The don't fake JFETs now.......do they?

[GGBB]

I did a bit of digging and found out that the j201 in TO-92 package is apparently still available from Linear Systems and InterFET, and the TO-92 2N5457 is still available from Central Semiconductor.

[garcho]

The more we freak out, the more rich dudes will buy these buy the thousand and gouge us for them later! 

[smallbearelec]

That's strange, I thought Smallbear had over 400 of them when I ordered, looks like he has only 2 left from Vishay.

We have plenty of both. I just told my assistant to post more, so pls check back.

SD

[pakrat]

@garcho  You are right about that!

@smallbearelec  Thanks Steve.... 990 in stock!

[smallbearelec]

The more we freak out, the more rich dudes will buy these buy the thousand and gouge us for them later!

It might not be as surefire an investment as you think. One factor limiting what a brokerage can charge for such parts is the cost of buying surface-mount JFets and getting them bonded to headers. As part of ensuring the preservation of my furry hide and the livelihoods of my staff, I Have Investigated This, And It's Doable--at least for the forseeable future. Between the stock of TO-92 that I have accumulated and the ability to create work-alikes, there will be no shortage for DIY and small production. I have done, and will continue to do, my best to frustrate efforts to corner the market. Don't freak out, and shop with confidence.

Regards
SD

[Mick Bailey]

Fakes cost me a lot of money in wasted time re-working repairs and building equipment that doesn't work right for some reason. You get the new part and the lettering, finish, colour or die imprints or something else is different to the original. You think hmmmm, install the part and it's either noisy, hot, blows or simply doesn't work and you've got 100 of them. It's everything and it's getting worse.

Nowadays, where possible, I deal with traceable suppliers, reputable companies or trusted sources for my main components. They've all got a battle on to eliminate fakes, but supply chains get infiltrated and it's not impossible for the major component suppliers to get bitten. The problem is when you need to get unusual or obsolete parts sometimes you're tempted by low price and low postage. Here in England if you want to send a parcel back to Thailand or China you're in for a shock; that 'free shipping' that winged your cursed goods from Far-Eastern artisans to your front door doesn't work for free in reverse. It's more cost effective to throw away the items than to return them.

From China, Hong-Kong and Thailand I've had fake or misrepresented;

Pots
Power transistors
Capacitors
FETs
ICs of all descriptions
Circuit board material
Power resistors
Knobs
Switches
Connectors

Mainly branded with trusted manufacturers' logos. Some rub off easily to reveal inferior or unbranded components.

Now, I've also had decent stuff, but more bad than good, so I watch out. I bought a load of blue 3P3T switches and every one had an early bath. Some people get lucky with these. I didn't.

Setting up a screen printing operation and a few jigs to align components is easy. You've got to look at wage levels overseas to understand why this can be worthwhile. Get a job lot of TL072s, a couple of rubs on a sheet of wet-or-dry for each one (or acetone or whatever) and re-letter it as a precision op amp at 20x the price. So long as the pinouts are correct it will probably work to a degree.

I don't think there's any single product that isn't faked. But, If you go to a Mercedes garage for a part that costs £300 and see one brand new, boxed on Ebay for £57 "You've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punk?" Same with electronic components.   

[pakrat]

Well said Mick. The very first components I ever bought from ebay were fake CA3080E's. It took me a week to debug the build until I took a closer look at the chips. I replaced them with ones I got from Smallbear and the debug was over. Since then I just don't take the chance with ebay unless it's something you can't find anywhere else, it's just not worth the risk.

[caress]

futurlec's J201s are also fakes and way more badly done than tayda's... sanding was so obvious the faces of the transistors were slanted and on some they didn't completely sand off the underlying manufacturer/part number branding.  at least 2 or 3 were possibly rebranded Fairchild U1898?  a few were also definitely Fairchild Jxxx but just likely not J201.  sad.   

[Ronan]

I had an interesting finding recently. A friend wanted some J201 for an Azabache pcb, so I dug out the "real" ones, and put them in a simple breadboard circuit to make sure they would bias to the 5V required in the Aza instructions. I had a hard time finding any of these "real" J201's to bias at 5V at the drain. I then got out my Tayda J201's, and they biased up fine in this circuit. Then to be double sure, I removed all three known to be working and biasing correctly J201's from my working Aza pcb and tested them in the same breadboard circuit and they biased up fine, two of them were Tayda-sourced and the other one was a real one. I checked all the Tayda-sourced ones (I only had about 6 of them) and all but one were in spec for the Vgs cut-off for a J201, but all on the medium to high side for sure. The "real" ones had a lower Vgs cutoff and a lower Idss so the current through the device was too low to get the required 5V on the drain even with the 20K trimpot.

So that gives us a little bit more to think about, I think Unless I got it all screwed up. Which is always possible. So i guess I'm suggesting to individually test jfets for the intended circuit.

[duck_arse]

do your j201's have any branding on them? mine are all natsemi, and I've had them for about 10 years.

[tuckster]

Sorry for necroposting...
I just ordered 100 mpf102 for $32.80
Does it sound like a reasonable price or pure crap?
Lets wait a few weeks 

[duck_arse]

which end of their specs are you hoping for, the 8V end or the 0V5 end?

33c fets always sounds good to me. you going to do the full suite of measures and catalogue, or just throw em onna floor and pick the first one?

[solderburn]

Has anyone ever bought any transistors from Tayda? are they real?
I Bought a few J201s, 2N5088s, NJM4558s and TL082s. they seem to be legitimate, but i don't know how to and probably can't test them because i don't have a multimeter.
I use a engine diagnostic tool for voltage readings and stuff.

