$9 Non-Profit Auduino on Indiegogo

[EEVblog]

I do like this, a non-profit Arduino campaign, and someone who has no intention of turning it into a business.  :-

http://igg.me/at/9duino/x/3963035

[CrosseyeJack]

Personally I've not done anything on an Arduino for a while and I would just breadboard an at mega if I were to use one again. But a drinking buddy of mine recently showed an interest in tinkering with programmable electronics and for the cost I just put my name down for one on his behalf.

For less then £8/2 and half pints (plus a usb micro cable and CD for the ide and some tutorials in it, but I have those around the house) I can maybe give him something to tinker with, it was just one of those things were I couldn't see a reason to just say no.

For the cost I see them as great gifts for those around you who might want to tinker and even if they lose interest its not the end of the world.

EDIT: My point being even if you have an original Arduino or you program your own atmega's with the Arduino bootloader you might have a friend or know of a kid who is interested in doing a bit of "interfacing with the real world" and for the price (plus a few components out of your own stock, LEDS (throw in  couple IR LEDS), resistors, some transistors, maybe few optocoupers) even if they give up after an afternoon and go back to Call of Doodie its not the end of the world, but you never know, you might get them building their own TV-B-GONE and annoying I mean showing their folks what they can do.

[BulletMagnet83]

I might buy the 3-board perk just to have some "so cheap they're almost throwaway" boards to leave permanently installed in things! I wonder how high that funds meter is going to get by the end of the campaign?

[firewalker]

I will buy a couple just to play around with usb staff. Just as a dev board for avr-gcc.

Alexander.

[4to20Milliamps]

Projects like this are more like it, it's an outstanding value and he's doing it for all the right reasons.


and there are SOME handy things you can do with and arduino:

 http://robottini.altervista.org/arduino-and-real-time-charts-in-excel

Arduino curve tracer

[apelly]

Nice find. Picked up a few for myself too. Thanks Dave.

[marshallh]

This poor guy is going to regret the huge headache he just got himself into 

[Stonent]

Not to poo-poo on his project but you can already get boards like that from China for about the same price. I've even seen some "Funduino" branded Mega 256 boards for about $14 including shipping.

I'd really like it if someone could come up with a cheaper clone of the Arduino Due so I can start playing with some ARM stuff.

[BulletMagnet83]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TAIJIUINO-Due-Pro-R2-completely-compatible-with-Arduino-Due-onboard-Ethernet-/130905955095?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1e7a9a5b17

Like this?

[EEVblog]

Projects like this are more like it, it's an outstanding value and he's doing it for all the right reasons.

Indeed, and that's what I like about this.
It's not like a Tangibot "I want to start a company just copying other people's work and improving nothing" attitude.
He may very well regret it when he has to pack and ship 10K boards!

[MacAttak]

I'll be getting some too - but just for transparency, this project has some ties to another one that has been under discussion here for a few months (and which has quite a bit of drama): https://www.eevblog.com/forum/crowd-funded-projects/smartduino-real-project-with-deceptive-info/

Notice the "partner logo" under the video.

Harold works for SmartMaker, and this is a project he is doing on his own time (with support from his boss). The drama comes in because SmartMaker has still only shipped a small percentage of the products that were supposed to be shipped over 6 months ago, and backers there immediately questioned the allocation of resources to other efforts.

I'm not stirring the pot. This was bound to be noticed at some point.

Harold seems to be a nice genuine guy, and it's hard to argue with a $9 arduino clone (the build quality should be quite good - from what I've seen of the boards shipped by SmartMaker, they are pretty well-made).

[Stonent]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TAIJIUINO-Due-Pro-R2-completely-compatible-with-Arduino-Due-onboard-Ethernet-/130905955095?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1e7a9a5b17

Like this?

Oooh.. Shaddup and take my money! 

[Corporate666]

Very neat project...and I hope this guy has a VERY good handle on all his costs, because it's almost impossible for a project not to have hidden expenses, and if he has planned for a break even, those expenses mean losing money.

But certainly this is the moral intent of crowd funding.... Good on this guy.  I'll order some in support for sure.

[edavid]

I'll be getting some too - but just for transparency, this project has some ties to another one that has been under discussion here for a few months (and which has quite a bit of drama): https://www.eevblog.com/forum/crowd-funded-projects/smartduino-real-project-with-deceptive-info/

Notice the "partner logo" under the video.

