UPDATE: It looks like all sub $10 meter have sold out after about 300 units. Cheapest price now is $60 or more, and some buyers that snagged one at the low price have said the seller has come back to them and asked them to make up the difference in what the real price should be, and to pay an extra $65. So sorry, looks like the party is over. dhgate still have it at around $20 apparently.
@@marcuswue Same here. I don't need one of these meters but for only $10 why wouldn't you buy one? But of course now you can't get them for that price anymore :>\
i know it stabs right at the heart. mind you its got me thinking i might make one. might buy myself a few zenners & precision diodes & stuff. cant be too hard. maybe one or two settings like 10mv or 50mv or 100mv or something. could put in some trimpots to get some super precision.
its cheap because its a "working reject" , its working but its temperamental , so they take off the branding and sell them off cheap rather than bin them .
which is why I did not buy a load to flip. Too much comeback. Most people bought them "just because" the multimeter specs are not great. Only the current/voltage source is worrth it.
Due to UA-cam's wonderful delayed notifications and the sudden influx of orders from this video, the cheapest meter in this style is now $67 all the way to $273! I missed this bargain!
@@ThomasBrasser1 If you need the thing for anything serious you would not trust the noname junk anyway. And if you want just to try it or if it is just for fun then 68$ is way too much. So I would agree that the bargain is gone now.
@@ThomasBrasser1 It is... IF you are going to use it for more than one or two things and be done with it. At the sub $10 price, I could justify getting it to calibrate the two capacity meters I have because I've known they were a bit off for a while now. I'm wondering now if these units were ones that didn't pass QC originally because of the flaky mode selector switch and instead of being reworked they were sold off (or hauled off by a enterprising employee) to be unloaded on the Chinese market?
@@beefchicken Inside China there's likely nothing they can do about it. (This is the country where the courts decided the Air Jordan logo was generic.) With all external markings removed, there's likely not a lot they can do outside China, either.
@@beefchicken It could be Aimo them self (after careful scrubbing of their name) selling as seconds/substandard, lots of company's do it in all sort of industries.
@@beefchicken i've reported stuff like this to huge companies, they don't care. there's a huge counterfeiting ring for LM devices and NS doesn't give a shit.
@@Seegalgalguntijak There were apparently hundreds in stock. They're all gone. I got one in my cart but it disappeared, haha! Maybe a few people bought a few dozen of them.
USB CBoard optic clearence what is that..(regards Victor DMM manufacturer ) here on a relative old relaybased-multimeter from early 2010s (picture6) imgur.com/a/JwvLzlx but then again it ain't a +180US AIMO DMPM, more like sub 40 bucks DMM with shipping. imgur.com/a/JwvLzlx
I would say what has happened here is they likely failed QA and so got tossed, then someone dumpster dived and collected all that they could to sell off. Only reason I think this is because of issues with the connectors, the dial, etc...
By dumpster, you mean carried next door to their other salvage factory to correct the issue and resale white label to cover the cost of the failure. I don't know how they can afford to do that, but I guess labor being so cheap...
Richard Smith labor is not cheap in China right now, no use taking guesses of what kind of item this is because there’s just too many possibilities. My theory is that the factory for Aimo realize how cheap it is to make those so they decided on some “side cash” but even my theory is contradicted by some of the details... very strange
Might be the ones that failed factory QC. Would explain your trouble with the switch. Might have been dumped instead of being fixed by manufacturer and someone got hands on them and figured they are not broken obviously enough to not sell on ali.
That's the most logical explanation. Units that failed quality testing, some might be close to fully working with a minor issue, others close to useless. Someone got hold of them before they were scrapped, removed the branding and dumped them on Ali. If you can make several $ grand from units that were thrown away, why not :) Most of the shops are have only 5-10 sold units, one is 70 and one just under 300.
That's what I figured, QC rejects. Ordered some high side chips from Aliexpress and 95% of them were junk. Had to order from Mouser and make a castellated board convertor to use them. IF Xtals on the other hand have been 100% from Aliexpress. No problem there, so maybe if those fail QC, they still are good enough.
30+ years in metrology and manufacturing instrumentation calibration & maintenance - I'm pretty stunned. They must be QC fallouts and somebody was ordered to "Get rid of them - NOW."
Nah dude it's a ploy, these Chinese companies know they can sell the product, they scour youtube until somebody does a video about how good it is and when sales skyrocket BAM mark up the price. It's genius because losing a couple hundred units to praise reviews insures solid sales, so rather than charging 50 bucks or whatever right off the bat sell it cheap to get the name out there THEN jack the price.
@@excavatoree The key is to hang on the forum. I am neither Patreon nor forum supporter, but only read and post on the forum, and saw an alert in one of the larger threads on measurement. So far, Paypal has taken my money, and I have something like a confirmation.
Even the two Panasonic TQ2-L2-5V relays account for 50% of the BOM if bought in quantities from Mouser! I grabbed two meters from your affiliate links, they seem to be running out real quick!
@@EEVblog I see these ending up on ebay it sucks who ever gets scammed :( with C or D stock..(or buying stolen property ) normally when stuff is scraped off it's stolen I hate getting energizer batteries from China or Singapore those leak or are counterfeit (even if you buy at a big box store) I only get it if it has USA on the label I NEVER had one leak on me,,, even my OLDEST Energizer battery (Made in USA) is 30 years old and still works great it has 9.5 VOLTS (it's a old mercury based alkaline battery) but the china or singapore ones always LEAK :(
When the same company can make Taobao (the Chinese versions of AliExpress) handle 100 million+ purchased in a single day, I don't think they can quite be DDoSed as long as it's just a lot of real people getting onto the site at the same time. They also sell cloud service just like Amazon, by the way, and worst case they can just refund a lot of their cloud server users and that's it.
@@johncoops6897 But to be serious, they kinda got DDoSed in a much bigger scale every single year from just their normal traffic so... Not sure if it's really a good joke then, giving that it's kinda not so impressive when in comparison.
@@kyliandc9276 most meter companies leave clues as to who made them. That's one of the main reasons I like these tear down videos. I'd wager there are only a handful of companies that actually make meters and the rest are rebranded.
