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Sourcing cheap parts off AliExpress - Printable Version

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Sourcing cheap parts off AliExpress - caffeine - 05-05-2023

I've been doing a bit of poking around on AliExpress, to see what sort of RC stuff is on there (answer - pretty much anything)

As a 'toe in the water' exercise I ordered 10 4-pin (suitable for 3S batteries) JST-XH balance connectors (male PCB mount and female connectors on wire) for the princely sum of $0.02 (plus $0.28 GST) shipped to my door. They arrived in 1 week and were exactly as ordered. It was some introductory special, normal cost was ~$3.00 shipped.

Buoyed by my experience, I went and did a bigger order; 10 9-gram metal geared servos for $25, a 30A ESC for $4.77, 10 5mm x 3.1mm x 500mm carbon tubes for $23, an absurd quantity of control horns and hinges for cents, 30 3.5mm bullet connectors for a few dollars, 10 shrouded XT60 connectors for a few dollars, 20 JST-XH male wire mounted connectors for $7 and 10 spare IPEX 2.4G antennas for my receivers for a few dollars.

These all arrived today (2 weeks after shipping) and everything is as expected except the JST-XH connectors; they sent me female ones instead of male ones. I disputed it with AliExpress, attached 1 photograph and 2 hours later had a 50% refund, which is satisfactory for me.

I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. For cheap planes like my foam KMart glider conversion it's excellent. I'll certainly keep ordering receivers and batteries from local reputable suppliers, and for my more serious planes I'll stick to name brand stuff, but for consumables and cheap foamies it's perfect.

I've tested all the servos and the ESC and they work perfectly. I'll embark on my next foamie conversion with the parts soon (a flat wing kmart glider with 1900kV motor, full span ailerons, elevator and rudder, should be more dynamic than my first one Smile )