Hi there
I'm wondering if others are seeing the same trend.
Where the f*** do we get cheap test equipment nowadays ? What happened in the past few years ?
For work reasons I relocated twice in the past decade, in different continents.
6-7 years ago I used to have a decent basic lab at home, that I built with equipment I got for free. Power supplies, decent DSO oscilloscope, logic analyzer, and a bunch of other goodies. All in good condition.
When I had to relocate to another continent, I could not ship everything and bring it with me. So I gave everything locally to friends and other enthusiasts, just as I was given the stuff before, fully expecting to easily find equipment a bit later.
Since then I did not build a lab at home since I had access to a decent one at work.
Fast forward a few years, I am trying to rebuild a lab, because I no longer work in the industry and I want to tinker at home.
I was expecting to find decent deals relatively easily. If I was able to get a lab for essentially nothing, years ago, I should be able to get gear very easily by paying a bit right ? And more modern equipment too ? WRONG !
People are trying to sell broken equipment which are clearly garbage salvage for hundreds of dollars. Untested crap,
clearly physically broken and abused, clearly straight out of a dumpster where it was carelessly thrown out. eBay is full of this, people have no shame !
It seems like some "test equipment companies" which I am not going to name are getting all the stuff and selling it at 80% of the new price. Proudly showing pictures of their warehouses full of old test gear.
It seems to me that they cleverly inserted themselves into all the recycling places. What was sold on eBay for cheap before, by the recyclers directly, as it went through the recycling/disposal network is now directly stored into warehouses belonging to some specialized companies that are asking some big bucks for the equipment, greatly limiting supply and propping all the prices very high
Am I missing something or is it really bad now ? I thought it was a local trend (I am now in the US) but it seems like it's an international thing. Can't find anything anywhere at a decent price.
We even have people selling entry level 20 years old multimeters on Facebook Marketplace for $100. A bunch of them.
I am considering buying everything new, because the price of the used gear is now so high that it doesn't make sense to spend $600 on a "as is" 30 years old equipment when something new and much better sells for $1000.
It seems like somehow the value of used test equipment has gone significantly up in the past few years. Any idea why ?
PS: Yes I totally regret giving the stuff away, but relocating with it wasn't really an option anyway