Deal Extreme, or "Extremely Slow Deals" ?

[dacflyer]

hi Al >> not to change the subject here, but i been getting several emails from you, i think are spam,, if its not you, then i think you might wanna check things out here..
you been sending me emails about opto-isolators..and i haven't anything to do with that..perhaps wrong person ?
heres what i been getting.. same copy each day...

Hi,

You can post to the General forum with this question. Have you tried that
yet? There are several people that can help here.

Take care,
Al (MrAl on the forum)

i hope its not spam...

[psycho]

There was a guy 2 or 3 days ago that signed up and instead of posting in the forum, he PMd every registered member (at least that was what the pm info said. I would bet that MrAl was trying to answer him.

Dunno what happened to the guy either ???

--edit
Yep, I got that PM from MrAl, too. I also got the one from you to MrAl. Which means that everyone should have.
--

Kevin

[CeaSaR]

Me too. Quickest way to stop that when replying is to press the Remove button
to the right of the "Registered Users". That would take everyone off the recipient
list except those who are listed individually. Just an extra step, that's all.

CeaSaR

[MrAl]

Hi,


My apologies for the mis-PM's. What happened is a little funny though as i will explain.

I received a PM from one person who was apparently new to the forum, asking about
opto isolators. I clicked the reply button and sent that email quoted by dac. Then,
i noticed there was a new message in my in box. I checked it, and lo and behold it
appeared to come from...me! I thought something went wrong, so i sent it again,
and dang if it didnt appear once again. That's when i realized that it was getting
sent to "All registered users" so i stopped sending the message out.
The reason it went out to all reg users was because the message was originally
sent to all reg users, so when i hit 'reply' that meant that whatever i sent out
would be sent to all reg users too.
Sorry for the inconvenience, and i am aware of this functionality now.

[philba]

Ah, so that's why I got 3 of them... I'm not sure I like the feature of anyone being able to send a PM to All Registered Users. I'm glad the spammers haven't found this.

[dacflyer]

glad it wasn't someone hakking your account..

[MrAl]

Ok here's the thing...

It took a total of 3 weeks to get the order to my house.

30 LED head lamp with 4 mode switch
Web cam, was advertised as 1.3 Megapixel
Cree Q5 LED
Cree optics
Li-ion cells, 2 types
super strong magnets

Now here's the lowdown on the stuff itself...


The 30 LED head lamp needed repair as the batteries would not make contact
with the crappy contacts. It was repaired by soldering a small tab onto
one of the battery contacts very carefully not to melt the plastic.
It seems ok but i think more of the contacts will need repair also in
the future.

The web cam was only 350k pixels, and wow what a crappy picture. I can
basically not use it for anything.

2.1mm wide angle lense for web cam...this works on my older web cam,
but it has a nasty pink tint so it ruins the color. Mainly have to
use it with black and white.

Li-ion cells...two different sizes and brands...all seem to work pretty
well so far. They actually look quite good during charge.

Super strong magnets: These were worth getting, as they are very very
strong for their tiny size of about 1/16 inch thick and 8mm diameter.
They are quite hard to pull apart. They are also conductive so they
can be used in flashlights that need to increase the height of the
positive terminal on some batteries where the insulation wont cause
a short. They stick to the battery and make contact. I think the
plating makes them conductive but im not sure yet as i didnt test
for that.


My overall opinion is a little varied. I got some good stuff and some stuff
that wasnt too good, and the wait was really long but that's not the real
problem...the problem is that they dont TELL you it's going to take that
long so you dont know what the heck is going on and if you should cancel
the order or not. If they at least said something reasonable it would be
more reassuring that they will eventually ship something, someday, but
they dont say anything and they are hard to contact. The web info
site they link you to has a form to fill out and a pre-written reply that
tries to cover every possible scenario and so it doesnt give the right
information either. Then two weeks later they say the shipment is
held up and to email them to ask why...very dumb...because then they
tell you that it has shipped...about three days later! Strange.
Shipping itself took about a week, so the total wait was 3 weeks.

[jwax]

I feel your pain, MrAl! In this push-button/instant gratification/modern world it's hard to believe there's still such a thing as the "slow boat from China"! They could use some enhanced communication on their end to describe up front the delay in shipping.
On the good side, the microlenses appear very nice! It's great having a good selection of lenses to be able to see just what you want to see instead of too far or too close.
If you get those magnets much bigger, they come with warning labels saying, "Broken bones are possible!" They're not kidding either!

[MrAl]

Hi again,


Oh ok, so i guess you finally got your lenses then? What did it take to get the right product?

[jwax]

It took 3 emails, and photos of the wrong item, the package front, and the package back.
Oh yeah, and about a month overall. Nice lenses for $14 though!

[MrAl]

Hi again John,


One more little question if you dont mind...

Where any of the lenses tinted with a nasty pink color or anything like that?

Thanks.

[jwax]

No "nasty" pink color, but they usually do have an anti-reflection coating. Unfortunately, all my cameras are black & white, so I never noticed a pink tinge.

[dacflyer]

what about the Q5 led how is it ? and what driver do you use with it ??

[MrAl]

Hi again,


John:
Oh ok, i dont think you can see it with the naked eye either...but i havent tried.

dac:
Right now all i use is a Li-ion in series with a resistor to limit current.
It's efficient enough because the battery voltage is close to the LED
voltage. I may in the future build a boost converter to get the full
power out of the LED, or go to two cells if needed. I dont know
yet if this is really needed or not though, as i dont know what the
forward voltage for this LED is yet at full power and i havent tested
it for that yet either. I will say that it works great with one Li-ion cell
so im happy with it like that, and a little reduced power means longer
life and less heat.