Goods from Banggood

[VirTERM]

All of them are bang on accurate

 

[hdv]

Good for you. But I'd rather not spend my money on copycats or even downright IP thieves. That is not to say they can't make good tools in China, they most assuredly can. But most of what BG sells is not in that category as far as I know.

 

[krudawg]

Good for you. But I'd rather not spend my money on copycats or even downright IP thieves. That is not to say they can't make good tools in China, they most assuredly can. But most of what BG sells is not in that category as far as I know.

Whoa; hang on there cowboy.  Banggood stuff is good and bad.  A lot of "American Branded" Power Tools come off the same assembly line in China.  I have a few Vieko Branded and Drillpro Branded tools purchased through Banggood and they are good tools.  They are affordable for those who can't afford a Woodpecker (I own a bunch of Woodpecker stuff) or a TSO ( I love my TSO Jigs) jig or tools.  The fit and finish may be somewhat "off" but none the less work fine. You can pick up very cheaply, clamps that are knock-offs from a certain German Power Tools manufacturer that are designed to work with the MFT/3. 

 

[mino]

Well, specifically that PG system is very much junk and an almost direct copy of the WP system.

It seems they avoided WP (and likely TSO) patents in making it. So that is the good part. The bad part is the stops and the scale setup is a apain from the reviews I saw.

About the various measuring tools, these are things which our grandfathers used. So I see no reason why a brand name would matter. What matters is if the square is square and/or if it can be calibrated.

So some of these Veiko pieces are certainly worth the money. Especially given how overpriced WP or TSO stuff is in Europe. When it is even available ...

 

[hdv]

Like I already wrote: I do not doubt that quality can be had from China (or BG for that matter). Not at all. However, the manner in which they treat IP is not to my liking. And I certainly don't want to spend a whole lot of time on vetting tools when it comes to that aspect before I buy them. That's why I avoid sites like BangGood and Alibaba. I am sure there are products on there that are "kosher" and of good quality, but it is not worth the hassle to me. However, that is just my personal feeling, not necessarily an example I expect others to follow.

To quote Rob Lee in another recent threat on this forum [1]:

By and large, companies can no longer play intellectual property whack-a-mole effectively. Frankly - it's consumers that have the power to reward or discourage behaviour.

[1]https://www.festoolownersgroup.com/...tent-infringed-tools-added-to-notorious-list/

 

[mino]

Like I already wrote: I do not doubt that quality can be had from China (or BG for that matter). Not at all. However, the manner in which they treat IP is not to my liking. And I certainly don't want to spend a whole lot of time on vetting tools when it comes to that aspect before I buy them. That's why I avoid sites like BangGood and Alibaba.

The only problem in "avoiding sites like Alibaba" is it is effectively the same as "avoiding sites like Amazon" or "avoiding shops like Walmart".

To all I would applaud. It is always good to buy stuff from your economy. There is a reason I buy Festool which is half made in CZ and half in Germany these days.

But I would never ever consider it a "bad feeling" or "wrong" buying a square - an absolute commodity for centuries - from a Chinese maker on Banggood versus from a brand like Dewalt on Amazon. Actually, buying from Banggood is more likely the people who make the thing get their share.

The same way with the quick-clamps which are an 100 years old design, so patents are long long expired. And now the Veiko guys seem to have used a brain and use a nut instead of a notch. Good. Simple but still an improvement on the Bessey original! That is what innovation is about.

Now, buying the coppy-cat PG system, that is a different thing. It is likely patent-free but it also means it is junk. Equivalent to the first gen WP system I guess.

TSO (and WP but mainly TSO) did some serious R&D there recently and they rightly have patent protection to recoup their costs.

 

[ChuckM]

Snip.
TSO (and WP but mainly TSO) did some serious R&D there recently and they rightly have patent protection to recoup their costs.

Patent protection is of little to no use to small fish like WP, etc. in North America if the offenders are located in Asia. Even bigger fish can't do much about patent infringement, and only the really big ones have the stick strong and long enough to do something. SawStop won Bosch in the finger-saving lawsuit partly because the case was heard in the States.

 

[hdv]

To prevent any misunderstandings: I agree that a square in general isn't something special and thus not "wrong" to buy in itself. But then again, why do they purposefully make that same square look like the products of another company (even including their marketing photos)? They don't do that for nothing. They do this to gain something without spending the effort. And yes, I do exclude obvious knock-offs on sites like Amazon from my buying habits. Again: to me that is not the same as not wanting to buy anything made in China. Even if it were possible to do so these days.

 

[mino]

Snip.
TSO (and WP but mainly TSO) did some serious R&D there recently and they rightly have patent protection to recoup their costs.