From the outside they look the same and MS8218 printed on the USB interface PCB does give you a hint, but internally they are not the same. They may be made by Mastech for the other brand, or the other brand may have "borrowed" some IP from Mastech. Anyway, doesn't seem to be rebranded MS8218.
I bought a backback for 30$ that was normally priced at 400$ at my local supermarket. They had just removed the stitching with the brand name. Everything else was the same. It pays to keep a lookout after surplus sales.
Or a dodgy range switch. Or dodgy firmware. Too expensive to rework. So either junked then fished out of a dumpster or sold as rejects. Whoever got the batch then scraped manufacturer name and model number off.
im guessing based on the 2015 board revision these were old stock or just a bad batch (might explain the buggy firmware) then again, 6 fuses and a a lot of decent parts, even a real buggy one is a good deal at $10 + eevblog tax
Hi! I managed to buy for 8 usd on aliexpress, it did not seem to be true. There is a usb flash drive in the kit, but it is in raw format. Where can I download the program from?
Saw this last night, they were available for $9 like Dave said. Didn't want to deal with it from mobile, figured I'd buy in the morning. This morning, best I found, with shipping to US, was $30. Oh well, still good deal....
When I saw only two words going to USB I figured where sike that's got to be isolated or maybe it was powering the circuitry from the USB cable and isolating it from the multimeter power.
It looks like a USBSerial IC and half of the old MASTECH Infra-red RS232 output? IIRC the old meter could send readings out, but couldn't be controlled from the software. It really looks like the 2012 model MASTECH MS7287 with a re-skinning.
3:15 - Probably didn't pass quality so they said screw tossing them, we'll sell them backdoor for parts/labor to keep losses down. Also would make sense why there's such a limited supply and it sold out instantly.
did you watch the video? the BOM alone is like ~50$... there are two chips in there worth ~10$ each even in 12000 piece reels the two relays are worth more than half the retail price.
@@TheScarvig - did you use your BRAIN? The BOM cost is totally and utterly irrelevant. Factories DO NOT sell faulty products, they destroy/scrap them. In this case they didn't quite get 100% destroyed.
@@johncoops6897 "sell them backdoor for parts/labor to keep losses down" implies to me that OP meant that the price they sell them at is at least the value of the parts and the labor without any margin of profit or development cost. even taking off the two relais and not throwing out a set of leads and fuses would probably save the manufacturer more than what he makes on "backdoor" selling the faulty product. point is, YOU say "Factories DO NOT sell faulty products, they destroy/scrap them" assuming the manufacturer intended the product do get scrapped OP says "they said screw tossing them, we'll sell them backdoor" which assumes the opposite I say OP didnt think this through, as the value of the parts on the faulty boards is WAY higher than what they make back selling them "backdoor" excuse me if i might have misinterpreted something in my non native language...
@@TheScarvig wow, you really got that asshurt just because i said they're recouping losses by selling units that didn't pass QA? You should see a psychologist or something man, my comment shouldn't have made you so annoyed you came back on two separate occasions to verbally rip me a new asshole for an assumption I made that's not even that far off base lol.
@@jetjazz05 my second reply in this thread wasn't even directed to you? where is your problem? if anything i might have been a bit "asshurt" because of @Jhon Coops claim i did not use my brain... but mainly i spend my time here on youtube because i am bored and got nothing better to do anyways. so for me as an engineer who enjoys arguing with other people, writing a lengthy comment to prove my point is just entertainment.
I tried to buy one and was asked to input some product offer. I couldn't enter one as I didn't know what the choices were. The site did say they had the meter but when I tried to "Pay Now" the site kept asking for that product choice. Some sort of scam?
I come from China. The October the first is our nations birthday. So no wonder there is such big sale. For 10 bucks, you cannot make it in China for a automatic multimeter. Because Aliexpress plan to expanding all over the world, so the price is very reasonable. The Next big sale day like this maybe November 11, a shopping festival.
how is the price reasonable? Why scratch off the brand name if these are legit? The parts inside cost more and meters with the brand name sell for $200+. You don't think these are stolen?
Probably a meter that was going to be discarded, they sold for dirt cheap because it has a lot of problems. I don’t see better pricing on other meters, the UT61E remains on the ~$60 price range. Now this thing will sell for a lot more since the demand is huge compared to the supply. But that’s pretty scummy, I’ve seen a lot of reports of sellers trying to get the order cancelled, or the buyer to pay more.
@@tomservo5007 I didnt watch the whole video before. Now, I dont think its stolen, maybe some malfunction product, but even for malfunction one the price is too crazy. Or maybe its some sale strategy. I think they will not ship anymore for under 10 bucks. Instead they will give you some coupon for convenience to buy other stuff.
@@EEVblog I wonder if any non-patreon people got any? AH-HA!!! (Dave's voice) I see it now. DAVE bought them all, scratched the name off, and sold them to promote his early access fee! Brilliant! LOL ("I better become a supporter so I don't miss the next one!")
Did they gold plate the contacts for the rotary switch? Hard to tell from the picture but it looks like bare copper, which may wear out quickly. Could be why they scrapped these.
Hey EEVguy, how do you store your meters? I usually wrap my probes around the body, but I always end up have the cables of the probes break. Got any tips?
Maybe returns from a wholesale customer.. they made the case a different custom color from the original green for them. It’s flakey so they dumped them or the customer went tits-up and never paid the money after the original deposit to secure the production. So they kept the deposit and eventually years later the units find their way to the market.
One of the links is working, but keeps asking me to select options first, but won't ever allow me to continue the purchase even with options selected. Odd.
I think these are units that failed tests, or had some some of manufacturing defect, so the original manufacturer was going to scrap them. But then they thought they could recover some cost by selling them cheap. But they took their brand name off it because they don't want any returns or support calls.
IIRC it's usually a violation of contract or brand infringement for the manufacturer to sell those themselves, and thus the debranding thing might just be to avoid brand infringement or things like that. Anyway, people who buy debramded stuffs usually know that it might not work properly so it's more of a gamble than a scam.
