The Israelis do it again! - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: echen1024
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2014, 03:01:03 am
content: Another "totally harmonically distorted: meter for a low, low, low price of only $199.99http://www.ebay.com/itm/Keithley-2015-Total-Harmonic-Distortion-Multimeter-/231166283545?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item35d2958f19

author: linux-works
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2014, 03:08:36 am
content: never ever bring a meter to a gun fight.you'll lose every time.

author: SgtRock
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 24, 2014, 04:06:43 am
content: Greetings EEVBees:--Definitely teenagers."Get that quarterback"Gator Dundee1948 -Best RegardsClear Ether

author: samcramer
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: April 24, 2014, 04:25:24 am
content: I'm confused by this thread.There's a seller from Israel, and somehow the listings of that seller characterizes all Israelis?Do the bigoted postings of people who seize on the nationality of one person in order to smear a whole nation also indict the home countries of those who post such stuff?Stick to the electronics, guys, and lay off the hate.

author: echen1024
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2014, 04:33:26 am
content: Quote from: samcramer on April 24, 2014, 04:25:24 amNo, it's just that a lot of the Israeli liquidators like selling completely smashed test gear for high prices.

author: John Coloccia
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2014, 04:35:29 am
content: It's a $4000+ THD meter that's being sold for parts for $200. Is there a joke I'm missing? If you had a THD meter in your shop with a blown up board, you'd be tripping over yourself to buy this thing before someone else did.BTW, I'm with Dave...I don't see anything bigoted here, but this item is a steal for someone that needs to fix their own meter.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 24, 2014, 04:36:23 am
content: Quote from: samcramer on April 24, 2014, 04:25:24 amChill out dude.No one is branding all Israelis, it's just a gag about how crap stuff always pops up on ebay, and it's always from the same or or two Israeli sellers.Same way people joke about crap Chinese stuff. Anyone with any intelligence knows that China can make good stuff too, just like not all Israeli's beat the crap out of their gear.There is no hate happening here. If you think so, then you are applying far too much political correctness to what is being said. I'd suggest easing up on that, the world has too much PC to go around already.

author: echen1024
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2014, 04:41:04 am
content: Quote from: John Coloccia on April 24, 2014, 04:35:29 amreally?http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Keithley-2015THD-6-5-digit-bench-DMM-multimeter-with-harmonic-analysis-/351042596997?pt=UK_BOI_Electrical_Test_Measurement_Equipment_ET&hash=item51bbc4f085

author: digsys
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 24, 2014, 04:41:19 am
content: Quote from: samcramerCalm down and take your medsl, Mr 2 posts.This is an old, long running scene of some peanut (no one cares where from) who'se been selling totally crap / damaged goodsand asking stupid rediculous prices. I, amongst others, immediately KNEW what he was talking about without even readingthe post .... and had a chuckle upon reading it. This guy was / is from Israel, selling junk and it was only that (rare) combinationthat made the post easy to remember. What if we go back to "bashing" the Chinese! Would that make you happy? :-)Think before you leap.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 24, 2014, 04:43:22 am
content: Quote from: John Coloccia on April 24, 2014, 04:35:29 amYes, the joke is that this seller always sells stuff that looks like it's been shot at, crushed, or blown up.This badly abused stuff pops up so frequently in ebay searches for test gear that it would be genuinely useful to be able to exclude Israel from worldwide searches.And that's not being racist or whatever term you want to throw at it, it's just a practical reality of ebay searching for test gear.

author: John Coloccia
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2014, 04:47:34 am
content: Quote from: echen1024 on April 24, 2014, 04:41:04 amI didn't know they sold that cheaply used...that's still over $500. So I take it back. It's definitely a little high.

author: John Coloccia
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2014, 04:49:34 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on April 24, 2014, 04:43:22 amThere's a lot of countries I exclude from my worldwide searches...LOL.

author: calexanian
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2014, 04:54:00 am
content: For many years I have been buying from and selling to Israeli companies. I find them to actually be more fair on average than many vendors and customers in other parts of the world. Spain is awful. I would say the worst actually based on long payment term demands and continuous nagging and nit picking. One company over there outright copied our product to the point where their distributors were sending them to us in America to repair thinking we made them! True you do encounter the typical price price price type people in every culture and country, but I can not think of any specific dealing with an Israeli company that has ended badly and many of my favorite customers to talk to are either first or second generation American families from Israel. For that matter I have also had good experiences, all be it to a lesser volume from the arab nations. In fact some of them prefer to buy from an Armenian owned company from the US rather than Isarel, but that is a different conversation. In the business world over there are many dealings with Arabs and Israelis and among educated people there is much more commonality and understanding than we think sometimes, based on our popular news.

