Millions of engineers and technicians are using cheap testers less than $10 and  - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Storeinfinity
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: August 26, 2011, 09:15:14 am
content: I did some research on popular cheap testers and scopes present in China.Data at disposal are collected from the largest online shopping platform taobao.com by searching top sellers+the most popular deals.1 Clamp meter: 11107 items online.Top ten best deals are from $4 to $20.Top3 are respectively $4, $20, and $5 each.2 DMM Digital Multimeters : 84393 items.Top ten deals are from $10 to $30.Top3 cost $6 (nearly 1,000 piece sold every month), $10 (nearly 379p/month), $4. (311p/month).And the Fluke 17B around $85 are also popular, sold 100 pieces per month.3 Oscilloscope: 23969 items.Popular ones are all around $300.Best seller number 1 ADS1102cal with 100MHz and 1G sample rate sold nearly 60 pieces every single month by one sellerThese data are only from one online shopping platform in China among numerous market places in this billion-population country.Actually the bigger scale of sales are mostly off line in China.According to one of the top online forums in China ourdev.com, a place where more than 170,927 topics with 2,130,682 technical-only replies shared by 41,344,468 visitors, (among them 335,088 regular registered and strictly screened by a standard of at least 5 technical replies after registration?and always around 5000 netters active online) lots of tester&scope users, most as technicians and engineers working for state-owned enterprises in China, use cheap testers and scopes off work and those first class ones are only purchased with reimbursement and fund from government.And lots of them argued, in terms of usage, in most cases cheap testers work really well and sometimes even better. (esp. considering diode or transistor hFE etc.) **link to own site removed**For most of us who are not rocket scientists, cheap testers and scopes are really helping for daily circuit debugs and appliance repairs so that we can save money on something more challenging in our lives.

author: nukie
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 26, 2011, 09:33:52 am
content: Dave please save us from this can of meat.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 26, 2011, 12:51:16 pm
content: I've said more than enough on cheap meters!Dave.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 26, 2011, 04:08:10 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on August 26, 2011, 12:51:16 pmactually this is blatant spam, first he gives us figures about how much is sold and to who and if your really bored like me and read on you get to the point where he drops a website name. He was clever to not make it a link so that it stood out a mile and got banned as this is basically a crude advert and as a first post names and shames the op as a spammer.

author: saturation
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 26, 2011, 04:19:30 pm
content: I'm not sure this is entirely spam, but those are impressive sales stats; folks often don't share such info. It will serve as a lead to check those sites and the numbers. We don't get much info from Chinese language forums, so I wouldn't take the quote as gospel but its a good lead to investigate further.The forum mentioned, ourdev.com, is a general interest forum, with many subforums, many are in electronics discussion:http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ourdev.cn%2Fbbs%2F&act=urlhttp://serenityinchina.wordpress.com/2011/05/17/china-street-scenes-doing-electrical-wiring-above-streetin-middle-of-street/I don't think were folks buy cheap gear, safety in T&M is more important than cost, and that it will live long enough to get a job done, and cheap enough to get it replaced without blinking:Somehwere in China in 2011, a worker using live electrical supply lines to support the ladder:My photo of a gov't installation in the Marianas Is., taken in 2010, note the yellow arrows. Insulated wires without metal jackets, electrical sockets free floating unconnected to the wall [ but with a steel pipe for support].

author: Unknown
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 26, 2011, 05:45:32 pm
content: This looks remarkably like what is described here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCIgenOr maybe I romanticize about non-human involvement.

author: Lightages
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 26, 2011, 05:50:23 pm
content: This is 100% unmitigated spam with a cover story. Ban the goof.

author: Unknown
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 26, 2011, 06:14:55 pm
content: Quote from: Lightages on August 26, 2011, 05:50:23 pmDo not agree. He (it) provided some information in his first post. This should be legit, even for a spammer. The quality of information is debatable but this is beside the point. You should not kick people out without a pattern emerging.

