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Be careful of cheap lights

Actually it's a little more complex than that. Assume for a moment you are a startup with a product you want to sell on a limited basis. And this product requires heavy machinery to make - not the type of product you can make at home. Like an led driver. You need to sell several thousand just to break even. However you can't make thousands because it's a new product and you're not sure who will buy it yet.

So you can order several thousand from a German or US factory, or you can go a Chinese factory who is happy to make you 2-300 for a tiny profit. Now why is the Chinese factory willing to make you 2-300 for a tiny profit? Because it knows it can make a knock-off from your design and sell it elsewhere to recover its manufacturing costs and make the profit it wants to. So did the Chinese factory just help you or hurt you?

Don't forget that it was the choice of the product maker to go to china. Not the other way around.

To say that IP theft is the fault of the person that went to China and not the thief in China, who would have signed an agreement then ignored it is laughable. I agree that the person has taken a risk based on the previous experience of other companies, but that in no way justifies the IP being stolen. If the manufacturer enters an agreement to produce the item at a certain price and has no rights to the IP, then they have no rights to the IP.
 
You are right.. provided you can get an agreement in the first place. But the point is you will not get one unless you are willing to pay for it, which is usually the cost of an entire factory run.

Sent from my 2014817 using Tapatalk
 
I guess the problem is the law in countries like China etc
How is a small business owner going to be able to prosecute a large factory for IP theft
It's just not going to be practical.
We all like bargains and the Internet has opened opened up many markets for buyers which in general could be a good thing.

All you have to remember is the country with the lowest costs especially labour costs will produce the most goods

I remember when most things had a sticker on them that said "Made in Taiwan"
Well I'm off to eBay to spend my Refund on some parts to repair these lights


Regards
Dean
 
The fact that the earth wire isn't connected may be entirely appropriate. Does the driver even have an earth terminal? It may be double insulated, in which case it won't have an earth. If that's the case then sure, it would have been neater if they'd used two-core cable without earth, but I wouldn't necessarily lose sleep over that aspect of it.

The poor connection of the negative wire is rubbish - but at least it's on the low-voltage side. A couple of butt crimp connectors would be a far better solution, and would have cost pennies.
 
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