author: TheBorg
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2014, 04:57:10 am
content: My guess is that they have a group of 9th graders in an electronics class that moves equipment around regularly.I mean, have you ever seen 30 fourteen year olds trying to solder for the first time? Usually its about 20 minutes before someone leaves a soldering iron on, bumps it, and burns into the cord of a power supply.Stuff got dropped all the time when I was in class (luckily it was usually just multimeters. Think there were only a couple people that dropped power supplies and stuff that year, thank goodness).

author: John Coloccia
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2014, 04:57:45 am
content: Quote from: wilfred on April 24, 2014, 04:49:59 amA good number of years ago, I was in the lab when one of our other engineers walked in from having taken a long vacation...went on a cruise around Africa, or something like that I think. He calmly put down his little briefcase, walked over to one of our robots, and tried to give the command to toggle bit 100 to release the very carefully instrumented test package it's carrying (I think we were measuring the machine's dynamics).Instead, he command the Z axis to move, open loop, at 100%. Now, these were big robots designed for storing material in process for semiconductor fabs....this particular one was probably about 4 or 5 meters tall. It shot straight up and smashed the test package to smithereens....broke both drive belts in the process, so of course it came crashing right back down and smashed all of the drive electronics in the "z-bucket".There was no e-bay at the time so I'm not sure whatever happened to all that stuff.

author: echen1024
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2014, 05:09:54 am
content: Quote from: TheBorg on April 24, 2014, 04:57:10 amI was trying to teach a nephew (11) how to solder. Whoo-hoo! Burned the cord on the first go! Got him another iron, and through hole is not a problem now.

author: calexanian
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2014, 05:12:52 am
content: When I was a kid I set one of our big Unger soldering irons we used for making harnesses on its own cord.. BANG!! I also set a office chair of fire when I rolled it up to the window to stand on and look our. The heater was a wall mount under the window. We still had that chair for years! Sometimes I miss those days.My dad sure designed one hell of a reliable product in the electromech days.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2014, 08:56:35 am
content: Quote from: echen1024 on April 24, 2014, 05:09:54 amJust taught my stepson (9) how to solder, first without power just handling the iron and which parts never ever to touch. Then with power, and everything went ok.Too bad for your cord but better then the fleshthat kind of early bad experiences could ruin a perfect hobbie for the rest of his life.

author: SolarSunrise
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2014, 10:36:26 am
content: Quote from: John Coloccia on April 24, 2014, 04:49:34 amWell this 100Mhz 4 channel Tektronix, from the same seller, looks like a bargain:http://www.ebay.com/itm/TEKTRONIX-2245A-100-MHz-OSCILLOSCOPE-/231046365211?pt=BI_Oscilloscopes&hash=item35cb6fc01bYou never know what you can find!

author: Dago
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2014, 11:58:37 am
content: Quote from: wilfred on April 24, 2014, 04:49:59 amI'm pretty certain these are items that have been thrown away to the dump/recycling and these guys just go through them and sell the ones that are worth anything. Don't think they are experts in valuing the items, just try to give a best guess.To me the meter the OP posted looks to be priced pretty fairly. Looking at the picture where it is opened it looks to be like "mint" inside and it looks like only the display is smashed. Just get a new display and it most likely works like new...

author: Kohanbash
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2014, 12:39:34 pm
content: Just to point out that out of 2743 reviews the seller has a 99.7% positive feedback.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 24, 2014, 01:35:06 pm
content: Quote from: Kohanbash on April 24, 2014, 12:39:34 pmI have no doubt you'll get your heap'o'crap in timely fashion and probably well packed, exactly as described. AAAAAAAAA+++++++++!

author: krivx
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2014, 01:37:42 pm
content: I've never bought from LiquidTech but I have got a Fluke 87 and a HP 3615a from surplustechmart and was happy with both deals. It's worth knowing that a lot of these surplus sellers will accept lower prices if you message them with an offer.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2014, 02:29:15 pm
content: From Wikipedia"Israel boasts the highest number of scientists, technicians, and engineers per capita in the world with 140 scientists, technicians, and engineers per 10,000 employees. In comparison, the same is 85 per 10,000 in the United States and 83 per 10,000 in Japan."

