11 ms·

<rant> Sadly its extremely hard to buy any Pi Zero at the sticker price. Its always out or not available - and even if you can get em you only can order a limi

by blkhawk 10y ago

<rant> Sadly its extremely hard to buy any Pi Zero at the sticker price. Its always out or not available - and even if you can get em you only can order a limited amount (in the case were I got lucky it was 1). The Pi Zero W seems to continue the trend as far as my local distributor is concerned. I get the overpriced USB hubs its where the profit is at but MAN stop frigging teasing its annoying if you can't buy it at that price. I don't want the adapters - I solder to the board directly and while the sandisk sd card is not terrible its far from the fastest you can get for a similar price. </rant> sorry about that I am calm now.

2sk21 10y ago
This brings up a question I've been meaning to ask: how hard is it to solder a 40 pin connector to a Pi Zero. Do you need a temperature controlled soldering iron?
- blkhawk 10y ago
  its not hard at all - a 10EUR iron will do frankly if you aren't a complete spaz :) the pin spacing is just as large as with the "grownup" RPI just don't use lead-free solder - no good reason for it and it makes soldering harder than it need be.
  - Marazan 10y ago
    well, apart from not wanting lead poisoning
    - blkhawk 10y ago
      not a problem with lead solder. I prefer not getting cancer from the flux in the lead free solder.
      - facepalm 10y ago
        How do you avoid it with lead solder? Common soldering tutorials don't mention the issue.
        detaro 10y ago
        Because lead poisoning isn't a huge issue for hobbyists. Common rules are: Work in a well-ventilated area, don't eat while working, don't use your soldering iron to heat your coffee. But those apply while using lead-free solder as well.
        facepalm 10y ago
        Why is it not an issues, the dosage is too low? Afaik lead enters through the skin, too - washing hands after soldering sufficient?
        falsedan 10y ago
        Real answer: you would have to be soldering for hours every day for months to be exposed to more lead than can be cleared naturally. Full-time component assembly workers do get that much exposure, so they need to take precautions to avoid poisoning. For hobbyists, you would have to eat quite a bit of solder at once before you would develop any poisoning symptoms. edit: so, it's the frequent repeated exposure to lead (i.e. in paint and as a sugar added to wine[0]) which is harmful, not any single individual (non-acute) exposure. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead(II)_acetate#Sweetener https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead(II)_acetate#Sweetener
        Chris2048 10y ago
        heavy metal leaching in rubbish tips is an environmental issue, one being tackled by much of Europe, starting with regulations on lead-containing electronics.
        Dylan16807 10y ago
        And since almost all electronics are made in large quantities for sale, it makes sense that there can be different rules for one-offs.
    - SmellyGeekBoy 10y ago
      What are you doing with it, eating it?
    - ageofwant 10y ago
      It so happens the lead-free solder needs more heat, more heat leads to longer solder times, killing more components, or damaging their lifespan, forcing you to breath more of the extra toxic lead-free flux fumes. Do not use lead-free solder for hobby work.
  - Chris2048 10y ago
    Any electronics containing lead must be disposed on safely, meaning you can't just sell or distribute such items. Why bother make disposal hard for the sake of easy soldering?
  - Chris2048 10y ago
    10EUR irons are terrible! You have to be far more skilled to deliver the right amount of heat, and for some cases (small pad close to a chip without a shunt) it's hard to solder well without causing damage. They can also be pretty inconsistent temp-wise, making precise, skilled timings impossible.
- gadgetoid 10y ago
  You can just hammer one in. No. I'm not joking. https://learn.pimoroni.com/tutorial/sandyj/fitting-hammer-headers https://learn.pimoroni.com/tutorial/sandyj/fitting-hammer-he...
itsfrosty 10y ago
Same situation as you - pi zero is always out of stock. But in the video included in the post they are saying they will manufacture a lot more quantities of this compared to pi zero so fingers crossed.
benn_88 10y ago
80k units on sale today from a whole bunch of new retailers around the world, and we're making 25k units /week.
- blkhawk 10y ago
  cool - can't get the bare Pi Zero w in germany yet - maybe supplies will normalize in a few weeks - It would be a swap in replacement for my current handheld Project.
  - martin_a 10y ago
    I ordered two from the pi3g shop listed on the site. Seemed to work fine so far.
- trome 10y ago
  So, how is the competitive with Xunlong and FriendlyARM making the OrangePi Zero and the Nanopi Neo? It seems to have less I/O and still not have a libre stack, unlike the Allwinner H3. Is the Raspberry Pi Foundation just coasting on branding at this point to sell products? Edit: On another note, will the Raspberry Pi Foundation stick with this very limited SOC ad infinium? It seems like a poor choice for a single board computer, you really want I/O and low power usage, but it doesn't deliver on either.
  - metaphor 10y ago
    > Is the Raspberry Pi Foundation just coasting on branding at this point to sell products? I don't believe beating competition by selling more products was ever part of the RPi Foundation mission statement. The way how I see it, existence of competing products primarily benefits a minority technically-oriented community, not their intended primary audience.
    - trome 10y ago