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 26, 2011, 06:41:37 pm
content: Quote from: HAL-42b on August 26, 2011, 06:14:55 pmIt's true. When people put some effort into their promotional material they deserve to be given a little slack.

author: Lightages
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 26, 2011, 06:50:31 pm
content: OK then, Dave should, IMHO, at least delete the spammers free advertised link so as to not piss off the ones paying to get their websites on this forum. one post, no replies to his own post, just to get his name and website url on another website. Sorry but I see blatant exploitation of Dave here although a more subtle approach than usual.

author: shadowless
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 26, 2011, 07:18:39 pm
content: It just reflect the state of development China is in today. Most people are not rich enough to afford the good stuff.Lack of care is a big issue. Lack of care for human lives is a problematic mindset.In construction sites, they send people down bore holes to dig manually instead of using machine. And when the earth cave in they just pay compensation the family. Life is cheaper than the cost of equipment. Some people think life is cheap and that is the reality in China. In countries that have 1/5 the world population, it is easy for them to fall into that mindset.

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 26, 2011, 08:34:05 pm
content: well. there's some logic in the stat. since cheap intruments are throw away, most people will just get one to try out. Dave has 1 or 2 Fluke?. but how many cheapo did he bought for review and tear down? not to mention the one who ended up below his car tyre.

author: Kiriakos-GR
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 26, 2011, 09:32:41 pm
content: Why I should care about statistics ( true or false ) that was taken from the people in China ?I live in Europe, and I love to see the European ones !!

author: nukie
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 27, 2011, 01:21:32 am
content: When question about buying domestic(Chinese brand) high-end more than $150 DMM, often ourdev.cn forum members would steer towards used Fluke meters such as the 187. Used Flukes is plentyful in the Chinese e-market, often a lot cheaper thn eBay.Most people have cheap T&M gear yes, in our toolbox, glovebox, in the cupboard, where it funtions as a spare. Never on my bench where I use it everyday.Mid priced T&M I agree but not $10 cheap. Most members on ourdev.cn who are serious about electronics possess some sort of meter priced range about $50 or so, ie the UT61D. A few would spend their annual salary on a used 6 digit HP 34401A. Hardcore members who often contribute regarding voltage standards topics sports 8 digit imports. The users are diversed.The spammer/self advertiser is really just making it up to attract maximum attention. taobao.com is equivalent to eBay. Most company would deal with other businesses directly to aqquire their test gear. I say Taobao statistic is mostly just sales for personal use.Thinking about it the article sounds like the communist party spreading their propoganda.Having said that I have a $12 UT20 meter it has a load test for 1.5v and 9v battery I find it very useful and valuable. To me, its a battery tester.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 27, 2011, 01:22:54 am
content: Quote from: HAL-42b on August 26, 2011, 06:14:55 pmThe post is on-topic, so it stays. But the user spruiked their own site and made it look like opinion, so it's obviously spam, so banned.I don't mind people spruiking their own site, but only if they are up front about it and contribute to the community discussions.Dave.

author: Kiriakos-GR
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 27, 2011, 01:55:06 am
content: Quote from: nukie on August 27, 2011, 01:21:32 amTrue, and in order to save some from the trouble about visiting it, the language is exclusively Chinese .

author: Lightages
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 27, 2011, 02:23:30 am
content: Perhaps you might want to remove their subtle reference to their own site then"I was thrilled to find these cheap scopes and testers on sites "removed as it is pure spam" as well as some other distributers of scopes like ADS1102cal or fluke 17b on ebay, which considerably saved my budget on these equipments."and my reference to it here. It is a sneaky way to get their site reference numbers up in google.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 27, 2011, 07:03:15 am
content: Quote from: Lightages on August 27, 2011, 02:23:30 ampersonally I'd remove the whole topic and ban the user but that is Daves call

