** WARNING - Fake 2SC1583 Transistors 'C1583' batch '52G' **

[Gaetano]

Firstly no-one has got any of these off me, they were a new lot I was going to use, but I discovered that they were FAKE when I tested them, so I sent them back .

My other 2SC1583's both the 'new' and the 'used' ones have been tested, so no problems there.

The FAKE, batch that I am talking about are not even the correct type , they should be 2SC1583 (Dual NPN), BUT they are probably just a rebadged 2SA798 (Dual PNP).

How do you recognise them?

they have 'C1583' and '52G'


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C1583
52G
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If you have any of these, they will not work in the x0xb0x / TB303 as they are the wrong kind, so you cannot twist around the legs etc.

If you have used these and you are having a problem, then this would be why (assuming everything else looks good).


People should be aware that there is a big market for this fake banned, as it's like printing money. As soon as something becomes hard to find, the price goes up and it becomes profitable to sell this junk. This however is not the only way you can get scammed, I paid the 'new' price for my 'used' 2SC1583's, but had to keep them, as it was not only too expensive to send them back, but also as the seller was so dishonest, that they would just say I never returned them anyway. So I ended up keeping them, there is nothing wrong with them and they work like new, I just paid too much for them.

So when you search for parts, keep away from those electronic component search engines as well as a lot of eBay sellers, as they sell fakes, junk parts and imaginary components. I was lucky in this case as the seller was reputable and asked for the parts back when 'their' supplier verified they were fake, so at least I can get my money back, some people are not so lucky.

[danyool001]

Thanks for the heads up... will check my supplies tonight...

Cheers... dan

[mome rath]

seems i can't sticky things here anymore

[phono]

seems i can't sticky things here anymore

me neither in x0xshop

[factory_peasant]

Gaetano,

Really appreciate you alerting us to this part/date code. I think there are more out there waiting to be discovered...

I agree that as more time passes and these components become greatly scarce the counterfeit problem will most likely worsen. One alternative might be to try buying from reputable component brokers that offer test verification and a return guarantee. There are some good part brokers, only problem is they usually don't want to deal in small sales to individuals for hobby projects. You can't get an account with them unless you are a company placing large orders.

Earlier this year I leveraged a corporate account at my day job to begin researching availability for x0x rare parts. Crestwood Technologies was helpful and kind enough to provide me with a personal use account and they do appear to have many of the x0x components in stock. They have pretty good policies on test verification and return if defective or counterfeit parts are discovered in their supply chain. Crestwood might be a useful option in the future.
http://www.ctg123.com/

As of 6/19/09 Crestwood Technologies has the following quantities of parts available:

2SC536F - 13,735
2SK30 - 3,390 (no AO or AY variants)
2SC2291 - 0
2SC1583 - 36
LA4140 - 3,996
BA6110 - 3,550
BA662A - 0
AN6562 - 7,071

I was planning on doing some bulk buys in the near future to help stock spares for repairs on busted x0xes. I will keep everyone informed on that if I follow through.

fp

[Gaetano]

Don't take these comments as being too negative, as you have to laugh at the lengths people go to, to scam a few bucks, take my word for it I am laughing writing this .

There are some legitimate sellers, but it's getting ridiculous to buy good parts, and I for one don't think that it's too much to ask, to get what you pay for. I have a small stock of good stuff for my own future use, but they were bought from legitimate sellers, who have been selling them for years, they are just NOS (New Old Stock). One of the problems is the big legitimate sellers basically don't care about selling components unless they can sell tons of them. Or in the case of these particular 2SC1583's, they were purchased from a similar place to CTG (who I have not dealt with personally). A lot of these 'online' sellers, just handle components, and don't have any stock. They just buy them from Hongkong/China mainland etc and make money from a handling fee without testing them, as was the case with these.

