Your latest sample

I don't think it could hurt the manufacturer that much

I guess that one thought against hobbyists sampling (or people selling their samples on eBay) is that it hurts the distributors that cater to hobbyists. Some of those are money-grabbing opportunists that sell chips and parts at tremendous markups, but a lot of them do a good job of providing parts to various niches, and I'd hate to see them go away.

westfw:

I don't think it could hurt the manufacturer that much

I guess that one thought against hobbyists sampling (or people selling their samples on eBay) is that it hurts the distributors that cater to hobbyists. Some of those are money-grabbing opportunists that sell chips and parts at tremendous markups, but a lot of them do a good job of providing parts to various niches, and I'd hate to see them go away.

I doubt they will. You need a lot of components you can't get in sufficient quantities by sampling, unless you are happy to light only a few LEDs or whatever. Who samples the large numbers of resistors and capacitors that you need? Really only a few semiconductors are worth sampling - the ones complex enough to be interesting but hard enough to use that you will only do one, and simple enough to do at all (not an ARM processor with 100 .4mm pins, for example). ADC/DACs come to mind!

I have been lucky enough to get samples on two occasions. In both occasions, I did not have to invent a title or company name. I believe that where it asks for company, I stated "No company". I used my real e-mail address and I had no problem getting the pieces.

I will say that I will only go to the trouble of getting a sample for things that I would perhaps later buy more if that sample fits my criteria. I will also promote the product to fellow hobbyist if the product is worthy. I feel it is a fair trade in my situation.

cyclegadget:
I will also promote the product to fellow hobbyist if the product is worthy. I feel it is a fair trade in my situation.

Then tell us what you got! That's the whole point of this thread! :stuck_out_tongue:

If you are honest and upfront about asking, some manufacturers will gladly provide samples to even hobbyists. Microchip, Maxim, and Dallas Semi have sent me parts in the past when I sent them letters explaining what I wanted and why. In all cases the items were sent via USPS rather than overnight (which costs much more than the parts--and indeed qualifies as harm)

If you misleed, even by lying from omission, when requesting such parts you are, in my opinion, committing theft through fraud. An honest/ethical approach is simple, just provide the whole and complete truth when requesting the samples and let the company decide if they wish to send you a freebie. For those of you who don't provide the complete truth, what do you say to the sales person who usually posts a follow-up call relating to such 'freebies'...

And sorry, but I don't see much difference to the lines of reasoning used in this thread; http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php/topic,105119.0.html

Oh, when requested, I received nearly a dozen difference PICs (different types) from Microchip, and some A2D chips from Maxim. Don't remember what I received from Dallas Semi...

wanderson:
If you are honest and upfront about asking, some manufacturers will gladly provide samples to even hobbyists. Microchip, Maxim, and Dallas Semi have sent me parts in the past when I sent them letters explaining what I wanted and why. In all cases the items were sent via USPS rather than overnight (which costs much more than the parts--and indeed qualifies as harm)

If you misleed, even by lying from omission, when requesting such parts you are, in my opinion, committing theft through fraud. An honest/ethical approach is simple, just provide the whole and complete truth when requesting the samples and let the company decide if they wish to send you a freebie. For those of you who don't provide the complete truth, what do you say to the sales person who usually posts a follow-up call relating to such 'freebies'...

And sorry, but I don't see much difference to the lines of reasoning used in this thread; http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php/topic,105119.0.html

Oh, when requested, I received nearly a dozen difference PICs (different types) from Microchip, and some A2D chips from Maxim. Don't remember what I received from Dallas Semi...

Thank you for sharing with us the samples that you received. Microchip seems like good people for sure.

JoeN:
Thank you for sharing with us the samples that you received. Microchip seems like good people for sure.

Yes they are, particularly when you consider that at the time 3 or 4 of those chips were CERDIPs with UV windows. Those were expensive chips (> $20 each)

Must admit that I much prefer the change where most manufacturers have retail sales for small quantities directly or through distributors. Just prefer to purchase what I need.

I contacted (or tried to) a manufacturer who produces an IC for working with WWVB signals since I couldn't find a supplier of small quantities (Digikey required minimum of 100). They never even responded to the email...

I love Atmel, they make the best micro controllers at the best price... Look at this http://www.bajdi.com/?attachment_id=469
]:slight_smile:

(Atmel has just implemented a new Sampling Scheme, BTW. Traditionally, it was supposed to be difficult to get Samples of Atmel chips.)