author: Storeinfinity
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2011, 08:56:22 am
content: Dear DaveThis is Mscha from ********** and I apologize for what I've done at your eevblog days ago when I wrongly uploaded a spammer titled with millions of engineers...”.I accept some of the accusations against me from Simon, Lightages etc. while I would like to say thanks to you, saturation, HAL-42b, IanB.I don’t want to make an excuse to this but the fact was my assistant accidentally Ctrl+C and Ctrl+ved my blog from company site blog (without removing insite links) and spreaded outside while I was asking her to use plain texts.eev blog is a great place and personally I as everyone else dislike spammers. I believe in decency and eev blog are full of decent people in this field. It’s stupid to upload such an awkward spammer to people with good education and seasoned experience in this field.Please accept my apology and I learned a lesson, a big one. This is also for the first time a spammer coming out under my name and I feel ashamed of it.Rather, I am trying to deliever information from Chinese sources and collect them like literature review so the whole world (basically all at eev,) can have a look and discuss about it.I want to contribute to the community discussion. That's it. It is so easy to notice that in this world with Google, youtube, FB, Linkedin, Twitter and such, everything is or on its way to be open, so is the business. All the prices, reviews, and words of mouth for every single item is available on line. I firmly believe that only a reputable business with constant reliability rather than several spammers can offer careers and convenience in the market place to all consumers. Just like Amazon, Zappos, Apple, AC/DC the band they are my idols.For every E-commerce business, it is more and more obvious that prices started to lose their advantages in this open and competitive world on line. One can always find something with better offer. Thus storeinfinity wants to think different, rather than simply lowering costs and sell (that's still a foundation for all though), we are thinking about being a decent team here based in one of the world manufacturing countries. We are on our way to build up experiences and knowledge so in the future we can handle all kinds of inquires from everywhere. We think long term, long enough to reach generations cause we believe in an open world with info and opinions shared seamlessly everywhere, in which the humanbeing as a whole can benefit from this convenience.As everyone knew for decades, Chinese mad es are notorious for cheap and bad quality. Reasons for that fact vary and it's open for discussion. What I know is new generations in my age (born in 1984) are fed up with environment and mindset around us as we grow up here in China. Thus we look forward to a change for a better solution for billions of people in this country.I deeply feel I am blessed with information on line and people connected on line (eev blog for instance). Also English I learned has been helping myself become more and more cultured.As an ethnic Kazakh growing up in a tiny border town 20 kms away by Kazakhstan (google tacheng and check that distance out) where there are still two bus lines serving people, I got so used to life in central Asia where people with various ethnic, religion, and language background communicate on daily bases. I finished my BA degree in Urumqi, a city of 2 millions as the capital city of Xinjiang province which covers a vast area of land equals to the size of west Europe. I personally experienced the development in this province also later the whole China as I worked in Beijing and Shanghai.I met more and more people with similar idea. Everyone is working hard to learn and catch up with the international standard, frameworks, and system in terms of mentality, life pattern etc. This Chinese forum content collecting and sharing project was inspired from my witness of my international friends getting ripped off by ridiculous pricing and bad quality service and goods. I think it is unfair and disgraceful visioning things can be done decent and there must be some well respectful ways to earn a living and even a career.Nearly all Chinese know in lots of cases in China lives become cheaper than machines. With all the pain and retrospect more and more Chinese are learning their lessons. I personally believe it is a long but visible way to go for us including other struggling nations in this world.I am happy to see that people support and welcome info from Chinese sites e.g. saturation, HAL-42b, IanB... I will do better for sure with these precious encouragement. Please sir give us a chance and we will continue to contribute discussions to this community and hopefully when we are not that busy, people on eev blog can vote together for topics or investigation's they are most interested in but we can try our best to make one of the bridges to fulfill this.(BTW, I once translated the material from your forum to Chinese ourdev.com in regard to Regol hacking. Look forward to more.)Thank you very much for your time and patience.Wish you all the best.Mischa Khaulan from Sto*******itySalute from Shanghai, ChinaSome quotations on line:From HAL-42b:You should not kick people out without a pattern emerging.From IanB:It's true. When people put some effort into their promotional material they deserve to be given a little slack.From shadowless:It just reflect the state of development China is in today. Most people are not rich enough to afford the good stuff.Lack of care is a big issue. Lack of care for human lives is a problematic mindset.In construction sites, Life is cheaper than the cost of equipment.from Mechatrommer...from kiriakos-GR: ...no Chinese but European...from nukle:Fluke meters such as the 187. Used Flukes is plentiful in the Chinese e-market, often a lot cheaper than eBay.Most people have cheap T&M gear yes, in our toolbox, glovebox, in the cupboard, where it functions as a spare. Never on my bench where I use it everyday.Mid priced T&M I agree but not $10 cheap. Most members on ourdev.cn who are serious about electronics possess some sort of meter priced range about $50 or so, ie the UT61D. A few would spend their annual salary on a used 6 digit HP 34401A. Hardcore members who often contribute regarding voltage standards topics sports 8 digit imports. The users are diversed.It sounds like the communist party spreading their propaganda.from EEVblog Dave:I don't mind people spruiking their own site, but only if they are up front about it and contribute to the community discussions.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 01, 2011, 11:41:04 am
content: I still don't see the point of the original post and don't care to hear how reliable people think cheap equipment is. I don't like to spend a lot of money on gear myself but i do try and get the best for my money.

