I worked at the International Rectifier plant back in the nineties early two thousands. There was a skip out the back with millions of reject devices in it ready for scrap. No real security at our site, I doubt if there was any at the recycling facility either. When you produce ten million devices a month a 99% yield still produces 100,000 scrap a month.

@monteceitomoocher

8 ай бұрын

Didn't dear old Clive Sinclair build his first fortune on MAT100's that were destined for landfill?.

@mrnmrn1

8 ай бұрын

They should have send the daily rejects through some machine with metal rollers or whatever that at least mangles the leads and scratches the package.

@ShaunieDale

8 ай бұрын

@@mrnmrn1 odd but we never did. Counterfeiting was not such a big thing at the time. I left in 2003, took my redundancy package and started my own business.

@BlondieSL

8 ай бұрын

@@ShaunieDaleSmart move!

@michaeldranfield7140

7 ай бұрын

@@monteceitomoocher Yes he did , and he also took bog standard devices such as SL403 which I think were 3 watt and re marked them IC10 and claimed 10 watts audio power could be obtained ,

Sometimes I miss the old days. Back in those days, when I bought parts (and I bought a lot for my TV business) I NEVER run across fakes. I don't believe that, back then, the concept of fake parts even existed. Plus, I always bought brand names and OEM where possible. But now, you just can't trust anything. I also worry about ordering, what we assume are genuine parts, like from the major suppliers (mouser, digikey, et al). Hopefully, they only buy from actual manufacturers and not rejects.

@michaeldranfield7140

7 ай бұрын

Fakes did exist in the good old days but we didn't know it back then , I remember some Sharp TV s where the line transistor blew at switch on but if you ordered the one from Sharp at 5 times the price the set would just switch on and work fine .

@BlondieSL

7 ай бұрын

@@michaeldranfield7140 It's interesting that you mention Sharp. I tried to keep my comment as short as possible, so I didn't go into the sets that I refused to repair. Sharp was one of them. If I got a call for a sharp, I'd gently refuse it. I honestly don't remember running into what we now call, "fake" parts, but I do remember having to get "matched" parts, like ECG parts, which mostly were fine, but like you say, a one-to-one replacement was not necessarily the same and could fail. I do remember still, an amp that I fixed, 3 times! It was my own. I can't remember the make now. But the output transistors I was getting were crap. When I got the actual ones, like you say, at a much higher price, then all was fine. But it wasn't as bad back then (I'm talking late 70s, early 80s) as it is now. At that time, I was still repairing tube sets and hybrids. I was actually an RCA dealer. RCA used to be excellent. Some of the most gorgeous color sets there was. But they changed and I'm still a bit bitter about that. In those days, when RCA made their own color CRTs, they were excellent, great color and longevity. Then, they changed everything and the CRTs where made by some cheap 3rd party company. I can't remember what the name was, but DANGGGG those CRTs where GARBAGE. Sigh.... see.. .you got me going there. LOL

I found a nice way to avoid it, I buy a used part on eBay when possible, it is usually a real one, taken out from an old device. Or sometimes buy an old board that I can see that have my part

@michaeldranfield7140

7 ай бұрын

this is a good idea, especially if your not sure if a part will cure the problem and you don't want to blow up an expensive genuine part.

Excellent 👍. Thanks for the excellent insight!

@michaeldranfield7140

4 ай бұрын

Getting spare parts now that are genuine is virtually impossible for anything over a few years old , most of the stuff sold on the internet is fake , sometimes it takes me longer to source genuine parts than it does to do the repair , and don't think you will get genuine stuff from a reputable source either , quite a few times I have been sold fake parts from a main distributor, its a total nightmare now trying to repair anything .

Absolute disgusting Scammers, can't stand them.

@michaeldranfield7140

6 ай бұрын

difficult trying to buy anything genuine now on the www.

Some things never change. I dealt in electronic components in the 90s and was duped by a 'wholesaler' who tried to sell me transistors which were in a case a quarter of the actual item, but marked with the correct part number. Luckily for me it was not a large order.

