies". It's sort of double-printed. For contrast, I have a truly authentic DSOXLAN box here (Purchased from Newark), and the text on the cardboard is impeccable--very sharp. Not the case with the packaging of the eBay 82357B.
When I first got the unit, I tested it and it worked perfectly. From the exterior, it looks good. Even the packaging looked good to me, until this thread made me question my initial conclusions. Looking back, I see all sorts of indicators this is an outright fake.
I have purchased one of the "deliberate" clones from the same seller, and will tear it down when it arrives.
Here are inline photos of the interior of my eBay 82357B:
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