nRf24L01+ Questions

  1. Why are the nRf24L01+ chips on ebay so cheap? For example on ebay,
    http://www.ebay.com/itm/10PCS-Arduino-NRF24L01-Wireless-Transceiver-Module-/251062580786

you can get 10 of them for about $1.50 a piece but if you just try to buy the nRf24L01 IC its like a $4 bucks each. Is this the cheapest wireless communication method thats pretty simple? RFM12b's are more expensive and dont seem to add any important features.

  1. I ask the above since I want to create the nRf24L01+ circuit into my current project rather than using an external chip that would make my project messier and larger. Is there anyway for me to create the same circuit (I know they have the circuit in the datasheet) for about the same price as the chips you can buy on ebay?

I would assume that the cheap ones are clones. I've bought some in the past with reasonable success, but the SMD placement and soldering wasn't brilliant quality (and the boards looked to have been corrected by hand in a couple of cases) and there were a couple of duff units in the batch. I also felt rather guilty supporting somebody who was ripping off the companies that sell the genuine article. They're cheap, though. It's hard to imagine how they source the parts for that, let along assemble and ship the whole thing.