Price on Propeller Proto Board # 32212
Mike Cook
Posts: 829
Is this a typo·or is this their new cost?
http://www.parallax.com/Store/Microcontrollers/BASICStampModules/tabid/134/txtSearch/32212/List/1/Default.aspx?SortField=ProductName,ProductName
Thanks
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Mike
Post Edited (Mike Cook) : 9/18/2008 6:56:40 PM GMT
http://www.parallax.com/Store/Microcontrollers/BASICStampModules/tabid/134/txtSearch/32212/List/1/Default.aspx?SortField=ProductName,ProductName
Thanks
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Mike
Post Edited (Mike Cook) : 9/18/2008 6:56:40 PM GMT
Comments
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Paul Baker
Propeller Applications Engineer
Parallax, Inc.
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Mike
It was enough to get me hooked! Does make the USB version that much more attractive..
OBC
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New to the Propeller?
Getting started with a Propeller Protoboard?
Check out: Introduction to the Proboard & Propeller Cookbook 1.4
Updates to the Cookbook are now posted to: Propeller.warrantyvoid.us
Got an SD card connected? - PropDOS
Of course once the dealer has to buy new stock ( or gouges the price ), on past experience,
we'll be paying the equivalent of $44 :-(
The Basic Stamp failed miserably in the UK IMO to capture the hearts and minds of the
hobby/home market as being too overpriced and I'd hate to see the same fate befall the
Propeller. Thankfully, even with the inflated mark-up price it's still cheaper than a BS2-IC
module ($60), and the Propeller has a lot going for it.
From a simple cost standpoint alone we'd like our distributors to be able to buy the Prop Proto Boards with their discount and be able to sell them at a profit. This is very important in many countries (maybe it's not working right in the UK, hippy). If we don't provide our distributors a discount then they don't sell the product, and if we don't have a direct sales presence in that country we'll be unable to develop a market. This happened in the UK, Australia, and a few other places in the past.
At $30 a board a distributor would buy them around $20 each, or less. Engineers can likely analyze our BOM costs to know that our BOM costs are not much less than $20, so that we were loosing money on each sale to a distributor at our old price and now we're probably at least above water. This particular board is made at our own facility in China. Anybody pay attention to the RMB/USD exchange rates in the past couple of years, and the effects it has had in some markets? 20% increase per year has been common.
Of course, our average selling price isn't the distributor price, but a mix between their purchases and our direct sales. The concept of selling a "loss leader" only goes so far.
Anybody running a business can learn from our mistakes and free advice. It's right here on the forums.
Ken Gracey
Parallax, Inc.
Ken,
I totally understand! This board was a SUPER bargain at the old price and still a good bargain at the new price.
Of course this might be counterproductive for Parallax, it would be nice to get notice of a price increase so us 'little guys' can stock up on an item at the lower price. Love the Proto Boards (Propeller & SX) for one-off projects.
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Mike
Being there at the right time makes a difference. Now I see that was quite a bargain.
When I finish with my present project, I'll have to purchase some sensors and other goodies to help Parallax get some $s back from me.
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Harley Shanko
Mike, I'll see that we note some of the new prices as introductory if we suspect they're going to increase. That could make these deals a treat for our forum members. Good idea.
Harley, you lucked out. At 6 for $100 we knew it would be short-lived. Didn't think the 5-pack was a pit-stop on the way to the current price.
I don't make prices, by the way. Lauren handles that part much better than I could ever hoped to in the past.
Ken Gracey
amongst others.The propeller is definitely an interesting architecture, but careful not to price yourselves out of the market.
There are a whole bunch of interesting choices at that level; at the $20 price level there was nothing competitive.
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---
Jo
trying to rip anyone off; 50%-100% increases in basic foodstuffs have not been uncommon in the
UK in recent months and I'm sure there's more pain to come.
Unless Parallax can find some way to do direct sales in foreign countries, cutting out the distributors,
funding that from Parallax HQ rather than sales made, I don't see how the up to 65% mark-ups we
have to pay can be reduced. Maybe the business brains at Parallax could look into that as it would
sure help competitiveness on pricing.
The Arduino with its open-source hype is starting to gain ground in the UK and while I believe the
Propeller is a far superior product to that or any number of AVR's or PICmicros bodged together
as a solution it's a hard-sell to those of a price-sensitive disposition.
Another thing which would help is a more cut down Propeller module at rock-bottom prices; like the
Prop Stick without legs and just pins for a PropPlug. I have some ideas for that and others have
offered help as that's beyond my skills and I'll get back to that when my current project is out of
the way.
