From: "David Roden" <etpost drmm net>
Reply-To: noaddress drmm net
To: elec-trak cosmos phy tufts edu
Subject: Re: (ET) Snow at last...
Date: Fri, 09 Feb 2007 14:43:34 -0500
> 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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