Not a whole meter, but I did buy some 10.0000 voltage calibration IC's here in the US. A spare tin, switch, battery...and I have my 10.0000 volt calibration source, guaranteed by a major IC maker.
It's easy to understand how it's so cheap if you look at the economics of mass manufacture. Let's say the manufacturer makes 10,000 products at $10 cost. That's a total of $100,000 in costs. Now let's assume, say 10% fail QC, you now have 1,000 faulty and 9,000 good units. You can sell the good units at, say, $250/unit, which will gross you $2,250,000, but you still have a 1,000 faulty units (with $10,000 of parts) that you're either going to have to pay to fault find and fix or pay to dispose of. Alternatively, you can just remove your branding and sell them to a discount retailer for $5 each. Now, rather than paying to fix or dispose, you just made another $5,000 gross for a total of $2,255,000 gross, minus the initial $100,000 which still nets you $2,125,000. You've only lost $125,000 (5.8%) on being able to sell every single one at full price, but you also don't incur the costs of fixing or disposing of sub par units. It's not uncommon practice, and will more than likely be accepted as an acceptable loss. It's really not that different from CPU manufacturers using faulty, but operational dies in their lower SKU lines to make up for less than 100% silicon yields. TL:DR it makes perfect sense 😊
Yup. These were made by MASTECH and they make millions of meters. My guess was these were made for a customer and were QC fails and rather than try and rebuild them, it was easier to sell them as scrap, hence the shredded model and serial nos. As for the pricing, I suspect many shops are run by one company, it's a common Chinese tactic to funnel shoppers into buying at an inflated price (and to make it appear a particular product is popular, when in fact only one company is selling it)
Why would a manufacturer undermine his own $250 each market putting out the faulty units? I remember the farmers in my country prefer destroying the over production rather than selling them undercost.
@@santopino2546 this isn't a matter of over production, it's about quality control. If a foodstuff fails a quality inspection it HAS to be destroyed for public health and safety, and is an irrecoverable loss. Consumer goods that fail quality inspection may still be safe, just not as functional, and therefore can be sold, thus minimising the loss incured. The manufacturer isn't undermining their market, they're just minimising their lossess as effectively as possible. Also, farmers destroying over produce is usually due to trade regulations that state they're only allowed to produce a certain amount, and can incur fines for trying to sell more that their allowance allows...
@@JaenEngineering Whatever the reason, but does it change the fact that they would be undermining their own market? I had no problem in the past 20 years to waste thousands of Euros for good quality certified process equipment, but I know of many technicians that would immediately jump on these bargains and use them on their jobs.
@@santopino2546 Take your farmer analogy, if some of the produce is damaged, it will be sold to industrial customers who will turn apples (for example) into fruit juice, or mash for pies, or even food for pigs. The farmer gets less money but the farmer doesn't have to bury the crop on their land and they still get something for it (even if it is a loss) Now some of those apples might be stolen along the way by someone who thinks they can sell bruised apples for $$$$, but the market isn't being undercut as the supermarket who only buys perfect apples sells to customers who only want to buy perfect apples. There are two distinct markets with little overlap. I lived on a farm for half my life, so I've seen the impact of disasters and the cunning schemes to make money from what looks like a total loss.
Consider it a gamble. If you are lucky (getting something with minor issue) then you got a good deal, if not then, well, that's the risk and nobody would complain.
Let me know when you find a 140GHz 8-channel LeCroy scope for under $10. (But it better include 8 probes and a few high voltage differential probes at such an exorbitant price!)
I am absolutely positive that these are units that did not pass QA. The original manufacturer sold the batches on the Shenzhen market after removing the brand.
Looks fabulantastic , but what about like 3.3 , 1.2 , 2.4 , 1.7 volts etc that some strange voltages wich low power arm and or fpga's uses , and what is the noise ratio of the output ? ( looking the signal in the osc ) .
I wouldn’t use it as a multimeter, input clamping protection was broken on the one I tested years ago. The accuracy on the output was also off with mine and didn’t meet specs. They were trying to sell these to other companies like BSIDE as you see the same meter sold by many names. Maybe they didn’t sell so the scratched the name off? Maybe that’s why they didn’t sell and they are going for cheap now?
The thing with this is, if you are doing a project where you need some kind of precision instrument, do you want to depend on something dodgy, glitchy, and ultimately unknown like this? Like for $9 sure it is maybe hard to argue with, but is it ultimately just a waste of $9 for something you can't really count on?
Interesting but they would not be manufacturing and then removing their own brand name. These are most likely second market units but definately worth picking a few up for anyone that needs one. I doubt that they will be available one the container is empty.
My guess is that somebody at the factory made an extra buck from the QA fail dumpster. (Likely still something wrong with those things, still doesn't mean they're unusable - just some feature or other isn't working as it should.) That's why they have the stripped branding, but motherboard and components being the real deal.
Looked like one of his links had it $10.50 or so with $2.50 shipping (just clicked random one, like 4 up from bottom or something). Still, $15 isn’t bad... Might have to get one to calibrate a few meters I have coming. Previously I just used CPU voltages, set my board to 1.5000v (do not do this on Intel or Ryzen CPUs, I used FX, use like 1.2v for those other chips), and disabled all but 1 core so it had the least amount of load. You can also test at any known voltage (like I also tested at 1.5125v too). It’s the most accurate source I had, so if you have a high end board you MIGHT be able to do this, the problem is some high end boards have a load line calibration setting that can go way over voltage, which is kind of why I needed the meter to be a bit more accurate than just for measuring batteries, haha! If I get one I’ll have to hook it up to my high end VRM power board since I can program it for dynamic voltage loads or startup procedures and exact voltages or transistor switching frequencies etc, it should be pretty accurate (the microprocessor in it is like $50, and the mosfets cost like $85 alone buying thousands at a time, but it’s kind of needed for the 600+ amps it’s rated at on primary side with its 11 stage VRM)
Instrument looks to be a be flaky in operation. Perhaps the original manufacturer made a bunch of these then found the defect and decided to write them off. Then the bad units "fell off the back of the truck". That's probably why the identification has been scrapped off. Cheers,
Likely multiple sellers got from a single source therefore they didn't have that many available in stock. Once I tried to buy last item which was not produced any more from an aliexpress shop they sent a message that item was damaged and refunded.
