Beware! Fake Leadshine Drives from PrimoPal through Ebay.

Well, I took a chance, and belive I got screwed.

Bought 4 Leadshine DM856 drive from PrimoPal on ebay after they assured me they buy directly from Leadshine.
I opened up a drive and the PCB has markings of DM556 V2.2 on the bottom of the board.

Looks like they (Primo?) added a 0.6ohm resistor from the high voltage stepper power plug positive terminal to ground to act as a voltage divide, lowering the actual voltage getting to the drive. The only place the PCB has solder flux residue as well is on that resistor. I assume they then changed the cover to make it look like a DM856.

I contacted Leadshine USA, and they say that the DM856 should not have DM556 markings on the PCB and that PrimoPal is not an authorized re-seller and I'm on my own.

I advise everyone not to buy from these guys, even though they have 100% satisfaction rating.

Sad for a first post.

There are many "manufacturers" in china that clone each others drive. Most are just re-Labeled versions of the some popular drive. For 2cents they will put your logo on a drive
Leadshine is just the most well known label. Its a copy of someone elses who's a probably copy of some american drive.

The Wantai brand (model 860 and 542) (with the elephant) seems to be as popular as leadshine and sell a lot more than leadshine on ebay.. I have tried some those and if you don't mind the 10% reject rate they work ok for the price. (But the 542 50volt 5 amp drive is very unreliable, since it uses p channel mosfets on the high side bridge)

Of the 4 "Leadshine" brushless drives i bought to do a customer retrofit, one popped as soon as power was applied (see my post in the leadshine thread here in this section.. and no responce at all from leadshine)

I'm not sure it's a clone. The quality is excellent. I should know being an engineer designing circuit boards for the last 20+ years. It seems, they are getting the DM556 and modding them to not destruct with the higher voltages, and selling at a higher price point that the DM856 would have.

I'd love to see what a un-modifed DM556 looks like, to see if I can at least revert it back to original. Anyone care to open one, take pics?

Update,

PrimoPal is swearing that they are proper drives. They want to contact LeadShine asking them for clarification of the matter. I won't hear anything until after the China National Holidays, but I will update this post when I do know more.

Cheers!

Ebay and PayPal offer protection from this. They will refund your payment.

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Originally Posted by Roy50

Ebay and PayPal offer protection from this. They will refund your payment.

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Open up a claim ASAP! You can always say it is resolved and the case will be closed but if you wait you will not be able to dispute it.

Ok, I got a response directly from Leadshine China.

They say that the DM856 uses the PCB from the DM556 with a new firmware and small part change.
Not the way we would do it, I would insist a name change on the silkscreen, but that's the way they do it.

In any case, I feel better now and can retract my concerns for PrimoPal. They have been very responsive and helped as they could. I would buy from them again.

Cheers all!

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Originally Posted by Delron

Well, I took a chance, and belive I got screwed.

Bought 4 Leadshine DM856 drive from PrimoPal on ebay after they assured me they buy directly from Leadshine.
I opened up a drive and the PCB has markings of DM556 V2.2 on the bottom of the board.

Looks like they (Primo?) added a 0.6ohm resistor from the high voltage stepper power plug positive terminal to ground to act as a voltage divide, lowering the actual voltage getting to the drive. The only place the PCB has solder flux residue as well is on that resistor. I assume they then changed the cover to make it look like a DM856.

I contacted Leadshine USA, and they say that the DM856 should not have DM556 markings on the PCB and that PrimoPal is not an authorized re-seller and I'm on my own.

I advise everyone not to buy from these guys, even though they have 100% satisfaction rating.

Sad for a first post.

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I opened mine, looks similar, resistor you described has designated place on PCB - at least on my board

sorry
How to delete this reply? Can only edit

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Originally Posted by TomJ

sorry
How to delete this reply? Can only edit

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You can't delete a message. Once it is posted you can only edit, and if you want you can delete every word, leaving an empty message space.

TomJ -

Has the driver worked well? I notice that the IC in the center of your board has been scraped of printed letter/numbers. I too received a driver (from a different vendor) that has had the markings scraped off, but I have not tested it.

Thanks in advance

that .6 ohm resistor appears to be intended to reduce the inrush current into the supply. it will not reduce the voltage significantly during normal operation.

furthermore if those are standard n channel mosfets on the back of the board, then its connected to the drain of four of them, appears to be the positive rail, also through a fuse (appears to be a wire, not a fuse) on the OP's photo.. the photo in reply number 8 does not have a fuse.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Delron

Well, I took a chance, and belive I got screwed.

Bought 4 Leadshine DM856 drive from PrimoPal on ebay after they assured me they buy directly from Leadshine.
I opened up a drive and the PCB has markings of DM556 V2.2 on the bottom of the board.

Looks like they (Primo?) added a 0.6ohm resistor from the high voltage stepper power plug positive terminal to ground to act as a voltage divide, lowering the actual voltage getting to the drive. The only place the PCB has solder flux residue as well is on that resistor. I assume they then changed the cover to make it look like a DM856.

I contacted Leadshine USA, and they say that the DM856 should not have DM556 markings on the PCB and that PrimoPal is not an authorized re-seller and I'm on my own.

I advise everyone not to buy from these guys, even though they have 100% satisfaction rating.

Sad for a first post.

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If that is a fake, it does not look too bad to me by what components I see on board. The worst fake DM556 examples don't have as much circuitry inside and do not have a serial connection for configureation by the PC. If the unit has the same function and performance and components I would just be happy with it. The way production works for devices like this in China you can really drive yourself nuts thiking about it..

The worst DM556 and DM856 fakes DO NOT USE THE SAME JUMPER SETTINGS. At first glance they do, but look carefully. THIS CAN CAUSE YOU TO BURN YOUR MOTOR IF YOU ARE NOT CAREFUL. Sorry for the use of bold letter there, but I want to save someone some money and some grief if they are considering swapping in a low greade fake DM556. For the fakest fakes, the jumper setting for highest Amerage is swapped with the jumper for the lowest amperage on the real DM556. So if you are going by the data-sheet when you are setting up you will get burned. literally. Also the highest microstep settings on the fakes normally dont work. So best to judge them on their performance, and "what's under the hood".

If you read the rest of the thread, I think it was determined that they are not fakes.

I've bought AM882's from the same seller, and other sellers, and all appear to be genuine.

Buy leadshine direct from leadshine, thats what I did ...