Help to identify an IC - Chipstar CA34.... ?

A simple google takes you to the Chipstar website - and presumably it's a boost converter chip - but the CA34 isn't the type, it's a date or production code. The type number is the destroyed number above the CA34.

Probably one of these:


The chip also has a metal tab underneath, so is difficult to remove and replace, even assuming you could decide which it is, and source a replacement.

I'm presuming Blaupunkt over there is just a badge on cheap crap Chinese gear, as in the UK

Just a name that's been sold on, and nothing to do with Blaupunkt, assuming they still exist?.

Many thanks, Nigel - I feared as much. There are many clones of this type of speaker so yes, I imagine it's simply mass-produced overseas and then rebadged for a higher price.

Cheers

Once upon a time, one could trust a product’s brand name. Whose reputation had been painstakingly built over a long time.
Not anymore! These brands are hollow shells of their former selves.

schmitt trigger said:

Once upon a time, one could trust a product’s brand name. Whose reputation had been painstakingly built over a long time.
Not anymore! These brands are hollow shells of their former selves.

Click to expand...

Most 'brands' now are just names with no connection at all to the original companies. In the UK we get cheap crap Blaupunkt TV's in the supermarkets (Blaupunkt never even made TV's), likewise another supermarket brand is Polaroid, who again never made TV's.

'Big' names who no longer exist (at least for domestic electronics in the UK/EU) would be companies like Hitachi, Sharp, Mitsubishi, Ferguson, Bush - the list is pretty endless

Toshiba, while still existing, haven't made TV's for many years, and just sell cheap Vestel sets (made in Turkey), identical to the cheap supermarket brands. Even Panasonic source their low ends from Vestel.

Interestingly, along with the Polaroid name, various other American brand names have appeared, such as RCA, who never traded in the UK in the past.

In my opinion (and most of the UK electronics trade), there are three levels of sets:

Top - Sony and Panasonic (not counting the bottom end Panasonics).

Middle - Samsung and LG.

Bottom - everything else.

Funnily enough I've just ordered a 55 inch TV for work, for use as a wall mounted display screen for presentations, we only wanted a cheap set - so I ordered a Toshiba (Vestel), for only £299 - probably the best of the cheap manufacturers, mostly because they make so many sets, and spares are actually available.

schmitt trigger said:

Once upon a time, one could trust a product’s brand name. Whose reputation had been painstakingly built over a long time.
Not anymore! These brands are hollow shells of their former selves.

Click to expand...

Notice how unprofitable it must be to be a "brand" when a consumer has so many cheaper options. Who wants to go to a "stereo shop" and have a sales person hover over you, try to upsell the consumer to a premium brand, (the manufacturer hoping his premium brand is the one selected by the customer) and then the consumer can't immediately go to the checkout and run home because the sales person wants to drag him through the speaker room, sell him cables and a service contract before allowing him to check out (possibly an introduction to the sales manager who will repeat the benefits of a service agreement before being allowed to check out).

I'd much rather click on a UE Boom made-in-China wireless speaker and it shows up in two days.

If you say, but it's a made in China POS, well, it's no different than the outsourced "value line" offered by companies like Blaupunkt, Westinghouse, GE, RCA, as their ratings rose and fell though their product's and company's lifecycles.

Consumerism and commoditization and economies of scale drive everything. Look at the expensive "designer" jeans brands of the 1980s - all available at the discount stores now. It may take time but names like Rolex and YSL will eventually be available at the dollar store, too.