Re: (ET) Snow at last...

["David Roden" <etpost drmm net>]

> Harbor Freight ...  Everyone with a shop should have that catalog.

Yeah.  They make excellent fire starters. 

I don't mean to be argumentative or provocative, but the comment above 
touched a nerve.  "Everyone with a shop should have that catalog" only if 
he's a masochist!  

HF is for people whose only criterion is initial purchase price.  They sell
cheap, cr@ppy, frustrating, use-once-and-throw-away tools.  

Once in a while you'll find something decent there, but HF sell a LOT of 
absolute junk.  "Made in China" must be their mantra.  

Not long ago, I received a laser level from HF as a gift.  This "level" 
wasn't.  It was so far off it was laughable.  It might be useful as a toy, 
but for the fact that the laser could hurt the kid's eyes.  

I've seen their $5 DMMs.  They're essentially identical to the one I got 
thrown in as a freebie when I bought a pile of stuff from one of the 
electronics surplus catalogs about 10 years ago.  It was tolerably 
accurate 
at room temperature, but variable in a cold garage.   

One day it quit working altogether.  When I opened it up, I found chip-on- 
board construction.  This is the same dirt-cheap assembly method used for 
musical greeting cards - literally, disposable electronics, designed to 
work 
for only a few months or years.  

In this type of construction, a microchip is mounted not in a clean-room-
sealed ceramic package, but right to the PC board.   It's not soldered; 
it's 
just laid on top of the contacts and cemented in place.  Of course, 
eventually moisture and air contaminants work their way between the 
contacts 
and the chip's connections.  They oxidize and lose contact.  The gadget 
stops working.  By then the warranty (if any) is long expired.  

So, you're thinking, when it quits you just throw it away and buy a new 
one. 
Sure, the $150 or so you'd spend for a decent Fluke buys a lot of $5 HF 
meters.  But what if you make an adjustment incorrectly because of its 
inaccuracy, and destroy a $700 controller?  What about the environmental 
impact of repeatedly manufacturing and discarding products?  

Even if you're really only going to use them once, you'll get nothing but 
frustration from cheap tools.  I know this from experience.  Ask me about 
my 
budget strut spring compressor.  

I admit that I didn't always listen to my father, but I had my ears 
(mostly) 
open the day he told me that cheap tools are never a bargain.  And bless 
him, when he left this world he left me 3 big toolboxes full of d@mn fine 
hand tools - all of which still serve me well, almost 25 years later.  


David Roden - Akron, Ohio, USA

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