Arduino mega from China on ebay

Hi everyone

Im posting this because I really need buy one but dont know about of the quality from these Arduino's coming China. If anybody had bought this one let know about the quality and save money and thank for share it.


Cheers

its 50/50 you may have a great deal, or a terrible item. consider return shipping, customer support and the fact that you are purchasing a knock off. Don't purchase from china directly. purchase from hong kong, and make sure it ships from hong kong.

expect surprises. for example i have a single 1280 mega board from china for 24$. it has male headers on it. making it worthless for use on a shield such as ramps.

Also i purchased over 10 Duemilanove board form hong kong. all had 168 chips instead of 328 chips. vendor did not understand my issue with it, considering he stated 32k of flash. 3 of the boards had i/o issues with serial. it was 1/3 of cost overall, but so much time went into troubleshooting it.

For me at the time it was still somewhat worth it, as the boards were not readily in stock. I only felt burned with the 1280 with the male header!


If possible I would try to purchase from a licensed vender. this way your money is making it back to the developer.

i bought one, cheapest that i found

on ebay it was unbranded image, so like chinese arduino.


but it arrived fully branded arduino, with made in italy stamp, like original.

same thing was with ramps, unbranded on image, without any print on board, everything branded on item when arrived.

i think its second class merchandise, items that dont pass QC because some visual errors, for example on my "ulti ramps" 11A and 5A fuses are not nice and straight soldered like on image, but everything works....


i dont see any other reason why board manufacturer prints everything on boards,and make whole process more expencive, when i know that i have ordered cheap clone of original, and i dont need any brand on board....

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/04/2013 05:31AM by woo.

Well ill try it just for free shipment and low price and stay low the project

I just bought a genuine Arduino Mega 2560 from Amazon.com for $29. I see it listed at some of the reprap vendors for as much as $65. I couldn't pass it up from Amazon - Great price, genuine product, no sales tax, and since I am a prime member, no shipping costs and I get it in 2 days

woo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> i think its second class merchandise, items that
> dont pass QC because some visual errors, for
> example on my "ulti ramps" 11A and 5A fuses are
> not nice and straight soldered like on image, but
> everything works....

It's likely a knock off. Just because it has the branding doesn't necessarily mean it's legit. I my experience most board/component fab vendors rarley sell branded seconds. It's worth the piece of mind for me to buy from a known source.