[duck_arse]

I just bought 25 each 2n3904 and 2n3906. I tested about half of each lot, the 3904 were hfe 220~230 and the 3906 were 270~300. there are a few "half-shots", and no recognisable brand name, but at 2c each, they'll do. also some 2n7000, I haven't tested yet.

get that meter!

[tuckster]

which end of their specs are you hoping for, the 8V end or the 0V5 end?

33c fets always sounds good to me. you going to do the full suite of measures and catalogue, or just throw em onna floor and pick the first one?

I never had more than 5 at the same time on my bench I think. This time I celebrate a measure party with the j201 I ordered from Tayda :-) I ordered before I found 20 of them in a drawer...

[garcho]

Has anyone ever bought any transistors from Tayda? are they real?

Of course they're real. No offense, but this thread is crazy. People's pedals don't work because they make mistakes, not because of fakes. Swim through the forum, you'll find a million threads that start out with someone thinking they have fake whatever because they bought cheapo parts. Inevitably, the issue is incorrect orientation, cold solder joints, shorts somewhere, messy vero, etc. Yes, there are some fakes of really expensive rare items, yes some cheapies are out-of-spec, but no one is wasting their time trying to con pedal builders into dropping 3 dollars on fake FETs, get real.

[armdnrdy]

I agree with Gary 100%

It seems to be human nature to blame the non working condition of a build on a "bad" part.

I know......I was guilty of that when I first started building stompboxes. 

Although for my first delay build (AD80) I received a bad/fake MN3005 which led me into several days of troubleshooting.

I was looking for a mistake that I made. When I received another 3005 from a different seller......it fired right up!

[midwayfair]

Has anyone ever bought any transistors from Tayda? are they real?

Of course they're real. No offense, but this thread is crazy. People's pedals don't work because they make mistakes, not because of fakes. Swim through the forum, you'll find a million threads that start out with someone thinking they have fake whatever because they bought cheapo parts. Inevitably, the issue is incorrect orientation, cold solder joints, shorts somewhere, messy vero, etc. Yes, there are some fakes of really expensive rare items, yes some cheapies are out-of-spec, but no one is wasting their time trying to con pedal builders into dropping 3 dollars on fake FETs, get real.

Well, by "fake" most of us aren't talking about it not really being a transistor, or causing a build to fail, but rather that what's printed on the case isn't what it specs as. The "fakes" are a pain for two reasons: (1) Most of them are lower gain than the ones we want (J201s or 2N5457s), and (2) FETs are inconsistent enough without adding out-of-spec to the mix.

The gain issue is particularly relevant when making overdrives or FETzer valve stuff, because there's only so much voltage gain you can expect before you have to use a different bias point and mess up the sound qualities of the design.

If I buy 10 JFETs from Smallbear or the DIYSB forum, I can be reasonably sure I don't have to test them to find out if I need a different trimpot value or redo my biasing network so that something that's normally near 5-6V is suddenly 2-3V like they're a completely different transistor that's not even remotely comparable to the J201. When I was getting them from Tayda, I'd have to resort them when they came in the mail, and they're not any cheaper.

[pappasmurfsharem]

Has anyone ever bought any transistors from Tayda? are they real?

Of course they're real. No offense, but this thread is crazy. People's pedals don't work because they make mistakes, not because of fakes. Swim through the forum, you'll find a million threads that start out with someone thinking they have fake whatever because they bought cheapo parts. Inevitably, the issue is incorrect orientation, cold solder joints, shorts somewhere, messy vero, etc. Yes, there are some fakes of really expensive rare items, yes some cheapies are out-of-spec, but no one is wasting their time trying to con pedal builders into dropping 3 dollars on fake FETs, get real.

Well, by "fake" most of us aren't talking about it not really being a transistor, or causing a build to fail, but rather that what's printed on the case isn't what it specs as. The "fakes" are a pain for two reasons: (1) Most of them are lower gain than the ones we want (J201s or 2N5457s), and (2) FETs are inconsistent enough without adding out-of-spec to the mix.

The gain issue is particularly relevant when making overdrives or FETzer valve stuff, because there's only so much voltage gain you can expect before you have to use a different bias point and mess up the sound qualities of the design.

If I buy 10 JFETs from Smallbear or the DIYSB forum, I can be reasonably sure I don't have to test them to find out if I need a different trimpot value or redo my biasing network so that something that's normally near 5-6V is suddenly 2-3V like they're a completely different transistor that's not even remotely comparable to the J201. When I was getting them from Tayda, I'd have to resort them when they came in the mail, and they're not any cheaper.

Buy 100smd ones from mouser and order a bunch of those adapter boards I uploaded to oshpark for use in the other thread

No fakes then:)

[garcho]

Jon, unlike many contributors to threads about fake parts, you make lots of pedals and understand what you want out of a component. I'm not trying to shoot anyone down but if builders less prolific than you convince themselves fakes are a significant concern, they might waste time and money shopping for more parts instead of just building more things and learning a little theory and making less cold joints and shorts and broken wires, etc. I keep an organizer tray of ICs that for one reason or another I suspect to be dead. There always ends up being at least a few that when given a second chance before being thrown magically work again. My breadboarding skill is occasionally impressing to myself, but obviously leaves much to be desired...    Anyway, I think the fake thing is overhyped but I've overstated my case now.
I've always been a vocal proponent of Small Bear. If you can put together a shopping list, the 'dreaded' (and completely fair) shipping prices are marginal and you will receive standard quality or better parts, as well as great customer service. We also maintain a guitar-centric component shop (certainly not the only but the most stocked and well known) for the community, which is priceless.

EDIT: I bit the bullet Nick, bravely going forward into the not so distant past of SMD technology!