Chinese branded factory reject seconds for $9 … seems about right regardless of the spec. Just how long could it last and just how well could it be built anyway?
Dave's supporters, who get early access to videos, got them all. I jokingly suggested that Dave did this as a promotion to get more supporters, but it's probably some sort of dumpster dive.
Only people working with PLC or DCS would need this instrument, but it's limited to 4-20mA, it doesn't have other useful ranges like the various Thermocouple (type J or K is lot used) and PT100.
Is it possible these units failed some sort of certification or QA process, and because of that they can't be sold legally on the US or EU market, so instead of chucking them all in the trash, the manufacturer decided to just remove the branding from the case and sell them for cheap?
UPDATE: It looks like all sub $10 meter have sold out after about 300 units. Cheapest price now is $60 or more, and some buyers that snagged one at the low price have said the seller has come back to them and asked them to make up the difference in what the real price should be, and to pay an extra $65. So sorry, looks like the party is over. dhgate still have it at around $20 apparently.
No, dhgate also changed prices to >100$.
The other thing to be wary of is although the price has gone up 6 fold or more, you are still getting the same old reject units.
I suspect they just wanted free publicity, before upping the price. Pity.
@@gorillaau plausible gorillaau, regardless, at $10 I'd get one, at >$60 they can keep them on their shelves.
@@Bennyboy-dog I'd get one at $30 if just for the precision voltage source. Ummm $60... I'll wait untill the need arises again.
It's painful watching this after it has sold out.
Figures...
Sadly... hahahahahaha
I do not need one but now I want it. Damn!
@@marcuswue Same here. I don't need one of these meters but for only $10 why wouldn't you buy one? But of course now you can't get them for that price anymore :>\
i know it stabs right at the heart. mind you its got me thinking i might make one. might buy myself a few zenners & precision diodes & stuff. cant be too hard. maybe one or two settings like 10mv or 50mv or 100mv or something. could put in some trimpots to get some super precision.
its cheap because its a "working reject" , its working but its temperamental , so they take off the branding and sell them off cheap rather than bin them .
Exactly my thoughts. It has buggy firmware. Something went wrong with a whole batch of them.
if this is a common problem in their manufacturing process, we might see them coming up again at some point
which is why I did not buy a load to flip. Too much comeback. Most people bought them "just because" the multimeter specs are not great. Only the current/voltage source is worrth it.
Exactly. They had the option of binning the QA fails or selling them for cheap.
that is my thoughts too. they must make awfull lot of them to be able to afford that kind of reject batch though....thats a very high BOM count.
"to Australia via Swiss Post"
Because we all know Australia is right next to Switzerland.
Actually, it's China that is right next to Switzerland.
ever heard about Australia-Hungary ?
As everyone knows, Australia is next to Switzerland and Austria is next to Sweden. #truefacts
Even Arnie gets that wrong ua-cam.com/video/XAXxnvLmtdc/v-deo.html
@@PhilfreezeCH That's because the Swiss are 3 seconds off the rest of the world. Timemachines.
Due to UA-cam's wonderful delayed notifications and the sudden influx of orders from this video, the cheapest meter in this style is now $67 all the way to $273! I missed this bargain!
67$ is still a bargain imo
@@ThomasBrasser1 If you need the thing for anything serious you would not trust the noname junk anyway. And if you want just to try it or if it is just for fun then 68$ is way too much. So I would agree that the bargain is gone now.
dhgate still has them for ... NOT ANYMORE, sorry.
Yep... I looked and the cheapest now is $67
@@ThomasBrasser1 It is... IF you are going to use it for more than one or two things and be done with it. At the sub $10 price, I could justify getting it to calibrate the two capacity meters I have because I've known they were a bit off for a while now.
I'm wondering now if these units were ones that didn't pass QC originally because of the flaky mode selector switch and instead of being reworked they were sold off (or hauled off by a enterprising employee) to be unloaded on the Chinese market?
Sorry this item is no longer available :(
you got to wait for a few boxes falling off the truck
Wump waaaah
Likely QC rejects that are being resold. Someone at the factory is making bank selling these rejects to aliexpress vendors.
ms3bani I’m sure Aimo would love to find out their stuff is being sold behind their backs.
@@beefchicken Inside China there's likely nothing they can do about it. (This is the country where the courts decided the Air Jordan logo was generic.) With all external markings removed, there's likely not a lot they can do outside China, either.
@@beefchicken It could be Aimo them self (after careful scrubbing of their name) selling as seconds/substandard, lots of company's do it in all sort of industries.
@@beefchicken i've reported stuff like this to huge companies, they don't care. there's a huge counterfeiting ring for LM devices and NS doesn't give a shit.
@@TMS5100 - LM? NS?
Seems those cheap offers are all gone now.
I hope that the people who needed those got them all.
@@Seegalgalguntijak most probably the ali express people got wind of the situation and pumped up the price lowest one 68$
@@Seegalgalguntijak There were apparently hundreds in stock. They're all gone. I got one in my cart but it disappeared, haha! Maybe a few people bought a few dozen of them.
greedy bastards could have doubled the price and still made a killing. but most of them went 10-20x
I payed over € 1200 for the Fluke 789 over 10 years ago.
The USB isolation is really lovely. It is simple and primitive - but it does the job well. You can not argue with the clearance.
Yep, job well done.
USB CBoard optic clearence what is that..(regards Victor DMM manufacturer )
here on a relative old relaybased-multimeter from early 2010s (picture6)
imgur.com/a/JwvLzlx
but then again it ain't a +180US AIMO DMPM, more like sub 40 bucks DMM with shipping. imgur.com/a/JwvLzlx
I would say what has happened here is they likely failed QA and so got tossed, then someone dumpster dived and collected all that they could to sell off.
