I recently had a problem with a product I purchased off Banggoods, it was a Trimui Smart Pro game device. It would not start, and in fact I never did get it to work. Within 8 hours of starting my dispute with Banggoods, I had a full refund, and re-ordered the device because it was the product I have been looking for. The second unit works great and they allowed me to keep the first one after they gave me a full refund. This is the way a dispute should be handled. First I sent them photos of the device, they asked me to make a video of it not working, I did that and up loaded it to RU-vid. When they viewed the video, the refund was issued. I have dealt with Ali Express as well but thankfully all I got from the worked. I got my TinySA from Banggoods and it appears to be genuine by all. checks so I am happy about that as well.
The Aliexpress buyer protection is BS. I had one seller send me a totally different part, and Aliexpress Buyer Protection policy stated it would be fully refunded. However, Aliexpress would not refund me the total amount, so I then opened a case with paypal, who did refund me. DO NOT TRUST what Aliexpress says in their Buyer Protection. In comparison, I never once had an issue with getting refunds from counterfeit sellers on Ebay.
I understand and sympathize with your experience. Yes, Aliexpress can be hit and miss but just because there are some bad apples selling on the platform doesn't necessarily mean Aliexpress should be avoided, I'm a regular shopper there and my experience has been mostly good, the occasional issue has been sorted out for me but I appreciate your case being a tricky one!
They should definitely refund in such a clear case where there is documentation from the project about which products are fake. Don't jip your customers. This is also the downside of getting products shipped from half-way around the world, they can't afford returns except in the most glaring circumstances.
Thanks for this info, Melvym . I'm on the verge of buying the Big Brother Tiny SA Ultra, which I'm sure will similarly attract fakers. Mirfield are the place to go, I think. Forty more quid but peace of mind. "Caveat Emptor" as someone once said .
Ok? So nowhere in the video are you actually USING the thing? It's a counterfeit, sure, but does it work?? Can it actually "analyze spectrums" as it's supposed to do?
Yes but you might as well not bother as the measurements it may display cannot be relied upon whatsoever to be accurate nor worthy of further investigation if it does show anything. Might as well play the frequency as a tone and ask Granny if it sounds OK, for the good that this clone will do.
@@elmodiddly nonsense. Just because it’s a clone does not mean that it isn’t a usable instrument. After all the stuff is open sourced. To really know one would have to compare it with a known good SA not just assume that because it’s a clone it can’t be relied upon.
If you were to plug "stopband fail" into a search engine, the first hit links to a post asking about a self test 7 failure on a new unit. The link also includes a reply from some dude named Erik Kaashoek: Ah, test 7, the band pass filter. The critical part of the stop band is at a rather large offset of -4MHz from center (at the far left of the screen) so this will not have any impact on the performance of the tinySA. The shape of the band pass filter is excellent. I may have set this selftest a bit too strict given the (at the moment of definition) not know spread over a large amount of products.
I can't watch any more...it's like listening to Trump's reasoning :O\ It's a bazaro world and nothing makes sense any more. I've come to believe (in 2023) that ~63% of the human race are !#%$@#. However, thank you for the video. I made it to 20:13. It just became to frustrating - as I'm sure you know. Cheers from So.CA.USA 3rd House On the Right. p.s. Definitely subscribed :O)
Thx for sharing and presenting your evidence to us so that we can see that AliExpress is siding with their seller no matter what evidence a buyer presents showing that a product is not as advertised. I've had the same result with EBAY on a similar issue. They advertise they have a guarantee that you'll get the product that is shown or you'll get your money back this is just not true. Too bad our US Federal Trade Commission and State Department and your UK counterparts don't intervene and crack down on all these sham sales companies. The big problem is who do you deal with if you actually want a good and proper unit? Again thx for taking the time to share this behavior from AliExpress.
You overwhelmed them with information they couldn’t easily understand, so it became a he said/she said. If you had just said “failed self-test” then it would have been fine. I think in particular, pointing out the mis-spelling would trigger “this guy is a whiner, a misspelling is no big deal.” Also, they don’t know what a “project owner” is. The vendor did a good job of adding to the “noise” by making irrelevant comments that they claimed refuted your comments, even though they had nothing to do with anything. Obviously this isn’t about the money. Everyone involved has spent more time than is warranted for a sub-$100 project. :)
I am now in the market for a TinySA or a TinySA Ultra. Banggood are offering the Ultra for about £ 100.00. Obviously I am not able to check the Serial Number or the Firmware Version until I have the device to hand. I have just subscribed to Erik's RU-vid channel "just in case".
I'd guess that 90+% of the things that Ali sells are knockoffs of one thing or another. It's what they do. You've proven it's a knock off, and demonstrated that Ali doesn't care. That's useful. You've proven that you likely can't trust the data from the device, but you haven't proven that the device doesn't work. Those are two separate things. I basically view Ali as a company without any ethics. But, here in the US, we kind of expect companies to not have any ethics. If you contract with thieves to manufacturer your product, don't be surprised that the thieves will rip you off. That's how clones are often started. The original designer outsources the manufacturer to overseas production. They do that to lower the price point, but it comes at a cost.
re: "but you haven't proven that the device doesn't work." Do you catch what Test 7 conveys? Missing internal components involving a front end filter? Que?