@michaeldranfield7140

7 ай бұрын

Its even worse now trying to find genuine parts , most stuff for sale on the internet seems to be fake .

Excellent video, thanks for the update.

@michaeldranfield7140

7 ай бұрын

No problem , many thanks for watching .

Fake components and devices are a plague. Both manufacturers and resellers should be held responsible. The refurbished laptop I just bought was supposed to come with a new Dell battery; the battery was original, alright, but it was new in 2015. It has been replaced with another "Dell" battery that is recognized as original by the Dell Power Manager itself (including manufacturer data, Sanyo) but strangely behaves like a fake battery (it lasts on 1 1/2h instead of 4+ hours). I wish original manufacturers had some sort of organization to report these cases, so that when a local seller gets caught it gets sued for tarnishing their reputation.

@michaeldranfield7140

7 ай бұрын

it seems that when you buy on the internet nothing is done to stop faking , if you could buy in a shop you would just take it back for a refund , but the net is an unregulated outlet for crap.

wow , they are trying very hard to cheat you with fake parts.

@michaeldranfield7140

7 ай бұрын

nearly caught me !

Manufacturers should instantly shred duff components .

@michaeldranfield7140

7 ай бұрын

too right, that would solve half the problem .

I have a small collection of old Panasonic microwave ovens that use that first generation inverter. They started developing a fault which would cause the main IGBT to go short and blow the fuse just as the timer hit zero. The same failure would occur after a few minutes on low power settings. I never found the cause. Looked like something wrong with the ZVS timing.

@michaeldranfield7140

7 ай бұрын

in cases like this its prob better just to replace the whole board .

Scary! good to check out, before installing it.

@michaeldranfield7140

7 ай бұрын

I was supplied in a Panasonic box ,I only tested it first as the printing on the front was different to the one I took out .

Shows my trusting nature. I thought maybe someone'd got the bright idea to make actual good fakes. No, just trying harder to scam.

@matambale

8 ай бұрын

same here, was thinking, oh good at least the fakes are quality now

@mrnmrn1

8 ай бұрын

I thought the same. The title would be more accurate like this: Better *looking* fake transistors.

@michaeldranfield7140

7 ай бұрын

Me to , I got well stitched up with this , saw it on e bay in the original Panasonic box , never even thought it wouldn't be genuine .

I ordered a bag of bridge rectifiers sold by Chanzon on the internet. They all came with the blank, sanded off face. (No wonder they were priced below the other sellers). Of course, they never replied to my complaint. I got HO xistors for a TV in RCA bags, from a dist. They were "original Sony numbers". Lasted under 1 day before they shorted out. Dist credited us, but last time I bought an SK series "OEM numbered" part. So even the dist. are getting counterfeit parts.

@michaeldranfield7140

7 ай бұрын

I have also like you had fake parts supplied from a major distributor , seems there's no end to the problem .

Thanks for the warning. Usually I buy my parts from quality webshops, but sometimes parts can be hard to find - so eBay is the next place to search. If I ever buy parts from eBay I will test them the moment they arrive!

@monteceitomoocher

8 ай бұрын

Even trusted suppliers can sometimes fall foul of this deception, fake devices are rife all through the supply chain, never buy semi's from A/E.

@michaeldranfield7140

8 ай бұрын

I bought this on e bay , as there no longer available now and I was down to the last one , it was inside a Genuine panasonic box so I never gave it a second thought at the time I bought it a few months ago , someone stitched me up .

@techslfink9722

8 ай бұрын

@@michaeldranfield7140 even more reason to be cautious!

@BlondieSL

8 ай бұрын

@@michaeldranfield7140 Did you finally find a genuine part and fix the microwave? Did you search for possible substitutes that would work? DID YOU NOT USE *DUCK* TAPE! ROFL 😜😁😅😂🤣👍

This is exactly what happens. Part numbers only get applied to semiconductors that pass the QC tests, so rejects are unmarked and go into a big bin and often get sold off as scrap. Unscrupulous operators take them and put markings on them of popular and expensive parts. It's a trap for the unaware.