Specifically, some things I have encountered:

Imaginary Parts and/or scam to get your details for product spamming:
A great example of imaginary parts on a big legitimate search engine as I have mentioned before is AERI, type in BA662A and see what you get (still), I asked them for these years ago (and they didn't exist then), but they are still there '1160 AVAILABLE', try it for yourself:
http://www.aeri.com/

Fakes on eBay:
There is also a ton of easily recognisable fakes on eBay with bad lettering and obvious respraying, I won't post a link as they will just vanish (look at some of the CA3080's for example). Is it a coincidence that some parts are very hard to get, become valuable, then a newly found big supply magically appears, which are then sold by a few big eBay sellers who don't show the buyers identities (selling 50pcs or 100pcs etc.). Followed by a bunch of small sellers selling 1 or 2pcs for a good deal more? Or even more hilarious, one seller slamming another, when they are both selling identical stock .

It is very easy I gather to respray a transistor that is cheap but in the same package as an expensive one (e.g., TO-3), and some of the rarer power transistors are very expensive. Op-Amps would be easy to counterfeit as some even have exactly the same pins, but I have heard of many cases where a chip with the same number of legs is just resprayed.

** Update 25th June 2009: I saw some parts on eBay today, and asked how many they had, and how much for all, and they gave me a price (same price, just one postage). As soon as I asked for a close up of the parts, as the image was taken from too far away, they changed their mind and decided to sell them all by auction separately . So here is another scam I forgot about, don't buy anything that you cannot clearly see on eBay. I noticed this on another recently, which I forgot to mention. I saw an image of 2SK30A(O)'s for sale where the 'O' in particular looked like a different font, I don't think I have seen manufacturers use a different font on a single small transistor (except of course for their logo, but which is usually only on bigger 'power' transistors).

Postage scams on eBay:
I found a good scam on eBay a while ago, someone was selling some good chips for $1, I though wow I'll grab 100pcs, and do some designs with them. When I went to buy them, although they had ~100 for sale, I was limited to 10pcs, I thought well okay they are sharing them out, but no, it was because the postage was $11 per chip!

i.e., 1 chip = $12 including postage, 10 chips = $120 including postage!

Not the real thing:
There are at least two big sellers with an online presence, who people on here and other places recommend all the time, that I know of that have sold parts that are supposed to be one brand but they are not. If you mention them (which is risky for legal reasons, if they are in your country), the images/datasheets usually vanish anyway like on eBay .

I think we should have a scam thread here, so that people can report on these scams and how to avoid them. I mentioned AERI above as they stuffed me about for ages on all sorts of components, couldn't get me any as they did not really exist, left them on the search engine even after they knew that they were not available (and they are still there ), and then spammed me with junk emails with specials . Then finally when their customer relations asked me about my experiences with them, as they probably noticed that I had placed a bunch of RFQ's (Quote Requests) but bought nothing. When I told them about my experiences, 'my' sales rep got sulky, very professional

[eil]

Thanks for the info Gaetano. Very useful for self-sourcers like me.

There are at least two big sellers with an online presence, who people on here and other places recommend all the time, that I know of that have sold parts that are supposed to be one brand but they are not. If you mention them (which is risky for legal reasons, if they are in your country)

Eh? Where is this legally risky? If there are sellers who are misrepresenting their product in any way, we ought to be able to know.

[Gaetano]

Legally risky,
because if the pictures and datasheets have gone, it's just my word on here against them, and then up to me to prove a case, if they get annoyed (like I had nothing better to do). But I don't like going down this path anyway as there is always the chance that they did not initially know. AERI on the other hand is still misrepresenting the same things for years and sulked when I said something, another example on their site is the non-existent 2SC1583's are still there. The thing with these search engines is, the more parts you have listed the more times Google will associate your site with having these, and therefore send people there.

Let me just say that one of the two sellers (let's call them 'D') was selling the 'Sanyo' 2SC536F's (which were not Sanyo) which was obvious from the picture, but coincidently when I mentioned this, the picture went, but the parts stayed. They now have the correct ones listed (with the correct picture). The other (let's call them 'F') sold me 2SA733P's (A733P) and 2SC945's (C945) which were marked the same, but were KSA733AP's (A733P) and KSC945's (C945), and they still sell these. As I mentioned before the 2SA733P and 2SC945P are what the x0x needs, the KSA733P and KSA945P will not work, if you just soldered them in thinking that they were the correct ones.