Only reason I think this is because of issues with the connectors, the dial, etc...
By dumpster, you mean carried next door to their other salvage factory to correct the issue and resale white label to cover the cost of the failure. I don't know how they can afford to do that, but I guess labor being so cheap...
Richard Smith labor is not cheap in China right now, no use taking guesses of what kind of item this is because there’s just too many possibilities. My theory is that the factory for Aimo realize how cheap it is to make those so they decided on some “side cash” but even my theory is contradicted by some of the details... very strange
@@ThePr0Br0 maybe they threw the wrong firmware chip into it, or there is some flaw on the PCB and they just needed to make them go away.
no, I think the QC failed dumpster story is more accurate
The "someone" just happened to be the "same" manufacturer.
Might be the ones that failed factory QC. Would explain your trouble with the switch. Might have been dumped instead of being fixed by manufacturer and someone got hands on them and figured they are not broken obviously enough to not sell on ali.
or refurb / frankenmeter
That's the most logical explanation. Units that failed quality testing, some might be close to fully working with a minor issue, others close to useless. Someone got hold of them before they were scrapped, removed the branding and dumped them on Ali. If you can make several $ grand from units that were thrown away, why not :)
Most of the shops are have only 5-10 sold units, one is 70 and one just under 300.
That's what it sounds like, ie, rejects.
The "someone" just happened to be the "same" manufacturer.
That's what I figured, QC rejects. Ordered some high side chips from Aliexpress and 95% of them were junk. Had to order from Mouser and make a castellated board convertor to use them. IF Xtals on the other hand have been 100% from Aliexpress. No problem there, so maybe if those fail QC, they still are good enough.
30+ years in metrology and manufacturing instrumentation calibration & maintenance - I'm pretty stunned. They must be QC fallouts and somebody was ordered to "Get rid of them - NOW."
Yeah, no other sound reason.
All gone ! :-( The curious thing is : Why I'm feeling sad ? I don't need this at all ! Hehehe ! :D Thanks for sharing ?
Aaaand the EEVblog tax will mean none of us will be able to get one :'(
I wonder if any non-Patreon people got any.
Nah dude it's a ploy, these Chinese companies know they can sell the product, they scour youtube until somebody does a video about how good it is and when sales skyrocket BAM mark up the price. It's genius because losing a couple hundred units to praise reviews insures solid sales, so rather than charging 50 bucks or whatever right off the bat sell it cheap to get the name out there THEN jack the price.
@@excavatoree The key is to hang on the forum. I am neither Patreon nor forum supporter, but only read and post on the forum, and saw an alert in one of the larger threads on measurement. So far, Paypal has taken my money, and I have something like a confirmation.
@@mansnilsson4382 I really should have considered that. It's so obvious, but I didn't think of it.
Even the two Panasonic TQ2-L2-5V relays account for 50% of the BOM if bought in quantities from Mouser!
I grabbed two meters from your affiliate links, they seem to be running out real quick!
Insane when you think about it in those terms.
You mean the two relays account for 50% of the retail price.
They all are gone now haha
@@EEVblog I see these ending up on ebay it sucks who ever gets scammed :( with C or D stock..(or buying stolen property )
normally when stuff is scraped off it's stolen I hate getting energizer batteries from China or Singapore those leak or are counterfeit (even if you buy at a big box store) I only get it if it has USA on the label I NEVER had one leak on me,,, even my OLDEST Energizer battery (Made in USA) is 30 years old and still works great it has 9.5 VOLTS
(it's a old mercury based alkaline battery)
but the china or singapore ones always LEAK :(
But they are PanaSOSnic relays...
Well, that screwed it on AliExpress! "Sorry, this item is no longer available!" It's amazing how quickly these guys respond!!!
And EEblog effectively launches a DDOS attack on aliexpress....
Hang on, got a guy from the chinese consulate on line 2...
When the same company can make Taobao (the Chinese versions of AliExpress) handle 100 million+ purchased in a single day, I don't think they can quite be DDoSed as long as it's just a lot of real people getting onto the site at the same time. They also sell cloud service just like Amazon, by the way, and worst case they can just refund a lot of their cloud server users and that's it.
"EEVblog effect" (formerly known as "Slashdot effect" when that still was a thing)
@@FlameRat_YehLon - You don't understand the word "joke", do you?
@@johncoops6897 But to be serious, they kinda got DDoSed in a much bigger scale every single year from just their normal traffic so... Not sure if it's really a good joke then, giving that it's kinda not so impressive when in comparison.
Cleaned out! Tried EACH and EVERY link provided!
These are made by Mastech.
They are rebranded MASTECH MS8218
Good lord you're right
Good spot ! You can see the MS8218 on the USB board next to a 2012 manufacturer date
@@kyliandc9276 most meter companies leave clues as to who made them. That's one of the main reasons I like these tear down videos. I'd wager there are only a handful of companies that actually make meters and the rest are rebranded.
From the outside they look the same and MS8218 printed on the USB interface PCB does give you a hint, but internally they are not the same.
They may be made by Mastech for the other brand, or the other brand may have "borrowed" some IP from Mastech. Anyway, doesn't seem to be rebranded MS8218.
no, I have MS8218 it have no outputs
I bought a backback for 30$ that was normally priced at 400$ at my local supermarket. They had just removed the stitching with the brand name. Everything else was the same. It pays to keep a lookout after surplus sales.
Chances are a lot of the "different" listings are the same company(s) under multiple names.
Probably a production run that just barely missed specs on some inconsequential factor like being 3mm too short, etc...
Abe Lincoln It clearly failed some of Dave's testing, so not insignificant flaws.
Or a dodgy range switch. Or dodgy firmware. Too expensive to rework. So either junked then fished out of a dumpster or sold as rejects. Whoever got the batch then scraped manufacturer name and model number off.
im guessing based on the 2015 board revision these were old stock or just a bad batch (might explain the buggy firmware) then again,
6 fuses and a a lot of decent parts, even a real buggy one is a good deal at $10 + eevblog tax
Hi! I managed to buy for 8 usd on aliexpress, it did not seem to be true. There is a usb flash drive in the kit, but it is in raw format. Where can I download the program from?
