Tools and rust

Yes, it's generally true. Even the big names often use Chinese manufacturing, so when once names like Draper and Stanley were trustworthy, now you have to look for the place of manufacture, and of course even that can be a lie.

It may get better: the first Japanese cars in the UK rusted almost within weeks, but they soon learned to do better. 'Cheap Japanese rubbish' was a phrase from my childhood, nobody has said it for decades now. China might just also improve.

Chinese manufacturing started off shakily & has been determined to go ever further downhill ever since. I think China will slowly be written out of the picture as world manufacturer, ever more customers are fed up with the garbage quality, and ever more businesses are running from there for many reasons. I don't think Chine is looking to solve any of its export business issues. Today the name of China's game roughly translates to 'it'll do' when in reality it often won't. Japan has gone from rock bottom goods & scam products to some of the best. If other 3rd world countries are sensible they will follow much the same path. I did say 'if'.

All manufacturing always does.

BULLSHIT, most obviously with iphones and ipads.

More fool you.

It already has done.

BULLSHIT, most obviously with iphones and ipads.

Not any more.

I can only talk from experience. I bought a handsaw from Toolstation for £6. I didn't expect too much. I can't remember howmany teeth to the inch but quite a lot. It hasbeen brilliant. It has done a huge amount of work and is still sharp.

On the other hand my all-singing-and-dancing smart watch can tell my heart rate, how many steps I taken and keeps time, only losing three minutes every day and all for £12.38!

Crystal-controlled! How do they manage it? Must be a skill.

I can too.

Yeah, I have bought 2 different nail clippers, one which is a perfect copy of one that I was given as a child in the

The other much smaller one was even more interesting. It was from ebay for quite literally 1c, postage included, presumably to get the seller's feedback score up which helps to get the listing high on ebay. Obviously nothing to lose even if it did turn out to be useless.

The first one was uselss, the jaws weren't parallel. I told the seller, expecting to get ignored and got another which is perfect and still is.

Hmm, I suspect that it much depends on the quality control. There are lots of rubbish products from China, things like wall warts that come apart exposing the live contacts, PC laptop chargers that work, but chuck out lots of noise and often the cables die in one case almost catching light to a rug it was on. Most Motherboards for computers seem to be made in China, but seem reliable, although I'm not convinced the same is true of pc power supplies, one died and took out the motherboard for me, which being obsolete in just a couple of years, meant finding one almost the same. On tools, Every large hacksaw blade of Drapers I've bought are apparently coated in a very light blue stuff, and made in Poland. The teeth seem to be too brittle compared with the old ones and you can find yourself trying to saw with a strip of metal rather than a saw. Some screwdrivers of unknown manufacture have excellent blades, but are let down by the plastic handles cracking or the blade rotating in the handle. I think the worst items have been so called jewellers screwdrivers that look good but are far too soft to turn a tight screw. I also tend to feel that Korea are slipping a bit in that they are fitting inferior capacitors in their stuff, from china which tend to dry out and cause random faults in TVs and the like. I sometimes think there is truth in the old idea whereby unscrupulous manufacturers use cheaper than usual components and materials for their production line after delivering the first batch as designed to keep the brand happy. Audio cassettes used to show this practice pretty badly where the mouldings were just not accurate enough and the things jammed after a few months of use. Brian

They may not be bad capacitors, just inappropriate for the use.

Electrolytics have a temperature rating and a lifetime rating at that temperature, and the quoted lifetime may be as little as 1000 hours i.e. about six weeks of continuous use, for the very small surface mount aluminium electrolytics.

The actual life varies roughly with the doubling/halving for about 9K law. So at 40 degrees, an 80 degree capacitor might have a life of about 20,000 hours, which a manufacturer would consider adequate, even for continuous use.

Capacitors are available with longer lives and higher temperature rating, but of course they tend to be a little larger and more expensive. Japanese and Koreans generally replace domestic electronics every couple of years, so the cheapest option is usually adequate.

Having said that, I've replaced all that type of capacitor in a number of £30K broadcast cameras, more than a hundred to each camera...

I can trump that.

Before the days of through hole plating on PCBS some manufacturers used rivets instead of through board vias to connect traces on one side of the board to the other. My ageing colour CRT TV had developed faults which were alleviated by percussive maintenance. I traced at least one fault to a probable bad rivet connection, soldered it instead of relying on mechanical pressure, and one fault was fixed. Lacking any circuit diagram, I then reasoned simplistically that it one via was dead others too could be, but which ones?

In the end I added solder to *every single one*. Over 100.

The TV worked perfectly until it was struck by lightning. ....

That does tend to cause problems. It happened to one of mine once, the coax aerial plug was completely unmarked, the socket no longer existed, just a wire coming to an end. There was no sign of it inside the TV. Tuner and power supply both dead, as was anything mains-powered inthe house which was turned on at the time. Apparently the voltage that reached the mains wiring wasn't high enough to jump across open switches.

That event was the worst strike I have ever seen. And I saw many in my time in Africa.

The strike had hit the overhead telephone wire and obliterated it, It simply wasn't there. Then destroyed a modem, the serial card it was connected to and the printer plugged into the parallel port card. Then it had jumped into the mains, blown a socket out of the wall and arced over live to neutral in several places including through a carpet. It blew the TV, took out some chips in a CMOS laden digital turntable, and may or may not have destroyed a Hifi receiver. I cant remember what happened to that and I don't have it anymore. Maybe I just trashed it then, anyway.

The whole house had to be rewired for insurance reasons.

My PC survived.

Brian Gaff snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote

Yep, so the original claim that everything from china is s*it and that everything from china is getting worse is just more mindless bigotted drivel.

And lots off very well made stuff too.

Never had that and I can't remember the last one that was made anywhere but china.

I don't care and use high quality stuff like Lenovo which doesnt anyway.

Never had that either and havent had none not made in china for what must be getting on for 50 years now.

Corse nothing like that ever happens with stuff not made in china.

And I have only had the one ever die, and it was made in Taiwan.

I am. Never had one die, not even the fan and I leave mine running 24/7/365.25 except when I am going away for weeks.

Never had that either, but I don't buy the cheapest power supplys.

Never had that either.

Never had that either.

Never bought that conspiracy theory and never saw any evidence of that happening.

Never saw that either, but never bought the cheapest crap.