Taobao - abundance supply of cheap tools and components

China has been a great supplier for cheap electronic tools and modules. Even the sparkfun is sourcing their multimeter, soldering station from China, which in turn, show the reliability and usability of China tools.

When you go jalan pasar, most of the components and tools, which I believe also sourced from China.

Recently, taobao has that 2rmb promotion for delivery (direct from china to malaysia) for first time user.

Best of all, you are able to pay taobao using the malaysia online banking system.

A full tutorial is provided by taobao.

Taking this opportunity, I have registered an account and start finding for cheap multimeter and soldering station.

It is lucky that I know Chinese, make it easy for me to search for particular items.
But I also use baidu to help me do the translation and i copy the exact phase to taobao. Although you can use english to search but the results is not as many as your Chinese search term.

The search results return a series of options,

 and depending on cost, I choose the best selling one.

The victor vc890c+, has always been a popular choice. Good review, maybe due to it's fluke like look.

There are a few packages to choose, some with extra chargeable battery, a pouch, probe...
I buy an extra probe. And it only cost me roughly RM60. I think is fairly a good bargain for a multimeter with ac voltage/current (sensing range is until 20 ampere), capacitance, temperature, resistance sensing. Furthermore, transistor NPN/PNP checking is included. A quick search on vc890c+ in lelong, it cost around RM100. So, final conclusion, is a damn good deal.


I have a urge to build my own electronic home lab. So a basic two tools, I think it will be multimeter and solder station. For the soldering station, there are two variants, soldering iron, hot air, and combination or two. At first, I plan to buy soldering iron with hot air reflow, as the price is cheap as well. After saw the technician in my company, on how they can solder smt component easily using single solder iron. I have decided to purchase a soldering station with temperature control.

and I choose the cheapest best selling 936 series.
The Hakko has a tremendous success on soldering station 936, now every China soldering brands will have at least one model with 936 name.

The one I chose is kasadi 936, the name is nice and the advertisement look very promising on assuring the quality. Furthermore, at the taobao page, the reviews on Kasadi 936 are quit ok and has some small defects but still acceptable.

I buy a package which consists solder, solder flux, sucker, tweezer........
Easier for me, as I dont want to buy the items separately as it will troublesome and no guarantee it will be cheaper.

Also, I add in solder cleaner (Reason: Cheap). This type of cleaner is suitable for lazy me, dont need pour water, use and toss item but it can last for quit some times.

In this order, my friend "tumpang" a pair of wifi esp8266 module and a pair of bluetooth ble 4.0 module.

Total delivery fee for these items is roughly 9rmb, 7rmb is charged to deliver the wireless module to a warehouse in china. After consolidating all items, 2rmb is charged for delivery to malaysia. The multimeter and solder station seller doesn't charge fee for delivery in china.

You can check the status of your items from time to time. Even bar code is provided for easy checking, but I never try it.

Taobao will hold your payment for roughly 10 days (I think). You can extend the payment date if the items is not reached within 10 days. Also you can ask for refund but terms and conditions applied (I have no idea on this but it is refundable with conditions).

Nonetheless, my items arrived less than one week (6 days to be exact).

The multimeter set

Solder station

I didnt open my friend wireless module, it is quit light, almost felt empty. I let him open himself.

Total cost for multimeter and soldering station, cost me RM130, but is a good buy. In the mean time, I am going to let it collecting dust in cupboard.