5 ms·

Well, none of these methods is sufficient to destroy the Arduino, you will just destroy the ($2.50) AVR. I would certainly recommend using the UNO or earlier r

by pravda 14y ago

Well, none of these methods is sufficient to destroy the Arduino, you will just destroy the ($2.50) AVR. I would certainly recommend using the UNO or earlier revision with the socketed AVR. Then you can have a couple of spare ATmega328's for backup.

dfox 14y ago
One thing that always bugged me about $30 arduino is that it is mostly nothing else than $2.50 AVR
- jrockway 14y ago
  And a crystal, header blocks, USB port, voltage regulator, power jack, and some other small components. Not to mention shipping cost, etching the PCBs, drilling the PCBs, the cost to buy the pick-and-place machine and reflow machine, QA, maintaining the website, ... You can certainly have AVR applications that cost less than $20, but there is a fair amount of cost in producing a development board. (You say $30 but there are plenty of sub-$20 Arduino clones.)
  - mbell 14y ago
    > etching the PCBs, drilling the PCBs, the cost to buy the pick-and-place machine and reflow machine Your correct on the cost of the headers/ports being much higher than most would think (certainly higher than the AVR). However, the arduino products are not even close to being in the ball park of volume needed to purchase their own PCB manufacturing equipment, nor P&P, nor reflow, nor QA systems. Its all outsourced, probably through multiple layers (they list SparkFun as a manufacturer and I can almost guarantee they aren't doing any of the actual manufacturing either).
    - mercuryrising 14y ago
      I think you should look at this blog post: http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=2407 http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=2407 It's a tour of the Arduino PCB manufacturing facility, with QA systems, and PCB manufacturing equipment. He alludes to sending the stack of PCBs to the SMT facility, although he doesn't have a tour of that one on his site.
      - mbell 14y ago
        Maybe I'm missing something but that blog is a tour of System Electronica, a 3rd party contract PCB manufacturer, not an Arduino owned factory.
    - jrockway 14y ago
      Somebody bought the equipment and they're probably not letting people use it for free, that's all I'm saying. Sparkfun owns a pick and place machine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn0EKtLOVx4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn0EKtLOVx4 Presumably they're doing the reflow there too. No idea about the PCB manufacturing. Adafruit is even smaller, I think, and they do their own QA: http://learn.adafruit.com/how-to-make-a-pogo-pin-test-jig http://learn.adafruit.com/how-to-make-a-pogo-pin-test-jig
      - mbell 14y ago
        That would explain the cost (that is a really slow pick and place). For comparison I designed a board a few years ago that was a 6" by 8", 4 layer PCB, parts on both sides, 163 parts, several orders of magnitude more complex than an Arduino. For 1,000 unit runs the the per unit costs were $2.97 for the PCB and assembly with flying probe test was $3.51, including post processing for several parts that were not reflowable, done in Asia by a contract manufacturer.
        jrockway 14y ago
        Yes, Sparkfun's products are definitely overpriced. They sell a constant-current LED driver for $50 that has a ~$8 parts cost at single-unit quantities. Even when I hand-solder the circuit on to a $10 Dangerous Prototypes surface-mount prototyping board at my normal hourly rate, I still come out ahead. I still contend that the Arduino is approximately decently priced when you consider that Arduinos are popular enough to not be put together by hand but niche enough to not be made by the millions at Foxconn.
- pravda 14y ago
  That's actually the nice thing about it. After you've designed and debugged your project on the Arduino board, you can implement it with a $2.50 AVR (+ a few support items). You can't do that with, for example, the Raspberry PI or the Netduino.
  - dfox 14y ago
    That makes sense, but what doesn't is incredible amount of projects and things (and not only DIY, I've seen some one of commercial designs done exactly in this way) that just embeds whole arduino board connected by bunch of random wires to something (preferably something composed of another relatively expensive breakout boards).
    - ComputerGuru 14y ago
      For one-off projects, the 25 extra bucks aren't really the killer. I don't see the problem with using an arduino in a commercial setting, so long as you're not mass-producing with said arduino.
  - jauer 14y ago
    It isn't $2.50 but you can get a chip running .NETMF/netduino (no carrier board etc) for under $16: http://www.ghielectronics.com/catalog/product/117 http://www.ghielectronics.com/catalog/product/117
- noonespecial 14y ago
  You missed the good part. You can replace the 'CPU' on your $30 mainboard for less than $3. That's why I like the socketed versions.
  - jrockway 14y ago
    You can even replace it on the SMT versions; just buy some ChipQuik solder and be sure to apply a healthy amount of flux.

