How to tell counterfeit PCI-6250

[Jooi20011]

We have a small business that uses the PCI-6250 to collect and process data in one of our devices we sell.  We recently got several from an online auction site to repair some older units, and each looks different (different color PCB, different stickers / silk screen...etc.).  Is there anything we can look for to tell if they are counterfeit?  

For example: One has a sticker that says made in Hungary, but the PCB has a silkscreen that says made in the USA.

[ZYOng]

NI has moved most of its manufacturing lines to plants in Hungary and Malaysia. Hence you might still see older modules made in the USA and Hungary for the recent one.

To detect any counterfeit, I would recommend obtaining a Certificate of Calibration or Conformance for NI Hardware

If the model number in the calibration certificate matches the exact hardware, most likely it is genuine.

[santo_13]

I don't think they are counterfeits; they are just different revisions of the same card over the years. On the other hand, there were a lot of Chinese clones of the USB-GPIB that NI had to crack down on using a driver.

[rolfk]

I'm aware of the USB-GPIB having been cloned in the past but kind of doubt anybody went through the trouble of trying to clone DAQ boards. For one they use highly integrated NI custom chips for PCI and timing/signal routing functionality that would take a lot of work to reverse engineer properly. Yes it is not impossible to do, but I'm kind of questioning the effort/benefit calculation here.

As has been mentioned, NI moved the manufacturing around a few times. While it originally manufactured most things in the US (or Mexico for cables and other auxiliary items), it moved most of that to Hungary at some point and parts of it to Malaysia later on. Since you purchase in the refurbished market, you easily can get products that were originally manufactured 25 years ago and others that are much more recent. So the different look, color and manufacturing origin is no clear indication of counterfeit at all.

Trying to inquire about a calibration certificate for the serial number mentioned on the board is one possible option to not only get an idea if it is a genuine board but also about when it was most likely manufactured. It's not a foolproof indication, also about the production date, since the last calibration date may be actually later if the board ever was returned to NI for recalibration or repair.