Note that if you're a "real company" of the sort likely to use tens of thousands to millions of chips, a sample request is likely to be answered with an offer to send around a sales team, engineers to assist you with your design, development tools, and more. Which goes back to what I said about samples being cheap marketing. Even the 5 minute phone call is likely to cost the company more than the sample chips themselves (and I suspect that the infrastructure to support sampling for the customers that really "deserve" it cost more than product they send out. (applies to the sort of avr-class chips I assume we're mostly talking about. If you start phoning places up "I'm working on a new guided missile system for the army, and I'd like to get a sample of your $300 mil-spec 9dof inertial navigation chip...", you've probably crossed a line.)

I've found Texas Instruments to be very generous and fast with their samples. I don't try and order once a week or anything though.

meanpc:
I've found Texas Instruments to be very generous and fast with their samples. I don't try and order once a week or anything though.

Free MSP-430 MCU samples from Texas Instruments - unboxing - YouTube

Those are interesting chips but I think I like Atmel better, at least on paper. These seem to compete with the ATTiny line, but as a 16 bit processor. So they have an advantage there, but all the options seem to be 2KB flash/128 bytes RAM/0 bytes EEPROM and even the modest Attiny 44 has 4KB/256/256.

Some samples I have got:

I got a STN1110 chip rather quickly after asking for it. Here is a bit of info that I quoted from a thread where I got the info.

STN1110 ICs from here: STN1110 - Multiprotocol OBD Interpreter IC - Low-Cost, High-Performance

The STN1110 chip supports all the OBD-II protocols. If you want something a little more user-friendly (and a little more expensive) you can also get the ODB-II UART board from Sparkfun (http://www.sparkfun.com/products/9555) which also uses the STN1110.

Or you could build your own version of the Sparkfun board using their schematics.

I got an STM32F4 discovery board from ST, www.st.com for free which was nice. I struggle with using it but, it is a nice board!

Most recently, I got 4 chips from Atmel by filling out their form for receiving samples. I have a thread about that here in bar sport.

In each case, I answered honestly, and had no problems getting the chips.

Anyone else have any luck getting samples?

I got an STM32F4 discovery board from TI

That seems somewhat unlikely... :slight_smile:

westfw:

I got an STM32F4 discovery board from TI

That seems somewhat unlikely... :slight_smile:

Oops that made me laugh :-). I went back and corrected it to ST www.st.com. I had second thoughts when I was writing that line, good catch!

Repost to the thread where I plan to keep my sample info in:

I got my EEprom From Renesas today! That was quick! "About a day or two."

3 piece HN58X25256FPI#SO

IC EEPROM 256K 5MHZ 8SOP

Now I need a way to solder it down!

cyclegadget:
Repost to the thread where I plan to keep my sample info in:

I got my EEprom From Renesas today! That was quick! "About a day or two."

3 piece HN58X25256FPI#SO

IC EEPROM 256K 5MHZ 8SOP

Now I need a way to solder it down!

Datasheet says 8SOP version is 1.27mm. Does that look right? That's a big pitch for a modern chip. But if it is, you want an adapter like this and 2x 4 pin headers:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/10PCS-SOP8-DIP8-adapter-PCB-converter-0-65mm-1-27mm-/140866822761

That is big enough you could probably just solder wires onto those pins directly.

I got one of these

In 8 days!!!

It's seems pretty cool so far.

cyberteque:
I got one of these
http://coridium.us/

In 8 days!!!

It's seems pretty cool so far.

Boy, I want to get better with ARM and I like the fact it is in a DIP but I would rather use a programming environment that is not a BASIC compiler tied to a small company. I bought a STM32F4DISCOVERY board which has a F4 chip from ST on it at 168Mhz and I intend to get busy with that after I finish my current little project which uses a 328.

OK, I am self-bumping. I hope the church doesn't hold this against me.

To amplify a small incoming signal for a counter project, I have just sampled this fine product. Wish me well because I have never used one of these before though it looks simple enough:

From Atmel I got a couple of XMEGAs and a couple of AT32UC3s. I want to prove that I can make these work as easily as I make ATMEGAs work.

Microchip has sent me a few 8Mx16 Flash ROMs. They program in my ChipMax II well. Got an idea for these.

http://www.microchip.com/wwwproducts/Devices.aspx?dDocName=en549454

And Fairchild supplied some very high speed counters for the counter project too. Just came today.

http://www.fairchildsemi.com/ds/74/74VHC4040.pdf

Anyone else?