Real CA3080?

[xorophone]

Hello! I've just finished a Ross Compressor, but as you might have guessed, it didn't work. I checked some values and audio probed the circuit and I'm pretty sure my CA3080E chips aren't working. I bought five of them from eBay and at least two are broken, so I'm guessing they're fake. I know it's always a bad idea to buy chips from eBay, but they have always worked before, so I did it anyway. The seller was polida2008. Watch out!

Where do you get real/working CA3080 chips? I'm looking for the DIP-8 model. Smallbear has them, but the shipping here is really expensive. If there's no other site I can order from, I guess I'll have to get them from Smallbear anyway. Are they any good?

Thank you!

[Ben Lyman]

Join the club! haha
Ya, Small Bear 3080 is good, just got 2 myself and they work perfectly fine

[chuckd666]

There's this website www.3pdt.com that's based in Thailand that I believe only sells legit stuff - they're small and just make pedals and my experience has been generally positive! So that can be a good option if you're not in the States.

[xorophone]

Join the club! haha
Ya, Small Bear 3080 is good, just got 2 myself and they work perfectly fine

Thanks! I guess it's a safe bet.

There's this website www.3pdt.com that's based in Thailand that I believe only sells legit stuff - they're small and just make pedals and my experience has been generally positive! So that can be a good option if you're not in the States.

Thank you! Does anyone have experience with the CA3080 chips from that site?

[bloxstompboxes]

polida2008 is pretty reputable if I remember correctly. I have bought a lot from him. You should be able to get replacements or money back if you try. They have a good rating for a reason.

[PRR]

SmallBear bought all the genuine old stock he could. As that ran low, he worked with Rochester, an old-time obsolete chip supplier for military and industrial users, to run and test a wafer of '3080. When he had apparently-bad chips he worked with the customer here and off-forum to make it right.

You can in fact buy the chips right from Rochester now, but the shipping won't be better and I noticed they charge more than Steve does. (It would be reasonable for the factory to not under-cut their best customer.)

[xorophone]

polida2008 is pretty reputable if I remember correctly. I have bought a lot from him. You should be able to get replacements or money back if you try. They have a good rating for a reason.

Interesting. I've seen a few warnings online afterwards, so there's definitely other people who have hade bad experiences. Usually the buyers rate the product before testing it, so I've never really believed the ratings.

I haven't tried getting my money back, because it was such a long time ago I made my order. The chips definitely looked salvaged or something. They were a bit dusty and looked like they had a thin solder coating on the pins, but I'm not good at spotting fake/salvaged chips.

Is there any good way to test the chips to make sure they really are fake? I'm pretty sure they are, because the problem I am having with my compressor is that there's signal on the input of the chip, but nothing on the output.

[bloxstompboxes]

polida2008 is pretty reputable if I remember correctly. I have bought a lot from him. You should be able to get replacements or money back if you try. They have a good rating for a reason.

Interesting. I've seen a few warnings online afterwards, so there's definitely other people who have hade bad experiences. Usually the buyers rate the product before testing it, so I've never really believed the ratings.

I haven't tried getting my money back, because it was such a long time ago I made my order. The chips definitely looked salvaged or something. They were a bit dusty and looked like they had a thin solder coating on the pins, but I'm not good at spotting fake/salvaged chips.

Is there any good way to test the chips to make sure they really are fake? I'm pretty sure they are, because the problem I am having with my compressor is that there's signal on the input of the chip, but nothing on the output.

I'm at work so a little busy at the moment, but you can always try swapping it into an already working pedal if available. Otherwise, there are sometimes test circuits shown in the datasheet. Lastly, the only other way is to trust your build, or have someone else check it, and pop it in there.

As for the seller, he has a 99.4% feedback rating. I generally trust the ratings since they are done by the buyers. I know since I sell occasionally myself. A seller wants a good feedback score, of course, so most are willing to help. I have no idea how long after a purchase he/she will do returns or replacements though. I am in no way associated with this seller, other than having bought good items from them in the past. I am just trying to suggest options.

[duck_arse]

this is one of the most asked questions of late. it might be worthwhile for aron to make this thread a sticky or something, then when people get the bad news they have purchased a dud chip/s, they could name the supplier. next to come along would only need to check, and if their supplier is listed as bad, saves another "my dyna doesn't work" thread.

