[Amps] "Refurbished" BLF188XR's on eBay?

[Alek Petkovic]

By "refurbished" they mean that they have been sandblasted and then 
labelled with any label you want to choose. The transistors themselves, 
are nothing like what is on the label.

I bought some, a number of years ago, for my FT-1000MP MKV. They were 
nice and clean and had the correct label on but they were NOT the 
correct device. In fact, the 4 I bought, were all completely different 
from each other! Just the same package and label.

Don't go near them. Ever.

Cheers, Alek.
VK6APK

On 13/09/2019 6:27 AM, Jim Barber wrote:
> Thanks, Greg.
>
> Yes, it was just wishful thinking on my part. DigiKey's current price is
> $186.31, which is down quite a bit from 2 years ago.
> Compared to a 8877, it's quite a bargain.
>
> 73,
> Jim N7CXI
>
> On Thu, Sep 12, 2019 at 12:59 PM Greg Wasik<gwasik at gmail.com>  wrote:
>
>    
>> Jim
>>
>> Be careful with these. They are all from China it seems. I have read about
>> someone trying one of the re-furbs and it failed at high power. Someone
>> else mentioned that there are hundreds (if not a thousand) bonding wires
>> that make up the internals a real device. My guess is that these re-furbs
>> probably have enough re-furbed bonding wires to make the device appear to
>> work with in a low current test, but can't handle anything higher
>>
>> Also a way to tell a possible fake is to look at the tiny notches that are
>> on the drain tabs.There have been fakes that don't have these notches and
>> sellers on Ebay sometimes show a photo of the device that is only looking
>> at it from the gate tab side. Or they show it only in an ESD bag..  Walk
>> away immediately...
>>
>> Greg
>> K1YW
>>
>> On Thu, Sep 12, 2019 at 3:37 PM Jim Barber<barberaudio at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>
>>      
>>> I'm seeing a good number o "refurbished" BLF188XR's up for sale on eBay.
>>>
>>> What does "refurbished" mean? They look like new NXP devices, but for $108
>>> USD I doubt it - unless they're surplus or fall-outs?
>>>
>>> If I knew they were genuine, I'd probably buy a few.
>>>
>>> 73,
>>> Jim N7CXI
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>>      
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