Patent protection is of little to no use to small fish like WP, etc. in North America if the offenders are located in Asia. Even bigger fish can't do much about patent infringement, and only the really big ones have the stick strong and long enough to do something. SawStop won Bosch in the finger-saving lawsuit partly because the case was heard in the States.

True.
But bashing someone for making and selling a copy of a design which is not patent protected is equally wrong. Yet is is done very often in the racist/supremacist assumption that "because it was made by Chinese it must be an illegal copy".

Reality is, almost all power tools bar the specials like Domino, fall into the category of being a "copy" of someone's original idea a couple decades ago.
Not to mention hand tools or measuring instruments which have mostly thousand year old designs. The original of which some were first made in China or in Egypt before the whole "western civilisation" was a thing.

IMO it is very important to distinguish
- someone selling a verbatim copy of a well-known but NOT patented/protected thing (copyright claims can come here)
- someone selling a product which has patent/copyright protection and so would be illegal to sell
      - this being a global patent (is there such a thing even ?)
      - this being a local patent, valid only in the specific market

- and an abolutely desirable action of someone selling a product based on a design of a competitor that had its patents expire
    => doing this is what forms the basis of a market economy, by the way

And a completely separate category are fakes of all kinds - these are the worst from the moral perspective. The reason it is worst that it confirms active malice and abuse. I personally have zero tollerance for that.

For the patents, it is good to remember that the US economy was built on not respecting British patents ... What goes around, comes around.
Selling stuff which is patent-protected in e.g. US by a China eshop with shipping to US: BAD. Selling the same thing to South Sudan which may not have mutual IP-protection treaty with the US: Absolutely OK in my view.

 

[mino]

But then again, why do they purposefully make that same square look like the products of another company (even including their marketing photos)? They don't do that for nothing.

This is not OK at all and they should be sued for copyright on those photos and related false marketing.

I am actually pretty sure if WP, or even some customer, raised this with Banggood, those photos would be taken down. They just make bad business and do not benefit the etail platform in any way. And Chinese are businessmen first and foremost.

I see no reason to complain, fixing that would only benefit the etail platform and I have no intention of supporting them. but WP should do so IMO, if they were aware.

Same-ish color is fine with me on the other hand. I buy rolls from three different companies and I do not care. They are just rolls.

If someone sells me squares that are clearly marked as "XYZ" and have the same color as WP, I would know they are not WP and trust/non-trust their precision accordingly. Fine with me.

I hated it when Apple won the suit on "round edges !?" being copyrightable. It made mockery of the laws in question.

 

[hdv]

Before this discussion derails in a direction that presumably was not the intention of the OP I'll let this be my last post in this thread.

There is no "racist/supremacist assumption" on my side (at least not that I am aware of). I'd like to make it quite clear that is definitely not my intention at all. It is not how I feel about Chinese people or anyone else. That is not what I stand for.

Like I wrote: to me that is not the same as not wanting to buy anything made in China. I do buy Chinese stuff. But when it comes to obvious knock-offs or violations of whatever ethics or legal protection (as far as I can reasonably discern), yes then I do prefer not to buy it.

 

[semenza]

I am a member on another forum where this type of discussion derails topics all the time, nearly everyday. Which is too bad since it almost always ruins the topic.

I wish I was a moderator on that other forum ................................................

Seth

 

[demographic]

True.
But bashing someone for making and selling a copy of a design which is not patent protected is equally wrong. Yet is is done very often in the racist/supremacist assumption that "because it was made by Chinese it must be an illegal copy".

Reality is, almost all power tools bar the specials like Domino, fall into the category of being a "copy" of someone's original idea a couple decades ago.
Not to mention hand tools or measuring instruments which have mostly thousand year old designs. The original of which some were first made in China or in Egypt before the whole "western civilisation" was a thing.

IMO it is very important to distinguish
- someone selling a verbatim copy of a well-known but NOT patented/protected thing (copyright claims can come here)
- someone selling a product which has patent/copyright protection and so would be illegal to sell
      - this being a global patent (is there such a thing even ?)
      - this being a local patent, valid only in the specific market

- and an abolutely desirable action of someone selling a product based on a design of a competitor that had its patents expire
    => doing this is what forms the basis of a market economy, by the way

And a completely separate category are fakes of all kinds - these are the worst from the moral perspective. The reason it is worst that it confirms active malice and abuse. I personally have zero tollerance for that.

For the patents, it is good to remember that the US economy was built on not respecting British patents ... What goes around, comes around.
Selling stuff which is patent-protected in e.g. US by a China eshop with shipping to US: BAD. Selling the same thing to South Sudan which may not have mutual IP-protection treaty with the US: Absolutely OK in my view.

^that, absolutely.

