Purchasing IC's and various components from EBay.

Is it unwise to purchase IC's and other parts from EBay? Im afraid they are knockoffs which will certainly open high chance to catastrophic failure.

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Hard to resist price.

Lets just say the risk is high.

Sometimes the parts are just redundant good stock or salvage from companies that have closed down. Sometimes the parts you buy are completely different ICs with new numbers printed on them. You have to weigh up the chances, you either get a bargain or landfill. In many cases the seller will mysteriously vanish if you try to claim back for junk and you lose your money, time and loss of parts.

Brian.

There's a saying: "What's cheap can turn out to be expensive in the long run." I ordered LM723s off ebay that never appeared, but then I also got saddled with a load of ("high fail rate" allegedly) Daewoo capacitors that I bought in a shop, when I didn't know about different brands. I'd always go with a reputable supplier, you know what you're getting.

I have been burned plenty of times by e-bay parts that simply do not work. voltage regulators with zero output, crystal oscillator modules that do not oscillate, triacs rated at 500v that self destruct every time above 15 volts are applied, and so on......

I think many of these parts have been rescued from the rubbish tip as failed final testing and sold on e-bay by enterprising people.
But there are definitely genuine bargains to be had, and I still buy almost all my components from e-bay simply for the cost saving and convenience.

Just be prepared for a nasty surprise in probably about one in thirty purchases.

If its for yourself, for a hobby, and its only a few dollars, you can be philosophical about it and move on.

If you are in business supplying your own customers, or purchasing in bulk, its just not not worth the risk.

Typical ad may go something like this.
Module marked 10.000 Mhz, we do not know much about these units or what they are used for, no data available, buy ten for five dollars.
When they arrive not one out of the ten works. Cut one open and look inside and they are genuine crystal oscillator modules. But totally useless.

I may concur with certain well known manufacturers' parts for resale seem genuine case in point power RF MOSFETS.

I got a PIC board, it was defective. Some LEDs did not work among other things.

I prefer not to buy ICs that come from Hong Kong on ebay.

Warpspeed said:

Just be prepared for a nasty surprise in probably about one in thirty purchases..

Click to expand...

I would say about one in ten...

I sell chips on eBay and the chips I sell are of very high quality (ex military) albeit a bit on the old side. I think that if you buy my chips you are getting a bargain. There are many other sellers who sell electronic devices at bargain prices on eBay as there are many sellers who sell fake devices (mainly from China). Find a good seller by buying a small quantity at first and if good buy more at larger quantities, that is what I find my customers doing.

i have been buying on ebay for last 4 years.
Yes, I had some failures.
But major things are ok.
however there are many versions of LM386 with gain variations, I suppose..
please see the datasheet.
After all ebay is a consortium of sellers. Only issue i had with ebay or any other on line seller is the enormous delay.
Perhaps by the time you get the item , you might well loose interest on the specific design.