Of course Lais decoders were cheap - they were rip-offs and therefore had no development costs. As I understand it Lais were supplying a well known Australian company at the time and TCS had to spend tens of thousands of $ to protect their intellectual rights against a product which was clearly a direct copy.Paul-H wrote: ↑Fri Dec 25, 2020 9:25 amMind you its under £25 so alleged knockoff or not might still be worth getting, if you have not already got an ESU or Zimo version already. personally I have the ESU version.
Remember if something is not protected by Patent a similar item is not technically a knockoff, things designed to do the same job often do look similar to everything else, just look at modern cars.
Whilst some cars, like some decoders, might look similar from the outside what is contained within them is usually considerably different - don't be fooled by appearances! Sometimes a simplistic purchasing approach where price overrides other considerations does not provide the purchaser with a quality product.
Have you looked at TCS prices recently? The DP2X-UK is now £20 and their 6 and 8 function 21-pin decoders are also £20. Basic T1 is a lot less than £20.