 

[krudawg]

But then again, why do they purposefully make that same square look like the products of another company (even including their marketing photos)? They don't do that for nothing.

This is not OK at all and they should be sued for copyright on those photos and related false marketing.

I am actually pretty sure if WP, or even some customer, raised this with Banggood, those photos would be taken down. They just make bad business and do not benefit the etail platform in any way. And Chinese are businessmen first and foremost.

I see no reason to complain, fixing that would only benefit the etail platform and I have no intention of supporting them. but WP should do so IMO, if they were aware.

Same-ish color is fine with me on the other hand. I buy rolls from three different companies and I do not care. They are just rolls.

If someone sells me squares that are clearly marked as "XYZ" and have the same color as WP, I would know they are not WP and trust/non-trust their precision accordingly. Fine with me.

I hated it when Apple won the suit on "round edges !?" being copyrightable. It made mockery of the laws in question.

Oops; somebody threw down the race card - i'm outta here

 

[VirTERM]

Good for you. But I'd rather not spend my money on copycats or even downright IP thieves. That is not to say they can't make good tools in China, they most assuredly can. But most of what BG sells is not in that category as far as I know.

Wow
Good that you clarified that your opinion is limited to "as far as you know"...
Some of their stuff is actually more sophisticated than the "inspiration", and some seem to be direct replicas (really bad, if the original is patented, I agree). However, squares and such are such a fundamental idea that I would not consider the maker of another similar product a copycat unless you refer to the colour
As per quality, you will not know unless you try it. All that I have acquired from BG are close to similar NA products.

 

[VirTERM]

Well, specifically that PG system is very much junk and an almost direct copy of the WP system.

It seems they avoided WP (and likely TSO) patents in making it. So that is the good part. The bad part is the stops and the scale setup is a apain from the reviews I saw.

About the various measuring tools, these are things which our grandfathers used. So I see no reason why a brand name would matter. What matters is if the square is square and/or if it can be calibrated.

So some of these Veiko pieces are certainly worth the money. Especially given how overpriced WP or TSO stuff is in Europe. When it is even available ...

The revised version is just fine

 

[VirTERM]

Apology for starting this “heated” discussion. that was not my intention at all

 

[semenza]

Let's make sure this stays on track about the tools , very specifically.

Thanks,

        Seth

 

[mino]

Before this discussion derails in a direction that presumably was not the intention of the OP I'll let this be my last post in this thread.
...

Point taken and apologies if was seen as directed at your posts or intentions. It was not meant such.

I purposefully made a general comment reacting to the narrative that seems to permeate some of these threads. I simply do not like it as it smells with the notion that (insert country of choice) is out there to fake the world and shall be summarily despised for such. That in my view is the same notion that admonishes various people just based on a randomly chosen property of theirs.

Reality is that the Shanghai and other manufacturing hubs in China are these days THE manufacturing and invention powerhouses. They are simply BETTER than any western hubs in their ability to iterate on designs. They are still not that good on greenfield R&D but even there they are learning fast. These are smart folks. Let's not kid ourselves.

This, automatically, makes them an economical threat to the developed countries. It does. Pretending they are a bunch of cheats will not help us here. They have a lot of excellent engineers there. If we keep pretending being "superior" they would just burry us economically with their raw skills and know-how.

 

[mino]

Well, specifically that PG system is very much junk and an almost direct copy of the WP system.

It seems they avoided WP (and likely TSO) patents in making it. So that is the good part. The bad part is the stops and the scale setup is a apain from the reviews I saw.

About the various measuring tools, these are things which our grandfathers used. So I see no reason why a brand name would matter. What matters is if the square is square and/or if it can be calibrated.

So some of these Veiko pieces are certainly worth the money. Especially given how overpriced WP or TSO stuff is in Europe. When it is even available ...

The revised version is just fine

What I meant is
- the scale is not (properly) calibrate-able and just starts wrong
- the stops do not address the parallax and other errors and are nowhere close to the TSO flip stops
- the connection to the rail is a "1st gen WP" meaning it is just plain huge, obstructing a good part of the scale forcing "under rail" stops to be used even for 10" width cuts

In general, the product is well worth the cost. But it is nowhere close to the current-gent TSO PGs in practicability.

My view here is, I would rather 3d print my own flip stops and rail fixings and just use a off-the-shelf aluminum rules instead of getting these from BG. Those I could at least address the shortcommings off eventually. With the BG set I would be stuck with a tool I would get annoyed using and end up replacing eventually.

So both a junk product and an OK value IMO. Sounds strange, eh.

On the other hand, the TSO set is so well engineered already today, and will get better once a way to improve is found. So I fully expect to shell out for it eventually. Despite the exorbitant price.