How come this board is so cheap?

[Buzz239]

How is the board programed? A USB to serial perhaps?

Gary

[dannyf]

The pro minis are serial; Pro Micros are usb.

There are two versions of Pro Micros out there. The shorter ones are pin-to-pin compatible to pro mini and are sold as such. The longer ones are the real deal and are closer to Leonardo than Pro Mini.

[zapta]

How is the board programed? A USB to serial perhaps?

Gary

USB/Serial (e.g.  FTDI Basic) or ICSP, both are supported by the Arduino IDE.

[macboy]

I've always wondered how somebody in China can sell an item with shipping included for less than I could mail the same package across town. After all, it's the same USPS that transports the package once it enters the US. It's not like we have Chinese mailmen running around everywhere.

International mail is strange. The destination country (USA/Australia/Canada/etc.) does not receive any monetary compensation from the shipping country (China/HK/etc.), but basically every country agrees to deliver mail sent from every other country. There are certain explicit reciprocal agreements in place between certain countries that override this implicit agreement, but not in this case. This is the reason that they can do this cheaply. China post only take a few cents postage, throws everything in a big shipping container destined for USA/etc., and lets them sort it out and deliver it at their cost. Of course, the USA/etc. is welcome to do the same, but naturally there are not a lot of western companies exporting cheap goods in small parcels to China, and even there was, the USPS/etc. would be collecting a lot more than 25 cents in postage.