Harold works for SmartMaker, and this is a project he is doing on his own time (with support from his boss). The drama comes in because SmartMaker has still only shipped a small percentage of the products that were supposed to be shipped over 6 months ago, and backers there immediately questioned the allocation of resources to other efforts.

Thanks very much for pointing that out.

Harold seems to be a nice genuine guy, and it's hard to argue with a $9 arduino clone (the build quality should be quite good - from what I've seen of the boards shipped by SmartMaker, they are pretty well-made).

They're actually $11-12 Arduino clones.  Compare to these $12.50 ($13 w/USB cable) clones on eBay:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/290933391239

It's not quite as good a deal, but you don't have to wait until September (or later), and there's less chance of drama.

[edavid]

He may very well regret it when he has to pack and ship 10K boards!

They are being shipped from the assembler in China... I doubt he will even be there.

[tesla]

I've sent $15 last monday and bought the "1 board perk" ... then I come here and find that I'm not alone! That's good to know 
By the way, I also have some "True arduinos" and china clones but ... I don't know ... I liked the idea

[FoXX]

The limit is now reached

It was started as a campaign running for 35 days with the goal to manufacture at least 1,000 of these boards. A dream. It ended a week ahead of schedule after I had to limit the quantity to 15,000 boards. What can I say? Even in my wildest dreams I would not have imagined this outcome.

Thank You, thank you, thank you all!!!!

[mariush]

I thought this thread could use an update...

I was one of the contributors for this Arduino, but on Kickstarter ... figured I already have PIC and the pickit 3 and having an arduino wouldn't hurt...

Got the package with everything directly from Hong Kong on Friday.

Overall board looks ok, a couple of smd parts moved a bit in the oven but it's nothing serious. Other than that the board looks fine, the extra stuff is nice (leds, 9v to power jack cable is cool, the mini breadboard is kinda pointless).. the usb cable is something I don't like (flat, no ferrite beads) but hey, it was free...

Pictures below at around 1600px wide something... if anyone wants larger size I can post the large ones (3200x*)

[EEVblog]

Still waiting for mine, but this is Oz.
Massively oversubscribed but still shipped way ahead of schedule.
Apart form the ridiculous email verification fopar, a very well executed campaign.

[edavid]

Still waiting for mine, but this is Oz.
Massively oversubscribed but still shipped way ahead of schedule.
Apart form the ridiculous email verification fopar, a very well executed campaign.

I agree, but of course it should have been, since there was no design work required.  Funny that the same people did the super-ambitious campaign first, then the easy one second.  I wonder what comes next.

[MacAttak]

What is the email verification fopar? Did I miss something?

You can go to the order verification page (it isn't password or unique-code protected), enter in any backer's email address, and it will A) confirm that is in fact their email registered with IGG, and B) show you their shipping address - which for 95% or more will be their home address.

[MacAttak]

I agree, but of course it should have been, since there was no design work required.  Funny that the same people did the super-ambitious campaign first, then the easy one second.  I wonder what comes next.

Third one is already underway - the "Arduino Basic Connections" book.

I get the impression that several more campaigns are in pipeline too.

[george graves]

Got mine.  Looks great.  Can't believe he did 15,000 boards - but he did.

[ijchan223]

man, that looks nice, wish i saw this while it was running. they did an amazing job.

[CrosseyeJack]

man, that looks nice, wish i saw this while it was running. they did an amazing job.

While it was nice to pick a few up, you can still get fairly cheap Arduino Leonardo's on ebay. I just saw on from a seller with decent rep here in the UK for less then £2 more then the igg campaign were selling them at. Ok it doesn't come with the "kit" but that was something that was added later on in the campaign.

Shop around, you will find them for a decent price, for example -  http://hobbycomponents.com/index.php/dvbd/dvbd-ardu/ardu-dvbd/arduino-compatible-r3-leonardo-latest-model.html

[kmarcisz]

I got mine today as well. Very impressed with the way this campaign has been handled, ahead of schedule with 15k of boards delivered. I have received 2 boards, all seem to be working perfectly fine + I got two bags of resistors and whatnots.

[quantumvolt]

I agree, but of course it should have been, since there was no design work required.  Funny that the same people did the super-ambitious campaign first, then the easy one second.  I wonder what comes next.

