John Larkin wrote:

On Thu, 18 Dec 2008 19:06:13 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

In article ,
John Larkin wrote:
Think you'll find the Fluke *is* a Chinese meter...;-)

All of my Flukes, including my very nice new 8845A, say
"made in USA."

ftp://jjlarkin.lmi.net/MadeInUSA.JPG

Are any of their low-end things actually Chinese?

I got a flier from an electronics company the other day with some Fluke
models on special offer and that said they were made in China. They could
have been wrong, of course - you'd need to see the actual unit to be sure.

Everybody else - Agilent, Keithley, BNC, Wavetek - are selling their
names and shipping Chinese junk. The low-end Tek scopes are made in
China, but I think they're still Tek designs.

Just because it's designed/made in China doesn't make it junk. They are
perfectly capable of making high quality stuff as well as rubbish. You
need to blame the brand name if they allow crap to be sold using their
logo.


A lot of people are rebranding the Array boxes...

http://www.array.com.cn/yq-3400e.htm

http://www.berkeleynucleonics.com/pr...model_645.html


http://www.keithley.com/products/pul...rator/?mn=3390

http://www.picotest.com.tw/product03.html


http://www.google.com/url?sa=U&start...vzAUnHeYAvFmqw


I haven't used their arb, but their benchtop DVM (aka Keithley 2100)
*is* junk.

John

My old Metcal MX500 soldering iron is made in USA, my new one is made in
China. They are made to look the same when viewed from the front, but the
casing has been redesigned on the new one and I suspect that the internal
circuitry would probably have been cost-reduced as well - there were quite
a lot of nice parts used inside the old one. So far the only problem with
the new one is there seems to be a magnet in the stand that somehow shuts
off the heating when the iron is in the stand. It reheats quite fast, but
not quite fast enough for me. I might remove that magnet. I think it
might have been done because they offer a warranty on the tips, and we have
had quite a few fail and be replaced under warranty. Perhaps they are
trying to extend the tip life to cut their warranty costs - just my guess.

Chris