Thanks for the info 18 hours late UA-cam :(
I think it's released earlier for patreons
TheCarpenterUnion yep I had the same issue.
Saw this last night, they were available for $9 like Dave said. Didn't want to deal with it from mobile, figured I'd buy in the morning. This morning, best I found, with shipping to US, was $30. Oh well, still good deal....
Unfortunately it looks like they started raising prices after about 150 or units were sold, and most have closed down their listing now.
around a 100$ now
You should do a video fixing all the faults you can find, to help all the subscribers that bought them 👍.
i liked the USB job. nice touch. I wish Fluke would have done that on 289 and others....
Yeah, nice implementation.
When I saw only two words going to USB I figured where sike that's got to be isolated or maybe it was powering the circuitry from the USB cable and isolating it from the multimeter power.
It looks like a USBSerial IC and half of the old MASTECH Infra-red RS232 output? IIRC the old meter could send readings out, but couldn't be controlled from the software. It really looks like the 2012 model MASTECH MS7287 with a re-skinning.
3:15 - Probably didn't pass quality so they said screw tossing them, we'll sell them backdoor for parts/labor to keep losses down. Also would make sense why there's such a limited supply and it sold out instantly.
did you watch the video? the BOM alone is like ~50$...
there are two chips in there worth ~10$ each even in 12000 piece reels
the two relays are worth more than half the retail price.
@@TheScarvig - did you use your BRAIN?
The BOM cost is totally and utterly irrelevant. Factories DO NOT sell faulty products, they destroy/scrap them. In this case they didn't quite get 100% destroyed.
@@johncoops6897 "sell them backdoor for parts/labor to keep losses down" implies to me that OP meant that the price they sell them at is at least the value of the parts and the labor without any margin of profit or development cost.
even taking off the two relais and not throwing out a set of leads and fuses would probably save the manufacturer more than what he makes on "backdoor" selling the faulty product.
point is, YOU say "Factories DO NOT sell faulty products, they destroy/scrap them"
assuming the manufacturer intended the product do get scrapped
OP says "they said screw tossing them, we'll sell them backdoor"
which assumes the opposite
I say OP didnt think this through, as the value of the parts on the faulty boards is WAY higher than what they make back selling them "backdoor"
excuse me if i might have misinterpreted something in my non native language...
@@TheScarvig wow, you really got that asshurt just because i said they're recouping losses by selling units that didn't pass QA? You should see a psychologist or something man, my comment shouldn't have made you so annoyed you came back on two separate occasions to verbally rip me a new asshole for an assumption I made that's not even that far off base lol.
@@jetjazz05 my second reply in this thread wasn't even directed to you? where is your problem?
if anything i might have been a bit "asshurt" because of @Jhon Coops claim i did not use my brain...
but mainly i spend my time here on youtube because i am bored and got nothing better to do anyways. so for me as an engineer who enjoys arguing with other people, writing a lengthy comment to prove my point is just entertainment.
I tried to buy one and was asked to input some product offer. I couldn't enter one as I didn't know what the choices were. The site did say they had the meter but when I tried to "Pay Now" the site kept asking for that product choice. Some sort of scam?
Maybe these went into the dumpster due to the buggy firmware and someone took and sold them on aliexpress.
I always suspected that sellers on aliexpress often sell stolen or rejected products that fell through quality control
@@blubbspinat9363 I think that would make sense tbh
@@Runco990 as someone who likes to buy damaged goods this pleases me
Dave knows a thing or two about useful things in the dumpster...
@@Runco990 at the very least for scrap
SiLabs CP2102... my fave USB/serial chip! Local to me (Austin TX)... wonderful folks. Never a problem, drivers easily available, good to 900Kbaud.
Hey Dave, could you do a review on the FY6900 DDS function generator?
I second the motion to review.
While unrelated to the shopping francy I don't expect the FY6900 much different from its predecessor.
had to buy two just as I saw your "Grab two of these" after just 15 seconds of the video :)
It's obvious you'd get two at that price.
Hey! I wanted one! Greedy. ;)
I come from China. The October the first is our nations birthday. So no wonder there is such big sale. For 10 bucks, you cannot make it in China for a automatic multimeter. Because Aliexpress plan to expanding all over the world, so the price is very reasonable. The Next big sale day like this maybe November 11, a shopping festival.
how is the price reasonable? Why scratch off the brand name if these are legit? The parts inside cost more and meters with the brand name sell for $200+. You don't think these are stolen?
Probably a meter that was going to be discarded, they sold for dirt cheap because it has a lot of problems. I don’t see better pricing on other meters, the UT61E remains on the ~$60 price range.
Now this thing will sell for a lot more since the demand is huge compared to the supply. But that’s pretty scummy, I’ve seen a lot of reports of sellers trying to get the order cancelled, or the buyer to pay more.
@@tomservo5007 I didnt watch the whole video before. Now, I dont think its stolen, maybe some malfunction product, but even for malfunction one the price is too crazy. Or maybe its some sale strategy. I think they will not ship anymore for under 10 bucks. Instead they will give you some coupon for convenience to buy other stuff.
So if you have a large QA fail .. do you bin the product or flog it off cheap and recover some of the loss.
Yeah.. Thanks youtube for putting this video into my "new" subscriptions" even this video was uploaded 9 FOKIN HOURS AGO!
It was only released this morning, supporters got to see the video yesterday.
@@EEVblog I wonder if any non-patreon people got any?
AH-HA!!! (Dave's voice) I see it now. DAVE bought them all, scratched the name off, and sold them to promote his early access fee! Brilliant! LOL ("I better become a supporter so I don't miss the next one!")
@@EEVblog Oh, bummer... I did not even know about that sort of system being used in the youtube.
Did they gold plate the contacts for the rotary switch? Hard to tell from the picture but it looks like bare copper, which may wear out quickly. Could be why they scrapped these.
Just bought one for ~$32 shipped. Nothing cheaper for the US.
How do you incorporate one of these into a typical bench workflow?