author: rf-loop
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2011, 01:24:22 pm
content: QuoteWhy you spam these links in your every message?Only meaning is add trafic?I feel co ashamed with these Simon comments.

author: Kiriakos-GR
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2011, 03:56:11 pm
content: Hi @rf-loopYou have a point about the signature of Simon.As a member of this community, I would like to was aware of Simon ebay ID, he is an honest man,and I would not had a second thought about buying from him.But about the other links, is something that I do not find them helpful in any way.I would prefer a link of his personal web page so to see his own projects .The idea behind the small forums, is the people to have the chance to share anything that bothers them with the world, or to find common interests and subjects , so to spent happily their on line time.On topic :Quote from: Storeinfinity on September 01, 2011, 08:56:22 amYou can contribute after posting 100 of simple messages, because by this way you will have the awareness,of what material are truly interesting to us .Both of your messages are a bit confusing, and personally I can not digest them with out a Pepsi .

author: tycz
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2011, 05:07:45 pm
content: Quote from: Kiriakos-GR on September 01, 2011, 03:56:11 pmAnd by 'us' you mean yourself don't you?You made a worthless comment in the thread to the effect of 'this topic is of no interest to me because it is not relevant to me'. Well great. Imagine if everybody posted the same thought whenever it popped into thier heads - IS THAT WHAT YOU ARE ADVOCATING?

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 01, 2011, 05:19:38 pm
content: Quote from: rf-loop on September 01, 2011, 01:24:22 pmClarify the definition of spam, and I'll tell you what a signature is: it is a space that is part of our profile and your chance to tell others something about you that may or may not be in the context of the post. Many people post links to other websites that are their own or just their favorites and that they hold dear. Unless i am replying simply to have these links shown they are not spam and i have no reason to post for the sake of it as i take regular part in the forum. In my case my signature tells you a fair amount about me and this does not have to be electronics related, there is more to life you know, it has a link yes to items i sell and I'm not the only person that links in one way or another to items they sell, I have never ever suggested that anyone on here buy anything off me and indeed that I am aware of i have only ever made 2 sales via this forum.The other two links relate to me more personally. One (Rotaract) is for a national and international volunteer/not for profit/social organization i am a proud member of and very active in and of benefit to anyone in the world although I am naturally more interested in the more local aspect but am happy to share with anyone the fact that it exists as it only does good, I have nothing to gain from linking to it but by maybe making another friend in REAL life in fact another member of this forum is also a member of Rotaract and it is through Rotaract that we got to know each other personally and now talk about more than just electronics.The other link is to a website of my own, you are not obliged to visit it but well we all have a right to an opinion and freedom of speech - well theres my share of it, take it or leave it as i say on the website. If you must know I've not really made a penny from it but it was more for expressing myself if that is not a crime,if any of the above is what you are "co-ashamed" of I suggest you grow a back bone of you own !Unfortunately as a moderator i sometimes have to do/say unpopular things, altrhough these are generally unpopular with a minority only. On the whole i act as an individual member and only speak up/take action when I feel the need but try and leave the bigger stuff to Dave, and hence this topic is still here !

author: Kiriakos-GR
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2011, 05:29:17 pm
content: Quote from: tycz on September 01, 2011, 05:07:45 pmIf you disagree with my opinion , just add yours too, so the word " us " to get an true value.About your what ever opinion about me , I do not care about it, simply because you are anonymous.Its not my goal to make every one happy, by forgetting what makes me happy.

author: Unknown
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 02, 2011, 12:52:03 am
content: Quote from: tycz on September 01, 2011, 05:07:45 pmLove the"you can contribute after posting 100 simple message", there must be another set of forum rules, the KT abridged version which you and I and many other must have been unable to access. How exactly does someone post 100 messages without contributing? Are they expected to add a 100 meaningless posts or spams before attempting worthwhile contribution?Unless I am very much mistaken these bursts of self applied authority are very much falsely assumed.100 posts? why not 43? or 7? or 209? I'd prefer a single considered post any day, over 99 nothing deposits where post count took precedent over content.

