Chinese Bin manufactuer/factory sleuthing (1 Viewer)

I did some digging tonight and I think I've found something interesting/informative for those of us following the new budget Chinese bins.

Heres a company that I kept running into:

Kunming Yuanda Optical

They seem to make 3 tiers of roof bins which correspond well to those available from Zen, EO, Hawke, etc. You have the ~$100 model, the ~$200 model and the ED model. So far, this is the only company that actually seems like an actual manufacturing facility and not just a distributer. I ran into a few distributors but you can tell because their catalogs are full of other crap while Kunming Yuanda Optical seems to keep a very tidy catalog not cluttered up with cheap(er) stuff.

Another interesting note is that Kunming Yuanda Optical also has had a presence at the Las Vegas SHOT shows which gives them direct access to US investors which might explain how they got their contracts with the few US companies that are carrying them now.

I might have to check them out at the next SHOT show if they are on the vendor list and ask them some Qs about their design/mfg process and wholesale prices.

Anyway, if anyone else is interested in sleuthing these bins, be my guest and use this thread.

I think Kevin P. also mentioned Kumming in one of his earlier posts about Chinese manufacturers. It is always difficult to tell exactly who is making what though as there are so many variations of any given product...and many of them look very similar. Take the open-bridge ED bins for example. Though some of them are made by Bosma there are others that are made elsewhere. The similarities in design are so close that one wonders if there is not a base "master" design that all are working off of.

Well I did a little digging on the name you posted. I did not find them listing just three models but actually close to two dozen. Some of them look familiar. The first one below looks, externally, to be very similar to one of the bins I currently have in my possession.

....and this one seems very similar to either a Bushnell Elite or a Cabelas Alpha Extreme.

But, as I stated before it is tough to tell by looks alone and there are not any specs listed on the website I checked out.

Here's an interesting link with specs:

http://www.biztrademarket.com/transfersell_Excellent Birding Binoculars_1117410.htm

-3 stage locking rotating retractable eyecup and "click stop" diopter adjustment
-Phase corrected coating on the Bak4 Roof Prism and FBBMC coating on the lens
-Magnesium alloy and waterproof construction

Long Eye Relief for viewing with or without glasses. BaK-4 Prism allows maximum light transmission. Fully Broadband Multi-coated Lenses increase light transmission and color quality. High-resolution Phase-coated Roof Prisms provide more contrast and sharpness. Extra Flat Field gives a comfortable viewing. Click-stop Adjustment Locks in the right eyepiece diopter and 3-stage stop rotating retractable eyecup give the most comfortable eye relief. O-ring Sealed and Nitrogen-filled Waterproof Construction allow these binoculars to be used in the toughest weather conditions and be submerged to 1 meter for 5 minutes. Magnesium-alloy Construction ensures the most precision alignment of optical elements in a lightweight, extra durable and streamlined body. Laser Engrave on the decorated ring. Ergonomic Dsign and Rugged Rubber Armored Body gives a sure grip and shock resistance.

Mrs. S. assures me, from another link in Chinese (which I can´t read), that they´re a subsidiary in Kunming, Yunnan Province, of a larger company that deals with all kinds of optics, lighting, event management, "stage glass" (no, neither of us has a clue what that means....) Google them and there´s a map of their location. Thanks, Shocaholica!

One thing that should be remembered when hunting for "lookalikes" on the web is that the original manufacturers will typically carry (and probably show on the web) a "standard" product design i.e. they have to make something in order to show and tell to prospective customers. Could be that this appears only in a CGI-type form (rendered from the CAD line drawing) or could be that it actually gets made for the domestic market.

It is possible then that each brand owner (Hawke, Opticron, EO, etc) will pay for a tooling that allows for a different external appearance. This could just be the texturing/patterning of the rubber armouring, could be a specific metal mould to position key componenta slightly differently etc etc.

Those tooling costs, depending on the complexity, will cost several tens of thousands of dollars - a cost which has to be amoritised over the life of the product. If you're shipping several thousand pairs a month, that happens quickly and/or keeps your final price down. If you ship a handful of pairs a month, your price rises and/or the lifetime of the product increases.

The alternative is take one from a shopping list or menu of standard designs (shown to you in the catalogue on the booth at SHOT, IWA etc) and you end up sharing the tooling costs amongst x number of brand owners. Downside is that you have something that everyone else does so rely on your brand reputation to add the value.

