Allen Bradley products from China

Hi guys,

I've been offered A-B products from China at very low prices but a friend of mine told me to be careful cause the items could be counterfeit. Actually the company "Schneider" sent emails to its customers warning about Chinese companies doing reverse engineering in China and selling Schneider products as legit

Has anyone in this forum purchased A-B items from China via ebay?

Could you share your experience?

Do you really save money?

Here some ebay channels of chinese providers:

https://www.ebay.com/usr/oli5191

https://www.ebay.com/usr/koan3308

https://www.ebay.com/usr/goodservicestore

Thanks for your feedback

Don't know about AB, but there are a lot of Mitsubishi copies on eBay and Aliexpress.

There are loads of counterfeit PLC's on the market, there are differences. for example take the equivalent of the Mitsubishi FX3U, these are sold as the equivalent, however, there are some differences, some of the standard functions do not work however, most of the normal run of the mill ones are ok, the PLC parameter assignment cannot be changed as per the real FX3U, therefore you are stuck with the non retentive variables being as standard, the communications are only at 19600 (or was it 3800) Baud (Mitsubishi GX IDE is capable of changing on the fly the clone is not, even when using GX IDE).
The build quality is generally poor.
These are ok for a simple bench sort of test rig but would not trust them in a manufacturing environment, probably find it does not support any Mitsubishi extension cards etc.
But then if you have the programming IDE, no need for a PLC for testing as it has a simulator so why bother.
I would not use this for home automation either, the chances of a fire are probably a lot higher as they are often not built using quality components that comply to the current standards, which poses another issue, if used in industry then the system could not be CE marked, if a problem occurs then the system builder would probably be prosecuted and law suits would start.

They’re usually legit. Grey market stuff but usually the real deal. Go ahead, save some money.

Just be aware that Rockwell Automation will not warranty any grey imports, they will only honor stuff sold by their distributers.

Alan

Looking at those links they do appear to be legit (probably redundant stock or from a failed company), so they do look like the real thing, however, as stated before there are many clones that are not legitimate or even built to the same standard so it is buyer beware.

Thank you

chantecler said:

Hi guys,

I've been offered A-B products from China at very low prices but a friend of mine told me to be careful cause the items could be counterfeit. Actually the company "Schneider" sent emails to its customers warning about Chinese companies doing reverse engineering in China and selling Schneider products as legit

Has anyone in this forum purchased A-B items from China via ebay?

Could you share your experience?

Do you really save money?

Here some ebay channels of chinese providers:

https://www.ebay.com/usr/oli5191

https://www.ebay.com/usr/koan3308

https://www.ebay.com/usr/goodservicestore

Thanks for your feedback

Click to expand...

The Schneider products that were fake were mainly circuit breakers, never seen or heard of a counterfeit Schneider PLC.

tragically1969 said:

The Schneider products that were fake were mainly circuit breakers, never seen or heard of a counterfeit Schneider PLC.

Click to expand...

I have seen them, and also Siemens and as previously mentioned Mitsubishi.
It is important to note that I have seen also original products from Siemens, Schneider and Mitsubishi for China and India market. I have tested them and I would not ordered them ever for my self.

I have had to deal with a Chinese supplier for a customer more than once.

They basically search and resell at discounts, none of the AB stuff was counterfeit we received. Can't say that for any Mitsubishi though - they were all clones.

I bought some 1hp ab drives on ebay from a chinese vendor.

They appear legit, packaging is identical to oem AB. I haven't taken one apart or anything to do a direct A/B (haha) comparison to a true known oem drive, but I have so far installed one and it works as expected. We will be putting it into service tomorrow so we shall see. I have 10 more queued up for another project, which should be the real test.