@michaeldranfield7140

6 ай бұрын

scammers paradise, I bet the Chinese love these devices as they can be made into any part a customer wants .

@sw6188

6 ай бұрын

@@michaeldranfield7140 Absolutely. The scammers will have arrangements with factories that produce semiconductors to take all the rejects, and they have no markings. It's too easy.

Thanks Michael, its a pity the mainstream suppliers charge so much for posting very small items.

@tactileslut

8 ай бұрын

They don't get that sweet sweet emerging market postal subsidy the fakers do.

@michaeldranfield7140

8 ай бұрын

I know what you mean , placed an order with Farnell last Friday and delivery was £10 , had to pay though as I couldn't get what I needed From RS .

@peterensinger1770

8 ай бұрын

Its not so much the delivery! its the extortionate handling charge the likes of Farnell and RS charge for small orders that annoys me when i need some components for a project and cannot make up the arbitrary minimum order value to avoid this handling charge that's why people turn to Ebay and aliexpress.....hence why i have plenty of solder, Solder wick, etc. lol

@ivolol

8 ай бұрын

The problem is more the other way around: China, thanks to being classed as a "developing country", gets to skirt past a HELL of a lot of postage fees, even costing your own native country taxpayer-money to ferry the item to last mile (basically in waving delivery fees to them), that every other supplier doesn't get. So chinese post is completely artificially deflated.

@michaeldranfield7140

7 ай бұрын

@@peterensinger1770 As an account holder with RS I get very reasonable delivery price , the problem I have with RS Is the quantity you have to buy , couple of years ago I needed a TO220 diode and only available of genuine quality at RS components in 50 s , I still have 49 left !

When i used to repair panasonic microwaves was always told by pana that that pcb the inverter wasn't a repairable item , only replace, making them BER as they were expensive.

@michaeldranfield7140

7 ай бұрын

maybe in the early day but Panasonic produced a repair kit for these inverters , possibly as the complete assembles are running low on stock .

This isnt new unfortunately. The scrap components that are supposed to be put in to the furnace are often easily accessible to anyone in some fabs. While these are bad, 3rd shift fakes are even harder to spot, they might be a batch of good and bad stock with a good enough pass rate to fool batch testing on a production line.

@michaeldranfield7140

7 ай бұрын

What threw me is someone obviously knew this was a fake and placed it in a genuine Panasonic box with the correct part number .

Finding genuine parts these days is like traversing a mine field.

@michaeldranfield7140

7 ай бұрын

I know , sometimes you can spend as much time looking for a genuine part as you can doing the repair .

Most semiconductors that have a smooth square like that are fake, they laser the old number away, but they dont laser the whole package.

@mrnmrn1

8 ай бұрын

I don't think they can produce a mirror finish surface on that plastic package with a laser. It's the mold that has the shiny labeling area. Some manufacturers use this type of package. But I don't remember seeing this from any big brands interestingly. Maybe back in the 90s.

@indian.techsupport

8 ай бұрын

@@mrnmrn1 ah right, i remeber, its was the other way around, but often you can still spot a fske chip if they have lines on the package.

Very believable markings that, they are getting very sly! I have a Panasonic inverter microwave myself (3 yrs old), are they commonly failing? 🤔

@michaeldranfield7140

7 ай бұрын

yes they are a common failing , you can just buy a brand new board but there expensive and most people wont pay a lot of money to repair an old machine .

Thank you for sharing this interesting and educational video with us. I guess the moral of the story is to always buy parts from reputable suppliers who provide genuine parts. What would have happened if you had fitted the fake "diode"? Why go to the trouble of etching the wrong numbers on to make a "fake" when it would have been far easier to sell genuine old transistors that were "broken" as the outcome is the same....