author: Unknown
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 02, 2011, 01:30:20 am
content: Quote from: Simon on September 01, 2011, 05:19:38 pmdef - Verb:Send the same message indiscriminately to (large numbers of recipients) on the Internet.By that definition the simple act of responding to a popular forum post could be considered spam. But realistically the word indiscriminate has a real bearing on any definition of spam.To advertise is not spamming, to advertise indiscriminately off-topic is. Unwanted advertising to one person may be of some value to another soul.When I finished reading the original post I did feel I had wasted moments of my time, but then I've had that feeling from a great many other posts which were not intended as spam.Dave has been quite clear he has no issue with on-topic advertising provided it is not excessive and does not hijack topics.QuoteAgree totally, however I would suggest signatures be kept brief, while I have no issue with your signature perhaps you could revise yours to a single link with the other links on that web page. But hey that is just a suggestion, YOUR signature to be used as YOU desire.Quoteindeed.QuoteIt's Dave's forum and as such the moderation team are his selections, something those others who consider themselves to hold self elected moderator status, could do well to comprehend this. Moderation is never fun, it's a sure fire path to copping a lot of abuse and personal attack. The difference is you hold the Sherriff's badge, those noisy complainants do not.

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2011, 01:54:11 am
content: There's an interesting point here. You know how all of us totally ignore the spam emails selling Viagra in our inboxes? We don't for a moment give them a thought. Well the same is true in general of web sites selling goods at prices too good to be true from places like China. We have a mental filter that means we just turn away and ignore them for lack of trust. This is nothing against China; we have the same mental filter when we walk down a street market in our own country and ignore the hawkers selling their wares: "Not just this; I'll thrown in this too; and this; and this; and wait, there's more!"When we are at home, we ignore those market vendors in the street and we go to reputable shops with some kind of guarantee and a return policy, even if they are more expensive.Over time, we need a way to do this on the Internet. There will be trusted sellers on the Internet; the question is, how do we learn to tell who they are?

author: Kiriakos-GR
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2011, 02:40:12 am
content: Quote from: IanB on September 02, 2011, 01:54:11 amThere is no chance to do the same on the internet, the not existent eye contact, and the lack of fear from the side of the sales person,that the misused customer is unable to actually touch him, makes the 80% of those sellers to act like donkeys.Only companies with physical presence can act with the proper professionalism, because they have a face to loose,when the shit will hit the fan.Before some years some people who had the dream to become sellers, was believing that a fancy web page is all that they need for a successful e-shop.Now days, there is millions of e-shops with out success, why ? because they had no experience about really dealing with the customers.The faceless trading, and the anonymity, it would always be an obstacle for healthy trading.If you add in the equation and the obstacle of the language barrier , the sum gets totally negative.Not to speak about cultural differences in the way of trading between different nations.

author: Kiriakos-GR
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2011, 02:52:25 am
content: UV you are a lost cause, and there is no words for your theoretical questions.I did only one mistake, and this is that every new comer comes in this forum or to participate with a positive manner,or to challenge DaveJones.This case, it is a challenge for DaveJones, and he has to respond.I just found in the cross fire, and that's all about it.

author: Lawsen
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 03, 2011, 04:57:25 am
content: If a million people are happy with those $10.00 multimeters than that is their desire. There is a mistrust of things from China. We are accustomed to instruments from U.S., Germany, England, Holland, and Japan. Japanese instruments were originally viewed not as good as those made in the U.S.A. Yokogawa, Advantest, and Sanwa are all now view as top instruments as good as those made and designed in the U.S.A. The Rigol and Atten are not fairly accepted. It was waste of money for me to try an Agilent DSOX2002a. I use it along side with my Rigol 1052e. I am not against the $10.00 multimeter for casual measurements, but I feel that I cannot work off entirely on the $10.00 multimeter. I have a Fluke 12, 76-2, and 187. The Fluke 12 is not perfect that the button carbon pads need cleaning. I have difficult time to trust the Atten, so I have a made in the U.S.A. Tektronix 465 analog oscilloscope for comparison along with the Agilent 2002a. The statistics would not surprise me, because China has 1/4 of 7 billion people on Earth. Out that 1/4 of the world's entire population have engineers and technicians building everything from I Pods to Rigols. If they are happy with it, fine. Some of them do own Fluke, Philips made in Holland PM series as during the great recession, I see them for sale in Hong Kong electronics surplus stores. I have used the Holland made Philips analog PM 2505 multimeter and the digital multimeter, the PM 2518. They are really nice and enjoyed the experience very much. Even in China, there are people that would purchase a Fluke, made in U.S.A. Many of the Agilent GPS frequency standards are in China and in use in their cellular telephone towers. American made things sell, but limited quantities and not mass sales to help the U.S. economy as the President's economic advisers foresee a semi-recession like economy until 2017.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 03, 2011, 06:18:34 am
content: to be honest i don't have any faith in the figures in the original post and view the whole thing as tosh but then that is just me !

