This is just plain wrong - you can buy an ATmega328 from Farnell for
�1.2 @ 100 off so they'll be a lot cheaper if you buy a decent number
direct - less than $1 not $3-5.
> to investigate how they could build a complete board with
> MPU for $5 including shipping. It turns out the Chinese have CLONED the
> Atmel AVR processor with an instruction set compatible creation of their
> own. It runs most AVR code unaltered save for the fact that some
> of the peripherals are slightly less capable and the device used in the
> board only has 1K RAM and 8K flash.
>
> Still it's a very nice entry level board for simple systems. I estimate
> that you can fit a program of about 1000 lines of C code into the 8K
> flash, which is sufficient for a lot of projects.
>
It is true that the board uses an inferior "clone" chip, more like an
ATmega88 which of course is much cheaper from Atmel.
So if you want to work at low margins and can ship enough of them it
would be quite feasible to make this board with a real Atmel processor.
Michael Kellett
Reply by Simon Clubley●December 15, 20132013-12-15
On 2013-12-15, dp <dp@tgi-sci.com> wrote:
>
> Nice toy, may be.
> Entry level - not so sure, entry into what - cut and paste?
>
> Whether it costs $5 or $50 or is given away for free makes
> no significant difference I suppose. If someones invested
> time into it will be at a similar cost then someone might
> as well just watch some TV show instead.
>
> But I have never used an evaluation board in my life (I never
> saw any reason why I should do the same project twice)
> so may be I am missing the whole point of that sort of boards.
>
For one thing, it means that hobbyists such as myself can use the
higher end parts without having to learn how to build a board
around them and it's obvious there's a hobbyist market for the
lower end stuff in eval board format as well.
As I've mentioned many times previously (:-)) my software skills are
far greater than my hardware skills. I can turn out a BSP or device
driver on demand (given access to the documentation of course) but
I still use PDIP sized devices for my own boards.
The eval boards (at least for ARM) are exactly the kind of thing I find
so useful.
[When it comes to AVR, I just build my own boards as all the parts have
PDIP options. All the evaluation boards sat on my desk at the moment are
ARM variants.]
Simon.
PS: For myself, I would be uncomfortable using a Chinese AVR clone
as I would not know what corners may have been cut by the cloners.
--
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world
Reply by dp●December 15, 20132013-12-15
On Sunday, December 15, 2013 4:52:18 PM UTC+2, Anonymous Remailer (austria) wrote:
> http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/iteaduino-lite-most-inexpensive-full-sized-arduino-derivative-board
>
> At first I was presently surprised but after a while I started to
> wonder. Knowing that the cheapest AVR device costs about $3-$5 I started
> to investigate how they could build a complete board with
> MPU for $5 including shipping. It turns out the Chinese have CLONED the
> Atmel AVR processor with an instruction set compatible creation of their
> own. It runs most AVR code unaltered save for the fact that some
> of the peripherals are slightly less capable and the device used in the
> board only has 1K RAM and 8K flash.
>
> Still it's a very nice entry level board for simple systems. I estimate
> that you can fit a program of about 1000 lines of C code into the 8K
> flash, which is sufficient for a lot of projects.
Nice toy, may be.
Entry level - not so sure, entry into what - cut and paste?
Whether it costs $5 or $50 or is given away for free makes
no significant difference I suppose. If someones invested
time into it will be at a similar cost then someone might
as well just watch some TV show instead.
But I have never used an evaluation board in my life (I never
saw any reason why I should do the same project twice)
so may be I am missing the whole point of that sort of boards.
Dimiter
------------------------------------------------------
Dimiter Popoff, TGI http://www.tgi-sci.com
------------------------------------------------------
http://www.flickr.com/photos/didi_tgi/sets/72157600228621276/
Reply by Anonymous Remailer (austria)●December 15, 20132013-12-15
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/iteaduino-lite-most-inexpensive-full-sized-arduino-derivative-board
At first I was presently surprised but after a while I started to
wonder. Knowing that the cheapest AVR device costs about $3-$5 I started
to investigate how they could build a complete board with
MPU for $5 including shipping. It turns out the Chinese have CLONED the
Atmel AVR processor with an instruction set compatible creation of their
own. It runs most AVR code unaltered save for the fact that some
of the peripherals are slightly less capable and the device used in the
board only has 1K RAM and 8K flash.
Still it's a very nice entry level board for simple systems. I estimate
that you can fit a program of about 1000 lines of C code into the 8K
flash, which is sufficient for a lot of projects.