      Eh, it seems like the Raspberry Pi Foundation has strayed from an org that started out building SBCs so kids could have a computer to tinker on, and are now entirely focused on being Broadcom's PR and Sales engine. The system on a module was definitely not created with kids in mind, nor was the open GPU driver.
jamesfmilne 10y ago
I bought a Pi Zero last week from The Pi Hut, arrived in two days, they had loads in stock. Might be a problem with your local distributor? I'm in the UK so supply may well be better here than elsewhere. I did get tripped up with the camera connector being a different size to normal Pis though, darn it. [1] www.thepihut.com (I am not affiliated with them in any way)
- blkhawk 10y ago
  Ya I ordered it from the UK in the end - postage was annoyingly expensive and I also ordered from the Pi Hut.
- StavrosK 10y ago
  How much was shipping?
  - jamesfmilne 10y ago
    £2.50 for a £30 order
    - StavrosK 10y ago
      That's not too bad, but did you get the combo package? What happens if you try to get the single Pi? Would it be 12.50 total?
      - lorenzhs 10y ago
        Yes, it's £9.60 for the RPi Zero W and £2.50 for shipping. You can buy it for £12.10 ($15) total in the UK. Not too bad, eh? Shipping to Germany from the same UK seller would be £4, or £5 for the US. That's a total of £13.60 / €16 / $17 for Germany and £14.60 / $18 for the US. You can stop pretending that shipping is $30 now.
        dbrgn 10y ago
        On Pimoroni, shipping to Switzerland is also around £4. In contrast, the official distributor for Germany/Switzerland (pi3g) wants 19€ (!!!) for shipping an envelope with a single Pi Zero in it. And it prohibits reselling. In my opinion the Raspberry Pi foundation should do something against this kind of pricing to keep the boards accessible.
laxentasken 10y ago
This might be useable: http://whereismypizero.com/ http://whereismypizero.com/ Only covers regular pi zero though.
- kefka 10y ago
  Yeah. For a dinky little raspi zero board... $10 shipping. CanaKIT. Nope. 4-12 pounds shipping for PiHut. 5.50 - 8 pounds shipping for pimoroni. Aaaand you can't even get a bare Pi Zero from Adafruit. Of course they're "out of stock" for the "W"'s... But they're glad to sell you a overly inflated price of $24.95 for a Zero kit. bah.
oliwarner 10y ago
I disagree with parts of this. Geographical limits do mean some places end up paying more, and some scummy distributors only stock the packs with a higher markup, but on the whole, the boards are available on their own at the right price. Your real problem is availability. You see a product launch, want 10, 100, 1000 to use in everything from the sprinklers to the toaster and then hit a website where 200,000 other hackers have had exactly the same thought. They're ferociously popular... So what would you rather? They hold off sales and announcement until they have a million units rotting in warehouses around the world (like a console release)? Perhaps they should spend twice as much ramping up production to burst in the first month (and charge more). Or pre-orders? Kickstarter? Serious here, what option is better (on price, fairness and convenience to you) than what they're currently doing? In a month or two you'll (again, slightly dependant on geography) be able to order a hundred of these without an issue. If you really are putting in a big order, talk direct to the distributor and they can adjust their order (and maybe their price to you). Ultimately you don't have to pay more, you just have to be patient.
- makomk 10y ago
  I don't think the one per customer limit on the original Pi Zero ever got lifted in the entire year and a bit it's been on sale, with the brief exception of ones sold in a $40 bundle with the camera module. It's probably sensible to assume that you will never be able to buy more than one of these at once for anything close to the list price.
column 10y ago
If you want 0 problem ordering one, you can just subscribe to resellers newsletters
pmontra 10y ago
I bought one PI Zero W from the Dutch distributor a few minutes ago. It's linked in the blog post. I didn't have to buy anything else and I couldn't buy more than one item. The German distributor seems to be selling only 30x items and the French one doesn't have an Add to cart button for the W, maybe still out of stock. It's in stock at Pimoroni. I didn't check any distributor outside EU. I've been happy with SanDisk microSDHC UHS-I 8 GB cards so far. They are cat 10, advertised up to 48 MB/s. Which SD cards do you recommend?
- blkhawk 10y ago
  I used to use them as well - but I had some fail for some reason and then I bought a samsung evo + card in 32GB during a sale. I have been using those ever since since the iops seem to be noticeably better.
  - pmontra 10y ago
    This? https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Class-Adapter-MB-MP32DA-AM/dp/B00IVPU786 https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Class-Adapter-MB-MP32DA-AM/dp...
bitshiffed 10y ago
I eventually gave up and ordered my Pi Zero from eBay scalpers. Will probably have to do that with the Zero W as well. If they're already for sale at brick-and-mortars then the listings won't be far behind (I don't see any yet, though).
undersuit 10y ago
I bought two Zeros for $5 and <$5 of shipping earlier this month. I still had to go to two different distributors, but Canakit and Adafruit were in stock in the US.
- jhewitt123 10y ago
  I'm more interest in trying the Asus Tinker right now then a wireless Zero, still cool though. Might you have any special knowledge on this alleged Pi-Killer ? https://www.asus.com/uk/Single-board-Computer/TINKER-BOARD/ https://www.asus.com/uk/Single-board-Computer/TINKER-BOARD/ Here's a cool link for you pointing to some new mitochondria research, http://www.cell.com/molecular-cell/fulltext/S1097-2765(16)00086-1 http://www.cell.com/molecular-cell/fulltext/S1097-2765(16)00...

