On 2020/11/20 7:26 a.m., Ralph Mowery wrote:
In article , says...

I must say I am a bit puzzled why these seem to have a bad rep. Aren't
they switching supplies like used in desktop computers? Every desktop
computer I ever had never had a power supply burn out. I've had about 7
over the last 3 decades and many have run 24 hours a day for nearly a
year. If they can make them for PC's reliably, why not these devices?
They are supposed to be designed for continuous duty too.



I have had many computers over the last 40 or so years and worked for a
company that had around 200 or more computers. The power supply seldom
fail.

However during one period in time motherboards were failing. This was
due to bad capacitors on the MB.

Quality electronics will have capacitors rated for higher working
temperatures. They will uses heaver duty transistors and other
components. The cheaper supplies will leave out some components that
are not necessary , but surpress radio and tv interferance to near by
radio and tv sets.

You might think of it like bying hamburger meat. Some of it has a lot
of fat in it , like 80 % lean. The more expensive 95% lean will cost
more, but shrink less when cooked. Same with gas in your car. The more
ethanol in it, the cheaper,but you get less gas milage.

There are some good products comming out of China, and a bunch of junk.
Remember a few years back where the drywall off gassed some chemicals
that ate up the copper wiring and pipe in the homes.

A brand name company needs to keep up their image. The small company
produces a product under one name this year and 6 months later they use
anoter name. They do not care about quality control.



It is all about liability. A brick and mortar business has a reputation
to uphold and they can be tracked down when something goes wrong with a
product and as such take extra care to ensure they aren't bothered by
lawsuits for dangerous products.

Amazon and eBay have no liability and the sellers on these places have
no long term connection to the products they sell, so based on price,
they will make it as cheaply as possible. Yet it works for the first
month or two that the feedback is still valid. After that if it burns
your house down or kills the user what do they care?

My understanding is that back in the 40s and early 50s TV fires were
common in the US until UL was given the power to regulate production
(here in Canada we had CSA - same thing) and fires disappeared as a risk
in electrical equipment (for the most part). We are back in the wild
west (it wasn't really wild, towns regulated guns - I blame Wild Bill
Hickock for pretending it was) era for electrical stuff and I forsee a
LOT of people being hurt or killed before regulations are enacted (those
darn regulations!) to protect populations from unscrupulous producers of
cut-rate equipment.

John :-#)#

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