A Cautionary Tale - Alli Express

[EasyGoing1]

Re: A Cautionary Tale - Alli Express

Go to your order page and check the order, that will show what you actually ordered.

The order page has a product description that matches the item page ... though the image is clearly not the image on the item page and I never looked at the order details after I bought it.



Of course, I knew the price was most likely too good to be true and so I was willing to risk a few bucks to find out. So I am by no means upset about what happened at all cause I knew it was risk going into the purchase. I just thought that if by some chance I do get what they described on the product page then ... SCORE! lol

[stj]

Re: A Cautionary Tale - Alli Express

I've never seen anything like this before. It is simply amazing! A few things that stood out to me:

1) We got NOTHING on china in terms of western retail culture
2) I only saw one person smoking
3) The shop owners clearly have ZERO worries about their products being shoplifted. I assume the penalties for shoplifting in China must be extreme.

kind of puts radio shack in its place!

penalty for shoplifting is you get the shit kicked out of you until the police intervene probably.
like it used to be everywhere.

[EasyGoing1]

Re: A Cautionary Tale - Alli Express

kind of puts radio shack in its place!

penalty for shoplifting is you get the shit kicked out of you until the police intervene probably. like it used to be everywhere.

Radio Shack hell ... we got NOTHING like that out here ... though they do have what four times the people that we have?

It use to be in some arab countries - though I don't know if this is true anymore, but the penalty for shoplifting was that you lost your hand ... literally.

A communist country like China? I wouldn't put such measures past them ...

ah ... looks like 3 to 20 years in prison depending on the severity of the theft and the history of the thief

As is outlined in this article

Still ... pretty steep punishments for theft...

[stj]

Re: A Cautionary Tale - Alli Express

china likes labor camps.

hand chopping = saudi's and to a lesser extent afghanistan and iran,
but in the last 2 cases you really need to be adicted to getting caught - usually they just give you a public wipping or throw you in prison!

[EasyGoing1]

Re: A Cautionary Tale - Alli Express

china likes labor camps.

hand chopping = saudi's and to a lesser extent afghanistan and iran,
but in the last 2 cases you really need to be adicted to getting caught - usually they just give you a public wipping or throw you in prison!

Barbaric ... to the core.

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Re: A Cautionary Tale - Alli Express

I wonder if those chips are even real, sometimes I wonder if sellers assume you can't do anything with BGA chips and send you dummy chips and hope you just eat the loss from the order mistake... ouch.

yea, some sellers even have a notice and warning on their item page saying that bga chips are fragile and prone to being damaged from the buyer's own "soldering error" or bad/poor soldering technique. no refunds are allowed for buyer's own soldering mistakes.

if that was the case then how do u know they sold u a working bga chip in the first place? this is clearly the seller trying to wash their hands of responsibility on what exactly they bought. the seller has no clue on what they bought or whether it actually works or not.

i actually also wanted to buy some bga chips to replace the faulty ones on some of my mobos and video cards. but when i saw that disclaimer crap on the aliexpress seller's item page, i just said fock it. i wont be buying bga chips from chinaland. maybe some place else.

hand chopping = saudi's and to a lesser extent afghanistan and iran,
but in the last 2 cases you really need to be adicted to getting caught - usually they just give you a public wipping or throw you in prison!

Barbaric ... to the core.

for singapore, the punishment for armed robbery and bank robbery is many years in prison like in china plus whipping/flogging with a horse whip dipped in vinegar for extra pain. so singapore is like the chinese plus arabs rolled into one.

Of course, I knew the price was most likely too good to be true and so I was willing to risk a few bucks to find out. So I am by no means upset about what happened at all cause I knew it was risk going into the purchase. I just thought that if by some chance I do get what they described on the product page then ... SCORE! lol

so just be careful of what u see on the item listing page the next time. if u see square image boxes of stuff between the price and the quantity on the item page then u need to select the exact variation, color or whatever of the item u are buying.

[EasyGoing1]

Re: A Cautionary Tale - Alli Express

so just be careful of what u see on the item listing page the next time. if u see square image boxes of stuff between the price and the quantity on the item page then u need to select the exact variation, color or whatever of the item u are buying.

