PIC chips from China, shipped in Styofoam

[JosephM]

Am I right to refuse 10 PIC chips I bought on Ebay, whichshipped from China in a piece of regular cooler type Styrofoam? I am certainlynot going to ship them back, as the shipping would be more than the total costof the chips, plus shipping from China, courtesy of our own government’srelaxed fees for things coming from China into the US.

I have no proof that the chips are damaged, and I might not notice the damagefor a long time. I wrote to the seller and told them how I feel, and said thatthey were not acceptable because of the way they were shipped. The correct foamwould not have weighed more, so how stupid do they have to be to not bother todo it right?


Joe

[Chirpy]

I order stuff from overseas all the time, and usually it will come in a type of foam, usually the stuff mine arrives in is a pink foam, but it doesnt mess with anything.

[wdmagic]

you have several types of foam

Styrofoam (White cooler type) can hold lots of static electricity, if you get a chip shipped on this, wrap foam and chip in aaluminum foil and ground it, remove chip using ground strap on wrist. if you want to store chips on white foam, wrap the foam with foil before adding chips

Pink Foam (can be foam rubber type or plastic bubble type) this is fine for shipping, basic ESD protection, minior conductivity, provides mostly antistatic control. not reccomended for CMOS devices

Grey Foam (foam rubber) pretty much like white styrofoam, not recomended for chips.

Black Foam (True Antistatic Foam) this is the choice item for storing chips in foam, its antistatic, and its conductive foam. best choice other than antistatic plastic chip carrier tubes.

Tubes are the best, if they are antistatic. They keep pins from being bent, and are fairly cheap. Save tubes and black foam from items shipped to you.

[rmteo]

Since you are located in the USA, you can get common electronic components such as PICs very efficiently from reputable distributors like Mouser, Digikey and/or even Microchip Direct. Why take the risk of buying from auction sellers?

[Chirpy]

for me, the reason is most of those places dont allow paying with paypal, only credit card, which is the reason I order over ebay. also the parts are a bit cheaper by the time you factor in shipping and everything too. ebay allows you to use paypal and at cheaper prices, but at longer shipping time.

[wdmagic]

Chirpy, try to find someone that sells in the USA that sells on ebay and that ships in tubes or black foam, look at this guys item for sale-
PIC Sales link
If you look he's in the USA and he states that he ships in chip tubes. so there are people that can get you what you want faster, with paypal, and ship properly.

[Charlie]

Conductive foam comes in all colors. Just because it's white does not mean it's a problem. And even if it is the wrong kind, most PIC micros meet MIL spec ESD exposure and have a pretty good sense of humour. Unless you are building a mission critical life support device, you are probably worrying for naught.

[Chirpy]

@wdmagic, I dont really care about shipping time tbh, if i really need parts really fast, Ill just give money to someone with a credit card and have them order the stuff from a company like jameco, and yea, the esd foam does come in some pretty funky colors, but Ive never really had any trouble with anything shipped in it.

[JosephM]

I can assure you that I know one type of foam from any other, and these parts were shipping in big bead, white styrofoam found in a typical ice cooler. The parts might survive that type of shipping from half way around the world, but I was not going to accept it.
My money was refunded, and I was allowed to keep the parts. I may give them a try at some point. Te other interesting thing about these parts was the logo on them, it was not a Microchip logo.

[Demon]

I'd send a picture to Microchip.

Maybe you just bought a set of fakes that had been discussed here a good while ago.

Robert

[languer]

The other interesting thing about these parts was the logo on them, it was not a Microchip logo.

So you got very cheap parts (cheaper than Microchip even sells in bulk), they do not even have the right logo, and you still wondering why other places are selling them for more money? Welcome to the new world economy - where counterfeit parts are the norm. But honestly, you're buying from a less than reputable source at prices you know are somewhat unreal; you already knew what you were getting - you are now just confirming it.

[Heckler]

"You get what you pay for"

I'd be more concerned that the chips met Microchip standards and quality assurance checks, let alone whether they were shipped in static protective packaging.

They may fail later on due to the fact that they are seconds or knock offs.

Have you tried one to see if it will even operate?

[Demon]

Probably just pins in black epoxy. lol

[rsocor01]

Probably just pins in black epoxy. lol

Nice ! I wouldn't be worried about the styrofoam at all . This reminds me of an article I read a while back in sparkfun.com. They bought a bunch of Atmega microcontrollers that ended up being fake. Here is their story

http://www.sparkfun.com/news/350

[Graham]

The black foam ESD protection material is a carbon loaded foamed polymer with a relatively high bulk conductive value. It also has the property of degrading into a crumbly mess over time, giving off some sort of corrosive product. I lined some plastic drawers with the black packaging material around ten years ago and stored most of my mos transistors, cmos and memory chips in the drawers. I found sometime recently that some of the least used devices stored in the foam had started to show signs of corrosion and adhesion to the foam on the pins. Maybe a reaction with atmospheric moisture or materials in the foam causes this. Devices stored from much earlier in the plastic shipping tubes show no such deterioration.

[wdmagic]

Thats odd, I've got some from 20 years ago and theres nothing wrong with it. I guess is possible its just different kinds. like everything they make similar items 50 different ways.
Another interesting use for conductive black foam "Pressure sensors" get some copper foil and conductive glue, glue 1 piece of foil to each side, as you squeeze the plates close the resistance decreases. you can make a very basic scale, or something. great project for kids.