by blkhawk 10y ago

2sk21 10y ago

This brings up a question I've been meaning to ask: how hard is it to solder a 40 pin connector to a Pi Zero. Do you need a temperature controlled soldering iron?

blkhawk 10y ago
its not hard at all - a 10EUR iron will do frankly if you aren't a complete spaz :) the pin spacing is just as large as with the "grownup" RPI just don't use lead-free solder - no good reason for it and it makes soldering harder than it need be.
- Marazan 10y ago
  well, apart from not wanting lead poisoning
  - blkhawk 10y ago
    not a problem with lead solder. I prefer not getting cancer from the flux in the lead free solder.
    - facepalm 10y ago
      How do you avoid it with lead solder? Common soldering tutorials don't mention the issue.
      - detaro 10y ago
        Because lead poisoning isn't a huge issue for hobbyists. Common rules are: Work in a well-ventilated area, don't eat while working, don't use your soldering iron to heat your coffee. But those apply while using lead-free solder as well.
        facepalm 10y ago
        Why is it not an issues, the dosage is too low? Afaik lead enters through the skin, too - washing hands after soldering sufficient?
        falsedan 10y ago
        Real answer: you would have to be soldering for hours every day for months to be exposed to more lead than can be cleared naturally. Full-time component assembly workers do get that much exposure, so they need to take precautions to avoid poisoning. For hobbyists, you would have to eat quite a bit of solder at once before you would develop any poisoning symptoms. edit: so, it's the frequent repeated exposure to lead (i.e. in paint and as a sugar added to wine[0]) which is harmful, not any single individual (non-acute) exposure. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead(II)_acetate#Sweetener https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead(II)_acetate#Sweetener
        Chris2048 10y ago
        heavy metal leaching in rubbish tips is an environmental issue, one being tackled by much of Europe, starting with regulations on lead-containing electronics.
        Dylan16807 10y ago
        And since almost all electronics are made in large quantities for sale, it makes sense that there can be different rules for one-offs.
  - SmellyGeekBoy 10y ago
    What are you doing with it, eating it?
  - ageofwant 10y ago
    It so happens the lead-free solder needs more heat, more heat leads to longer solder times, killing more components, or damaging their lifespan, forcing you to breath more of the extra toxic lead-free flux fumes. Do not use lead-free solder for hobby work.
- Chris2048 10y ago
  Any electronics containing lead must be disposed on safely, meaning you can't just sell or distribute such items. Why bother make disposal hard for the sake of easy soldering?
- Chris2048 10y ago
  10EUR irons are terrible! You have to be far more skilled to deliver the right amount of heat, and for some cases (small pad close to a chip without a shunt) it's hard to solder well without causing damage. They can also be pretty inconsistent temp-wise, making precise, skilled timings impossible.
gadgetoid 10y ago
You can just hammer one in. No. I'm not joking. https://learn.pimoroni.com/tutorial/sandyj/fitting-hammer-headers https://learn.pimoroni.com/tutorial/sandyj/fitting-hammer-he...

