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Mastodon: AboutGet the appKeyboard shortcutsView source codev4.4.0-nightly.2025-04-28

#cheap

3 posts3 participants0 posts today
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Rene Raggl 🇪🇺 🇺🇦

@Blaze @tiramichu My mother used to be a regional fashion designer. She taught me about fabrics etc. If I look at the #fashion in stores now, its designed for the dump. Thin material & bad stitching. And the collection changes every week. I seriously know people that just buy new t-shirts rather than washing them. Because they are so cheap. Nothing about #cheap is good.

I would rather buy quality items less often and pay more and wear them until they are truly done

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C.

A Tale of Two Shitties... [1]

I've always done my own seasonal tire changes on my vehicle and my partner's as well. When I first started many years ago, I bought a cheapie 2-ton trolley #jack from Princess Auto - USAnians can substitute "Harbor Freight" and the story will be essentially the same.

But I replaced my vehicle a year and a half ago. The new one rides a little higher off the ground, and has the massive #wheels and #tires that have become the de facto standard, and my old jack didn't lift high enough to change the wheels on the new vehicle. Being the better part of 20 years newer, the new vehicle is also a lot heavier.

So I bought a larger 3-ton trolley jack, with a higher lift height. It's even a real name brand, #Torin. [2]

So anyways... I went to take the snow tires off on the weekend, and the new jack had #leaked, and won't lift properly. So it's sprung an o-ring or other #seal, after only using it 3 times (I think). The 20-year-old Princess Auto special is still fine. They sit next to each other in the garage, so it's not storage conditions.

Winner: Princess Auto.

Then, while changing tires, one lug #nut was #seized. Got out a decent sized breaker bar, and a 1/2" to 3/8" socket drive adapter from Princess Auto - their "pro" "Pro Point" line, yet - put my back into it, and #sheared the damn adapter off.

#Craptastic!

[1] Couldn't resist, sorry. [3]
[2] I didn't say it was a great name brand.
[3] Not sorry.

#PrincessAuto#Canada#cheap
Continued thread
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C.

Yes, you take your chances - there's the occasional outright scam, or so-so quality parts (like the ones that inspired me to write this), but you go into it with your eyes open. You take a chance because it's dirt cheap.

And 90% of the time, the parts are just fine.

For anything important, or safety-related, or mains-connected, or anything I build for other than personal use, I won't use yum-cha parts like this. For those, I order good name-brand parts from a reputable supplier (Newark/Element14/RS, DigiKey, etc).

But for hobbyists just having fun, messing around? AliExpress and friends are an absolute godsend. You can now get into hobby electronics for practically nothing, and build stuff and see if you like it.

There's a place for quality parts, and a place for cheap parts. Knowing which is which isn't hard.

Three cheers for cheap components!

2/2

#build#maker#circuit
Continued thread
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C.

The best part? My cost for manufacturing the boards and shipping them to me in Canada (from China), with all applicable duty and taxes included, brings them out to about $1 per board.

I may try other designs at some point. But I can't see myself going back to the uber-expensive ones that are commercially available.

I can't wait to try one of them!

3/3

Screenshot from a Printed Circuit Board (PCB) layout program showing the design of my perforated prototyping board.
#MakeDontBuy#design#custom
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