Hmm... Something's Burning

[bucky]

So the last of the parts came for my first project, and I carefully wired it up on breadboard to test it.  With anticipation, I attached the batteries to the circuit.  There's a loud pop and I smell something burning.  I look down and the op amp is smoking.  Not only that, it has blown clean apart and is now lying there in two completely separate pieces.

Moral of the story:  Components are cheap, buy multiples of them.  Especially when you live outside of the states and it can take a month for parts to arrive.

[moosapotamus]

Hmm... Something's Burning

"Yeah, it's us!" she said.

Were you wearing protection... for your eyes?

Anyway... Ditto on purchasing multiples even though you may only be building one. Not just as a safety, but after a while you'll also develop a nice collection of components, and the next time you want to make something, you may not even need to place an order because you'll already have the pieces you need.

~ Charlie

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

Where do you live, Bucky? and what chip was it? There might be a chip that (even if it isn't exactly the recommended one) has the same pinouts & will serve for debugging the circuit while you wait for the 'right' one.

[bucky]

It was a 4556AD.  I live in Ontario.

[The Tone God]

I live in Ontario.

Where are you ordering parts from that takes months to get there

Andrew

[bucky]

I live in Ontario.

Where are you ordering parts from that takes months to get there

Andrew

I've ordered from Mouser and Futurlec.  It's not the shipping that's the problem, but the guys at customs seem to like holding my packages for at least a couple of weeks.

[The Tone God]

I've ordered from Mouser and Futurlec.  It's not the shipping that's the problem, but the guys at customs seem to like holding my packages for at least a couple of weeks.

Dude...Digikey.ca. The prices are in CDN and already include brokerage and duties (or there lack of in many cases), the shipping is cheaper, local, and fast.

Andrew

[nelson]

I thought it was understood in most countries that electronic components are not taxed, given as they dont represent a completed product?

I have NEVER been taxed on electronic components shipping into the UK.

[Melanhead]

I've ordered from Mouser and Futurlec.  It's not the shipping that's the problem, but the guys at customs seem to like holding my packages for at least a couple of weeks.

Dude...Digikey.ca. The prices are in CDN and already include brokerage and duties (or there lack of in many cases), the shipping is cheaper, local, and fast.

Andrew

I second that! ... get stuff in a few days, ships from Winnipeg...

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

I thought it was understood in most countries that electronic components are not taxed, given as they dont represent a completed product?
I have NEVER been taxed on electronic components shipping into the UK.

IMNACA (i am not a customs agent) but, I think that if you exceed a certain UKP value, you are going to be hit. You are probably not importing large enough values to be worth charging (think the max in Aust is $A250 if by express, and $1,000 by regular post. I know it doesn't make sense, but what customs regulation ever did?)

[tiges_ tendres]

I dont think we can ever begin to fathom the customs process.  I work for a UPS Store, and on many occasions, customers have been charged in excess of $65 to receive a package that was valued at $40.  Also, I have sent packages valued at $300, that were left on the doorstep!!

As a rule of thumb goes, by ups canada standard, anything valued at less than $20 is free of duties and taxes, and brokerage fee, anything over that, but under $40 is subject to a brokerage fee.

As for other countries, it's a crap shoot.  Germany, England, eastern parts of Europe and Australia, at least from my experience, have given me the most trouble when it comes to customs.

[Mark Hammer]

I was in language training classes with a Canada customs manager for a couple of months and learned a tiny bit about how they work.  They can't check *everything* so they develop a kind of 6th sense about what is more and less likely to be suspect.  I imagine there are categories of items shipped across borders (and certain shippers too)  that have a higher incidence of false values attached to them.

This past summer, Jeorge Tripps shipped me the prototypes of the Liqui-Flange and Roto-Machine for testing.  The package waybill indicated that the contents were "guitar effects pedals" and the value was listed at $100.00.  Nobody at customs or Fedex blinked.  Then the beta-testing team got a note from Jeorge asking us to send back the protoypes and he'd send the production modules.  So we did, and he did too.  Unfortunately, the package destined for me ended up saying "Guitar effects pedals" and had a declared value of "$10.00".  By mistake, a zero had gone AWOL, and the result was that customs said "hold on just a minute there, sonny!" and refused to release the package without a justification.  Fedex hung onto the package for a month waiting for a revised invoice before sending it back to Line 6.

Obviously these guys hadn't seen the ads for the Danelectro Fab series!   Or else they would have thought that $10 was a reasonable price for pedals.

The problem seems to be that the technology and market value of the technology changes so fast these days that few, if any, classificatory schemes for tariff purposes can ever hope to keep pace, and even fewer customs officers can hope to keep pace with the schemes.  The rest of us say "But it's just my chips/pedals!!", but from the customs officer's perspective they have a huge list of categories of things and have to figure otu which category it belongs to.  Is a Tone Core module a musical instrument?  a stereo component?  a digital circuit board? a digital component?  There are a lot of things that customs officers can find hard to classify, and if something seems not to comfortably fit the existing classification system, it still takes time to come up with a new classification system.

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

My advice is,
1. never lie ("It's a gift." "It's a Bible".). Customs agents are smarter, or at least more experienced, than you are.
2. Always put the true value on it, but if you don't, at least make it plausible.
3. Put what it is & the value on the OUTSIDE of the box. Anything you can do to help a lazy customs guy push it on, the better.
4. Regular post items may or may not escape dutiies & tax, whether liable or not.
BUT, FEDEX & UPS etc will ALWAYS attract the maximum, including a 'clearance' fee.
5. An envelope with 'something' in it, is always TOTALLY SUSS to Customs.

[nelson]

5. An envelope with 'something' in it, is always TOTALLY SUSS to Customs.

I "know" someone who sent  a "birthday card" with 1/2 ounce of green in a baggie sort of flattened to a friend in the UK while I was staying in amsterdam, it got through fine......

That was a "suspect package".

An old acquaintance of mine sent several ounces of green in a vaccum pack within a box from south africa, it got through to the UK.

Customs agents arent THAT on the ball imo



It was the stupidity of youth........