Your DS18B20 temperature sensor is likely a fake, counterfeit, clone • Hacker News Board

Re: Your DS18B20 temperature sensor is likely a fake, counterfeit, clone

#181

Post by amelius » Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 10:07 AM UTC

myself248 wrote: post #12

as-j wrote: post #6

This affects temperature sensors/parts bought from un-official distributors like ebay or AliExpress, not digikey, farnel, etc. Perhaps I've been too lucky in my career and practiced EE for work, but who would you ever go to ebay instead of digikey?? Digikey certainly has a premium, but their speciality is small numbers/cut tape/etc and they have a small order size which makes them ok for hobby work, and I've used the…

I'd never expect to find these in official products from trusted brands, but off-brand crap? Oh yeah. DIY kits? Absolutely. The parts drawer at the makerspace? One hundred percent. So much stuff on eBay is free shipping, that's huge when you only need a few dollars worth of stuff. If I could convince Digi-Key to lick a 55-cent stamp when I need ten of something, instead of charging me $7 for shipping, I'd have a lot…

I wonder how do you organize parts? Do you keep your "possibly fake" parts strictly separated from the real parts? I already have trouble keeping resistors with the same value but different power rating separated.

Re: Your DS18B20 temperature sensor is likely a fake, counterfeit, clone

#182

Post by magicalhippo » Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 10:11 AM UTC

as-j wrote: post #6

This affects temperature sensors/parts bought from un-official distributors like ebay or AliExpress, not digikey, farnel, etc. Perhaps I've been too lucky in my career and practiced EE for work, but who would you ever go to ebay instead of digikey?? Digikey certainly has a premium, but their speciality is small numbers/cut tape/etc and they have a small order size which makes them ok for hobby work, and I've used the…

> who would you ever go to ebay instead of digikey

In addition to the shipping price for DigiKey which means batching up stuff is essential, one reason I buy stuff on AliExpress is that there are tons of ready-made breakout modules for easier prototyping.

Adafruit and SpakFun do make some, but there are quite a lot of interesting modules you cannot get from those sources.

Re: Your DS18B20 temperature sensor is likely a fake, counterfeit, clone

#183

Post by amelius » Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 10:12 AM UTC

fermienrico wrote: post #51

IgorPartola wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. I buy a decent amount of hobby electronics from eBay and AliExpress because yes it is cheaper. When I need quality, Mouser, DigiKey, and McMaster-Carr are there for me. But the minimum $7-9 shipping is the main reason is forego them. I’d gladly pay 2x for small electronic components (vs directly from China options) if shipping wasn’t a problem.

For any serious person trying to develop a little bit beyond hobby projects: Think about an hourly rate of $80/hour for yourself. If you have to spend an hour trying to fiddle with subpar shady parts, you've already paid for the shipping 8 times over. Also, it is painful to wait for these packages from China. Digikey ships same day and its at your door step in the morning (I overnight it) and if you use $7, it is usu…

But why can't digikey just charge for what it costs them to send the items?

Now it feels like I'm paying some kind of tax.

Re: Your DS18B20 temperature sensor is likely a fake, counterfeit, clone

#184

Post by janekm » Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 10:15 AM UTC

omgtehlion wrote: post #168

voltagex_ wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both FTDI and Prolific have done this kind of thing. I switched to the CH340 a while back without any issues.

how about cp2102? I prefer it to ch340, for no reason though ))

It's my go-to part for this purpose also (and I don't believe I've encountered any clones so far, knock on wood). Another part I've used in a high-volume application is the Holtek HT42B534 which is great because it's CDC class and hence doesn't need a driver for Win/Mac/Linux. It's EOL sadly. There's HT42B564 which is a HID-class replacement. The other alternative is using a cheap micro with USB interface.

Re: Your DS18B20 temperature sensor is likely a fake, counterfeit, clone

#185

Post by sokoloff » Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 10:19 AM UTC

robomartin wrote: post #139

panpanna wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you are blindly defending FDTI and blaming the designers, let me add another crucial detail that might change your mind: A lot of fakes were distributed through reputable sources as originals. So you could for example build a medical device using expensive original components from digikey, only to see it breaking in the hospital for no apparent reason. I bet people have _died_ due to FTDIs actions.

> I bet people have _died_ due to FTDIs actions. I'll bet that's an exaggeration. If you are going to say something like that you have to back it up with data. I could just as easily make the claim that people have died due to fakes. We can do that and go round and round a silly pointless circle. The problem of fakes is real. And it is likely very much political (addressed in another comment). What is is NOT is the l…

> if they defend their existence by refusing to allow fakes to function with their drivers.

I don’t think anyone is arguing that FTDI has to let those chips be supported by FTDI drivers. I believe that intentionally sabotaging devices that have clone chips in them (such that they won’t work even once disconnected from the computer running their driver or that the device will be damaged simply by plugging it into a computer with that driver) goes well beyond simply “refusing to allow fakes to function with their drivers.”

That’s not OK, IMO.

Re: Your DS18B20 temperature sensor is likely a fake, counterfeit, clone

#186

Post by nottorp » Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 10:22 AM UTC

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #91

as-j wrote: post #6

This affects temperature sensors/parts bought from un-official distributors like ebay or AliExpress, not digikey, farnel, etc. Perhaps I've been too lucky in my career and practiced EE for work, but who would you ever go to ebay instead of digikey?? Digikey certainly has a premium, but their speciality is small numbers/cut tape/etc and they have a small order size which makes them ok for hobby work, and I've used the…

I live outside the US. Both Digikey and Mouser will charge me $20+ to ship anything (tried with a small capacitor). Farnell will let me put stuff in the shopping cart, then when I select "individual" as the customer type, tells me that they only ship to companies and redirects me to a "partner site" for individuals, which promptly fails to load (things like this have conditioned me to avoid official distributors). RS…

Hmm don't know where you are but farnell has at least an european site and european warehouses that ship individual items locally.

