It’s a crap-shoot…
I wonder to know if you have ever had the online shopping experience before and what you bought.
An led voltage tester, one of the 7135 test boards from Oshpark for checking 7135’s or stacks of them, needle nose pliers, surgical steel tweezers, locking hemostat, solder wick, flux, wire solder, solder paste, both Teflon and silicon wire in various gauges from 18-28, lots of reflectors and optics( just throw something into each order), springs, switches, bare LEDs, copper mcpcb’s, decent magnifying lamp, helping hands, thermal paste, thermal adhesive, jbweld, fujik adhesive,
So……, the stuffs are damaged or in bad conditions ?
Well, obviously.
The problem is all the budget stuff that is all the rave on BLF is not sold in local stores. You will not find any 18650 batteries locally either.
The quality of products shipped from China can be questionable, and there is also a risk of getting counterfeit products.
But that is the downside of paying low prices.
Yes,I can understand.
I think not every stuff from China can be questionable.It largely depends.
That’s why I wrote “can be” and not “is.”
I can give you an example. Everyone knows that if they get a C8 from Convoy (host or complete), it’ll be the Real Deal™. But if you get a C8 clone off Fleabay or Amazon, it’s a crap-shoot.
A few years ago, I got some C8s and ’502s which were pretty fantastic. Bright (at least 700lm), an LED that looked like a genuine Cree XM-L or at least was a good clone. Build and fit’n’finish were top-notch (one of those ’502s I use as my EDC with a different drop-in). While the light was definitely cool-white, it wasn’t an ugly Angry Blue color.
About a year later, I got a whole bunch more C8s for use only as hosts, but wanted to see how they’d be anyway when complete. Utter garbage. Plastic reflector (not aluminum), no O-ring between lens and bezel, cheap crappy LatticeBright chip that was about the size of an old XP-E, definitely Angry Blue light, and barely 70-80lm out the front. Oh, and the pill was also cheap aluminum, about half the height and a third of the weight of an actual brass C8 pill (type 1 head).
It was depressing.
I noticed that in general, “quality” has been a race-to-the-bottom. One uses a cheaper LED to reduce costs and try to sell a few more lights, and the next bozo uses an even cheaper LED to cut costs more and sell his lights for a few pennies less.
Oh, but these 70lm lights are touted as 1000lm!, 1200lm! 1500lm! 3000lm!, ie, supposedly so many lumens coming out that one little LED chip that it’d have to be cryogenically cooled to liquid-helium temperatures to get that much light out of it.
Ie, blatant lies and outright fraud.
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I bought a couple of D26 drop-ins that were advertised as 3V-18V, even with a sticker slapped on the side of the pill stating so quite boldly. Well, I tried hitting it with ~8V from a pair of 18350s instead of a single 18650. It got very blue and very dim for the 1-2 seconds I had it connected. Its “current regulation” was no more than a single small-value resistor! So of course, hitting the poor chip with double the voltage must have almost fried it. To the chip’s credit, it still lit up well from a single 18650 after that.
So what went from about a 4-star rating on Amazon turned into a 1-star scathing review calling out and naming the seller, so that no one else gets, well, “burned’.
And that’s another problem, that on Amazon, the “same” item can be sold by a dozen different vendors, some with good merchandise, others with garbage. That’s why I try to name the vendors in my reviews, both good and bad. So if LuckyLady888 sells something good, I’ll say so. If HappyLuckySunMoonStar sells garbage, I’ll say so, too.
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I went out of my way to never ever get an unknown clone of any C8, ’501, ’502, etc., online anymore. It’s not worth the crap-shoot I mentioned. True, with Amazon you’ve got their a-to-z guarantee, but it’s still a chore to do a return. (Unless of course they just refund the bux and don’t expect a physical return, but how often does that happen?) From other sellers (FT, GB, etc.)? You need to snap pix, take videos, jump through the requisite number of hoops, before a year and a half later you eventually get a refund. 
So now, I’ll get Genuine Convoy™ hosts (S2+, S5, C8, etc.) if I want to roll my own. FT is pretty good for that kind of thing. Actually, really good. I never had a problem with any hosts I got from them. Or I’ll get name-brand lights like from Jetbeam, etc., if I want off-the-rack.
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Oh, something I just saw today… I wanted wire. Simple, plain, everyday wire. 18ga, individual or red/black pair, was open to anything. One seller, AudioPop or something, was selling “18ga” wire and made a very bold and big note, “Wire gauge is not AWG!” or somesuch. Well, for good reason. They got slammed by lots of people yelling fraud, that their “18ga” wire is actually extremely thin, more like 20ga if not 22ga! Wtf?!?
That’s like saying you’re selling a “12-inch ruler”, only “inch” is not “US-inch”, so the 12” ruler you get is only 5½” long!
Ah! Here ya go… Read it and weep: Amazon.com
But crooks like that get away with it! At least long enough and often enough to make a profit at it.
As I mentioned just before, a few years ago you’d stand a chance of getting quality goods. But as little as a year later, “quality” took a nosedive. Getting a no-name C8 clone today would be laughable. (Obviously, I’m excluding reputable clone-makers like Thorfire and now-defunct XinTD, but those were the exceptions. Getting a generic C8 that only claims “CREE XML-T6” (instead of “XM-L T6”, the hot item from like 3yrs ago, har…) will in all likelihood be one of the garbage-quality clones like I got last year.
It doesn’t pay to buy generic anymore.
I can understand what you said.It is no doubt that when you find out the stuff bought from online was counterfeit,I can feel you’re pretty angry.And I also have the same experience as yours.This case can not be completely avoidable.
Man thank you so much, this is what I mean!
A locking hemostat I never knew it was called that.
And thermal adhesive I always thought they only made the paste, but this actually is sticky and can well…. it’s adhesive…. I don’t know why I’m trying to explain what it does….
I already got most of the other stuff like 26 AWG wires and helping hands, I’m not must of a flashlight modder yet though.
Mostly I fix/repair small electronics, stuff that other people throw away and monitors.
Here is another option:
It spits out 2.048V and 4.096V and is accurate to within 0.1%.
Not from China, but inexpensive nonetheless. 
The problem is it’s so darn tiny, it can be a bit of a challenge to work with, but workable. It needs a voltage source… a household 9V battery works.
More info on this board:
Ok,what you have said makes sense.
So if the item is cheap, you can consider buying from outline.