Strategies for Buying Test Equipment off Ebay

I have "Socketwatch",

...Jim Thompson

I found this time page from Ebay

D from BC

My Socketwatch is dead-on to that.

...Jim Thompson

Offsetting all this, of course, is that you now have zillions of competitors.

For most auctions most of the time, it does not matter whether you proxy bid your max five minutes or five milliseconds from close.

Anything earlier, of course, is monumentally stupid.

I forgot to mention the wonderful LTSpice / SwitcherCadIII. (And how much would an equivalent simulator and computer cost, even 10 years ago)?

Why bother? The auction page displays time-till-closing.

John

School is, or should be, for the basics: physics, thermo, math, circuit theory, signals+systems, control theory, communications theory, materials science... stuff you probably wouldn't teach yourself. People who don't have this stuff pounded into them are at a disadvantage.

John

I don't agree. I've learned the hard way that 10 seconds is enough for someone else to put in a higher bid. Placing bids in the last 10 seconds is the best way.

That is very true. I've been a electronics tinkerer since I was like

You can set up a bot that emails you whenever an 8444 comes up for bid, so you don't have to keep searching yourself.

But top posters have consistantly bad luck on ebay.

John

Exactly.

Cheers,

Phil Hobbs

The tinkering is of course a great preamble to the theory. In my classes, sometimes a concept would explode off the blackboard at me: I'd *done* that, and now really understood how it worked. The other guys just kept taking notes.

John

D from BC snipped-for-privacy@comic.com posted to sci.electronics.design:

Well s*it, you done let a bogey man out of the bag. Count on it becoming a problem now.

John Devereux snipped-for-privacy@THISdevereux.me.uk posted to sci.electronics.design:

You can do the same thing im MS winders too. It is just that the setup procedure is rather obscure.

Nico Coesel snipped-for-privacy@puntnl.niks posted to sci.electronics.design:

I started as a tinkerer as well. But i had additional resources, an EE dad who would help me, and in incredibly good line-up of schools through high school. I taught myself algebra before i took it in school, taught myself simple calculus before i took it in school. By the time i was taking electrical engineering in college i was always blowing the other students away. I designed and built my own first stereo at age 14, and the damn thing met specifications. (RIAA magnetic phonograph at 5 mV standard input, tape loop at 0 dBV, Tuner and Aux inputs at 0 dBV, three band "tone" controls +/- 20 dB and 2 Watt (8 Ohm) headphone output. Made the PWB and the case as well.)

With what BS i have been subjected to, one does not have to "sacrifice" anything...e-bay does not care.

Without checking, I think a seller can reject a bid from a buyer with negative reviews. Perhaps a seller might submit a comment like "You didn't pay..You bastard!" or "Don't accept bids from this user. No payment."

I'm assuming the scam is a way to bid on say...10 different oscilloscopes at the same time when you only want one :P

I'm just guessing about all this.... If possible, it's useful to know what one's up against.

Let's say it is possible...who's most motivated to do this? Would it be the poor hobbyist?

Or would it be the sharky used test equipment reseller? ____/|___/

I have bought 2 items off ebay a scope and a sig gen.

The scope came and onlyworked on one channel.

The sig gen was completely dead.

Either I am unlucky or a lot of junk is sold on ebay.

What upset me most was I had to pay to send the junk back !!!!!