@ivolol

8 ай бұрын

What would happen? It would still not work, and there's a chance it'd blow up even more things around it before failing. They make money if you can't be bothered doing a full functional test on it at the time of receiving, and then 6 months later find out you've bought trash.

@michaeldranfield7140

7 ай бұрын

I guess if I had fitted this it would have blown a load more stuff and I would have ended up fitting a new board, I bought this on e bay as new old stock in a genuine panasonic box so someone fitted me up , there parts are no longer available from Panasonic so I jumped at the one on e bay .

@michaeldranfield7140

7 ай бұрын

@@ivolol I think it would have caused much more damage and I would have ended up fitting a new board .

This fake components business has been plaguing the market for quite some time now. Most of those sanded down and reprinted components are also re-pinned ones, you can c;early see the pins are soldered to it at the base using some tin like material. So I guess they are factory rejected ones or intentionally mislabeled used ones. In my country some vendors sell these parts citing "used originals". Also I have found some Ic's that wouldn't work at all. You are absolutely correct when you said test them before using on projects.

@n.shiina8798

8 ай бұрын

ah, the good old reman!. i bought IR mosfets labelled as new but when it arrived, i immediately noticed the leads were so stiff as if it was steel with visible scratches on the plastic body!. closer inspection revealed the factory legs were cut short and welded into new legs

@michaeldranfield7140

7 ай бұрын

I think the parts with the new legs was my first experience with fakes many years ago, bend the legs by 90 degrees to fit the board and they just fall off .

@michaeldranfield7140

7 ай бұрын

@@n.shiina8798 yes , then they dip them in solder to try and disguise the new welds .

That’s really bad, thanks for letting us know 😊

Use a weight scale: indicates size of the heat sink (heavy is better). Use a capacitance tester: compare gate capacitance with spec. It indicates size of the die (big is better)

@BlondieSL

8 ай бұрын

Good ideas. Do you have any of these little component testers? I have a few and I really like them. While not perfect, they have not let me down as yet. Any component I buy, I test with one or more of the testers I have. I even have a tester that does SMD components. Now that is a life saver!

@matthorn6118

8 ай бұрын

@@BlondieSL TC1 component tester is great. For fake-component-weight testing a 50g pocket scale is great, even too precise: 0.001g SMD tester I will look into!

@BlondieSL

8 ай бұрын

@@matthorn6118 This tester that has the pads for SMD components also had pressure fits and clips for legged components. It's also is very accurate for ESR on capacitors. In fact, when I'm in need of low ESR caps, I use this to find the best one. I'd love to pop the name of this tester here, but I suspect that the stupid algorithm will consider it spamming. Just searching Ama....zon... for an ESR tester will get many hits. But this one comes in a dark red or gray version with tweezers. It has 2 yellow buttons.

@michaeldranfield7140

7 ай бұрын

yes , I have used scales before with STK audio chips to identifie fakes

You can't beat a genuine fake! It is becoming harder to find spare parts that you can trust these days. The orignal spares from the manufacturer may be a bit more expensive but you can be a lot more confident in them, i still test them just to save causing more faults.

@michaeldranfield7140

7 ай бұрын

problem is this part is now no longer available so there well faked as there is good demand .

@Barbarapape

7 ай бұрын

A well experienced electronics instructor once told me that the chances of a component failing is directly proportional to it's availability and price. This is even more true today, trying to find a reliable source of parts is not getting any easier.@@michaeldranfield7140

ive seen those square panels on lots of TO3PL packages, I suspect some factory is making a range of generic transistors and leaving a nice blank panel so others can laser-etch the number of choice on there. They're a similar body to an ON/Fairchild case moulding

@jagmarc

8 ай бұрын

Love your 12AX7 avatar

@michaeldranfield7140

7 ай бұрын

Got stitched up on this one , someone knew it was a fake and put it into a Panasonic box , I bought it as new old stock .

