Chinese Equipment, please discuss.

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JohnH wrote:

Personally I wouldn't trust any cheap electrical stuff coming directly from China - OK, I accept that almost everything we buy now comes from there - or thereabouts - but at least if something bought from a local shop goes wrong you have some redress - these Chinese sellers' goods take forever to arrive (that is if they arrive at all) but in the event of a failure any item would firstly have to be returned to China before a replacement was supplied.
Anyway, it's a case of 'buyer beware' but those are my views and advice (from one who got 'stung' by a Chinese outfit.

John

I agree but if it was to save 80 fish for €12 I be very happy.
I am going to buy a digital temp gauge
it would be a bit easy to see compared to the ones like a tube.

Below is the one I got and I find it brilliant.

Before Christmas just when the weather started to get cold, I was trying to grow out a peacock bass. I didn't notice that the tank temp had dropped by one or two degrees and lost the peacock bass to white spot because of it. Was gutted. The heaters didn't keep the water warm enough in the cold weather - 300W eheim heaters as well.

Now if it drops, the controller will set off an alarm. Trust it way more than just relying on the heaters

ATC 300 2 CHANNEL HEATER TEMPERATURE CONTROLLER

I agree with John on the Chinese thing though. Been burnt once or twice myself - no pun intended!

Ski wrote:

I agree with John on the Chinese thing though. Been burnt once or twice myself - no pun intended!

I am only new to this so its good to here what everyone has to say.

I think you can just get lucky or unlucky.

Was reading an article the last day and the guy had knock of Chinese filters running for years and they were doing a great job.

The long delivery time puts me right off though and of course then as John mentioned, nightmare if you want to return the item. I probably wouldn't even bother to try

Would temp controllers need to be callibrated?... asking because anything I got from china wasn't callibrated at all. A cheap controller could fail too if built incorrectly which could also end in disaster. The thing about buying chinese built goods from a shop is they have to be built to an acceptable standard because its the shop on the line whereas these items straight from china are built to a much lower standard, they don't care because someone will always buy them!! My opinion is if you bought a jbl or jager heater then there would beno need for a controller.

John don't get me started on thermometers lol... the only ones I'll use are the yellow glass ones... their cheap and alot more accurate than most

There are sub-divisions in this: Chinese Designed; Chinese Fabricate; Chinese Company; Chinese Packaged; or simply Chinese Marketed.

But then that could also extend to a number of other countries.

In reality, so many of the components that go into "european" manufactured devices may well be made in other places (even if designed in Silicon Valley). It would be unlikely that an Irish specialist electronic firm would be able to make anything from stuff secured just from Europe.......chips from the far-east would be a key example (even it they were labelled Texas Instruments).

I've had devices made in China that are actually just old Hagen equipment with a different name and instructions......and they worked as good as the original Hagen equipment did (oooh....what a pity Hagen can't make the good stuff, especially "go on for ever heavy duty power-heads" ?).

However, equipment not designed in countries where I know there are much stricter control andd ethics would be ones to be very cautious of.

Now.....back to this unit......I can't really see any advantage to it for an aquarium as most heaters nowadays come with a built-in thermostat anyway. It may be fine for space heating......but personally (as also speaking as someone who has designed and built computerised thermostats), I would prefer a simple on/off bi-metal strip. Let's face it, it is not as if any home is having to control the temperature within the computer system of a nuclear reactor or the nuclear magnetic resonance machine !!

ian

davey_c wrote:

Would temp controllers need to be callibrated?... asking because anything I got from china wasn't callibrated at all. A cheap controller could fail too if built incorrectly which could also end in disaster. The thing about buying chinese built goods from a shop is they have to be built to an acceptable standard because its the shop on the line whereas these items straight from china are built to a much lower standard, they don't care because someone will always buy them!! My opinion is if you bought a jbl or jager heater then there would beno need for a controller.

John don't get me started on thermometers lol... the only ones I'll use are the yellow glass ones... their cheap and alot more accurate than most

Yes Dave it would have to be callibrated
my point is would it save money if one was to loose a full tank of fish?
I for one wouldn't like to loose any fish and if I taught it would work
and I couldn't afford a more expensive one
this one would do for me.
I will look into this further tomorrow in work

I have had 50/50 good/bad results from what i have bought from China (Hong Kong etc.) with the good being just ok and the bad being spectacularly bad though......In the early days i bought a lot from there as as James is thinking,it was cheaper but no more!!
For an extra tenner you could buy a Fluval 200W E Series Electronic Heater that does the basics first(heat the tank),has a heater guard,gives tank temp. in green,will turn red/blue if temp. goes 1.5 degrees above/below the temp. that you set and will flash red/blue if the temp. goes 2 degrees either side of the temp. that you set........For the extra few shillings i feel you get what you paid for.

Ger

I've gotten stuff from china before and never had any problems with them, good quality and cheap but a word of warning is i have found electrical equipment doesnt seem to last as long as European produced products but i suppose you get what you pay for