Well, as I pointed out before, there were no "color" or variation options of any kind.

One of my recent replies to this thread has the link to the actual item that I purchased.

[stj]

Re: A Cautionary Tale - Alli Express

i checked the link and had the color options.
try it again on multiple browsers

[Lisa Su]

Re: A Cautionary Tale - Alli Express

I know some AliExpress sellers are sketchy. But in this case, it's totally on you.

If you take a look at your own screenshot in the first post, you can see the "Color" options. Your mistake before placing the order was selecting picture in the left side instead of correctly selecting actual item aka "Color" in the middle.



I guess you were looking around and then left the "Color" selection on individual RP2040 chip from 3rd from the bottom. We can confirm it by checking your order detail screenshot here



Sorry to see you have wasted time and money. It's understandable since AliExpress in general is somewhat confusing and many new buyers make these same mistakes.

[EasyGoing1]

Re: A Cautionary Tale - Alli Express

AliExpress in general is somewhat confusing and many new buyers make these same mistakes.

Thank you for pointing out the different image / color options. When the color option was mentioned, I was looking for a drop down / combo box, and so I didn't even notice the various images as being color options.

I didn't select any of those options, I just looked at the item description, the image of the item on the left and the price, then just added it to the cart.

But in the future, I will be more thorough before putting something in the cart.

But after looking at your screenshot markup, when I clicked on the first "color option" it does look like they are selling the Pico with the chip mounted to the board for around $5 ... which still seems like a decent price to me.

[EasyGoing1]

Re: A Cautionary Tale - Alli Express

For anyone interested, I found a simple PCB design guide for the RP2040 chip.

Also some KiCad files that look decent as a starting point or even just ordering as is.

Those came from this Digi-key link which also discusses PCB design requirements for the chip.

[stj]

Re: A Cautionary Tale - Alli Express

raspberry pi stuff is open-source, you should be able to find the schematic and board for the original if you wanted.
**but fit a bigger flash

[sam_sam_sam]

Re: A Cautionary Tale - Alli Express

AliExpress

One note to be aware of is that I order something that had an option to get four of the same exact item but they are shipping it in two separate boxes for some reason but they do not tell you that this is the case until you have two different tracking numbers

And the tracking number information is very slow to update as well

My package of 12 amp Milwaukee M18 battery pack shells came in the mail and customs opened one of the packages and did not repackaged correctly but I was not missing anything that I am aware of

But until I have put the battery pack together I will not leave any feedback for this purchase

[sam_sam_sam]

Re: A Cautionary Tale - Alli Express

I had to open a dispute with AliExpress for the Milwaukee battery pack repair kit that I bought the BMS protection board does not work correctly at all

They do not turn power to the output of the BMS protection board instead it turns on the two most LEDs from the switch for the fuel gauge button and not charge the original BMS board flashing one LED light most to the fuel gauge and went solid after a few minutes and I have power to the output side of the BMS protection board

I had to use the original Milwaukee BMS protection board that the batteries had become unbalanced

So I do not any extra battery packs that I thought I might have so now I want a partial refund for order which was about $40.00 for each one

[EasyGoing1]

Re: A Cautionary Tale - Alli Express

I had to open a dispute with AliExpress for the Milwaukee battery pack repair kit that I bought the BMS protection board does not work correctly at all

u have a link to what you bought?

[sam_sam_sam]

Re: A Cautionary Tale - Alli Express

u have a link to what you bought?

Here is a link to it

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3256804189572441.html

The tabbing and the hardware and the enclosure are good and made it easy to put the battery pack together but I just can not use the BMS protection board that came with the kit

[stj]

Re: A Cautionary Tale - Alli Express

what was under the heatsink on them?

[sam_sam_sam]

Re: A Cautionary Tale - Alli Express

what was under the heatsink on them?

It is two heat sinks one on top and one and one on the bottom with a plastic spacer with mosfets on both sides 2 to 4 of each side

I take some pictures later today

[EasyGoing1]

Re: A Cautionary Tale - Alli Express

I take some pictures later today

[sam_sam_sam]

Re: A Cautionary Tale - Alli Express

Yea I know my job has taken over my intentions I will try today to do it