Board choice / ASC+ board shipping to Canada

porcupine

Hey all; so I'm interested in replacing my SpinStudio board with something more newer that's still supported. I'm building a synthesizer, or at least playing at it, and there's no point in me investing in building out a PCB with my DAC, etc. for the SpinStudio 2x10 header pinouts given that that board no longer exists as a product, and the ASC+ board has the attractive analog-ins. So I'm looking for something I can use as a platform for building out my synth, maybe even as a product (in Eurorack modular format, maybe). The ASC+ isn't ideal but it exists for a reasonable price, and it has the bonus of having the analog ins on there.

So Parallax's store has the ASC+ board at a reasonable $49.99 USD. Digikey is selling it for $62.49, which seems like a steep markup, and Digikey Canada seems to be the only domestic (Canadian) supplier I can find, at a ridiculous $74.88 CAD.

Is there anybody selling the ASC+ board in Canada at a price closer to Parallax's? Paying almost twice what Parallax charges is frustrating.

Alternatively, I could stick with the SpinStudio format and produce my own board based on it if the schematic and even PCB layout were available somewhere (preferably as Eagle or DipTrace files!). Then I could just customize it and stick with the header pinouts as they are. It was a good board, I'm sad to see it go! (And I have a bunch of modules for it.)

Bill Henning

If you ask Parallax, I am sure they will ship USPS to you, which is quite reasonable; just make sure you never order anything with ground shipping (UPS,FedEx,etc) as that has incredibly high "brokerage" fees added.

http://mghdesigns.com/propeller/mgh-designs.html

Link above has the ASC+ and also has "Propeller Platform DNA" boards.

I have quite a few Propeller boards and prototyping boards (check my site at the links below) and I am located in Canada

porcupine wrote: »

Hey all; so I'm interested in replacing my SpinStudio board with something more newer that's still supported. I'm building a synthesizer, or at least playing at it, and there's no point in me investing in building out a PCB with my DAC, etc. for the SpinStudio 2x10 header pinouts given that that board no longer exists as a product, and the ASC+ board has the attractive analog-ins. So I'm looking for something I can use as a platform for building out my synth, maybe even as a product (in Eurorack modular format, maybe). The ASC+ isn't ideal but it exists for a reasonable price, and it has the bonus of having the analog ins on there.

So Parallax's store has the ASC+ board at a reasonable $49.99 USD. Digikey is selling it for $62.49, which seems like a steep markup, and Digikey Canada seems to be the only domestic (Canadian) supplier I can find, at a ridiculous $74.88 CAD.

Is there anybody selling the ASC+ board in Canada at a price closer to Parallax's? Paying almost twice what Parallax charges is frustrating.

Alternatively, I could stick with the SpinStudio format and produce my own board based on it if the schematic and even PCB layout were available somewhere (preferably as Eagle or DipTrace files!). Then I could just customize it and stick with the header pinouts as they are. It was a good board, I'm sad to see it go! (And I have a bunch of modules for it.)

porcupine

You're right, USPS from Parallax is totally fine for shipping. I was worried it'd be UPS and I'd get dinged with brokerage and duty. There's still a chance I'll get hit with duty, but I've had good luck with USPS in the past.

I ordered the ASC+ board; the platform DNA looked good too, tho. I suspect I'll end up with a bunch of these at some point :-)

I like that the pinout header is one row rather than 2, so will work better for breadboarding! And the Arduino shield format means I can use some existing PCB layout templates to play with. I want to make a 'shield' with DAC + MIDI ports on it.

I also just bought an XMOS XCore slicekit package to play with, so I will have my hands full :-)