Third one is already underway - the "Arduino Basic Connections" book.

I get the impression that several more campaigns are in pipeline too.

Have you checked the comments on IGG lately? Seems that "the sponsor and his protege" are in for a turning tide. And the man in yellow seems to be involved in "the book" also. Wonder where he will go for his next stunt ...

[MacAttak]

Oh yes, I'm very aware of it.

I did get one of my 3 boards (which seems to be very well built), but the other 2 are MIA. Pretty much everyone in USA that ordered more than 1 board got sent only a single board. And a very large number of shipments that went out of HK have been in limbo for weeks now.

I really hope the book fares better. There isn't a whole lot more for them to screw up after the Open System / SmartDuino fiasco where the engineering overwhelmed them, and now the $9 Arduino which had zero engineering but they totally screwed up the customer shipping portion (after knocking it out of the park until that point). The book has zero technology. They could farm the entire thing out to a real publisher and never touch a physical copy of it. So if they screw that one up too then I'm not really sure why they don't just throw in the towel altogether.

[sorin]

$9.2 Including shipping
http://www.chinabuye.com/arduino-compatible-uno-r3-development-board-electronics-diy

[mtdoc]

Pretty much everyone in USA that ordered more than 1 board got sent only a single board.

I'm in the USA and I got both of my ahead of schedule. Very excellent all around! 

[Frenchie]

A quick word of caution, first time playing with these boards with external power this evening, two of my three boards have dead 5V regulators . Both worked fine programming via USB but as soon as I used the included battery snap and a 9V battery*, two dead micros. Possibly worth checking the regulator is functional before getting too excited with them.

* USB not connected at the time.

[timbarnes]

I missed out on this one, but I did get a $9 Leonardo from China which is now running my preamp. I think in the future I'll probably just build from a microprocessor directly - there are so many tutorials out there. It only takes a few components (even fewer if you don't mind using the internal clock). You can buy a set of five processors with the Arduino bootloader for just over $10...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/5-X-ATMEGA328P-PU-Microcontroller-With-ARDUINO-UNO-Bootloader-SSY-2225-/221275539990

and here's one example of how to build up your own circuit...

http://www.instructables.com/id/YABBAS-Yet-Another-Bare-Bones-Arduino-on-Stripb/

If you make the stripboard a bit bigger, you won't need a shield - just add what you need right alongside.

[edavid]

Harold has a new Arduino kit campaign:  http://igg.me/at/bemaker

It's reminiscent of SmartMaker... overly complicated matrix of different perks, and oddly enough the project description is written in Italglish.

[george graves]

He goal is to provide teaching materials, and a well stocked kit to teach electronics around the world.

Hardly anything to scoff at.

Plus for the "kit" - he's charging $30 for something others are charging ~$100 for.   I say hats off to him.

[edavid]

He goal is to provide teaching materials, and a well stocked kit to teach electronics around the world.

That's an admirable goal, but considering the whole SmartMaker saga, and the complete lack of original content on his website so far, I think it's OK to take it with a grain of salt.

Plus for the "kit" - he's charging $30 for something others are charging ~$100 for.   I say hats off to him.

Isn't that about the same as similar kits from China, that you wouldn't have to wait until February to get?

[EEVblog]

That's an admirable goal, but considering the whole SmartMaker saga

What's the SmartMaker saga?

[edavid]

That's an admirable goal, but considering the whole SmartMaker saga

What's the SmartMaker saga?

I'll be getting some too - but just for transparency, this project has some ties to another one that has been under discussion here for a few months (and which has quite a bit of drama): https://www.eevblog.com/forum/crowd-funded-projects/smartduino-real-project-with-deceptive-info/

Notice the "partner logo" under the video.

Harold works for SmartMaker, and this is a project he is doing on his own time (with support from his boss). The drama comes in because SmartMaker has still only shipped a small percentage of the products that were supposed to be shipped over 6 months ago, and backers there immediately questioned the allocation of resources to other efforts.

I'm not stirring the pot. This was bound to be noticed at some point.

Harold seems to be a nice genuine guy, and it's hard to argue with a $9 arduino clone (the build quality should be quite good - from what I've seen of the boards shipped by SmartMaker, they are pretty well-made).