Same thing happens in the TFT LCD monitor and TV business, in the notebook PC business etc etc. For example, TPV makes monitors for most of the PC brands out there but also sells under the AOC brand (and now owns Philips' monitor business); Vestel makes Hitachi TVs and also sells in its home market in Turkey under its own brand. Check slide 17 in this presentation for an idea of how complex this stuff can get:

http://www.displaysearch.com/files/2008_August_MNT_and_TV_Presentation_to_client.pdf

Picking away at this stuff is like picking at a thread in your sweater - you start something you wish you hadn't

pete_gamby said:

Same thing happens in the TFT LCD monitor and TV business, in the notebook PC business etc etc. For example, TPV makes monitors for most of the PC brands out there but also sells under the AOC brand (and now owns Philips' monitor business); Vestel makes Hitachi TVs and also sells in its home market in Turkey under its own brand......
Picking away at this stuff is like picking at a thread in your sweater - you start something you wish you hadn't

Click to expand...

Same thing happens with bicycles too. You can now buy beautiful carbon-fibre frames, unbranded or with unknown brand-names, that are obvioiusly made by the same outfits making "top-end" names. (The danger is that you can´t be sure you aren´t buying something sub-standard....and if your carbon-fibre frame fails, the results can be nasty....)

pete_gamby said:

It is possible then that each brand owner (Hawke, Opticron, EO, etc) will pay for a tooling that allows for a different external appearance. This could just be the texturing/patterning of the rubber armouring, could be a specific metal mould to position key componenta slightly differently etc etc.

Those tooling costs, depending on the complexity, will cost several tens of thousands of dollars - a cost which has to be amoritised over the life of the product. If you're shipping several thousand pairs a month, that happens quickly and/or keeps your final price down. If you ship a handful of pairs a month, your price rises and/or the lifetime of the product increases.

Click to expand...

Indeed. Note that with the ED2s, Zen has paid for molds for the new (I believe) "ZR" objective covers. Given that the first (as yet unseen) production run of 7x36 ED2s is sold out, a good investment already. :t:

pete_gamby said:

It is possible then that each brand owner (Hawke, Opticron, EO, etc) will pay for a tooling that allows for a different external appearance. This could just be the texturing/patterning of the rubber armouring, could be a specific metal mould to position key componenta slightly differently etc etc.

Click to expand...

looks familiar?

http://united-optics.com/Products/Binoculars/Huniting_Birding_Outdoor_Binoculars/BW1_Series/BW1.html


http://united-optics.com/Products/B...Outdoor_Binoculars/BW8_Series/BW8 Series.html

falcondude said:

looks familiar?

http://united-optics.com/Products/Binoculars/Huniting_Birding_Outdoor_Binoculars/BW1_Series/BW1.html


http://united-optics.com/Products/B...Outdoor_Binoculars/BW8_Series/BW8 Series.html

Click to expand...

Nice find. I also came across some CAD renderings that looked very similar to the ones on Zen's website but I know that most of these places are using the same design apps and rendering settings. However, the angle of the product was eerily similar.

You know, I'm temped to order some samples that aren't available from the rebadgers like the 12x56 center diopter.

I also like some of their Euro inspired outer designs better than the rebdagers too.

Wow, I'm giddy.

http://united-optics.com/Products/Binoculars/Huniting_Birding_Outdoor_Binoculars/BW3_Series/BW3.html

8x56ED/10x56ED/12x56ED

along the same theme, most outdoor backpacks (for mountaineering, backpacking, etc) are made inthe same factory in Vietnam. There was an article in Backpacker magazine years ago about this and how the citizens of vietnam made all these backpacks inthe factory but the activity of "backpacking into the forest" was unknown to them as they lived in the forest and didn't consider this a recreational activity. Nevertheless they put together a quality product for many different brands.

Sometimes if a rep from one company was in the factory and noticed them sewing a feature onto another company's backpack they would say "hey put that on our backpacks, too."

In Hanoi or HCMC you can buy a lot of very cheap backpacks that seem to come out of the factories you mention. They're mostly very good quality, eg. same materials (and logos) as the known outdoor brands but obviously not the real ones. Last time i bought one, I picked a nice Northface ,one but didn't like the red color. No problem, they brought the same model in black, but made by Lowe

My bro-in-law's girlfriend is from mainland China, where she studied physics before coming to the US. As a physics student, she was aware of some things happening in astronomy. She told me that Kunming, the town has a lot of optical capability, which was developed in support of nearby astronomical observatories. Wasn't it smart to develop this into a sport optics manufacturing center!
Ron

ronh said:

My bro-in-law's girlfriend is from mainland China, where she studied physics before coming to the US. As a physics student, she was aware of some things happening in astronomy. She told me that Kunming, the town has a lot of optical capability, which was developed in support of nearby astronomical observatories. Wasn't it smart to develop this into a sport optics manufacturing center!
Ron

Click to expand...

It was also China's center for military optics before capitalism took off. I suspect this has a bigger influence on the making of sport optics (and military optics) than the astronomers.

e.g. check out the story of the General Hi-T porros (General seems to be the term for military hardware rather than just a brand). Holger comments on this in his reviews.

Not sure which came first to Kunming: the military or the astronomers. But the military-optical complex had this biggest impact.