[alex_dubinsky]

I think you're mistaken about the legal system. It is not only permissible to share information about who are good suppliers and who are not, it is the damn foundation of the economy. I sometimes see on message boards people talking about brand names and then censoring them like C*ke or Pep**. It is very silly. I have a feeling this belief originates from the practices of sales agents who will try to sell you their product without directly mentioning their rivals. They don't do it for legal reasons, mostly, but just because it's rule #1 to not give PR to your competitor (no such thing as bad publicity and all that). Don't take that to be the norm. State plainly and clearly who you are talking about when you make praises or criticisms (whenever you are reasonably confident that they're well-founded, of course). It helps everyone!

[Gaetano]

I think you should go back through your posts, alex_dubinsky,

as you are adding too much negativity to this forum (if you read between the lines). When you initially annoyed me for example about the high gain 536's, I didn't bother to mention that you were selling x0xen on eBay with 945's only (i.e., no 536's), I just let it go. What's your problem now? Is it because I said 'good luck' to SubStyler with his shop, and not good luck to you with yours, sorry but you reap what you sow. I remember you laughing someone on here when they complained about being undercut by a seller that ended up selling banned. Use your brain mate F = Futurlec D = Dalbani, you could have just PMed me . I don't want to turn this forum into a receptacle of negativity. I don't complain when someone comes on here and undercuts me, that is up to other to decide, whether or not they get value for money.

I was explicit I thought that eBay is banned, there are heaps of people that sell rubbish on there. These fakes however came from a 'good' seller in Australia who immediately wanted them back, I test everything but have had no problems with them before with any part, they were disgusted about getting these as well. But I don't know who their supplier is, all I know is it's in HongKong (no suprise there). I don't want to tarnish someones name that nearly got conned also (I was going to pay $600 for these!). In case you were too busy to notice (as your were looking for 'silly' things on here), the recent x0xb0x 'rare' parts kits on eBay had these fake 2SC1583's. I brought this to the eBay sellers attention as soon as I got hold of some and tested them (I got them after they sold all of them though, and they were as shocked as me). They then tested the ones that they kept for their own use and concurred that they were indeed no good.

BTW I have no rivals as I don't sell components for a living, and I tell component sales reps that I'm not interested in talking to them, I sell these on here because there are wankers selling 2SC2291's on eBay for $25, and if I stopped selling these, the price would go up. I don't need to corner the market, and squeeze as much as I can from these. There have been three people now that have come on here so far and undercut me, the first sold junk parts, the second did not deliver the parts and the third sold kits with fake 2SC1583's and the 10 PNP's missing that you need for a x0x, and higher postage fees. Did I complain that people undercut me? No, I didn't know they were not selling the same good parts that I was, so I just sat back, and assumed that they got them for a cheaper price, and so if I sold none, that's okay as why would I drop the price in order to sell parts at a lower price that I would lose on?

In your case however, I think you have a chip on your shoulder that people can buy the hard to get parts, and then easily source the rest, I have only ever sold 'rare' parts, and have never assembled and sold a x0xb0x for a profit, or sold a full kit. You should not be so critical of others on here as you are the one that stands to make the money on here selling assembled x0xen as Profit (for your labor) ~ Selling price of x0xb0x - Cost of Parts (and equipment over time etc.) , (another vertebrae in the backbone of the economies damn foundation). Maybe I should just start buying up all of the other parts as well, an sell complete kits, or start assembling them myself ?

Let me also point out that I was also originally selling the same 'ALL NEW' kit that I am now, but with 733P's (which are easy to find), for $92 including postage. They are now $95 (with the rarer 733AP's), i.e., for $3 more after all this time even though the parts have become much harder to find. You can see that they are rarer, when the parts are being counterfeited, as they have become worth faking for the ones who do it. If the batch of 1583's that this thread is about were good, then these kits would be cheaper than they were originally. My apologies if selling these kits makes it harder for you or others to sell assembled x0xen, but I am only interested in helping keep a great DIY project alive.

[alex_dubinsky]

Sorry, it's just one of my pet peeves to see people do that. I guess I was venting on you a bit, sorry about that. I just think it would be useful for everybody if you were more transparent in what you're saying. It would be concretely helpful, instead of just a vague scare. Eg, we'd like to see the transistors you feel are obviously repainted, to know what those might look like. We'd like to know about your experiences with sellers, so we'd know who to avoid or to draw our own conclusions. If you bough bad parts from someone who was then nice in taking them back, we should know that too. It's just that it is very silly to beat around the bush in letting us know who you're talking about.

