These show up in "trusted" Chinese brands too. Whenever you see a teardown where the markings are ground off a chip with obvious, non-trade secret function (USB serial converter for instance), its most likely a counterfeit that needs to have its fake markings removed to get past first world customs inspectors.

KingFast SSD https://www.thessdreview.com/daily-news/latest-buzz/manufact...

There will be no licking of 55 cent stamps. US stamps have been 100% self-adhesive since 2016ish.

The envelope is of course another matter.

Not to mention the obvious, but that glue isn't necessarily that great* for you either.

* allegedly of course.

Is this a Seinfeld reference, or something else I’m not understanding correctly? :)

the old fashioned glue is gum arabic... gum arabic sees more uses these days in food than outside it

I think this is about to change. The Chinese shipping will go up. A couple weeks ago, there was an article posted here about why shipping from China is so cheap, epacket[1]. Because of epacket, it was cheaper to ship from China than it was to ship to even within the same state for small packages.

A recent change allows the USPS to increase rates for epacket. It looks like the new rates will go up slowly, so shipping from China will still be cheaper for packages under 3 ounces for a few years.

[1] https://www.ecomcrew.com/why-china-post-and-usps-are-killing...

This. I buy a decent amount of hobby electronics from eBay and AliExpress because yes it is cheaper. When I need quality, Mouser, DigiKey, and McMaster-Carr are there for me. But the minimum $7-9 shipping is the main reason is forego them. I’d gladly pay 2x for small electronic components (vs directly from China options) if shipping wasn’t a problem.

For any serious person trying to develop a little bit beyond hobby projects: Think about an hourly rate of $80/hour for yourself. If you have to spend an hour trying to fiddle with subpar shady parts, you've already paid for the shipping 8 times over.

Also, it is painful to wait for these packages from China. Digikey ships same day and its at your door step in the morning (I overnight it) and if you use $7, it is usually 2-3 days.

Plus, you're supporting legit businesses and not the shenzhen market.

I can understand total hobbyist who cannot afford $7 shipping often. But even then, you can bundle all your parts and order once.

Any engineer who earns a salary can afford $7 shipping. If you're a business, there is absolutely no excuse to penny pinch here. You're losing money by using unreliable parts, if not now, at some point in the future.

> But even then, you can bundle all your parts and order once.

I fall for this trap every. single. time.

_HOURS_ spent racking my brain to think of all the things I might need in different scenarios, so I can be absolutely, positively, 100% sure that I have everything in that one single order.

... and end up placing 2 to 3 more orders before the project is done.

Hahaha I can totally relate. Always ends up being a few packages.

> If you're a business, there is absolutely no excuse to penny pinch here.

Most of these sites offer free shipping to trade accounts with no MOQ as well.

But also you want that customer service as a business. Mouser once sent me a replacement camera at work (university) because they supplied one with the wrong interface. No doubt we have a big order book, but I've had similar experiences with RS as a hobbyist customer - ordered tools which are not up to scratch or slightly out of tolerance - "just keep it, we'll send a replacement".

> I can understand total hobbyist who cannot afford $7 shipping often. But even then, you can bundle all your parts and order once.

Or, like me, pretty much go "Meh, its counterfeits all the way down!" and frequently tack on a buck or twos worth of other "That's interesting looking, I might want one of those one day, I'll grab a few on this order" stuff when you're buying things you need for a current (hobby grade) project, so you've got a few boxes full of (hopefully sufficiently well enough labelled and documented" junk on-hand for the next random project idea... I bet I have a dozen or so "DS18b20"s here from that approach. I _think_ I could probably find then in under 10 minutes if I had an idea that needed one right now. Maybe... (Actually, I do have that idea. I want to put temp logging on a little LiPo battery that sits under a small solar panel to run an ESP32. I _think_ it's probably failing early because the whole thing gets too hot in the du5rect sunlight. Logging will confirm/deny that, and let me measure changes with insulation and/or fan cooling. Maybe I'll go hunt for one tonight...)

But why can't digikey just charge for what it costs them to send the items?

Now it feels like I'm paying some kind of tax.

Because the cost of someone picking up a reel of 10000 resistors, from a warehouse that has to be rented heated/cooled etc etc doesn't scale down to that 1 resistor, even if the shipping cost might... I know, it sucks! - I have seen many suppliers that cater for hobbyists around the world and will mail you a resistor in an envelope. But I'm sure that they don't make enough money to send you a certification and guarantee of authenticity with it, which is why real industrial users won't mind paying $50 for a handful of components because those guarantees are worth far more...