@kevvywevvywoo

7 ай бұрын

thanks! But in the UK it's an ECC83 @@jagmarc

@jagmarc

7 ай бұрын

@@kevvywevvywoo ah famous valve with voltage gain of 104 used in guitar amps, I remember from early 70s more distortion than an audio opamp . there's a norwegian youtuber radio ham who did a vid on a double triode showing distortion reducing to almost zero after reducing heater voltage

I'm curious if the lettering can be removed with acetone on this, as it can with many other fakes. From what I've seen, that is still one of the more reliable ways to detect fake ICs (though still not foolproof)...

@atomicskull6405

8 ай бұрын

Acetone will remove the lettering on some genuine parts like the TI TPD4E004 and TPD6E004 I got from digikey lost their lettering during cleaning (they are also engraved so it only makes them harder to read).

@michaeldranfield7140

7 ай бұрын

I have had parts in the past where the number can be rubbed off , while its a good test it doesn't work on parts that are etched .

Weird coincidence, i just clicked as it interested me and your dealing with the same issue i was having on almost the same repair... now my question is the panasonic kit you had, where did you get it as when i tried to get one a few years back they were no longer available? And next thing is i do a lot more of the newer square inverters do you know of a kit for those ones as i also bought fets from multiple sellers and the first one i did just blew to bits... so i got the component tester and what do you know they were all just random stuff some looked real but had obviously been salvaged they didnt even clean the thermal goop off properly, but even they were shorted... so if theres a kit available that would be a great help.... thanks... Jay..

@michaeldranfield7140

7 ай бұрын

the Panasonic kit is now no longer available, so when I saw an IGBT advertised on e bay as new old stock in a genuine panasonic box I jumped at it , and that's what I got , a fake part in a genuine box ! watch this space in future, I have used a different device in one of these inverters and it worked ok but don't know how the long term reliability will be as it only went back a few days ago, if your interested in doing some experimentation get back to me and I will give you the part number I used ? you will be very hard pressed to get genuine parts now , most stuff on the net will be fake .

@jayfowler4747

7 ай бұрын

@@michaeldranfield7140 the other part you found was it for the older rectangular pcb or for the newer square pcb.. ( not the latest square pcb with only one mosfet ).. I forget the numbers I think the common ones are gt60n321 but I'll check later...

The question is then: So where can someone look to buy Genuine spares or replacement transistors etc?

@ralphj4012

8 ай бұрын

In most cases Farnell, RS, Mouser, Digikey though they all have minimum order values, otherwise you pay courier delivery fees. There is another source for genuine parts from China but pricing is similar to the others and supply can take many weeks,

@jayfowler4747

8 ай бұрын

Not to mention mos fets like these can be £15 each so if you need a few ebay can be temping ....and that's how they make money😢

@michaeldranfield7140

7 ай бұрын

the best places to start are RS components, Farnell , mouser and Digikey, if these company's dont have what you want its a lottery and a matter of taking chances .

The parts issues these days is off the hook insane, someone really needs to figure out how to address it, as an industry. This has to be affecting the bottom line of the large distributors, why aren’t they doing anything.

@michaeldranfield7140

7 ай бұрын

Its very hard trying to get genuine parts these days.

this kind of fake been on the market for quite a while. what's worse than this fake is the ones that looks exactly like original parts (no sign of sanding or any remarking) but the spec itself were not even close to the original parts!. you wouldnt know until you measure its electrical characteristics. it's as if someone put rejects into packaging box and put the original label.

@michaeldranfield7140

7 ай бұрын

I know , i have fitted chips that look identical to the original only to find they fail again in a few months time .

I’m going to assume the transistors I run across in RM Italy devices are North Korean. Otherwise why go to the trouble of removing the part # and manufacturer stamp?

@michaeldranfield7140

7 ай бұрын

I guess the answer to that is even a chip sold for £1 is a lot of money to someone in china where these fakes originate from .

