LaisDCC - good/bad?

[Brew Man]

What's the general impression of LaisDCC products in general? I just bought a Decoder Tester from them which appears to work fine after testing two decoders. They are a bit cheaper than other makes available so I decided to take a punt. I was initially thinking of building one as per Rob's circuit, but with the built-in motor and speaker I figured the financial saving wouldn't be that great. I was surprised to discover their shop is actually on Aliexpress.

[96RAF]

My view of Liaisdcc products is they appear to be knock offs of other folks’ designs. Their decoder tester even copies the tie wrap motor mount of the original ESU device. At one time they were being pursued by TCS about design rights.

I admit they are a few pounds cheaper than the competition but my conscience leads me to use a known original branded product.

[Brew Man]

My view of Liaisdcc products is they appear to be knock offs of other folks’ designs. ..........

 

 

Yes, it's like a lot, (most) things coming out of China, i.e. cheaper copies of other designs. My other hobby, beer brewing is particularly prone to it.

[ColinB]

Surprisingly, seeing as they are very cheap, not that bad a device, better than an awful lot I have used. I found that they are not very tolerance of a bad DCC signal like the Zimo products, but a lot better than other products. The 21 pin versions work the best, but that is probably because I fitted them to Bachmann diesels that have loads of pickups. They are also incredibly useful for DMUs where you need a decoder for the "dummy" end to drive the lights, so why waste money putting an expensive one in, if it is only driving the lights. I do a lot of DCC conversions on my locos and they are exceptionally useful for doing the final test. The big advantage here is if there is something wrong you have killed a £10.00 module, rather than an expensive one.

As to the Chinese copying other peoples products, if businesses didn't "outsource" their products to China, then they would have nothing to copy. They know that when they "outsource" that China ignores any copyright laws. They should accept that this might happen. If it is true that they copied a certain manufacturers product, they definitely did a better job, as they seem to be better than the product they copied.

[kevin-636231]

Used a lot of them good buy and when you have a lot of locos to do it helps with the cost after all a cheap new car does the same job as a dear one.