On the positive side of things - the UK pricing of the Propeller chips themselves is not prohibitively
expensive compared to other similar one-off purchases a hobby/home user would have to make
but crystal and eeprom does push that up and make it less easy to deal with. A simple board as
above should help take away that pain for little extra cost.
Propeller Protoboard is well priced even now. Frankly, I can't understand all the hoopla about the
Arduino. It's capabilities are not nearly as powerful as the Propeller, and as for Open Source,
the library of OBEX software being covered by an MIT license is just as solid to me.
OBC
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New to the Propeller?
Getting started with a Propeller Protoboard?
Check out: Introduction to the Proboard & Propeller Cookbook 1.4
Updates to the Cookbook are now posted to: Propeller.warrantyvoid.us
Got an SD card connected? - PropDOS
Post Edited (Oldbitcollector) : 9/19/2008 2:28:49 PM GMT
And not as a special, but as a bundle.
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www.mikronauts.com - a new blog about microcontrollers
harder to sell a more expensive item over a cheaper one.
@ Oldbitcollector : "hoopla" ... I'm with you all the way on that. It seems more social phenomena
than engineering phenomenon to me. This month's favoured darling. Some people do seem to
think that anything "Open Source" is better than anything else and have bought-into it simply for
that reason. Perhaps the Propeller should compete by labelling itself "Green", "Energy Efficient",
"Will Save the Planet" etc etc
Regards,
Xander "I'd like some (Dutch) cheese with my whine" Soldaat
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| To know recursion, you must first know recursion.
| Current projects and ramblings: I'd Rather Be Building Robots
We are trying to get more beginners into the propeller. That said, probably the easiest sell / best suited is the Propeller Proto Board USB which is $40. They were not available when I started and I had a dual FT2232 device, so I bought 2 Proto Boards. The hardest part for me was the shipping cost of $32 to Australia, but I did get it in under a week!
In my opinion, a Propeller Proto Board USB with combined postage at an economical price (slower method of shipping) may be the way to go.
I also hope the calculations on price have properly taken into account the reduction in sales and the reduction of good feeling and positive energy such a nicely priced item gave.
Graham
In Sweden cost Propeler parts in US Dolar same like in US
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Nothing is impossible, there are only different degrees of difficulty.
For every stupid question there is at least one intelligent answer
If you don't ask you wont know
If your gonna construct something, make it·as simple as·possible yet as versatile as posible
Sapieha
Seriously though, I wish I would have gotten some at the original price, I thought I had a little more time.
The idea of selling 4 for $100 is a great idea and one that I would definitely invest in.
Again I have to say it's a shame we won't be able to do that so easily with the Prop II.
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For me, the past is not over yet.
If re-pricing for distributors gets more Parallax items in the local electronics stores, it would be a positive.·
I would think though that there would have been some sort of revision made to the board to help "sell" the increase in cost.· If there was something like a SD/MMC card mounting point·and/or one or more RCA sockets (with the actual "hardware" sold in an accessory kit), and move the prototyping area all to one side, it would certianly be good for those that use the current Proto Board as a·SBC (single board computer) or data logging device.
Post Edited (trodoss) : 9/19/2008 2:33:24 PM GMT
boards for each I doubt there will be a huge stack of Prop I ProtoBoards sitting on the shelves
gathering dust.
TBH, I'm not sure what market there is for hobby/home users with the Prop II. The de-facto
there is 5V with people struggling over 3V3 and 1V8 will just leave them with jaws dropped
If Prop II is therefore more commercial / upper-end targeted ProtoBoards won't be so price
sensitive.
Hmmm... One protoboard plus one prop-plug now costs $30+$20=$50 USD plus what I think are high shipping and handling costs if purchased from Parallax. Perhaps a year or-so from now, we might be looking at bare-bones prototype boards with MMU equipped MCU's running small open versions of Linux and/or xBSD out of flash that "approach" the entry cost of the propeller protoboard plus prop-plug. Of course, one may argue which is better; a single processor running Linux multi-tasking via scheduler vs. a commutated multi-processor architecture like in the propeller. That question might spawn an enlightening but perhaps never-ending thread. So let's not go there for now IMHO...
Rgds, David
If it is just the cost of the Proto Board that increases, and not the cost of the Propeller chip iself·(which would likely mean·an increase in cost of·all of their Propeller-based offerings), it is·not so bad.···
@Drone: Beagle board/Rabbit, and the like?· As you said, that would be an 'endless thead.'·
Post Edited (trodoss) : 9/19/2008 3:51:39 PM GMT
This makes the price of the Protoboard USB great, but only if living in the USA.
Mike.
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www.madlabs.info - Home of the Hydrogen Fuel Cell Robot
John Abshier