"In your case however, I think you have a chip on your shoulder that people can buy the hard to get parts, and then easily source the rest"

If you were more open about which sellers were bad and which good, that would only make it easier for people to source the right parts.

[Gaetano]

I didn't realise that people thought that I had a constant secret supply, let me be clear, that most likely after the ones I have left are gone, I don't think there are many more to find, although I always have my eyes open just in case.

Nearly every 'rare' part that I have obtained, I bought all that were available, e.g., AN6562, 2SC1583 or 2SC2291 (x 20 or 30pcs, from e.g., Rockby, they were NOS, and they cannot get any more), so there are no secret stores of these or any others left, at least none that I know of. This is why it's easy for people to go on eBay and sell fakes, as people always think there is an undiscovered store of parts somewhere. You can get 2SA733P's in lots of places also like WES ($0.52 last time) or Futurlec (they gave me KSA733P's though) in Australia, 2SK30AY's in lots of places (but I get 2SK30GR's ~ 10:1, usually you cannot specify, just '2SK30A' or '2SK30'), 2SC536F's from Technology Transplant (last time I looked they had lots of 500pcs). The 2SA733AP's were a fluke, they were left over from a factory project, the factory does not sell parts, but I grabbed them for a reasonable price after a lot of trouble trying to work out a price (think of it like walking into Ford and spotting a tub of special wheel nuts, and asking them to sell them to you). BA6110 and LA4140's I think came from Mouser or Digikey, before they sold out (I don't remember which, but I ordered them with some x0x parts for myself). Most of these parts are gone now, but if you type them into an internet search engine they will come up again and again, as if there were huge stores of these around still. If this was true, then Ladyada would be able to easily make more kits for sale.

[Gaetano]

Just as an update, I just tried to purchase some 2SC945's from Futurlec again after the swore that they were '2SC945's', but what a surprise they were 'KSC945's' again (the legs are the wrong way around and the have the wrong Hfe). I had ordered some other stuff, and was going to cancel the order as they could not supply what they promised, including these. I guess some places just get the sale, then worry about the details later. To be fair to Futurlec though, most of their stuff seems okay, I think that they just don't check any of their semiconductors as some of their IC's in particular are very suspicious looking and badly marked. I know they don't check their transistors, as most I have bought from them have been just plain wrong, and sent back (that was their last chance as far as semi's go for me!).

[apprenticemart2]

Just as an update, I just tried to purchase some 2SC945's from Futurlec again after the swore that they were '2SC945's', but what a surprise they were 'KSC945's' again (the legs are the wrong way around and the have the wrong Hfe). I had ordered some other stuff, and was going to cancel the order as they could not supply what they promised, including these. I guess some places just get the sale, then worry about the details later. To be fair to Futurlec though, most of their stuff seems okay, I think that they just don't check any of their semiconductors as some of their IC's in particular are very suspicious looking and badly marked. I know they don't check their transistors, as most I have bought from them have been just plain wrong, and sent back (that was their last chance as far as semi's go for me!).

Apologies for intruding first, anyways.
What about KSC945C, something like KSC945CGTA?. The datasheet says Suffix “-C” means Center Collector (1. Emitter 2. Collector 3. Base) I'd be interested to know if these would do the job.

[Gaetano]

The KSC945's (C945) that I come across have the legs around the wrong way, so you need to cross over them (which is a bit of a waste of time), but not only this the gain (Hfe) was also very low ~150, you need ~250. The same goes for the KSA733's (A733), Gain ~ 150, you also need ~ 250, with the three required High Gain ones > 300.

Ladyada spent a lot of time getting the sound right by mearuring and matching the transistor characteristics of the original TB303 transistors. The fact is though you could use any transistors you can find (npn for npn and pnp for pnp), but it most likely wouldn't sound right. I mentioned theses transistors before when I came across them looking for 2SC945's and 2SA733's:

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=4610&hilit=ksc945&start=15