Gubmint NO BUY list. I HATE POLITICIANS AND BEAURACRATS!

Electronics
#1

So, I order a lot of parts from Mouser, and until Saturday have never had a problem…

But I order three of each of these small signal relays to use as transmit/receive switches in the HAM radio transceiver project I am working on.

http://www.mouser.com/Search/ProductDetail.aspx?R=1462043-8virtualkey65500000virtualkey655-1462043-8

http://www.mouser.com/Search/ProductDetail.aspx?R=G6K-2P-DC12virtualkey65300000virtualkey653-G6K-2P-DC12

Very innocuous parts. no?

Yesterday, I got this email from Mouser in response to this order

I ignored the email at first because I thought it was spam. I also placed another order yesterday that was accepted and shipped, so it seemed to confirm that the first was spam. But I never got a shipment notice (normal practice for Mouser). So I checked status this morning and noticed it wasn’t shipped. So I called and talked with them about it. Seems, my name was either flagged or is similar to a flagged name and hence I needed to fill out a stupid gubmint form saying I was not restricted from purchasing items on the no export list…

Ignoring that I have placed hundreds of orders with Mouser in the past 10-20 years, including many far more potentially dangerous items then a couple of low level signal relays… I fail to see how the additional beauracy of filling out a one page form make us any safer or prevents me from shipping these obviously highly dangerous items to nefarious individuals…

Here are the questions I was required to answer.

stupid.png780×339 37.3 KB

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#2

That’s so they can level additional charges against you if you fraudulently answer them. :smiley:

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#3

On the one hand, good for Mouser for trying to do the right thing and abide by the Export Control Laws. On the other hand, there isn’t anything in this questionnaire that would stop someone who wanted to violate the Export Control Laws.

However, if your name were actually something like Walter Balthazar Anderson you wouldn’t have these problems with mistaken identity. What were your parents thinking?? :wink:

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#4

We are talking low voltage pc board mount relays… Where is the danger?

Yesterday they let me order some power mosfets and they shipped those to me without all this, so the problem is centered around those basic innocuous relays…

There is very little you can switch with a relay that you can’t also switch with a mosfet. Combine that with the fact that I purchased much heavier duty relays just a few months ago…

This makes NO SENSE, which is I guess why the GUBMINT is involved…

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#5

Apparently the problem is because my name is similar to one on the denied persons list

http://apps.export.gov/csl-search#/?name=Walter%20Anderson&fuzzy_name=true

A Walter Anders from North Carolina (fortunately a state I never lived in).

But I still don’t understand why these relays are considered dangerous and not eligible for export… Heck they are almost certainly imported from china in the first place, and I doubt the Chinese have any qualms about shipping them…

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#6

They’re probably used in some obscure control board for some detonator somewhere.

3 Likes
#7

Well by that logic, so is electricity. Perhaps we should ban the exportation of electricty. No broadcasts, batteries, etc… allowed to cross our borders…

You are probably right, but to my mind that highlights the problem with the gubmint and its regulations. This just doesn’t make any sense.

Kind of like requiring adults to take off their shoes to board a plane, but letting kids keep theirs on…

#8

Yeah…probably showed up in some kind of forensic autopsy after an “event”.

#9

Well, keeping random critical parts out of the supply is probably very effective at keeping things from being built. Think about it: every time you have to make a part substitution because of obsolescence or availability it gets thrown back up to engineering to make a design change or alternate part approval. This is a huge PITA even if you’re not talking about ultra-critical elements like bomb fuses.

Most of the people in the production chain are not qualified to make these changes – so it’s just a big, intentional speed bump.

#10

And yet we see improvised explosive devices get built all the time in many designs. Sorry, but this gubmint regulation makes no more sense then the issue with removing/not removing shoes I mentioned above. It is a ‘feel good’ exercise. Particularly considering most electronics parts now come from China, and they don’t care about our export restrictions…

#11

I have some in my cache (from Fred’s). How many ya need?

#12

I only NEED one of each. I have some from Fred’s but couldn’t find data sheets for them. Need not just pinouts, but the ratings. Was too lazy to empirically determine that information.

#13

These export laws are antiquated and created during a time when advanced electronic components weren’t in everyone’s pockets already. I’ve run into this before with autopilots from 3D Robotics. I can’t sell an old used one to someone outside of the United States but anyone in the world can buy an exact clone of it from China on eBay or many other websites (since it’s an open source design).

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#16

Typical applications: core telecom, industrial control …

Yeah that might do it. Maybe it’s a popular component in those fields.

It’s not about stopping smuggling; it’s CYA for Mouser. Mouser’s job is to be able to show the government they weren’t ignoring red flags, since the government can fine you if they think you ignored red flags. If Mouser were to accidentally sell a restricted item to someone on the Denied Persons List, they need to be able to show they didn’t do the head-in-sand routine.

#17

This post was not about Mouser, my favorite supplier of electronics components, but about the stupidity of the government, its bureaucrats, and ‘safety rules’ in general. Mouser is simply doing what a business must in such a stupid legal environment.

3 Likes
#18

I was replying to someone questioning Mouser’s questionnaire.

Edit: My opinion on OP is you’re a little sensitive on the issue. Import / export is one of the more legit functions of the federal government, and they can justify limiting things for a lot of political (and therefore logically inscrutable, from the outside) reasons. Compliance isn’t particularly difficult in this case, it seems, so why the fuss?

#19

Sorry, but as citizens, neither you or I are ‘outside’. There is no legitimate justification for placing components made in China (and hence available to everyone in the world who wants it) on a ‘no export’ list. Don’t export plutonium? Sounds reasonable. Don’t export a DIP package relay made in China? Sorry, not reasonable.

Because the law/regulation is fundamentally wrong and clearly being written by brain dead beauracrats (I know a redundant description). Getting people fired up to get these cleared off the books is a good thing. And while I filled out the form and emailed this morning, Mouser still hasn’t sent me notice my order has shipped. So compliance may not be particularly easy. Can you prove your not a name on a list? The answer to that question is no. Ask the many people who can’t fly because they happen to share a name with some who is on the list (without any proof they are dangerous).

1 Like
#21

How dumb can export laws be, ITAR is probably the worst.

When I worked in Israel at an aircraft engine factory, they were making parts for the new JSF engine. We had provided them all the drawings, all the technical specifications to build them under an ITAR license. We built the first 25 Engineering Source Approval parts back to the US for evaluation and testing. There were was a design change they wanted incorporated and an issue some feature, within tolerance, on some of the parts. We requested that send back a couple of the parts that they had issues with and the areas - making the incorporation of the changes easier and more accurate.

We could not get a license to ship them back out of the US - you know these are sensitive items, could reverse engineer.

Huh? They were provided everything to make the part to the design, they built it, but now double-secret probation export rules prevented them from seeing their own part.

You have to love government rule makers.

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#22

And the obvious problem is, nobody would know that if they hadn’t flagged this component, so they’ve only made it easier!

All of this is bullshit. I have a friend who built the analog frontend for the original “nuclear football”. I’m 100% certain he didn’t use anything you couldn’t buy better equivalents to out of the bins at Tanner’s any day of the week.

#23

There is a traditional solution to pesky bureaucrats and politicians…

“I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.” - Thomas Jefferson