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I am sure many of us have built the cheap crystal checker/counter available in kit form from China. I have previously used them twice before for receiver frequency displays. They use a PIC16F628A in a circuit that I think originated with DL4YHF.?

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A couple of months ago I ordered a couple more of these kits intending to use them in upcoming projects.

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When they arrived I quickly built one up intending to use it to help with some software development I was working on. It did not work. Annoyed I checked my construction. You get no circuit with the kit but the circuit is pretty simple. I quickly realized that the time base oscillator (20MHz) was not working. I found that the crystal was okay so I put the PIC chip in my programmer thinking that it may not be programmed and found it didn't meet the device ID for a PIC16F628 and didn't pass any other tests as a PIC chip. Okay I thought maybe I had received a dud.

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The PIC16F628 from the second kit also acted the same way. I left a bad review on the sellers site and ordered another kit from a different vendor. I am sure you have already guessed I had the same result with the PIC chip from this new kit when it arrived.

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I tried to obtain some PIC16F628 chips locally but my normal suppliers have deleted the DIP version. I did manage to get a SMD version and soldered this to an SMD to DIP adapter board. I managed to prove that this was the problem but during the process destroyed the kit's PIC's socket with the thicker adapter board pins. Finally some PIC' chips arrived from? . After programming at last they gave me working counters.

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I am very aware of fakes from China but thought that kits would be okay. I just can't understand the logic of someone supplying fake chips in a kit. They will just destroy the market for those kits. Even if whoever put the kits together was sold fakes by someone else it has to mean that they have no quality control process in place.

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So I thought I would put this out there in case others have also fallen for these fakes. The good news is that the rest of the kit seems okay so if you replace the fake chips with real programmed PIC16F628 chips you will get a working counter.

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73 Mark VK6WV

The logic goes like this: These Chinese kit suppliers don't care if they destroy the market for a particular item they are selling. They'll just provide a different kit to a different market segment, and do the same thing there. Since they're based in China, and they are selling to international customers, the friction of returning a kit due to it being nonfunctional is very high. They're pretty much assured of keeping the money you paid without having to deal with a ton of returns.

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Is this ethical? Probably not. What they're doing is peddling junk to unsuspecting customers.

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It's not just limited to kits. We also see it with commodity electronic components being re-labeled as a more expensive components and being sold to unsuspecting buyers.

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My guess is that when it becomes too expensive to ship this junk into the USA this will stop, and maybe just maybe we'll see kits and electronics stores reopen in the USA.??

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Please note that the following is not intended to have any political overtones : The $800.00 de-minimis tariff exemption will end soon, and that will make it more expensive to ship this junk to the USA. They'll have to open warehouses in the USA to continue to sell this junk -- but that will also cause them to have a physical presence in the USA, and therefore make it easier to return this crap. So in the end prices will go up, but maybe we'll get kits and parts which are not crap.

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Steve

WA6ZFT

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Mark,

Fake components in a kit.. yes, first time I have heard of this.? I wonder if the PICs could have been plugged into the programmer

backwards or something.? I'd ask for at least a partial refund.. and do that before you give bad feedback (many times I get separate

emails from the vendors pretty much begging me to do that, bad feedback can really hurt their business).

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Steve,

I am pretty sure these vendors are little mom and pop shops trying to make a buck (really just a few pennies, considering how cheap

these things are).? They sell everything they can get their hands on from sexy(?) panties to high tech electronic kits.? If you complain,

at least on ebay, I have never had a problem eventually getting all my money back.? One time I did have to complain to ebay itself

when I got a bad GPS board that couldn't find a satellite but did put out serial data... the seller only wanted to give me a partial

refund.? I have never had to return any bad item.? Ha ha, one time I did have to send a photo when the seller couldn't believe that

I had received a kazoo(cheap musical instrument) instead of an electronic kit.? I got the correct kit and my grandsons got a great

kazoo!

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73,

Gary

WB6OGD