It is very easy to fake chips by a manufactory with the proper gear
years back big manufacturies added some sort of hard particles above the silicon chip layers so you can not polish each layer open without destroying the first layers
the question is if the copies reach the original chips specs or not
It is quite simple why you can buy those only in China and Taiwan, they get copied in Taiwan and sold to chineese suppliers
I doubt why an original Atmel factory should do spelling error of their size code that is there for ages and all batch markings removed on old stock and then export tens of thousands to a Taiwan chip manufactory and chineese suppliers
copying chips is not that hard, you simply polish each layer of them use a very good mictoscope to make of each layer a template
I never said it could not be done, I said it doesn’t make a lot of sense to copy this particular chip as it does not seem to be very popular due to how hard they are to find (generally popular items will have large stockpiles in china and be easy to get).
Regardless, it does the job and has not had any issues that I know of. That is all that matters. They are looking into the issue for future drivers now.
making this chip in Taiwan costs the factory like 10 cents or less selling those at 60 cents in 1000 pieces is quite a very good profit, as Atmel chips are pretty expensive compared to other chips
Its quite simple for Lumintop to find out if those are original, send pictures of them to Microchip and ask if those are original old stock or not
It is not that simple, they do not even see the chips before the final drivers are delivered, the production house takes care of most of that.
And once they are delivered the drivers are already tested and working, so why go looking for a problem when they already work fine?
It is completely understandable that they would not even think there was a problem. I didn’t even think to check on the prototype.
You didn’t even notice the problem until you had an issue, because that is just how things are, if there is no problem, why go looking for one?
I am not sure what your agenda with this entire discussion is? They work, they are looking into it for future drivers, there is nothing they need to do about the drivers already made at this point.
seems like quality management on their side is not pretty good, I saw it right when I had the driver in front of me that its not the original marking
Like I said I doubt those chips meet the full specs like the originals have
if I tell the fab buy original Atmel chips they should not source some chips from a doubtful source in China or Taiwan,
if they import the chips in a big quantity they should not pay more than the chineese supplier payed so it should be cheaper
Its not hard to order 1000 chips from USA supplier to the Fab,
there is no need to source them in China if costs and profit do not play a role as Lumintop pays for it
I am not going to get into it other then to say that lumintop has been one of the best manufactures I have worked with in regards to quality and honesty. They take the extra step to make sure things are done right and when they say that they did not buy fakes, I 100% believe that they did not knowingly buy fakes.
I will also say that the sourcing process in china is FAR more complicated then you make it sound when it comes to hard to find parts. So complicated I had to “smuggle” in the components for one company to build some drivers by ordering it myself, then shipping it to china under the radar, which in the end almost doubled the price of the components due to all the shipping and fees and taxes and such. All because they could not order it directly.
China goes out of it’s way to keep companies from importing things from other countries. The more I learn, the more I am glad I live in the USA.
If Fireflies has 0 problems sourcing Attiny85s and all other parts for DD driver from Arrow USA, why should a Chineese fab or Lumintop should not be able to get it?
They complained about its too expensive and I insisted on it, it wont be that bad to pay like 1$ more than sourcing some doubtful parts in Chiona, but this way they get guranteed original parts in good quality.
Its not that hard for a manufactory to check a driver if the components are the same as they have to be,
optical inspection, which should show something wrong with the Attiny85 markings, they had original in the past so they should notice the difference
check if resistors are 1%
check mechanical tolerances ect.
If they just assemble the light and check if it works and call this quality management they are doing something wrong
Not to bad mouth a whole country, but when it comes to flashlights the quality control there is below what most people expect. The attitude is usually “If it works, it’s fine”.
When I was working in a company making 3D scanners that are used to scan buildings tanks and so on there were several issues even with german companies
for exaple for high frequency part measuring the timing we ordered custom coils with copper wire with 45um silver coating as only those meet the specs
in the past those were made by hand from an assembly worker
using those coils reduced the accuracy by a lot
so one engeneer found out testing the coils with HF, that the silver coating must be too thin
so they had to make 1000 coils again this time with wire we supplied to them
also all electical parts even resistors were stocked and aquired in the our company and then send to the PCB fab to ensure component quality
would you complain if you order a PC mainboard with original Intel processor if instead you get some other cheaper fake processor, even if it runs?
When you buy a lamp and it works with the fake µC I really don’t see a big problem like TA. It is a flashlight not a rocket.
But if you want to flash a new firmware on it it is different. Especially when future driver incorporate the Flash-Key™, you don’t look on the chip side anymore.
That can be a big trap with the next BLF flashlights.
@agro
You can get Arduino Uno boards for $3 shipped from China to Europe. I don’t think the chips are original.
I need to get my butt in gear and put the driver together for release but I have just been too busy / lazy to get around to it since it is only for this one light and the light already has the same driver installed.
Yeah, I have a few drivers I need to clean up and release. They are 95% ready but that last little bit of preparing it for the public is really annoying lol.
can you help me ? where do I get this driver?? or could I use the astrolux s42 driver or another flashlight that makes it easier for me to get the driver? the lantern of a friend came with a defect and I’m trying to help him
