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Re:Your DS18B20 temperature sensor is likely a fake, counter... by ckocagil on Sunday July 12, 2020 @10:18PM (#23816562)
I do electronics as a hobby. I sometimes buy chips from very dubious shops in China for fun. Some of these sources are sketchy even by Taobao/Aliexpress standards. Then I decap the chip by boiling the package in acid and inspect the die under a microscope. More than half of them are genuine. I get some nice surprises because even the chips that I expect to be absolutely fake can turn out to be genuine.

So far I've seen a ton of fake audio op-amps.

For discrete parts like transistors things are much simpler. Just build a simple test rig and test a few parameters. If they fall within the specs they're probably good enough. Of course it's not worth it to do this for jellybeans like 2N3904, but when some parts get obsoleted without a replacement (or they're too pricey) there isn't much else a lone hobbyist can do.

Re:Your DS18B20 temperature sensor is likely a fake, counter... by formerly_proven on Monday July 13, 2020 @11:45AM (#23821990)
Not so with power transistors, you don't need a microscope to see that the dies found in off-brand power transistors are suspiciously small compared to equivalents from proper manufacturers.
Re:Your DS18B20 temperature sensor is likely a fake, counter... by boznz on Monday July 13, 2020 @01:17AM (#23817399)
they also may be refurbished ie unsoldered off a board. that happened to me a few years back for a bunch of soic op-amps I was having difficulty sourcing.. they worked ok though.
Re:Your DS18B20 temperature sensor is likely a fake, counter... by bigiain on Sunday July 12, 2020 @11:41PM (#23816948)
> Some of these sources are sketchy even by Taobao/Aliexpress standards.

Links? That sounds fun...