EEVblog #12 Part 2 of 2 - Shanghai Special - Dodgy USB Hubs

[Technoguy3]

I spent a decent amount of money on eBay for a noname USB hub once. Mistake. Even when the computer was off, the USB hub was feeding power back through the connected port. The LED lights on my case were on, and the computer was off. That was concerning, so I unplugged the USB hub, and bam. Fixed.

[260830107]

It actually costs less than 25cents USD (or less) to make one of these USB hubs.

[nasoszeppos]

typical chinese crap. the stuff we see on ebay for $2 and we all know work for a day at most. you wouldn't expect something better from these guys...

[kcjony]

China has the ability to build some of the crappiest items that you mentioned but they also have the ability to build the greatest.  It is just a matter of time and I believe China can do better and they will.

[jpelczar]

What's up with those black round craps hiding the whole functionality of the device ?

[williefleete]

wow. the soldering on that chinese hub was bad,

[dancraggs]

Wow, the difference there is huge! I have a very dodgy one, one of those with four ports on one side, maybe 3" x 1.5" in size. Gonna open it up later and see how bad it is.

[ubuntututorials]

I bought one of those hubs. Not exactly the same one, but it had the same logo and was single sided, and pretty much was the same garbage: ceramic resonator, cheap red LED, badly soldered joints, epoxied chips. Didn't work. I had a look at it and saw several dry joints and one component was only soldered on one pin! On Linux, I kept getting error logs like unknown device -21 and such. It was only £1, and I was able to return it.

[Gameboygenius]

If the errors you pointed out weren't enough... No 220 ohm protection resistors on the data lines, no power overload protection, and I'm pretty certain the power traces on the boards are too thin for the USB power rating. But the irony of the missing power caps is of course that the holes and pads are right there on the board! Wouldn't have taken too much effort to just solder them in place. Although I suspect that this thing was made by people who bought surplus, maybe even discarded parts.

[gmcjetpilot]

Before you bash all china made stuff, some is pretty good. One is a short wave radio I have Degan (or Kaito) DE1103 (KA1103). I bought cheap china made capacitor meter, oscilloscope probes and yes even a USB hub..... they all work fine. Whey I do with the USB hub is not demanding, so all I can say is it works.

With that said yes there is junk. However they make tube audio amps. Perfect no, but for $400, even if you have to tweak it, it would be impossible to make that just from parts.

[circuitbent]

you know what the problem is. They're made in china!!! heh..

[kchididdy]

what amazes me is that people keep buying the "garbage" products that you've discussed. I fall for it all the time. money makes people do stupid things!

[JINXZER]

Awesome video, diffently getting better everytime, im impressed.