> Because the cost of someone picking up a reel of 10000 resistors, from a warehouse that has to be rented heated/cooled etc etc doesn't scale down to that 1 resistor

I understand that. But please charge me for what it costs. Don't let people with small orders pay the price for people with large orders. They already get discount for their order size!

Or if this is not possible at least call it an order-picking fee, don't lump it in the shipping costs.

Shipping costs are actually transparent at Digikey. It is exactly what they pay to USPS.

Same. I read through this thinking "What, my team sensor on the data logger for my coffee grinder might be more than half a degree out? You know what? I totally don't care, and wouldn't have spent an extra 50 cents to get that much accuracy..."

I do have ethical qualms about supporting/funding "stolen IP", but then I've kinda got ethical qualms about the whole concept of IP anyway, and if you wanted to go hardline on IP compliance you'd probably have to avoid everything out of China (and everything that contains components out of China)... I wonder how often Apple get counterfeit components slipping through on Foxconn production lines, and how much effort they put into stopping it beyond extensive QA - which only ensures any counterfeits that make it through need to be close-enough to functionally equivalent to pass all the tests? The "test after" approach kinda pushes towards more IP infringement rather than less, since it's likely parts built from stolen designs would pass more often that parts reimplemented according to the spec?

If you don't need that accuracy, why would you use a DS18B20 in the first place. You can use a dirt cheap NTC.

Maybe you want to save on the A/D hardware?

That's actually how much it costs to ship stuff when it's not being exceptionally heavily subsidized by the utterly broken Universal Postal Treaty.

Orders with DHL across the EU are pretty much $4, without any other company ever handling it. Deliveries don't have to be that expensive.

Going further, if I'm in Germany, and order from a local place (e.g. a local ebay seller), I pay like $0.80 for postage on a delivery.

If I order from a reputable store... it's like 2 weeks waiting time with $15 on delivery.

In the past there used to be small stores everywhere selling every tiny part, but nowadays...

Digikey would be charging more then $5, but competition forces them to not charge outlandish shipping rates!

It didn't used to be that way -- mail order suppliers used to charge high fake "Shipping & Handling" fees.

That's why Amazon introduced 'free' shipping.

Hmm, I was going to say that digikey has 3 or 4 dollar shipping, but I checked and it's $5 for a first class mail. Maybe they've changed it, or maybe it's COVID-related. I recall that they had a low price for shipping of a small maximum weight, which was good for little orders of just a few components. I generally just suck it up and place the order regardless of the shipping cost, it's not great to spend as much on shipping as you did on parts, but it's still cheaper than buying parts locally. Remember buying the assorted resistor packs at Radio Shack? Ugh.

I've got this soft spot in my heart for digikey, they've always shipped so quickly and called on the smallest issue and offered to help. When ever they call I always do that "why is someone from Minnesota calling me?" It's interesting how some vendors can build trust easily.

But $5 doesn't feel bad for shipping to get good parts quickly from a company I trust. But your point is taken. Sucks to put a $0.30 temp sesnor and pay $5 to ship it. =)

I pad my order by adding expendables, stuff I know I'll use a lot of. There's a certain kind of end-fed SMA pcb connector I use a lot of. Solder. Flux. Certain JST-type connectors.

I also keep a "gift list" for myself of things I've always meant to experiment with but haven't gotten around to ordering. I ended up playing with MSP430 controllers this way.

I've made a few orders over the past few months. The $5 is for less than 14 ounces (which is surprisingly heavy, I just had a big heatsink and a bunch of other components shipped in that weight); after that it's $9 for any of UPS/FedEx/USPS. I guess it's just USPS price inflation? I remember when stamps used to be 42 cents.

I wonder how do you organize parts? Do you keep your "possibly fake" parts strictly separated from the real parts? I already have trouble keeping resistors with the same value but different power rating separated.

I’ve read there’s some financial scheme that you get >100% kickbacks for untracked packets from China through Singapore to destinations. Certain mail containers are going at regular intervals carrying much as possible by volume, paid by governments as investments to build nations might, or something like that.

So sellers pay for shipping, which is cheap, then gets subsidy, then there’s delay between Buy Now and actual transfers and financing to compensate it, those supposedly all add up and turn profits.

Digi-Key on the other hand probably has employee pension plans and that would be as far they go in terms of global financial investment techniques, so...

When I bought stuff from DigiKey this year, the shipping was $5.