The Lamp Room

OK so pretty much all Lighting is made in China now, even when I called in to see Fitzgerald they were very happy to announce to me that the fittings were all made in the UK on PCB is manufactured by power light. But they did admit that the actual chips are made in China. So given recent global events and with the way China is looking to join in the Ukraine war on the Russian side, either by supplying military equipment or other means and the other instability caused by China with regards to Taiwan. What would happen if a full blown conflict arose between the west and China? When you think about it it’s not just the Lighting that would be at risk we have so much made in that shit hole now we will be completely screwed!

3 simple words as a reply here Kev:

WE'D BE FUCKED

Well Biden is provoking the Russian bear by flying surveillance drones over the Black Sea, that then was intercepted by Russia, so it’s almost like us idiot westerners are trying to fast track thermonuclear WWIII!
At that point China won’t have anyone to sell anything to anyway, so nobody wins!

I am working on the design of some electronic projects in the switching power supply area

I have taken a "Chinese Components Free" position since the beginning, for the fact of what China itself is, that was before all the Russia and Ukraine BS took place



For most electronic components, including LED chips, there is full availability of industrial components made elsewhere - Taiwan (which does need our support), Philippines, Japan etc

By industrial components i mean the common format components such as transistors, ICs, electrolytic capacitors etc

(There are military components out there many of which are made in the USA, but they are useless for building industrial/consumer electronics - They are basically very old vintage components inside and out that are too far behind for building modern high power (few 100s W) stuff, very slow made to order production that the military industry itself have to preorder a year ahead to get them manufactured, and cost accordingly. But they are the only ones rated for e.g. high spec military and space applications)



For some assemblies there is a problem :

Things that are a bit more than just a component, such as an LCD module, are often only made in China

Toroid cores made of magnetic dust alloys (used for making compact high power chokes, with magnetic properties very different from ferrite) are only made in China (thanks to 2 companies who moved from the USA a few years ago). For most of the things you would use those for, you can substitute something made of ferrite, but it would result in much bigger component size (however the ferrite component is usually more energy efficient)

This one is an example of case when we do in fact have the ability to do without the Chinese stuff, but it would end up being not as slim etc. as what the stuff being marketed to the people (unless we bring up the technology on our side)



Finding where components are made are a problem too. Most places that sell them won't tell you (for "we love everyone in the world" reasons) unless you buy the components and get the info on the package (which is required by law so they are required to provide it). I have been putting significant time and effort to figure out where componetns are made or to design stuff avoiding Chinese components

And even then, the Country of Origin of component only says the last stage (e.g. putting the chip in the plastic case), whereas the origin of the chip itself - the real high tech stage (which i think is the thing that i want to keep out of China the most) is unknown

This avoiding of Chinese components does make the device quite a bit more expensive



Even bigger difference is in the cost of PCB manufacturing. There are PCB manufacturers all over the world, but everything outside of China is 3x....5x more expensive

And i can guess why : You dont pay them in $, the real payment is the fact of handing them drawings for your circuit so they can steal it

Together with the bigger cost difference of PCB, and especially the fact that PCB cost is significant part of the total cost for a small batch production project, the "Chinese Components Free" product can easily cost 2x+++ of either the "Made in China", "Made in China but we put in the last 4 screws in UK", and somewhat (probably not by a lot) than "Made in UK but the one small bit that makes it all work is made in China" products

The last one ("Made in UK") does in fact have production facilities, jobs, etc in UK so it looks great on the outside, but in fact it is nowhere near the same "Made in UK" when the actual core of the technology was there. (And i can substitute UK for Israel or anywhere else)

Then the price point of the Chinese (or hidden Chinese) stuff is taken as the scale off which other things are based. For example the same (already fraudulent as they are, even before we bring China into the considerations) energy saving payback period calculations of LED lighting