[armdnrdy]

this is one of the most asked questions of late. it might be worthwhile for aron to make this thread a sticky or something, then when people get the bad news they have purchased a dud chip/s, they could name the supplier. next to come along would only need to check, and if their supplier is listed as bad, saves another "my dyna doesn't work" thread.

How many times have you witnessed a new builder...and some seasoned ones....blame a bad part right out of the gate?

I'm afraid that a list such as this would be akin to blacklisting during the McCarthy era here in the U.S....where everyone was a communist...because somebody said they were.   

[banjerpickin]

If I might make a different suggestion - I've stopped messing with CA3080's altogether in my comp builds and moved to using LM13700's and just cutting a vero daughter board each time.  They are cheaper than the price of a guaranteed working CA3080 and I've never had problems making room for the larger chip in the enclosure.  I get them when I make Tayda orders for like $1.50 or something silly cheap like that and every single one of them has worked.  Yes, cutting the vero and wire takes a bit more time, but I was spending similar amounts of time (plus frustration and headache) dealing with the bad CA3080's.

Here a post of mine that has some volt readings from pins of a bad CA3080 if you want to compare yours plus the vero layout:
http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=116470.msg1078571#msg1078571

[reddesert]

In general, I think builders should not blame components first (IME most problems start off as loose or wrong connections), but in specific, there have been a lot of reports of 3080s that don't work, including ones ordered off ebay. For rare or out of production ICs, I think getting them cheap on ebay is now a red flag.

I made a pedal (Madbean Kraken) with a LM13700 from Tayda, using the daughterboard shown here: http://tagboardeffects.blogspot.com/2012/10/emma-transmorgrifier.html and it works great. This is an easy approach if you have an LM13700 (they are cheap) and want to debug your build.

[duck_arse]

no need to invoke old uncle joe. we would of course ask them "the question" first, to make sure the IC is a dud, to wit; "what is the pin5 voltage on your build?"

[davent]

Someone on another forum recently pointed to Banzai, who are in Germany, as a source.

https://www.banzaimusic.com/CA3080E.html

Grindcustoms (Canada) also shows them in stock, but shipping to you... ?

http://www.grindcustomsfx.com/product/rca-ca3080/

dave

[armdnrdy]

There is also the LM13700/CA3080 daughter board option: http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=105341.0

[xorophone]

If I might make a different suggestion - I've stopped messing with CA3080's altogether in my comp builds and moved to using LM13700's and just cutting a vero daughter board each time.  They are cheaper than the price of a guaranteed working CA3080 and I've never had problems making room for the larger chip in the enclosure.  I get them when I make Tayda orders for like $1.50 or something silly cheap like that and every single one of them has worked.  Yes, cutting the vero and wire takes a bit more time, but I was spending similar amounts of time (plus frustration and headache) dealing with the bad CA3080's.

Here a post of mine that has some volt readings from pins of a bad CA3080 if you want to compare yours plus the vero layout:
http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=116470.msg1078571#msg1078571

There is also the LM13700/CA3080 daughter board option: http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=105341.0

I'll probably get a CA3080 for this build because I want to stick to my plans, but I'll probably not bother in the future. Thanks!

Someone on another forum recently pointed to Banzai, who are in Germany, as a source.

https://www.banzaimusic.com/CA3080E.html

Grindcustoms (Canada) also shows them in stock, but shipping to you... ?

http://www.grindcustomsfx.com/product/rca-ca3080/

dave

Nice! Thank you. Grind Customs had very cheap shipping so I'll probably order from there. I wonder why shipping costs vary so much..

Does anyone have any experience with the CA3080 chips from Grind Customs?

[chuckd666]

I'm sure they'll be fine! Most guitar effects related stores tend to vet their products before they are sold.

[xorophone]

I'm sure they'll be fine! Most guitar effects related stores tend to vet their products before they are sold.

Yup, I'll try them out! Just wanted to make sure I don't have to deal with more fake chips.

[pinkjimiphoton]

polida2008 is pretty reputable if I remember correctly. I have bought a lot from him. You should be able to get replacements or money back if you try. They have a good rating for a reason.

yeah, i've never had any problem with poleda either. i still have a rail full of them from the talking pedal years ago. send them a message on ebay,
ask for replacements or your money back.