itsfrosty 10y ago

Same situation as you - pi zero is always out of stock. But in the video included in the post they are saying they will manufacture a lot more quantities of this compared to pi zero so fingers crossed.

benn_88 10y ago

80k units on sale today from a whole bunch of new retailers around the world, and we're making 25k units /week.

blkhawk 10y ago
cool - can't get the bare Pi Zero w in germany yet - maybe supplies will normalize in a few weeks - It would be a swap in replacement for my current handheld Project.
- martin_a 10y ago
  I ordered two from the pi3g shop listed on the site. Seemed to work fine so far.
trome 10y ago
So, how is the competitive with Xunlong and FriendlyARM making the OrangePi Zero and the Nanopi Neo? It seems to have less I/O and still not have a libre stack, unlike the Allwinner H3. Is the Raspberry Pi Foundation just coasting on branding at this point to sell products? Edit: On another note, will the Raspberry Pi Foundation stick with this very limited SOC ad infinium? It seems like a poor choice for a single board computer, you really want I/O and low power usage, but it doesn't deliver on either.
- metaphor 10y ago
  > Is the Raspberry Pi Foundation just coasting on branding at this point to sell products? I don't believe beating competition by selling more products was ever part of the RPi Foundation mission statement. The way how I see it, existence of competing products primarily benefits a minority technically-oriented community, not their intended primary audience.
  - trome 10y ago
    Eh, it seems like the Raspberry Pi Foundation has strayed from an org that started out building SBCs so kids could have a computer to tinker on, and are now entirely focused on being Broadcom's PR and Sales engine. The system on a module was definitely not created with kids in mind, nor was the open GPU driver.

jamesfmilne 10y ago

I bought a Pi Zero last week from The Pi Hut, arrived in two days, they had loads in stock. Might be a problem with your local distributor? I'm in the UK so supply may well be better here than elsewhere. I did get tripped up with the camera connector being a different size to normal Pis though, darn it. [1] www.thepihut.com (I am not affiliated with them in any way)

blkhawk 10y ago
Ya I ordered it from the UK in the end - postage was annoyingly expensive and I also ordered from the Pi Hut.
StavrosK 10y ago
How much was shipping?
- jamesfmilne 10y ago
  £2.50 for a £30 order
  - StavrosK 10y ago
    That's not too bad, but did you get the combo package? What happens if you try to get the single Pi? Would it be 12.50 total?
    - lorenzhs 10y ago
      Yes, it's £9.60 for the RPi Zero W and £2.50 for shipping. You can buy it for £12.10 ($15) total in the UK. Not too bad, eh? Shipping to Germany from the same UK seller would be £4, or £5 for the US. That's a total of £13.60 / €16 / $17 for Germany and £14.60 / $18 for the US. You can stop pretending that shipping is $30 now.
      - dbrgn 10y ago
        On Pimoroni, shipping to Switzerland is also around £4. In contrast, the official distributor for Germany/Switzerland (pi3g) wants 19€ (!!!) for shipping an envelope with a single Pi Zero in it. And it prohibits reselling. In my opinion the Raspberry Pi foundation should do something against this kind of pricing to keep the boards accessible.

