Please help me get over my "fear" of stuff made in China

Hello everyone. A year ago I did some Google-ing and came across CPF, which you all know about. Well spending time over there has made me fearful towards buying a budget "cheap" light from these China sites such as DX. Well I came to this forum because I do not have Fenix and McClicky money. I live on a fixed income and can not afford to just spend money on everything that I may want, so I must be smart about what I buy. Well CPF has me thinking that lights from DX and full of problems and hassles.....as if a $150 Fenix is totally trouble free....always. I bought a P60 drop in and host from Manafont based on everyones help from this site in another thread. I am also in the market for a single AA light and I have a thread on that as well. I ordered from DX and then canceled that order an hour later because I am not sure if I bought the right thing and if the lights are any good. I am reading up on flashlight wiki to learn all the texch terms that come with a flashlight and a small hobby. I never got that kind of help and info from CPF. Thank you all for your help in getting over my fear of stuff made in China.

Well, the $150 Fenix is made in China if that helps at all.

Like most things, there are good qualilty Chinese budget lights, and there is also CCC (cheap Chinese crap). The reason you will like hanging around here is that you'll find out which is which. Sort of like that dad who wanted to be sure his kid understood...'Son, THIS is Shin-ola"

But you can also look up just about any expensive light on CPF, and you will find a ton of posts about people who have had problems with it. Paying more does not guarantee a trouble-free light, it just means that you wil have a warranty on it.

But as I explained a few months ago, if you buy a $100 light, and I buy four $25 budget lights, even if one of mine craps out I still have three times as many reliable flashlights as you do. That is how I look at budget lights.

Kind of funny how when I was a teenager, "Made in Japan" was a sign of inferior quality. Now it's the good stuff that is made there...

The following flashlights and brands are made in China (you might recognize these as regular brands crowed about all the time on CPF)

Eagletac

Dereelight

Fenix

4Sevens

ITP

Olight

Maratac by Countycomm (ITP and Mr Lite rebrands)

Inova (since being bought by Nite-Ize)

Nitecore/Edgetac

Duracell

Rayovac

Energizer

This is rarely talked about on CPF because it's simply not Kosher.

If you want to try a simple, reliable single AA flashlight there are plenty to look at, including the Hugsby P31/P32, Tank007 Tk566 or Tk567, Trustfire F23 or a few others. If you want to spend slightly more but still get a good quality, budget Chinese light you could look at the ITP A2.

The other thing that folks on CPF rarely mention is that most if not all of the Chinese budget sites accept Paypal - so if your shipment is late or the product is defective, you have recourse.

Here I've already found guidance on which sellers should be trusted....and those to avoid. I've also been pointed towards some absolute gems ......and even found a few of my own.

I've discovered a fun and (relatively) cheap hobby while collecting a few really useful tools to use around the farm...........Enjoy.

For budget lights, where are the good places to buy from and who are not so good? Who has the fastest and most relieable turn around time and shipping? I see where people wait a month to get a DX order for example.

IMO, Manafont is #1, DealExtreme is #2.

But you are still looking at anywhere from 10 days to 3 weeks for delivery, once your order is placed.

I ordered a stainless steel AAA light from Tmart and had it in 4 days, they shipped it from New York.

Just throw Shiningbeam somewhere too, before DX. Mana and SB are #1 for me, then Kaidomain. Then DX.

I would rate Shiningbeam (and LightHound as well) ahead of DX and MF, I love their short delivery time. But they are considerably more expensive than the other two. I would probably put Solarforce-sales.com ahead of DX and MF as well. But again, more expensive stuff and for S/F, about the same delivery time as MF.

I would put Dereelights as very good made in china goods.

Re-posted this account of mine. Some MIC stuff are good, even some of the CCC - Cheap Chinese Crap like Ultrafire are very good value money and they do last.

https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/2463

I really want to try do a youtube video of a 7 storey drop of the Ultrafire U-80 since now I have broken its virginity, but am afraid I may get into trouble with the neighbours/police.

I don't think of most Ultrafires as CCC, but the $8 zoomies on ebay, those are CCC-but fun!

Just a question, since we are quite international.

It seems to be a very American thing to have a fear of good made in China, you see posts on all kinds of forums where people from the US are scared to buy something fearing it might be toxic or deadly in some other way.

Of course there must be people in other countries that think like that, but I've not seen much evidence of it.

