[ARC5] [Milsurplus] Duracell Coppertop batteries and other things

[Kenneth G. Gordon]

On 7 Jan 2023 at 18:21, Tom Lee wrote:

> 
> The quality control task is now left to the end consumer. We ordered a bunch of cheap 
> Chinese-made LCD oscilloscope kits ($20 each). Students complained about weird 
> glitches on displayed waveforms. It took a little sleuthing to discover that the quad 
> op-amp, which was marked TL084, was actually the far inferior LM324. You could just 
> barely make out the original marking if you looked at it just right.
> 
> The price difference between these two op-amps is a few pennies. I was in awe that it 
> was worth the trouble to them to erase the original markings and re-label with the 
> counterfeit part numbers, all for pennies. You gotta sell a boatload of these to make a 
> buck, but evidently that's the threshold there.
> 
> Yikes.
> 
> --Tom

I don't know if anyone or everyone here remembers the HUGE problems we had a number of 
years ago with small electrolytic capacitors used in computers and peripherals, but it was 
REALLY horrendous!

Some chinese fellow worked for awhile at a well-known Japanese manufacturer of 
electrolytic capacitors, and stole their proprietory forumla for the electrolyte.....except that he 
didn't get the entire formula.

Then he quit, went back to china, and somehow convinced chinese manufacturers to use his 
stolen formula to make tens of millions of those small electrolytic caps used on computer 
motherboards, peripherals, and power supplies, and since they were cheaper than the better 
ones made in Japan, convinced even "high-end" makers of motherboards, like IBM (before 
they sold their computer division to china) to install them in almost everything 
computer-related made in the U.S.A.

VERY shortly after those things were built, the chinese capacitors failed, some 
catastrophically, others a bit more slowly, and caused a HUGE problem with defective 
motherboards, etc. 

We compiuter techs had considerable difficulty for some time keeping up with replacing 
motherboards, and other crap.

Some few of us learned quite early on what to look for and how to replace the caps.

Although I was wary of chinese-made stuff before this, I have never trusted anything made in 
china since then.

Ken W7EKB