The whole meter costs less than a Fluke replacement fuse! (Well, before the meter's price went up)
Hey EEVguy, how do you store your meters? I usually wrap my probes around the body, but I always end up have the cables of the probes break. Got any tips?
Blink and they're all gone... great
Maybe returns from a wholesale customer.. they made the case a different custom color from the original green for them. It’s flakey so they dumped them or the customer went tits-up and never paid the money after the original deposit to secure the production. So they kept the deposit and eventually years later the units find their way to the market.
They have some on dhgate for around $23 and change USD
One of the links is working, but keeps asking me to select options first, but won't ever allow me to continue the purchase even with options selected. Odd.
I think these are units that failed tests, or had some some of manufacturing defect, so the original manufacturer was going to scrap them. But then they thought they could recover some cost by selling them cheap. But they took their brand name off it because they don't want any returns or support calls.
IIRC it's usually a violation of contract or brand infringement for the manufacturer to sell those themselves, and thus the debranding thing might just be to avoid brand infringement or things like that. Anyway, people who buy debramded stuffs usually know that it might not work properly so it's more of a gamble than a scam.
Not a whole meter, but I did buy some 10.0000 voltage calibration IC's here in the US. A spare tin, switch, battery...and I have my 10.0000 volt calibration source, guaranteed by a major IC maker.
Dangit, how can you resist influencer Dave? ;)
Did you score one? I am late to the party...
@@AngryTomatoe yep
Das für 7.50€ ist wieder da...
@ Ich finde leider keins... Weder über die links oben noch per Suche
Geh auf den ersten Link
It's easy to understand how it's so cheap if you look at the economics of mass manufacture.
Let's say the manufacturer makes 10,000 products at $10 cost. That's a total of $100,000 in costs.
Now let's assume, say 10% fail QC, you now have 1,000 faulty and 9,000 good units. You can sell the good units at, say, $250/unit, which will gross you $2,250,000, but you still have a 1,000 faulty units (with $10,000 of parts) that you're either going to have to pay to fault find and fix or pay to dispose of. Alternatively, you can just remove your branding and sell them to a discount retailer for $5 each. Now, rather than paying to fix or dispose, you just made another $5,000 gross for a total of $2,255,000 gross, minus the initial $100,000 which still nets you $2,125,000. You've only lost $125,000 (5.8%) on being able to sell every single one at full price, but you also don't incur the costs of fixing or disposing of sub par units. It's not uncommon practice, and will more than likely be accepted as an acceptable loss. It's really not that different from CPU manufacturers using faulty, but operational dies in their lower SKU lines to make up for less than 100% silicon yields.
TL:DR it makes perfect sense 😊
Yup. These were made by MASTECH and they make millions of meters. My guess was these were made for a customer and were QC fails and rather than try and rebuild them, it was easier to sell them as scrap, hence the shredded model and serial nos. As for the pricing, I suspect many shops are run by one company, it's a common Chinese tactic to funnel shoppers into buying at an inflated price (and to make it appear a particular product is popular, when in fact only one company is selling it)
Why would a manufacturer undermine his own $250 each market putting out the faulty units?
I remember the farmers in my country prefer destroying the over production rather than selling them undercost.
@@santopino2546 this isn't a matter of over production, it's about quality control. If a foodstuff fails a quality inspection it HAS to be destroyed for public health and safety, and is an irrecoverable loss. Consumer goods that fail quality inspection may still be safe, just not as functional, and therefore can be sold, thus minimising the loss incured. The manufacturer isn't undermining their market, they're just minimising their lossess as effectively as possible. Also, farmers destroying over produce is usually due to trade regulations that state they're only allowed to produce a certain amount, and can incur fines for trying to sell more that their allowance allows...
@@JaenEngineering Whatever the reason, but does it change the fact that they would be undermining their own market?
I had no problem in the past 20 years to waste thousands of Euros for good quality certified process equipment, but I know of many technicians that would immediately jump on these bargains and use them on their jobs.
@@santopino2546 Take your farmer analogy, if some of the produce is damaged, it will be sold to industrial customers who will turn apples (for example) into fruit juice, or mash for pies, or even food for pigs. The farmer gets less money but the farmer doesn't have to bury the crop on their land and they still get something for it (even if it is a loss) Now some of those apples might be stolen along the way by someone who thinks they can sell bruised apples for $$$$, but the market isn't being undercut as the supermarket who only buys perfect apples sells to customers who only want to buy perfect apples. There are two distinct markets with little overlap. I lived on a farm for half my life, so I've seen the impact of disasters and the cunning schemes to make money from what looks like a total loss.
Hey stop. Do you really need this QC reject niche piece of equipment for 70$? You're welcome.
Consider it a gamble. If you are lucky (getting something with minor issue) then you got a good deal, if not then, well, that's the risk and nobody would complain.
nobody said you need it for $70. It was below $9 until they realized what they are selling.
@@FlameRat_YehLon no need to gamble, for 70 one can get LB02 which do the same
@@therianet what I mean is, if it's $10. If it's $70 then I would expect the seller to send replacement for units that doesn't work correctly.
Are your EEVBlog multimeters sold in Europe?
Dave, you have some greedy viewers... Bought them all and I'm sure we'll see them soon on ebay at $100.
Let me know when you find a 140GHz 8-channel LeCroy scope for under $10. (But it better include 8 probes and a few high voltage differential probes at such an exorbitant price!)
11:26 "Panasosnic" 🤣
What makes that MAX629 chip so expensive? That seems like a crazy price for anything but an integrated module.
all gone..
I am absolutely positive that these are units that did not pass QA. The original manufacturer sold the batches on the Shenzhen market after removing the brand.
Probably 'grey market'. Made with real parts and snuck out of the actual warehouse. Branding removed to remain somewhat inconspicuous.
Might it be possible that all the AliExpress stores selling this thing were the same operation running multiple stores?
How ironic! The "cheapest" now is $67 and the seller's name is "HAHAHA Lifestyle Store" :)
Bluebrain that’s not irony.
