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[on:]

http://shop.moderndevice.com/products/rbbb-kit 

Modern Device has increased the price of the RBBB from $12.50 U.S. to $15.  I used to buy 5 for $50, now it's 5 for 67.50.  They used to be just cheap enough for me to not buy all the components and build Arduinos from scratch, but it looks like I'm in the manufacturing business now.

[Reply #1 on:]

You could also check out ardweenys, still just $9.95 from our friends across the northern border...http://www.solarbotics.com/products/kardw/

Update:
Shipping details:
"The total value of products in your cart is $9.95. There is a $5.00 handling fee applied to all orders in which the total value of products is below $30.00.

This fee will be removed if the total value of your products exceeds $30.00, otherwise it will be applied to your order when you checkout. "

WIth 4 & 5, the message above goes away. Minimum shipping is $9.90 for 2 week delivery.

Free expedited shipping (8 days) once get over $75. Solarbotics has a bunch of other neat stuff too.

[Reply #2 on:]

I haven't tried one yet, but this looks pretty fairly priced:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Anarduino-Arduino-Clone-ATmega328-Kit-NEW-/170593350401?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27b827f301

Lefty

[Reply #3 on:]

Isn't that really this one?
http://shop.amcnano.com/Narduino-Arduino-clone-SKU2003.htm
(I believe run by the son of the Dr writing the book)

Typical E-bay, some yahoo will run the price up over the list price before the time runs out.

Price not much different now:
1 Narduino Arduino clone $11.00
Subtotal $11.00
Shipping (First-Class Mail®)  & Handling  $1.22
Tax $0.00
Order Total $12.22

and no savings on multiple qtys for shipping, $1.22 each one
3 Narduino Arduino clone $33.00
Subtotal $33.00
Shipping (First-Class Mail®)  & Handling  $3.66
Tax $0.00
Order Total $36.66


vs $9.50 + $2.28 for shipping = $11.78 on e-bay, if that price is still good tomorrow afternoon ...

[Reply #4 on:]

Well he also has a buy it now price about $1 higher.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Anarduino-Arduino-Clone-ATmega328-Kit-NEW-/170595595809?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27b84a3621

Lefty

[Reply #5 on:]

I just purchased 5 RBBB PCBs. Looks decent. If you get parts separate, you may save some money. One PCB is $2.4 if you buy 5. Then you have to separately buy the ATMEGA328 from sparkfun (hopefully more will become available later this year), then separately buy the other components. I normally buy my parts from dipmicro.com. From what I just tried, all parts together (1 full set for one RBBB), I spent $2.15 at dipmicro.com

So:
RBBB PCB $2.4 (buy 5)
ATMEGA328 $4.3 (out of stock) or $5.5 with bootloader (I bought 10 w/o bootloader and bootloaded them within 20 minutes)
Other parts $2.15
Total: $8.85
You're happy now?

[Reply #6 on:]

Thanks for the links everyone, good information.

[Reply #7 on:]

Slight mistake. You need this from modern device as well but it's only $0.50 if you buy 10

http://shop.moderndevice.com/products/16-mhz-resonators

Remove the crystal from dipmicro. The total cost is about $8.5

[Reply #8 on:]

The Ardweeny looks nice for breadboarding, but the RBBB has that power supply (option) that's very handy for a lot of projects.

Yeah, it sucks that the price went up, but it's probably the government's fault: Paul's profit margins are so thin that the Labor Department probably nailed him for paying himself less than minimum wage 

[Reply #9 on:]

One idea I had recently was to make a bare bones Pro Mini style board.  Since 328's are in short supply at the moment and SM 168's are about £1.80, I was thinking MCU, crystal, reset button and a few caps, same footprint as Mini Pro but with ADC6 and ADC7 brought out as well.  No regulator for minimum cost.  Probably could be made for £5 ($8) or so I guess (more for a 328).  Plausible??

[Reply #10 on:]

So something like this but with the quad flatpack or the leadless part instead?
I got all the traces & Vcc on the top layer here, the bottom is all ground plane.

I see thousands of DIP 168 parts available at Digikey.com. Where are you that you can't get them?

No DIP 328s tho. Will have a shot at laying one of those out ... give the leadless part shot, see if can't fit in the DIP 3/10 wide footprint ...

[Reply #11 on:]

Wow, the schematic barely changes! 1 more VCC, 1 more ground, ADC6 & ADC7... on to the layout!

[Reply #12 on:]

OK we've heard the masses at Modern Device.

We have  put prices back to almost where they were. We needed to get a little price rise to accommodate chip price rises and other cost increases for our business.  (We have a new space in an art space near downtown Providence - google the Steelyard, Providence).

We were sort of shocked (and very heartened) at how much people care about the RBBB. Let me say that we're very glad to see all the Arduino clones and that they all have the copulative effect of enforcing commodity pricing. I believe this is a good thing in general for the Freeduino / Arduino community.

The recent ATmega supply-chain nonsense also has us looking at a surface mount version to keep costs down.

Happy building all,

Paul Badger
Shawn Wallace

Modern Device

[Reply #13 on:]

Providence, RI? Can I stop in & say Hi sometime? I'm off I-495 in MA, not far away.

[Reply #14 on:]

CrossRoads,

I thought I495 is the Long Island Express?!