by pravda 14y ago

dfox 14y ago

One thing that always bugged me about $30 arduino is that it is mostly nothing else than $2.50 AVR

jrockway 14y ago
And a crystal, header blocks, USB port, voltage regulator, power jack, and some other small components. Not to mention shipping cost, etching the PCBs, drilling the PCBs, the cost to buy the pick-and-place machine and reflow machine, QA, maintaining the website, ... You can certainly have AVR applications that cost less than $20, but there is a fair amount of cost in producing a development board. (You say $30 but there are plenty of sub-$20 Arduino clones.)
- mbell 14y ago
  > etching the PCBs, drilling the PCBs, the cost to buy the pick-and-place machine and reflow machine Your correct on the cost of the headers/ports being much higher than most would think (certainly higher than the AVR). However, the arduino products are not even close to being in the ball park of volume needed to purchase their own PCB manufacturing equipment, nor P&P, nor reflow, nor QA systems. Its all outsourced, probably through multiple layers (they list SparkFun as a manufacturer and I can almost guarantee they aren't doing any of the actual manufacturing either).
  - mercuryrising 14y ago
    I think you should look at this blog post: http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=2407 http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=2407 It's a tour of the Arduino PCB manufacturing facility, with QA systems, and PCB manufacturing equipment. He alludes to sending the stack of PCBs to the SMT facility, although he doesn't have a tour of that one on his site.
    - mbell 14y ago
      Maybe I'm missing something but that blog is a tour of System Electronica, a 3rd party contract PCB manufacturer, not an Arduino owned factory.
  - jrockway 14y ago
    Somebody bought the equipment and they're probably not letting people use it for free, that's all I'm saying. Sparkfun owns a pick and place machine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn0EKtLOVx4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn0EKtLOVx4 Presumably they're doing the reflow there too. No idea about the PCB manufacturing. Adafruit is even smaller, I think, and they do their own QA: http://learn.adafruit.com/how-to-make-a-pogo-pin-test-jig http://learn.adafruit.com/how-to-make-a-pogo-pin-test-jig
    - mbell 14y ago
      That would explain the cost (that is a really slow pick and place). For comparison I designed a board a few years ago that was a 6" by 8", 4 layer PCB, parts on both sides, 163 parts, several orders of magnitude more complex than an Arduino. For 1,000 unit runs the the per unit costs were $2.97 for the PCB and assembly with flying probe test was $3.51, including post processing for several parts that were not reflowable, done in Asia by a contract manufacturer.
      - jrockway 14y ago
        Yes, Sparkfun's products are definitely overpriced. They sell a constant-current LED driver for $50 that has a ~$8 parts cost at single-unit quantities. Even when I hand-solder the circuit on to a $10 Dangerous Prototypes surface-mount prototyping board at my normal hourly rate, I still come out ahead. I still contend that the Arduino is approximately decently priced when you consider that Arduinos are popular enough to not be put together by hand but niche enough to not be made by the millions at Foxconn.
pravda 14y ago
That's actually the nice thing about it. After you've designed and debugged your project on the Arduino board, you can implement it with a $2.50 AVR (+ a few support items). You can't do that with, for example, the Raspberry PI or the Netduino.
- dfox 14y ago
  That makes sense, but what doesn't is incredible amount of projects and things (and not only DIY, I've seen some one of commercial designs done exactly in this way) that just embeds whole arduino board connected by bunch of random wires to something (preferably something composed of another relatively expensive breakout boards).
  - ComputerGuru 14y ago
    For one-off projects, the 25 extra bucks aren't really the killer. I don't see the problem with using an arduino in a commercial setting, so long as you're not mass-producing with said arduino.
- jauer 14y ago
  It isn't $2.50 but you can get a chip running .NETMF/netduino (no carrier board etc) for under $16: http://www.ghielectronics.com/catalog/product/117 http://www.ghielectronics.com/catalog/product/117
noonespecial 14y ago
You missed the good part. You can replace the 'CPU' on your $30 mainboard for less than $3. That's why I like the socketed versions.
- jrockway 14y ago
  You can even replace it on the SMT versions; just buy some ChipQuik solder and be sure to apply a healthy amount of flux.