How is it there are none of these available cheaply anymore? (Even on Aliexpress)
Wow. You guys cleaned the lot lol
Looks fabulantastic , but what about like 3.3 , 1.2 , 2.4 , 1.7 volts etc that some strange voltages wich low power arm and or fpga's uses , and what is the noise ratio of the output ? ( looking the signal in the osc ) .
these have to be factory rejects that fell off the line headed to destruction.
cheapest is now around 70 usd shipped.
I wouldn’t use it as a multimeter, input clamping protection was broken on the one I tested years ago. The accuracy on the output was also off with mine and didn’t meet specs. They were trying to sell these to other companies like BSIDE as you see the same meter sold by many names. Maybe they didn’t sell so the scratched the name off? Maybe that’s why they didn’t sell and they are going for cheap now?
The thing with this is, if you are doing a project where you need some kind of precision instrument, do you want to depend on something dodgy, glitchy, and ultimately unknown like this? Like for $9 sure it is maybe hard to argue with, but is it ultimately just a waste of $9 for something you can't really count on?
That's why you buy two or more...
Hi Dave, I have PMM330A Quark but being a complete novice I would like to ask you could I use this for any possible testing? Many thanks.
fell from the truck, that's why they scraped off the name
If they fell off the truck, then there'd be no need to scrape off the name. Think about it.
Found it on the US AliExpress for $94.28, maybe it was an off by 10 error. Misplaced decimal?
I bet only 0.02% sold will be used for actual process cal.
LOL, yeah.
Store returns?? or faulty units from the dumpster
I see a lot of faulty units going on ebay soon..
Its a Chinese 'night shift' production run...
Interesting but they would not be manufacturing and then removing their own brand name. These are most likely second market units but definately worth picking a few up for anyone that needs one. I doubt that they will be available one the container is empty.
500% price increase in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...
Perhaps this unit didn't pass QC and was being resold?
Someone must had bought 100x or something :P sellers caught on. Or well, just a lot buying.
Looks like quality control reject - that would also explain why brand was scratched off
Already gone everywhere :(
My guess is that somebody at the factory made an extra buck from the QA fail dumpster. (Likely still something wrong with those things, still doesn't mean they're unusable - just some feature or other isn't working as it should.) That's why they have the stripped branding, but motherboard and components being the real deal.
There are a few left for $40, search "Mulitifuction Process Calibrator"
15 minutes after public, all up to $80, Dave's patreons cleared them out
Looked like one of his links had it $10.50 or so with $2.50 shipping (just clicked random one, like 4 up from bottom or something). Still, $15 isn’t bad... Might have to get one to calibrate a few meters I have coming.
Previously I just used CPU voltages, set my board to 1.5000v (do not do this on Intel or Ryzen CPUs, I used FX, use like 1.2v for those other chips), and disabled all but 1 core so it had the least amount of load. You can also test at any known voltage (like I also tested at 1.5125v too). It’s the most accurate source I had, so if you have a high end board you MIGHT be able to do this, the problem is some high end boards have a load line calibration setting that can go way over voltage, which is kind of why I needed the meter to be a bit more accurate than just for measuring batteries, haha!
If I get one I’ll have to hook it up to my high end VRM power board since I can program it for dynamic voltage loads or startup procedures and exact voltages or transistor switching frequencies etc, it should be pretty accurate (the microprocessor in it is like $50, and the mosfets cost like $85 alone buying thousands at a time, but it’s kind of needed for the 600+ amps it’s rated at on primary side with its 11 stage VRM)
Any one have a dgate link?
I bought one. Not the same but cheap and does must of the same functions. LB02 Process Calbrator
Looks like a rejected and liquidated production run to me.
This! Probably they all have individual issues which are out of spec!
Instrument looks to be a be flaky in operation. Perhaps the original manufacturer made a bunch of these then found the defect and decided to write them off.
Then the bad units "fell off the back of the truck".
That's probably why the identification has been scrapped off.
Cheers,
I bought 3pcs and they declined my payment Lol, now they cost 250usd lol
Likely multiple sellers got from a single source therefore they didn't have that many available in stock.
Once I tried to buy last item which was not produced any more from an aliexpress shop they sent a message that item was damaged and refunded.
@Exodus hahahahaha, great deal so, buy more as fast as you can, that's 27usd only than 150usd lol
@Exodus I making Stuff that useful, that's why i need that calibration multi tester even i have Rigol DS1054Z, i still need it hahahahaha
Congrats to those that grabbed it early .. it's 300 bucks now (July 2021)
Somebody must’ve bought all of them and going to resell them at a higher price
Pretty sure that what happened.
Dave? :)
I can only find this item for prices between USD 119.99 and USD 219.11. The USD 9 device is Gone-ski.
Chinese branded factory reject seconds for $9 … seems about right regardless of the spec. Just how long could it last and just how well could it be built anyway?
It's NOT "Chinese branded"... might be an idea if you watch the video, perhaps?
Got one... Only two links working. (Not sold out)
youtube only showed me your video a few minutes ago :XX all gone damn you youtube ! lol
Dave's supporters, who get early access to videos, got them all.
I jokingly suggested that Dave did this as a promotion to get more supporters, but it's probably some sort of dumpster dive.
Only people working with PLC or DCS would need this instrument, but it's limited to 4-20mA, it doesn't have other useful ranges like the various Thermocouple (type J or K is lot used) and PT100.
Released at 1 AM for europeans and of course they are all gone >:(
Ha the one time I save an EEVBlog notification for later it's a jump on it now situation. Great find Dave!
Shhheeeeeeeeit all gone :(
Just watched this video (not sure why it didn't come up at the time) Shockingly they are all gone 😮
Good job.....hope you get your commision check asap
Is it possible these units failed some sort of certification or QA process, and because of that they can't be sold legally on the US or EU market, so instead of chucking them all in the trash, the manufacturer decided to just remove the branding from the case and sell them for cheap?
While I use 4-20 and 0-10 for calibration / simulation we have to have a calibration certificate to use it and that is expensive
hi david, your exitment is hillarious. lovin it! the cheapest i found on ali express is now 88 US$