4 ms·

A word of warning to those building this same contraption: if the solid state relay you're using is the one pictured in this article and you received it togethe

A word of warning to those building this same contraption: if the solid state relay you're using is the one pictured in this article and you received it together with the cheap PID temperature control shown, it's almost surely a counterfeit. It will work fine, but nowhere near the specced 25A. Here it is used at about half that, but still I would have bought a real SSR, and ditched the clone. They tend to fail in spectacular ways.

lostlogin 6y ago
Have you any tips on how to avoid fakes? Is there a supplier or something that can be used to prevent this. I have zero knowledge of electrics and buy the bits I need then cobble them together. The thought of a “spectacular” failure with a relay or similar makes me twitch a little.
- frabert 6y ago
  Buy stuff that needs to be reliable from reliable sources, i.e. not ebay. RS, Mouser, Digikey, whatever is available in your country.
- Glanford 6y ago
  In general try to stick to the larger distributors or suppliers like Mouser, Farnell (or CPC in the UK), RS Components, Digi-Key, etc, or your countries closest equivalent assuming you have good consumer protection laws, if their target market is the business and industrial sector but they still sell to individuals it will likely be a good bet if a little expensive. Another good choice can be hobbyist or educational sites that have some reputation to uphold, the most talked about online will be US centric like SparkFun or Adafruit but there's many European equivalents for example. One way to find them would be to find an authorised distributor in your country for larger projects like the Raspberry Pi and see if they sell the components you need. Chances are if they're an authorised distributor for a recognisable product then they're probably not going to risk losing their spot on that products website just to sell some fakes or dodgy components. The key thing is to not buy directly from China or random eBay sellers from abroad if you can help it, return postage to China is prohibitively expensive and Chinese stores or marketplaces like Aliexpress won't always agree that you're entitled to a full refund without returning the item even if that item happens to blown up in your face, and likewise you can't really expect that small random foreign eBay sellers are going to be liable for selling you items that adhere to your countries safety regulations for instance.
  - OJFord 6y ago
    > Farnell (or CPC in the UK) In the UK we have both CPC (~.farnell.com) and Farnell (uk.~.farnell.com; née Element14). It's not always clear to me which I should be using (optimally for me - to them I think it's clear that CPC is trade/savvy DIY, and E14 is larger electronics buyers) - one or the other can be cheaper on the same product. Recent examples - that sort of make sense given demographics I mentioned - small volume components cheaper at CPC; (low-end/budget) test equipment cheaper at E14.

lostlogin 6y ago

Have you any tips on how to avoid fakes? Is there a supplier or something that can be used to prevent this. I have zero knowledge of electrics and buy the bits I need then cobble them together. The thought of a “spectacular” failure with a relay or similar makes me twitch a little.

frabert 6y ago
Buy stuff that needs to be reliable from reliable sources, i.e. not ebay. RS, Mouser, Digikey, whatever is available in your country.
Glanford 6y ago
In general try to stick to the larger distributors or suppliers like Mouser, Farnell (or CPC in the UK), RS Components, Digi-Key, etc, or your countries closest equivalent assuming you have good consumer protection laws, if their target market is the business and industrial sector but they still sell to individuals it will likely be a good bet if a little expensive. Another good choice can be hobbyist or educational sites that have some reputation to uphold, the most talked about online will be US centric like SparkFun or Adafruit but there's many European equivalents for example. One way to find them would be to find an authorised distributor in your country for larger projects like the Raspberry Pi and see if they sell the components you need. Chances are if they're an authorised distributor for a recognisable product then they're probably not going to risk losing their spot on that products website just to sell some fakes or dodgy components. The key thing is to not buy directly from China or random eBay sellers from abroad if you can help it, return postage to China is prohibitively expensive and Chinese stores or marketplaces like Aliexpress won't always agree that you're entitled to a full refund without returning the item even if that item happens to blown up in your face, and likewise you can't really expect that small random foreign eBay sellers are going to be liable for selling you items that adhere to your countries safety regulations for instance.
- OJFord 6y ago
  > Farnell (or CPC in the UK) In the UK we have both CPC (~.farnell.com) and Farnell (uk.~.farnell.com; née Element14). It's not always clear to me which I should be using (optimally for me - to them I think it's clear that CPC is trade/savvy DIY, and E14 is larger electronics buyers) - one or the other can be cheaper on the same product. Recent examples - that sort of make sense given demographics I mentioned - small volume components cheaper at CPC; (low-end/budget) test equipment cheaper at E14.