I know you have the whole "Buy American" thing and just wonder if there has been negative hype around problems on imported products to encourage people to do so.

So do any of you know if people in other countries think that Chinese good should be viewed with suspicion?

No! I'm not trying to pick on America :)

I'm fairly certain that at least 75% of the bad attitude they have towards cheaper lights and Chinese retailers is simply down to the fact that CPF is a dodgy dishonest business.

DX, KD, MF and all the others don't give CPF money, so CPF dosen't want them talked about.

While obviously there are light made badly and sold with no kind of QC, there are also budget brands what have problems no more often that the ultra premium brands do.

Well..

I can only respond to this in a simple way although there is a lot more to the way Americans look at buying China good in the way some do.

1) Fear, It is an easy emotion to spread. Not all claims of unsafe goods are unwarrented tho. Same goes for domestic goods.

2)We owe China close to a Trillion dollars by now. If you owed someone A Trillion dollars you might be scared to buy the goods from there ( see #1)

3)Ideology. China employs cheap, some may call slave labor to produce many goods. That does not sit well with some people. This spreads just as quickly as #1.

My feeling is this. If you are a hardline "buy American" guy, toss ur ipod/cellphone.

We do need to get back to "building/manufacturing things here in this country especially in this time that we are at war on multiple fronts and the economy is the way it is ( think WW2). I could go deeper but I failed typing class in school and my mother was a typing teacher :P

Can't speak for anyone but myself, but I fit into what you're saying. Now I don't fear everything from China. I don't fear my iPod, DVD player, and almost everything in my house. What scares me is when something is just incredibly cheap, I mean stuff that is cheaper than what it would cost me to mail to China from brands and manufacturers I know nothing about. Because it is coming straight from China, I forfeit any kind of import protection the government might provide. So it's more of a fear of the unknown and the understanding that when something is too cheap to even comprehend, that alarm bells should be going off.

But at really low prices, the risk seems pretty low. The worst thing (other than items being toxic or made from radioactive parts) that can happen is the thing doesn't work and I throw it away.

The reason I worry about radioactive parts is I visited a a place that manufactures reinforcing steel for concrete from scrap metal once (in Eastern Tennessee, not far from Oak Ridge where the first atom bomb was made). They said one time they had gotten a load of steel that turned out to be radioactive and it made all their equipment radioactive. So now they check all the scrap steel that comes in for radioactivity *before* they melt it. Suspicious of how China does business, I don't doubt that if some dishonest scrap dealer had a load of radioactive aluminum he would try to sell it to anyone he could and if he sold it for cheap to someone who was going to export all of it anyway, what would they care? Aluminum for half-price? I'll take it and double my profit. It's the same country that put poison in baby food in order to get the protein analysis up. Is radioactive aluminum a big stretch?

I once saw a program about where a lot of our recycled tube tv's went. I think it was put on barges and sent to China

I would also throw in solarforce-sales.com for anything solarforce. for $2 shipping it gets here quite fast and ive never received a defective item from them yet.

ever since i found manafont through BLF, ive never gone back to DX. every order i made with them, there was always something doa or defective after a few days of use.

Thanks to all the help I got in the AA forum I just bought this:

1 x Protected TrustFire 14500 3.7V 900mAh Rechargeable Batteries - Colorful (2pcs/set) $6.12
1 x Ultrafire U20 Cree XP-G R5 200-Lumen Waterproof LED Flashlight (1*AA/1*14500) (No Gift Box Package) $19.33

from Manafont. I am looking forwrd to my new toy.

Yeah, well i was on CPF LED forum wavelength. LOL! (not digging at any member, but just at all the discussions going on)

Well to add on to the thread in general, there are 2 types of goods. One meant for internal consumption, and one meant for export. And of course for those meant for export, the QC specced by the more well-known companies (esp international ones) would be good - you paid for it.

China is definitely capable of extremely extremely high quality goods. They still may lose out somewhat to the west for very niche/scientific stuff like military, space. But generally for consumer goods they are capable of really good stuff. Just a matter of how they spec it and how much you are willing to pay for it (most of the time not very much! So what gives? Laughing)

It is probably better to offer warranty and provide a "blanket cover", than to make something last for 10 years....with how fast things move nowadays and consumer spending habits.

Good choice in both lights and retailer. The U20 is excellent

:)