author: Bored@Work
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 03, 2011, 06:24:33 am
content: Quote from: Simon on September 03, 2011, 06:18:34 amIt is not just you.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 03, 2011, 12:15:15 pm
content: Quote from: Simon on September 01, 2011, 05:19:38 pmIndeed it is still here.And for those curious, here is my thinking along the lines of why I left it in place and the way I deal with forum issues:First of all, although it did have a very "spammy" feel to it, it didn't have the feel of your usual spam.It had numbers about on-topic stuff that might be of interest to some people, and whilst I didn't entirely agree with them or what was said, it is not my place to kill it because of that. I'm trying my best to run a "A Free & Open Forum For Electronics Enthusiasts & Professionals" as it says up the top. And that philosophy extends to commercial companies, provided they play nice and genuinely contribute something useful (good ads can in fact be useful IMO), just like I used to get great value out of reading the ads in the electronics magazines decades ago.But it did warrant banning them, so I did just that, knowing that if they were genuine and wanted a right of reply or to get back in to clear the air, they could email me and explain.As it turns out, I was right, and this post, whilst commercial, wasn't meant to come out like it did, as pointed out in a personal email from the poster I got. After I got that email, that was good enough for me to un-ban them.Second, I thought the topic and post might have prompted lots of good on-topic discussion on the topic, so I'm not actually above leaving even deliberate spam messages in place, if good discussion (or even general social banter) has resulted from it.I often see moderation reports calling for an entire thread to be killed because it started as a spam or whatever. Well, if you kill the thread then you kill all the messages of those genuine people who spent their time replying, and to me that's just not a kosher thing to do. I don't like erasing anyone's contribution unless I absolutely have to, even if it's just social banter.Once you start moderating to try and keep things reasonably "on-topic", then the slippery slope it never ends, and you end up with the Altium forum!And of course, strict moderation has rarely proven to work on any technical forum, so it's foolish to even try.A similar reasoning holds for flame wars and other silly little personal fights in threads. I just laugh knowing that it's a storm in tea cup and it will all pass, and it almost always does.This is a social forum as well as a technical forum, that's just human nature, so my philology is to let almost everything slide, and only delete those things where it is truly necessary. I think those things would be pretty self evident to all reasonably civilised people.The other moderators might not necessarily agree with my views (that's human nature too), and that's fine as well, but I trust them to do what they think is right in individual circumstances. And I think they are doing a great "hands off" job as well, so thanks guys!Dave.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 03, 2011, 02:17:10 pm
content: I agree with not deleting spam for the sake of it, particularly if a meaningful discussion has taken place in the thread as it often does like this one and in fact the spammer just defeated the object because we just have another conversation and ignore them. I tend to try and just ban the user and not the post or wait until I see a pattern emerge.There was a user a little while ago posting sort of themed topics but then never coming back which annoyed those who had gone in to reply only to get no interaction. I simply banned the user after asking for an explanation with the option to come and explain and left the topic there as others had had their own discussion under it, I suspect that the intention was to start a lot of "legitimate" topics and then throw a spam link in their signature that would become applied retrospectively.Users posting totally unrelated posts and links get band and the posts removed, they are just littering. It's great to be open minded but we do have to be mindful that pathetic spamming is very rife these days and it is just annoying, can make the forum "untidy" and tedious to use. As you say Dave balance is required and most forum users know or should know how a forum works and the expected etiquette.My opinion of the original post is not very high, I doubt much the claims and they are of little value to me, from my perspective someone is trying to convince me that stupidly cheap equipment that I know is built with no regard for safety or quality is as good as more expensive stuff just because lots of engineers buy cheap equipment. Well for me that is a pathetic and stupid argument to make. I don't give a rats ass what engineers buy (and they could be building site engineers for all i know), I'll buy what I think is fit for the job not what someones research tries to recommend me which they conveniently sell from what I gather.Yes I've not given too much heed to arguments between members, you can't stop them and trying to unravel it all is just not feasible. This forum is what users make it, although as I'm sure many are aware I'm happy to supply an opinion any time.

