Made in China

Thread Starter

Gdrumm

Joined Aug 29, 2008
684
A friend of mine bought several new Makita Angle grinders at auction, and two of them didn't work.
I took them to see if I could repair them.
The first one was simply missing one brush, and I had one the same size, so that fixed that.

The second one apparently had been used for a few minutes, then burned up. Upon disassembly, I found that the the armature was black from getting too hot (not from normal carbon build up).
I cleaned it all up, and upon reassembly, it simply wouldn't go back together.
I looked down in the bottom of the rear brush housing and saw what appeared to be a bearing cap.
I fished it out and tried to put it on the shaft, and it would not go.
I flipped it around 180, and it went on perfectly.

I was able to reassemble it and it runs fine.
Perhaps a machine was used during assembly at the manufacturing plant, and it put the bearing cap in upside down, the forced to two housing together.

Anyway, it was a fun project.

I saw some burnt plastic in the bottom, and it still has that smell, but it seems to be running fine.

He might get a few bucks for it.
 

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ISB123

Joined May 21, 2014
1,236
Aren't Makita tools made in USA and JPN? I have 2 Makita drills all made in USA but they were bought like 10 years ago so things could have changed.
 

WBahn

Joined Mar 31, 2012
29,976
While I certainly don't have a lot of good things to say about the quality of things made in China, I find that it has become very hard to say that it is reasonable to expect much better even if something was made in the USA. Frankly, I don't know of any country that enjoys a widespread reputation for quality production anymore -- they may exist, but I just don't know which ones.
 

mcgyvr

Joined Oct 15, 2009
5,394
While I certainly don't have a lot of good things to say about the quality of things made in China, I find that it has become very hard to say that it is reasonable to expect much better even if something was made in the USA. Frankly, I don't know of any country that enjoys a widespread reputation for quality production anymore -- they may exist, but I just don't know which ones.
Sadly more and more of us are happy with and accepting the lower cost of lower quality products. The market for such products has grown exponentially lately so we are exposed to it more and more.
There are still many companies in the US and other countries that work hard to produce a quality product.
But we might all have to go to the dark side sooner than later as we are forced to the commonly accepted "buy it cheap..and trash it quick" mentality.
 

takao21203

Joined Apr 28, 2012
3,702
When you consider your drive in order is actually outsourced to a call center 1000 miles away because some clever people have found it shaves off a few minutes + improves quality, you can know about "Made in USA" yourself.

China is where the cheap labour + large population is. As well there is no welfare or unemployment benefits, if you are on drugs you wont be getting any welfare. Even children must work, if not in a factory, they work for their parents somehow. Overtime is regarded as normal no one fighting for 30 hour weeks. 80 hours or more might be quite normal.

You had the car manufacturing in Detroit, and in the 1950s 1960s problems arised, and it wasnt possible to fix them, so after that, the whole areas population is shrinking constantly over the years.

If you want "Made in USA" back, consider $3 to $5/hour, and 60+ hours a week, or its just too expensive. Problem is people willing to work for that will certainly cause problems, not as easy going and paying respect to work as such as chinese.

There is no forced labour either, that's where some of the cheapest China goods come from- basically they are "in" for a year maybe because a misdemeanour, not as dramatic as you maybe think, and must work it off.
 

takao21203

Joined Apr 28, 2012
3,702
DSC02958.jpg

actually the stuff you can get in asian countries is even higher quality- including the food.

Microchip does have factories in Thailand and also Philliphines, Intel has factories there since the 1970s.

There was a NEC factory in Ireland, as well early IBM PCs were made in Scotland- similar problems with people as in USA, and far too expensive. would you like to pay $8000 for a laptop? $2000 for a television? $600 for a mobile phone?
 

WBahn

Joined Mar 31, 2012
29,976
Sadly more and more of us are happy with and accepting the lower cost of lower quality products. The market for such products has grown exponentially lately so we are exposed to it more and more.
There are still many companies in the US and other countries that work hard to produce a quality product.
But we might all have to go to the dark side sooner than later as we are forced to the commonly accepted "buy it cheap..and trash it quick" mentality.
I definitely agree that there are still companies everywhere that strive to produce high quality products, just as there have always been companies that produced pure crap. But there was a time when, sight unseen, you could make fairly decent assumptions about the quality of a product based solely on the country of origin -- certainly no basis for any kind of a guarantee, but fairly decent assumptions. I don't know that that is the case any more (at least beyond the blanket assumption that it is all crap). To a large degree that is confirmation that there truly is global competition in so many areas. That the cheap crap dominates the marketplace is not so much a reflection on the supply side of the equation, but the demand -- if the demand was for high quality products that last, then the global marketplace could just as readily respond to that as well. But that is not what is being demanded and, to a large extent, that is not unreasonable. In so many areas it doesn't matter whether a new product lasts three years or thirty years because its useful life is dictated by the features and capabilities that will come out in the new models six months from now. But in so many other areas, where products still do have useful lives, despite technology marching on, that are measured in tens of years we still see comparable sacrifices in quality because the demand for higher and reasonable levels of quality just aren't there even for those products. Of course, even in the high turnover market it has gotten absurdly ridiculous -- when I had to recently purchase three different DVD players to finally get one that lasted more than a few weeks and that third one is already having problems after just a few months....
 

takao21203

Joined Apr 28, 2012
3,702
The problem is not just price and quality. There are countless China items you cant get domestically.