author: ErikTheNorwegian
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2014, 06:01:36 pm
content: Just show this link... have nothing else to say, every Picture tells a story, Rod said.http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-Hewlett-Packard-Agilent-E3631A-Triple-Output-DC-Power-Supply/151286835669?_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222003%26algo%3DSIC.FIT%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D22426%26meid%3D6435096106881051084%26pid%3D100005%26prg%3D9723%26rk%3D3%26rkt%3D6%26sd%3D321365496478&rt=nc

author: retrolefty
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2014, 06:20:03 pm
content: A couple of decades ago I use to spend a lot of time finding vintage 70s top of the line stereo equipment at thrift stores and restoring them as best I could. This was the 'peak' of quality consumer stereo equipment where lots of consumer's disposable income was spent, as it was before the consumer PC, 5 channel plastic crap, and other modern stuff consumers spend their money on. Anyway restoring them to operations was not much of a problem but getting cosmetic stuff like front panels, knobs, etc was very challenging. I was always grateful for the people that would 'part off' or otherwise list these kinds of things on E-bay at good prices, even if in 'junk condition'.Attached is a picture I one of my best receivers restored, a Pioneer SX-1980 (with like 240 WPC rms) that sold for around $2K in 79-80 (which is $5,735.27 today, inflation adjusted). I was able to get a main tuning knob that was missing on the unit I restored from E-bay.Doesn't anyone around here try and restore vintage H.P. test equipment and need to find hard to get parts for them?So junk stuff listed on E-bay can is useful to someone if it was quality unit to begin with.

author: gregariz
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2014, 06:50:07 pm
content: Quote from: krivx on April 24, 2014, 01:37:42 pmI've bought some esoteric pieces from him and it was fast/as described. I'm just guessing there is a fairly active military hardware development program in Israel.

author: Rick
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2014, 07:17:53 pm
content: Just wondering if they have the same system as in USA where they have to get equipment destroyed to get them written off. Then somebody else goes to pick them up in the garbage bin...

author: linux-works
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2014, 08:37:43 pm
content: Quote from: echen1024 on April 24, 2014, 03:01:03 amto test for rifle shooting accuracy, they have to be certified at 100 meters distance (or some number, whatever that is).well, this was just one of those 'meters'. pretty clearly, a direct hit, too.LOL

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 25, 2014, 04:00:11 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on April 24, 2014, 04:43:22 amWow! Excluding Israel from worldwide searches, nothing less!. Does Israel bothers you that much?I just searched ebay for 'test equipment' and on the first 5 pages there was one item from Israel (Agilent 34401A) from a 279/100% seller and it seems to be in good condition.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 25, 2014, 04:07:24 am
content: Quote from: zapta on April 25, 2014, 04:00:11 amYes, sometimes a couple of Israeli sellers will flood the market with crap stuff, and it shows up all the time, depending on the keyword. It would be nice to be able to pick what countries you want in the worldwide search.

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 25, 2014, 08:55:52 am
content: Quote from: zapta on April 24, 2014, 02:29:15 pmAnd I bet they grit their teeth whenever they see that blokes "Rubbish Tip" bargains,just as the millions of honest,hardworking,people in Nigeria do when they hear the term "Nigerian Scam".And how would you like to be an Indian guy who really did work for Microsoft?

author: mzzj
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 25, 2014, 10:47:20 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on April 25, 2014, 04:07:24 amThese same Israeli sellers are also selling plenty of interesting items that are impossible to get from US, like ITAR-export limited itemsIf you cannot order second-hand F-35 radar from US you can always order it with wordwide shipping from Israel(or maybe it's a trap and next morning you slip in the shower and break your neck after couple of guys from Mossad visit your house)

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 25, 2014, 01:38:10 pm
content: Quote from: vk6zgo on April 25, 2014, 08:55:52 amand you really did work in Sydney, and your name really is Bruce

author: peter.mitchell
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 25, 2014, 06:38:14 pm
content: Quote from: vk6zgo on April 25, 2014, 08:55:52 amI used to be pretty quick on the hang up, but I have to be careful because as we become more multicultural different people move into jobs where they once were not and may get an unexpected call from them!

author: JoeyP
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 25, 2014, 08:03:07 pm
content: I once worked in a calibration lab which serviced equipment from multiple branches of the US military. Most of it was pretty beat up. Especially the Navy stuff because when they were at sea the first unit to break became the hangar-queen/parts-unit. They often came in with multiple/many failures which made them challenging to troubleshoot. At the other end of the spectrum, equipment from the Marine Corp. was notoriously clean, scratch-free and fully functional. We assumed it was because they didn't know how to use it.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 25, 2014, 08:44:21 pm
content: Quote from: vk6zgo on April 25, 2014, 08:55:52 amApples and oranges. I doubt that the Nigerian scammers have the same satisfaction rating as those Israelis sellers.

author: mimmus78
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 25, 2014, 10:31:59 pm
content: I should put something like this to my ebay store and set a price of 500€ ... maybe it will be like free ads

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 26, 2014, 02:23:11 am
content: Quote from: JoeyP on April 25, 2014, 08:03:07 pmThere are a couple of big guys with "muscles on their muscles" & "Semper Fidelis" tattoos at the front dooe wanting a word with you!

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 26, 2014, 03:17:51 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on April 25, 2014, 01:38:10 pmOr even worse, if you are an atheist with a biblical first name ;-)

author: Towger
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 26, 2014, 07:31:14 am
content: I know a Muslim girl called Christina!