author: robbie1949
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: February 12, 2013, 10:53:47 pm
content: Multimeters like the PM2505 are more useful than the cheap digital breed most techs seem to be content with these days. You still require an analogue meter that passes current through a PN junction and at least 9V supply on high resistance ranges in order to check transistors & diodes. The PM2505 will not do this but nor will a digital multimeter.The PM2505 is excellent for it's accuracy and linear resistance scales.

author: pickle9000
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2013, 11:16:37 pm
content: Cheap testers or as I call them disposable ones.... I must say and I would guess that most people with a fluke also have a few others for shall we say less than ideal locations. Tool box on a boat for example. That's not to say they can or should be used everywhere as we all know they can be dangerous, but for continuity and low voltage checks almost anything will give you an idea of whats going on.

author: houdini
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 13, 2013, 03:18:03 am
content: cheap meters have their place. I have several of them because there are coupon from harbor freight for them free all the time so if they break i smash them with a hammer and move on nothing lost. And some people would argue that a exploding multi meter would be a bonus. Just don't do anything that could cause that while holding the meter. So i guess it just depends on what area of electronic your into People into hv stuff that have a tendency to break stuff use cheap meters because it does not matter and people into more precision stuff need more precise instruments.

author: poorchava
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 13, 2013, 09:48:46 am
content: I aggree that cheap meters have their place. I have like 5 UNI-T 30D's for all round usage. Very often I don't care is a voltage is 4.96V or 4.87V but rather if it is 0V, 0.7V, 3V or 5V, and those meters are perfect for that. Sure, I wouldn't use them for messing around with mains voltage. And if i decide that i need a precise measurement I can always double check with Fluke 87 or whatever.I can understand people who buy cheap Chinese equipment. Let's talk numbers:Suppose you live in US and make $3.5k/monthLiving in Germany for example would yield a similar number, maybe $3k/monthLiving in Poland this becomes $1k (and that is considered as decently paid job)So if you express price of something as a fraction of your monthly income, then that thing costs 3x more in Poland than it does in US or Germany, because you would have to work 3 times as much to buy that thing. Now if we take China into consideration where salaries are even less, then then buying anything becomes even more expensive. If you add the fact, that many companies set much higher prices for some stuff in Europe than they do in US, you get up to 10x difference.Example: Hakko FX888 is $100 in US, so 1/35 of your monthly income. Same HakkoFX888 is like $300 in Poland, which is nearly 1/3 of average salary. And that is precisely why Hakko is virtually unknown in eastern Europe.Another Example: 16GB iPhone 5 is like $650 contract-free in US. Same iPhone in Poland is like $900 (prices directly from apple store). That is like 1/5 of monthly salary in US, and almost WHOLE monthly salary in Poland. And that is precisely why apple is not popular at all (i personally won't ever complain to that, I wouldn't use their shit even if they paid me to do it) - products are too expensive.Same goes for anything else including test equipment. You use what you can afford, simple as that. While this may not necessarily be the best attitude when you use that equipment for making money, and high quality will pay off, it is quite often ONLY possible way for a hobbyist to have any equipment at all.

author: houdini
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 13, 2013, 11:12:26 am
content: I agree with poorchava I am in high school and have a yearly income of whatever i can buy at yard sales and resell on eBay so not a whole lot. So most of the time i do have money to spend on electronics i tend to buy components that cant be had extremely cheap like mosfets and such. So not a whole lot of money for test equipment. But i have multimeters that will tell me is this 5% resistor in spec? Is this thing outputting power? etc. I also managed to get a old scope to tell me things like is this mosfet about to exceed its Vds and explode again? But the point is you don't have to spend a ridiculous amount of money on multimeters to enjoy electronics. You can still accomplish a lot on a really limited budget. Also would you use a 300$ multimeter to measure the current of a 50kv flyback output? You can use a multimeter to measure that but i wouldn't use an expensive one for such things. Also when you hit the lcds with 30+kv you just trash them and don't have to spend enough money on a multimeter that you could buy a stupid amount of high power leds or something similarly interesting on.ButIFyou can afford them im sure they are great.