Great Video Michael. My comment on one of your other Videos seems to have disappeared. Did you manage to read them?

I was trying to source a non-fake branded phone battery. I ordered from 5 different online vendor's each offering a "100% Genuine Samsung battery" and EVERY single one was fake

@michaeldranfield7140

7 ай бұрын

I know how you feel , don't know why the manufactures step in and put a stop to this .

Well actually, in Ebay-Land this isn't a fake, because: 1. The Logo and all of the lettering on the part completely matches what's advertised, including all the suffixes and prefixes. 2. Therefore the buyer had got what was ordered (or money back) 3. The vendors claim the buyers who report 'fake' are scammers because of 1. & 2. and because of the injustice the vendors feel about losing the money, they continue with 1, 2 , 3

@michaeldranfield7140

7 ай бұрын

I bought this on e bay as new old stock in the original box , got well stitched up .

@jagmarc

7 ай бұрын

The sellers are ignorant that they allow buyers to trick themselves into believing it's not a counterfeit. Sorry state of affairs. But like religion

zilog 20mhz cmos z80s are notorious for being 'faked' ...i bought a few cheap from 2 different suppliers and they've all definitely been remarked, most have tinned leads as if removed from equipment then cleaned up, only a few 'plain' leads, someone told me they may well be z80s but a lower clock speed grade, ,as long as at least 4mhz capable theyd do for what i want but need to find a way to 'test' them, and tell if cmos or older nmos, i'd actually prefer the older nmos ones as cmos types sometimes dont work perfectly for what i want

@michaeldranfield7140

6 ай бұрын

These days more time can be wasted trying to look for genuine parts , never had this in the good old days , its a mine field now .

They use a laser to clean off the old name and then reprint over it.

With the amount of effort they go to faking those they could just make real ones, but cheaper.

@michaeldranfield7140

7 ай бұрын

true.

LOL when your title said "Better quality fake parts" I thought you meant they were better quality components, not better looking.

@michaeldranfield7140

7 ай бұрын

no , better looking !

You have to be careful who you buy from.

@michaeldranfield7140

7 ай бұрын

I know but these are now obsolete and all the major supplies no longer have this part .

@ScottGrammer

7 ай бұрын

@@michaeldranfield7140 I deal with it all the time myself. I understand what you mean.

dreadful that

@michaeldranfield7140

8 ай бұрын

Would have been if I had fitted it .

I don't think fakes. we don't know what's going on with the manufacturers. this technology is not 100% perfect. When a manufacturer receives an order for 100 thousand pieces he must require the specifications published in the data sheet. he will start production. he will test each component. So out of 100 thousand there must be at least 15% which are outside the specifications. he will put them aside so 10 thousand pieces will be thrown away? these parts are functional..but slightly offset. crazy it works crazy it doesn't work.

@michaeldranfield7140

2 ай бұрын

quite possibly out of spec rejects yes but this was a diode which has been re marked as a IGBT.

I really hope you ask for a refund and let the platform you bought it on know that the seller sell fake parts ...

@michaeldranfield7140

7 ай бұрын

no refund on this one , I bought it about 6 months ago .

I cringe when I see a MOSFET handled this way. It only takes 25V of static charge induced on the gate to damage the device. The gate should stay connected to the source and drain by conductive foam, which should be removed after the part is soldered to the board.

@jagmarc

8 ай бұрын

Would it ever reach 25 V? doesn't the pair of back-to-back connected gate-channel zener diodes clamp the voltage to about 12 V?

@michaeldranfield7140

7 ай бұрын

the ones direct from Panasonic just come in a brown box , no conductive foam or silver lined box

@jagmarc

7 ай бұрын

Doh! Just realised something... gate & source _are already_ connected to eachother lower then the "25 V", by the 12v zeners clamping, so anything extra doing that is moot point.

Buy cheap, buy twice.

@michaeldranfield7140

7 ай бұрын

this is true but I got conned with this as it was in a panasonic box .