I have seen many boards on EBay, produced in China and other places, that are termed Arduino "compatible". Their cost is quite low in some cases. Does anyone have any experience with these boards?
Did they work directly "out of the box"?
Did they need maintenance for cold solder joints, missing connections, or missing components?
What went wrong, in general?
No issues yet with the stuff I have ordered from Iteadstudio or Seeed. That said, they're not contributing financially to the Arduino project, AFAIK.
Constantin:
No issues yet with the stuff I have ordered from Iteadstudio or Seeed. That said, they're not contributing financially to the Arduino project, AFAIK.
Ah, yes, I understand. Good point!
I got a couple of Arduino Duemilanova clones form an outfit called GoodLuckBuys. They were nice boards with lots of extra header pins for I/O, analog and V+ and gnd. They worked fine except that they would only download scripts generated by IDE's earlier then 1.0. This was not a problem for me but sure could be if you are using code that only works with 1.0. The board was stamped with 'Aroboto Studio'.
They were willing to take them back, but I just kept them. They also pulled them off their web site last time I looked.
I never did bother to try and find out what the incompatibility was.
I bought an ethernet shield on ebay. It works fine and it's a great close for a third of the price but usually like most knock offs is you see the fine details where they either didn't care or didn't get it right. It was shipped in a bubble wrap envelope, no static bag, and no real protection, all the way from china. Its pins were all bent out of shape, and the hole to hole center from one header to the other was wrong so I had to bend the pins to get them to fit. I would just use your best judgement, for all the hassle I wouldn't do it again, I would just buy a genuine shield up front.
Usually what I buy from ebay comes In the static shield bag, and really only got one module that had flaws that made it not worth it
I've bought 2 unos and 2 megas and no problems except on one of the megas there was an apparent pullup on A5, although it was disabled, it was scrweing with my analog reads until I realized that pin was somehow damaged
RPCoyle:
I got a couple of Arduino Duemilanova clones form an outfit called GoodLuckBuys. They were nice boards with lots of extra header pins for I/O, analog and V+ and gnd. They worked fine except that they would only download scripts generated by IDE's earlier then 1.0. This was not a problem for me but sure could be if you are using code that only works with 1.0. The board was stamped with 'Aroboto Studio'.They were willing to take them back, but I just kept them. They also pulled them off their web site last time I looked.
I never did bother to try and find out what the incompatibility was.
OK, its good to know that can happen. As you've identified the source and the product is no longer listed, its not likely to happen again.
cncb:
I bought an ethernet shield on ebay. It works fine and it's a great close for a third of the price but usually like most knock offs is you see the fine details where they either didn't care or didn't get it right. It was shipped in a bubble wrap envelope, no static bag, and no real protection, all the way from china. Its pins were all bent out of shape, and the hole to hole center from one header to the other was wrong so I had to bend the pins to get them to fit. I would just use your best judgement, for all the hassle I wouldn't do it again, I would just buy a genuine shield up front.
From the replies to this thread, some sources may be better than others.
What was the name of the supplier/product? Was there identifying information in the ad?
winner10920:
Usually what I buy from ebay comes In the static shield bag, and really only got one module that had flaws that made it not worth it
I've bought 2 unos and 2 megas and no problems except on one of the megas there was an apparent pullup on A5, although it was disabled, it was scrweing with my analog reads until I realized that pin was somehow damaged
Can you give us the name of the supplier and the name of the product if there was one? It would help to know.
Just by comparison, let me give you my experience with a country-local order of a genuine Ardunio Uno Rev 3.
I ordered it from RobotShop in Mirabel, Quebec (Just northwest of Montreal, Canada). The shipping was cheapest at $5.80 compared to $11 with others in Canada. The Uno itself was $29.89 ($2 greater than one other.) Taxes were $4.65 for a total of $40.42.
It took two days to get here, once I paid for it via Paypal.
It came via Canada Post in a cardboard shipping box. The board was in a small box smaller than a cigarette package. There was no static shield bag at all. Plenty of Ardunio labelling and a seal. Inside the box with the board came a pamphlet identifying as a genuine Arduno SMART PROJECT product with disclaimers, statements of testing and FCC compliance, warranties, customer acknolwedgements, packaging environmental impact, and return policy.
And the board itself has "Arduino" printed on the top and bottom. It looks the picture here http://arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardUno.
So if you buy something "genuine" and you don't see this, you know you've been "had" unless you knowingly bought from another manufacturer.
I dont remember the seller since I didn't find out till like 2 months later
winner10920:
I dont remember the seller since I didn't find out till like 2 months later
OK, thanks for reporting it, tho.
I am looking at a 3.2 TFT color touch screen LCD and its about 10 - 20 dollars, and it's being sold by womart. What do you think?