It’s a recurring theme when I buy stuff outside Malaysia. And it is something which I cannot control unless I pay an obscene amount of money. Let’s say, after transferring the money to the Seller, I have to start the waiting game. Depending from where I buy my stuff from, the wait can be anything from two weeks to at least three months. If I see something that I wanted, I have to make sure the Seller has the means to deliver it to me within the shortest time possible. And if the shipped product was the wrong spec or lost, that’s even more time wasted to get the correct ones bought/ sorted out.
Being Local
If I wanted a specific LED, my goto would be AliExpress and although their shipping has been reduced to under three weeks, I’d still have to wait. The alternative would be to scour my local Shopping Platform which is Shopee and hope the same seller or sellers who has an Account there, stocks the same LED. This way, I can get my stuff even faster or, cheaper. But for other non-Asian Websites, I’d have to wait for a longer time and even pay more for the shipping. Years ago, the price difference was quite obvious and now, with their presence locally, I get to save more. I would need to search carefully as some of them offers free shipping just so as long as my orders are above RM15.00. This is usually not an issue but in most cases, their inventory is quite lacking and with the attractive pricing, I would end up buying more of the same LEDs than I needed.
When you have the wrong specs
So, I was rushing for a new Project and hoping to complete it by June, a target which was naively optimistic. I decided to do a ‘Ghost’ version where it needs some White LEDs for the effect. But silly old me decided to go for Ice Blue LEDs which might make the PKD2019 Blaster look even cooler. There is already a Blue LED on the market and well, to me, the colours are annoying. But if you get the diffused version, they looked slightly better, almost like pale blue. But for the Ice Blue, this is very different. It’s almost like pastel blue or the colours of the Warp Nacelle in Star Trek’s Enterprise-D.
Anyway, searching for the Ice Blue LEDs is quite difficult compared to many years ago. The LED spec I wanted was a 5mm Straw Hat LED. So, I have at lest two Sellers on that. Once I upped the specs to have a diffused lens instead of clear, it does not exist. In fact, any specs beyond the normal 3mm, 5mm through-hole versions and the 0805 plus 1210 SMD ones, I was realy out of luck. But I am not too worried right now since I am not even sure if the Project I gets some enthusiastic reception. On the other hand, there is a possibility of getting them custom made from LED manufacturers but, I’d have to comply with their MOQs.
Note the ‘3 sold’, which was my doing; 1 from the first purchase and 2 for the second purchase just oe make sure it was the correct LEDs. And when it arrived, they’re still the same wrong 5mm LEDs
Thinking I had lost them in the move, I re-ordered them, this time with twice the number.
In the end, I got to keep these LEDs and a partial refund too. I was not too happy since I have ‘lost’ some cash and left with LEDs which I have no use for.