And if you can get them, price is often 5x to 10x- even blatantly the same items.

Would you like to demonstrate a few junk items which actually dont work or break soon- and show their domestically made counter parts of much higher quality?

Its called a product review. There are magazines for that, for instance Audio Amplifiers, while for decent music volume, they all somehow work, like a cheap $8 China Radio would work without any actual difference, the reviews elaborate about a transmission graph for frequencies not present in regular music and no one can really hear them, the ususal gold plated connectors and oxygen free copper to crank the ultimate out of your recordings.

If you browse a media market and look at the covers, you could consider "What are they actually doing", and in the end "I dont like music at all". So why need an expensive amplifier?

If you have large amounts of money to spend for sure you can find a domestic manufacturer. Authentic Luis Vutton hand bags from Paris, a replacement tag costs 80 dollars? A 2 Euro plastic mesh bag just isnt good enough. I actually used one for travelling abroad.
 

GopherT

Joined Nov 23, 2012
8,009
If anything was made in the USA by people willing to accept $3 to $5/hour, you would have a product with terrible quality. Even McDonalds employees are paid $8 per hour and the store is dirty and service is poor. I would rather eat in the local Chinese place for a lower price than McDonalds.

As per quality, I don't know of a device with more quality than an iPhone. I have met with the people at Apple and learned some of their development and procurement methods. They are crazy about quality (real quality and customer-perceived quality). Everything about the iPhone is intentionally designed (the design of a button, the look of a button, the feel of a button - surfaces, top edge, bottom edge, ...). The parts are made perfectly and rejection rates are surprisingly low. If someone tells me there is lack of quality in china, I simply say that there is lack of oversight or lack of expectation or inability to negotiate and enforce a contract with a supplier. The guys at Apple are in China two weeks per month and on top of their suppliers constantly.

Again, China is not bad quality automatically. The Chinese are like anyone else with negotiating power, they will give you what you are willing to accept. If a company's savings are only a few hundred thousand per year, the company is not going to give that savings up with a few dozen trips to China each year to manage the supplier. Once the Chinese supplier knows that, the 'manufacturer' gets what he gets for outsoucing.
 

mcgyvr

Joined Oct 15, 2009
5,394
actually the stuff you can get in asian countries is even higher quality- including the food.
China bought American company Smithfield SOLELY for their quality procedures/methods as they CANNOT achieve that level of quality on their own. The meat is being imported into China as high quality pork,etc.. simply cannot be achieved there.
 

GopherT

Joined Nov 23, 2012
8,009
China bought American company Smithfield SOLELY for their quality procedures/methods as they CANNOT achieve that level of quality on their own. The meat is being imported into China as high quality pork,etc.. simply cannot be achieved there.
They can easily make the quality. The motivation for Smithfields was that good quality Pork costs more in China than it does in the US! The Management of Smithfields were not maximizing the value of their product and marketing it in China and, therefore, a Chinese company who was willing to make the extra effort, found more value in the company than anyone else. I say, shame on Smithfields Management.

It also resolved the issues of Pork farming. There is not enough space to deal with the manure waste in China. The manure is too caustic for rice paddies and causes various gastrointestinal diseases if it flows into still water.

There is so much more than quality in that story.
 

bug13

Joined Feb 13, 2012
2,002
You got what you paid for.

If you pay $1, you would get something worth $1. If you pay $1000, you would get something worth $1000.

Some people only willing to pay $1 but expect $1000 quality. (Me being one of these people sometimes. :rolleyes:)
 

Ramussons

Joined May 3, 2013
1,404
You got what you paid for.

If you pay $1, you would get something worth $1. If you pay $1000, you would get something worth $1000.

Some people only willing to pay $1 but expect $1000 quality. (Me being one of these people sometimes. :rolleyes:)
Unfortunately, pay $1000, you would get something worth $1000. is generally not true. You get something worth more than $1. But a lot is expended on unnecessary overheads.
 

Thread Starter

Gdrumm

Joined Aug 29, 2008
684
Perhaps it wasn't right to pick on China, because I've seen junk products all my life, and from a lot of different countries.

Germany and France seem to have good products, but they are more expensive.

I do miss the made in the USA references to quality and value.

On the up side for me, I'm addicted to picking up the electronic junk that other people throw away.
It give me a chance to learn, repair, re-purpose, and frequently re-engineer stuff.

It makes a great hobby, and theres a satisfaction that Mic cain't get.

Thanks for te feedback everyone.
 
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