Disclaimer: I only ordered full boards from them so shipping seemed reasonable. No idea about ordering one small capacitor.

Re: Your DS18B20 temperature sensor is likely a fake, counterfeit, clone

#187

Post by janekm » Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 10:26 AM UTC

as-j wrote: post #6

This affects temperature sensors/parts bought from un-official distributors like ebay or AliExpress, not digikey, farnel, etc. Perhaps I've been too lucky in my career and practiced EE for work, but who would you ever go to ebay instead of digikey?? Digikey certainly has a premium, but their speciality is small numbers/cut tape/etc and they have a small order size which makes them ok for hobby work, and I've used the…

The DS18B20 clones are very popularly assembled into a waterproofed probe with a cable and metal cap. It's a very useful item which as far as I know is difficult to obtain from one of the official distributors (and would cost significantly more than the eBay specials).

Re: Your DS18B20 temperature sensor is likely a fake, counterfeit, clone

#188

Post by sokoloff » Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 10:35 AM UTC

foldr wrote: post #171

jstanley wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this entire thread, you seem to be misinterpreting "fake chips are bad, but FTDI shouldn't brick them on purpose" as "fake chips are good, and FTDI is bad". That is why you are struggling to understand what everyone else is saying.

No, I think his point is that fake chips win by default if nothing can be done to disincentivize their manufacture and use. Law enforcement isn't cracking down on fake chips. So what else is FTDI to do if they're to survive as a business? You are fixated on what's best for the consumer in the short term, but the long term consequence of that could be that FTDI goes out of business and can't support any chips, fake or…

I have no problem with FTDI making their Windows driver not work with clone devices, but leaving that device undamaged and working once removed and plugged into a different machine.

That is a reasonable action and would be enough to cause at least one more round of cat and mouse with the clone makers, putting a massive dent into their economics.

If they’d done that, it might have given FTDI a positive reputation (like the top brands of Taiwanese capacitors) instead of this self-inflicted punch-in-the-face.

I’m just a hobbyist (50-100 boards/year) and so don’t matter to FTDI economics, but CH340s go in my devices now because I don’t trust FTDI at all.

Re: Your DS18B20 temperature sensor is likely a fake, counterfeit, clone

#189

Post by lnsru » Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 10:51 AM UTC

Once I was working for a company having single Motorola 68K based design. They were selling their ancient design without changes for decades. Motorola 68K disappeared from market, they moved to Coldfire, but then peripheral chips got obsolete. It was a big problem. Junior boss started buying everything he could find in Chinese Internet stores. Everything was fake!!! Sometimes parts were empty shells, no silicon inside, some parts were rebadged modern parts, some parts had silicon inside, but weren’t functional. Solution was found using some shady brokers. They delivered parts at 50x price. Ancient real time clocks were bought for 100$ a piece. It was still better than not delivering products to final customers. Re-Design was started porting the design to Xilinx ZynQ, but I left. Lesson number 1: no Aliexpress parts in final products! Lesson number 2: obsolescence of parts is a big deal, it comes more often than one is prepared for. Lesson number 3: even for hobbyist Digikey or Mouser is a place to go. Free shipping to Germany buying for at least 50€. All parts worked as expected.

Re: Your DS18B20 temperature sensor is likely a fake, counterfeit, clone

#190

Post by pbhjpbhj » Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 10:52 AM UTC

robomartin wrote: post #137

javawizard wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What part of: > the FTDI case was a case of the company intentionally shipping malicious code used to brick the clones don't you understand? FTDI does indeed have the absolute right to create drivers that only work with their products, but to intentionally damage a third party product so that it no longer works anywhere else, including with that third party's drivers, seems egregious.

There are two issues here, and they are separable. One is the issue of intellectual property theft and what a company has a right to do in order to protect itself. FTDI invested massive amounts of money to produce excellent solutions for a number of problems. I have personally been using their chips in my designs for over twenty years. I don't even remember when I started, it's possible it was at the very start of th…

> The only people who are OK with intellectual property theft are those who don't understand the subject or haven't lived it. //

Perhaps you think it strengthens your argument to use a miscategorisation that both you and most of your readers know to be a false equivalence. It does not. It shows you're happy to ignore the truth in order to cast those you disagree with as criminals; or, you're ignorant, which I doubt.

You don't need to be happy with IP infringement in order to be not-happy with corporate (group A) [criminal] destruction of the property of others (group C) based on tortuous infringement of a third party (group B).

Not to mention that IPR goes against an established culture in the country of some of the infringers (group B).

TRIPS Art.35 requires IC circuit layouts to be protected for 10 years (as in 17USC S.904), IIRC. I don't know Chinese law though, perhaps IC related IPR has lapsed for the chips in question?

The OP headline chip is 20 years old (edit: I had the date wrong). Counterfeit, trademark infringement, is wrong of course.

>What I do know is that I'll be damned if I am going to blame the victim. //

You seem happy that one of the victims, the unwitting purchaser of an item having an copied FTDI chip in it, gets punished? In preparation of the sui generis IC mask rights the USA senate committees apparently were careful to ensure that users - "innocent purchasers" they're referred as - could only be punished by paying a royalty and that devices would not be destroyed or confiscated. That seems balanced and avoids punishing victims beyond what is reasonable.