I ordered two items from Farnell the other day, and got an message back that I had to declare this and that on an form regarding its use.
the items was an Beaglebone Black, and an Nucleo Bluetooth shield from ST Micro.
After printing, signing, scanning and returning those forms , I got an email back, that it was not allowed to export the Bluetooth shield from UK to Norway, due to missing CCATS documentation..
WTF is that?
Possibly to do with (a) Farnell aka Newark has a US presence and is therefore under some US Juridiction (b) the Bluetooth shield has encryption on it. Oh, and (c), several fat self serving lawyers are justifying themselves.
Digikey ask a bunch of questions too, but it seems like a rubber stamping exercise. Mouser are far less bothered in this respect. It's all to do with how the legislation is interpreted.
I had problems ordering an iMX eval board from a US distributor about three years ago, in the end I just ordered from someone else.
The US has some pretty draconian and mostly unnecessary laws that do little other than keep their lawyers busy at the expense of free trade and commerce. ITAR for example is particularly stiffling to their aerospace industry, because ITAR states that anything that has a space application is deemed a weapon under ITAR. It just means that non-US companies make a nice little earner out of technology transfer and development that US companies can't without implementing all sorts of gagging clauses on their customers.
I'd order from elsewhere.
I wonder how many terrorists actually ticked the "are you a terrorist?" box and got caught.
I'd tick it just to see what would happen.
I'd order from elsewhere.
Yes, I'm on my third resend of this form to Farnell now, misspelled the adress a bit on the form last time..
I'm looking for another place to buy the Beagle now.
I'm looking for another place to buy the Beagle now.
Over here, they're
available at Kjell, so it seems they've "gone mainstream". Local stores might be an option too.
Kjell &Co is not in Norway, and I havent found any in Norway selling, after Elfa closing it's doors, it seems we are very low on suppliers for such items.
Btw, Farnells price is about 322NOK + 25%, so Kjells is kinda expensive..
They're certainly expensive, but on the other hand it's awfully convenient that they have stores everywhere. Surprised to hear there isn't something similar over there. I would have thought there would be a market for it, if even my little town can have a place that sells things like Arduinos and 3D printers.
I was going to suggest you try Lawicel, but it seems they have distributor issues with the Beaglebone. Maybe there's some problem further up the chain?
Get a friend in the UK to order it for you then they post it on. In theory your friend will be breaking US Export Regulations, in practice nobody outside the Dept of Home security cares.