@@uploadJ Sure! But what's the impact on the real world use? You're not going to use a TinySA, any version, at a busy radio site and expect it to work, or even not get the front end blown out. It's a hobby tool, or one for a pro to use to check things on isolated sites. For simple troubleshooting, probably even tuning duplexers for a ham, it's going to be fine. None of this is lab quality gear.
@@tomsmith3045 re: "You're not going to use a TinySA, any version, at a busy radio site" Surely you're not a noob? I have a water tower that shows within the 1/2 mile range marker on a shipboard X-band RADAR, and the amount of RF coming off that tower (ATT, Verizon, T-Mob, etc) with the spectrum that the 5G air-interface protocol allows presents a problem JUST using a regular scanner nowadays let alone a device w/o proper LP or BP filtering in the front end ... we aren't living in your Dad's RF environment anymore.
@@tomsmith3045 BTW, I'm the original designer of the 1 5/8" Heliax-based 6m duplexer (over 30 yrs back now), and I've had more than just 'tune up' experience in making measurements of 90 dB notches and pass bands on that tech. Best tool when tuning up individual notch stubs was an HP8640B generator and the 8405A vector voltmeter, and later used an HP8591E.
I would have thought that going for the cheapest option would be more likely a knock off Also always pay with paypal and when you get the crap and lies you got do a paypal claim, they will refund you and then TAKE the money from the Cinese criminals
Thanks for the contribution, it's really a shame that Aliexpress doesn't defend the buyer once all the evidence that it was false product has been shown. Personally I am a recurring buyer of Aliexpress, I am going to buy in Zeenko Store and in 20 days I will give my verdict...
It DID pass the "self test," initially. Why was its performance not then tested? Nowhere, in this video, is any testing done. A proper test would be, to feed it a square wave, and see if the frequencies and amplitudes, of the harmonics, are what they should be. Ideally, the result should be compared with that of a "real" spectrum analyzer, to make sure the waveform, itself, contains no unexpected distortion. Who cares what "firmware" version it has, whether it has a serial number, whether it was made by Hottentots in a thatch-roofed shop in the Kalahari, etc, etc. "The proof of the pudding is in the eating."
Well... a lot of bla bla around a 1 minute test described on the website in 10 lines... no proof of what the real difference is in measuring or signal generating . Maybe it´s still usable for people who just want to see spurious signals or harmonics for a small amount of money ?. Someone else was describing the differences much deeper and , honestly, my 25000$ 1980 Ailtech is probably not more reliable than this clone... i still can use it for what i need mostly. ( i own a genuine ultra )
I don’t think they’re clones. I think they are units that were rejected in quality control and were somehow obtained by a seller who tried to sell as authentic.
You are buying it at what is the internet equivalent of a flee market. What do you expect? A clever shopper can get some great deals but shopping there for precision equipment is silly.
I have recently purchased a TinySA through R&L Electronics, and can't wait for it to show up! I was bit by the counterfeit market with a fake NanoVNA, but I wasn't out much, thankfully! The real unit works very well, and makes VNA measurements a breeze. But the ability to hook it to my computer and use the monitor is a big help with my eyes, and the ability to do the same with the Tiny SA was a big plus in my decision to buy it.
FYI the version string "tinySA_v1.1-66-g2015f17" looks like the output of the "git describe" command, which can be interpreted as: "commit SHA-1 hash starting with 2015f17 (hex) which is 66 commits after tag tinySA_v1.1 in the history". Of course this doesn't tell much about what was changed, for that one would need an access to the actual source repository.
aliexpress are tossers,had a solar panel advertised as 12v output at 1kw!,it tested 3.9v at 3 ma max,complained about it not as advertised and gave them pics,they sided with the seller!,i got zero refund,there refund policy doesent work!!,buy elsewhere,seems chineese cant be trusted,ebay is full of chineese liars too!.
Since the TinySa project is open source, could an individual take the gEDA files and schematics from get hub, send them to a PCB manufacturer and essentially build their own TinySa? Thanks for the video! BTW , nice Lastname -Jason Burchell
Hi Melvyn, your video provoked me to check mine. Fortunately it appears to be genuine, Unusually I have not looked inside but it was not running the "patched" firmware and does have "HIGH" spelt correctly. Have just uploaded the very latest NOV 2022 firmware (V1.3-504) and it continues to pass self test.
It´s scary. Sorry for you. After seeing your video, I gave up to buy a TinySA from Ali Express. I´ve just placed an order from R&L Electronics. Ali Express refused to take your evidences, it´s quite clear. Ali Express, never again. Totally unsafe. Greetings from Brazil.
I was somewhat annoyed at Ali but have had many good experiences through them that I just let it pass... I did end up buying again through Ali but from the recommended outlet - which of course passes all tests fine for just a few quid more...
Can you not claim through your Credit Card protection? Also, is the problem fixable? I.e could you get the proper parts and replace to make it pass the test?
