next topic »

[on:]

[Reply #1 on:]

Very pretty. When will these be for sale?



Phil

[Reply #2 on:]

It is available for pre-order. Order now and get 10% off; boards will ship on the 16th of June.
http://www.gravitech.us

[Reply #3 on:]

I'm guessing MSRP is $49.99?

[Reply #4 on:]

Those look awesome, but why are they $50? What's so expensive on the board? If they were $25 I would get half a dozen... I guess the BBB will have to do for now...

[Reply #5 on:]

Just a bunch of small things that build up, especially to make the board so small.  It has components on both sides, which adds to assembly costs, it has a four layer PCB which costs more, etc.  We're hoping the prices will come down if we can reduce the costs in future production runs.

[Reply #6 on:]

I haven't got that pages up yet but I'm having a Nano sale.

5 RBBB kits for the price of one Nano. (The price goes up when the Nano does too).
3 Assembled RBBB's for the price of one Nano.
2 Assembled RBBB's and one cable for the price of a Nano.


And I'm working on a hack to put a gratuitous surface mount blue LED on the bottom of the board. An indispensable feature, no? I know I have a couple dozen beautiful aqua LED's left over from a project, for the first twenty customers.

Look for the pages soon at moderndevice.com

[Reply #7 on:]

Paulb!  Where do I sign?  The aqua LED is the clincher Har har...
But seriously, where do I sign?

[Reply #8 on:]

Here it is:
http://moderndevice.com/RBBB_revB.shtml

Spread the word, hope I'm not creating a monster.

Paul

[Reply #9 on:]

I'm trying to decide whether it means "something is wrong" when adding USB multiplies the price of the thing by five.
In retrospect, I think probably NOT.  The parts cost for USB is close to 2x that of a non-USB version (ie USB chip costs the same as as the ATmega chip, the connector is relatively expensive, and there are support components comparable to the rest of arduino), and then there is another factor of 2.5x that you save by having to build it yourself (and it's sort of nice to see that sort of benefit for "sweat equity.")

OTOH, it's a bit sad that newer version arduino board prices are creeping upward with increasing complexity, rather than downward with volume...

[Reply #10 on:]

Paulb, were you serious about the gratuitous LED addition?  If so, did my order make it in the first 20?

[Reply #11 on:]

I'm trying to decide whether it means "something is wrong" when adding USB multiplies the price of the thing by five.

its a little more complex than that. first off its a double-sided pre-assembled PCB. that adds quite a bit of cost. secondly, its a 4-layer board, which is more expensive to fab & test than a 2-layer. the nano (like the lilypad) is an Arduino, and so they both have to pay a licensing fee (5%-10%). and lastly, paul doesn't factor in a retailers margin.  when you consider -all- of the costs, it is clear how the price ends up at $50!

the nano is good design.

[Reply #12 on:]

Sure its an interesting design but I dont know if its a good design. One of the attractive things about the Arduino concept is that it made embedded electronics democratically accessible by ease of design, ease of interface (ie usb and mac compatibility), and affordability.

How many times has there been a comparison to the Basic Stamp that IIRC is priced at $50 and has always been railed for being too expensive. I ultimately feel that cramming the full functionality of the arduino into a longer-than-Stamp-sized form factor at the trade off of having to have dual-side components and 4 -layer pcb resulting in a costly board with ground effects is not a very good tradeoff and might be heading in the wrong direction.

I assume the forthcoming second big announcement the Arduino team will be making is that of a 128 or similarly based arduino and Im sure that will be placed in a similar price point. Im just saying that it should be possible to gain almost full diecimila functionality in a small form factor fully assembled for $30 or under and to do it while embracing the tenants of a community driven open source hardware initiative. Whew.

Cheers,
Brian

[Edit: I realize this may be taken as a rant but please dont read into it in that way.]

[Reply #13 on:]

[Edit: I realize this may be taken as a rant but please dont read into it in that way.]

I could rant a bit too, but as I see it there's not much point. I've come to accept the reality that the official Arduino hardware designs are developed in a closed way- i.e. active community participation isn't a part of it. I don't think this is going to change anytime soon.

Now on the other hand, We have lots of options for making our own designs, whether it's Freeduino, iDuino, Boarduino...

This seems to be the state of things, and actually it is not such a bad state to be in. If Gravitech wants to sell their (excellent) 4-layer Nano design for $50, why not? At the same time, others can sell an almost identical two-layer design for $25 or $30.

D  

[Reply #14 on:]

Considering you have basically all of the Diecimila's components on a four layer board with double-layered assembly, I can see there's a noticeable cost increase.
Assuming parts costs are the same (which based on the volume of Diecimilas compared to Nanos, I think it's safe to say they aren't). You've basically doubled the PCB and assembly cost (two runs through the pick-n-place, two runs through the oven).

If Gravitech wants to sell their (excellent) 4-layer Nano design for $50, why not? At the same time, others can sell an almost identical two-layer design for $25 or $30.

I think this is exactly the right way to look at things, there are a whole host of options, depending on what you want to buy.
Gravitech sells a pre-assembled, stamp-sized, official, Arduino for $50, that's one option and a pretty good option at that. Other than (possibly) price, it's a win on all aspects.
Ladyada sells Boarduino USBs for $25, they're bigger, kitted, and unofficial.
I sell iDuinos for $18, they're bigger, kitted, unofficial, and not listed on the Arduino.cc 'Hardware' page.
Paul sells RBBBs for $11, they don't contain USB, they're kitted, and unofficial.
There was a post recently about a clone stamp sized board with onboard USB.

How many times has there been a comparison to the Basic Stamp that IIRC is priced at $50 and has always been railed for being too expensive.

And now, you can actually make the comparison properly. I don't see anyone rushing to replace the Diecimila with the Nano as the 'lead Arduino' board. If anything, this is a replacement for the Mini, in which case it's far more of an upgrade than a dramatic change.

Depending on what you want, you do have a range of options. The Nano is an excellent option if you need/want any of it's aspects and I think once you start imagining they're costs, you can see how $50 is a reasonable price point.