[george graves]

I don't know anything about the SmartMaker saga/connection to Harold.....but considering he just shipped 15k boards ahead of schedule, I think it's ok to give him the benefit of the doubt.   

[EEVblog]

I'll be getting some too - but just for transparency, this project has some ties to another one that has been under discussion here for a few months (and which has quite a bit of drama): https://www.eevblog.com/forum/crowd-funded-projects/smartduino-real-project-with-deceptive-info/

Notice the "partner logo" under the video.

Harold works for SmartMaker, and this is a project he is doing on his own time (with support from his boss). The drama comes in because SmartMaker has still only shipped a small percentage of the products that were supposed to be shipped over 6 months ago, and backers there immediately questioned the allocation of resources to other efforts.

I'm not stirring the pot. This was bound to be noticed at some point.

Harold seems to be a nice genuine guy, and it's hard to argue with a $9 arduino clone (the build quality should be quite good - from what I've seen of the boards shipped by SmartMaker, they are pretty well-made).

Ah, got it.
Well, if Harold only "works for" SmartMaker and doesn't call the shots, then what he does on his own time shouldn't really have a conflict of interest.

[edavid]

[Ah, got it.
Well, if Harold only "works for" SmartMaker and doesn't call the shots, then what he does on his own time shouldn't really have a conflict of interest.

I think the consensus is that Harold's projects (as well as Alberto's book) are SmartMaker projects, but Dimitri got Harold to be the front man.

Which is not to say they aren't worthwhile projects.

[george graves]

I think the consensus is that Harold's projects (as well as Alberto's book) are SmartMaker projects, but Dimitri got Harold to be the front man.

I was told the whole thing was master-minded by Elvis Presley with Santa Clause doing all the dirty work. 

[CrosseyeJack]

With this new project (who ever the project belongs to Harold or smart marker, I don't really care. I will just referrer to them as well them :-p) a update was pushed out to everyone saying

This is the deal. As part of the campaign, I'm raising a budget to create a multimedia and multi-language course. The funding of this course is voluntary and who ever makes a contribution will have 6 months of private access to the course, before this will be released to the public. Please read the detailed information on the campaign's page.

If you choose to support this new campaign and if you choose a perk that includes the $10 dedicated to the funding of the course, then you will get the shield for free!!!

But they have now back tracked saying.

I'm pleased and glad to offer a free shield, the best match possible to the Arduino compatible board you have funded already, for those of you who will help with the funding of the project dedicated to the production of a full multimedia and multi-language course.

Unfortunately, cause the excitement for the new campaign just launched, this morning I used the wrong words, as I wrote that the free shield will be guarantee to those who offer a $10 contribute for the production of the lessons.

What I meant and I failed to explain was: a KIT plus the $10 for the lessons.

I know that I gave mixed expectations to many and I'm sorry for this. I hope you can understand that I'm extremely grateful to all of you for the great support you have given to my projects, but I think that it should be clear that I can't offer a free shield to those who just pledge $10, as it will be a clear lost and it will not bring any benefit to the cause.

They then "sold out" the perk and created a new perk stating it wouldn't be eligible for the free shield but what about the people (20 of that perk have been "sold" at time of writing) who took the  first mass mailing at face value? It sets my spidey senses off. An honest mistake? fair enough, but will they honour the perk to the people who paid up before the clarification? Because as its a flexible funded campaign the money as already been taken out of the backers accounts and is now in the account of the person (or people) running the campaign.

I guess only time will tell.

EDIT: I understand that this is crowd sourcing, but when you use words such as guarantee(sic) it does make me think that not only are backers thinking they are buying something, but Harold is using the platform to sell something too.

[MacAttak]

I'm not supporting the new project for a number of reasons. But probably one of the biggest reasons is that I don't trust them to design any hardware at this point. Not until the original smartmaker "open system" packages ship. In a month it will have been a full year of delays, and we aren't clear at all on what he intends to actually ship by that point. So far only a trickle of the most basic kits have gone out. Dimitri (or anyone else associated with smartmaker) has stopped communicating with backers completely other than an "update" every 2 weeks that doesn't really answer any of the recurring questions.

Almost all of the updates and comments posted by Harold on the $9 Arduino have been written in similar broken english to what Dimitri would use in his own project. It's very hard to tell who is responsible for what, and they are intentionally blurring those lines further every day.