laxentasken 10y ago

This might be useable: http://whereismypizero.com/ http://whereismypizero.com/ Only covers regular pi zero though.

kefka 10y ago
Yeah. For a dinky little raspi zero board... $10 shipping. CanaKIT. Nope. 4-12 pounds shipping for PiHut. 5.50 - 8 pounds shipping for pimoroni. Aaaand you can't even get a bare Pi Zero from Adafruit. Of course they're "out of stock" for the "W"'s... But they're glad to sell you a overly inflated price of $24.95 for a Zero kit. bah.

oliwarner 10y ago

I disagree with parts of this. Geographical limits do mean some places end up paying more, and some scummy distributors only stock the packs with a higher markup, but on the whole, the boards are available on their own at the right price. Your real problem is availability. You see a product launch, want 10, 100, 1000 to use in everything from the sprinklers to the toaster and then hit a website where 200,000 other hackers have had exactly the same thought. They're ferociously popular... So what would you rather? They hold off sales and announcement until they have a million units rotting in warehouses around the world (like a console release)? Perhaps they should spend twice as much ramping up production to burst in the first month (and charge more). Or pre-orders? Kickstarter? Serious here, what option is better (on price, fairness and convenience to you) than what they're currently doing? In a month or two you'll (again, slightly dependant on geography) be able to order a hundred of these without an issue. If you really are putting in a big order, talk direct to the distributor and they can adjust their order (and maybe their price to you). Ultimately you don't have to pay more, you just have to be patient.

makomk 10y ago
I don't think the one per customer limit on the original Pi Zero ever got lifted in the entire year and a bit it's been on sale, with the brief exception of ones sold in a $40 bundle with the camera module. It's probably sensible to assume that you will never be able to buy more than one of these at once for anything close to the list price.

column 10y ago

If you want 0 problem ordering one, you can just subscribe to resellers newsletters

pmontra 10y ago

I bought one PI Zero W from the Dutch distributor a few minutes ago. It's linked in the blog post. I didn't have to buy anything else and I couldn't buy more than one item. The German distributor seems to be selling only 30x items and the French one doesn't have an Add to cart button for the W, maybe still out of stock. It's in stock at Pimoroni. I didn't check any distributor outside EU. I've been happy with SanDisk microSDHC UHS-I 8 GB cards so far. They are cat 10, advertised up to 48 MB/s. Which SD cards do you recommend?

blkhawk 10y ago
I used to use them as well - but I had some fail for some reason and then I bought a samsung evo + card in 32GB during a sale. I have been using those ever since since the iops seem to be noticeably better.
- pmontra 10y ago
  This? https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Class-Adapter-MB-MP32DA-AM/dp/B00IVPU786 https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Class-Adapter-MB-MP32DA-AM/dp...

bitshiffed 10y ago

I eventually gave up and ordered my Pi Zero from eBay scalpers. Will probably have to do that with the Zero W as well. If they're already for sale at brick-and-mortars then the listings won't be far behind (I don't see any yet, though).

undersuit 10y ago

I bought two Zeros for $5 and <$5 of shipping earlier this month. I still had to go to two different distributors, but Canakit and Adafruit were in stock in the US.

jhewitt123 10y ago
I'm more interest in trying the Asus Tinker right now then a wireless Zero, still cool though. Might you have any special knowledge on this alleged Pi-Killer ? https://www.asus.com/uk/Single-board-Computer/TINKER-BOARD/ https://www.asus.com/uk/Single-board-Computer/TINKER-BOARD/ Here's a cool link for you pointing to some new mitochondria research, http://www.cell.com/molecular-cell/fulltext/S1097-2765(16)00086-1 http://www.cell.com/molecular-cell/fulltext/S1097-2765(16)00...