Pricing ATMEL328 and support components.

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shobley
 
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Joined: Fri Sep 07, 2007 5:16 pm

Pricing ATMEL328 and support components.

Post by shobley »

I've been pricing up ATMEL328 processors, and all the support components required to make a simple Arduino clone.

So far I've not been able to beat the price of a single RBBBArduino Kit from Modern Devices - what kind of bulk order do you have to place to get a better price than $13?

I actually want the parts for my Pitch Tracker project, which includes an Arduino built into the PCB.

Steve
Last edited by shobley on Tue Feb 01, 2011 12:47 pm, edited 3 times in total.

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westfw
 
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Re: Pricing ATMEL328 and support components.

Post by westfw »

The AVR itself tends to be pretty much the same price everywhere, but a lot of other components (voltage regulators, resonators, etc) vary more widely. I mean, mouser has 328s for about $3.50, and you ought to be able to do the other components (EXCEPT connectors and PCB) for another $2 or less. ($0.40 for a resonator, $0.50 for a regulator, and a couple cents each for each cap and resistor.)

but yeah, cost savings would tend to show up in pieces that you can leverage (1 PCB of your own design instead of 2) or omit (only those connectors that are actually needed.)

mikeselectricstuff
 
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Re: Pricing ATMEL328 and support components.

Post by mikeselectricstuff »

If you're buying in volume (reels) you should be talking to a franchised distributor, as pricing can be significantly lower than DK,Mouser etc. For lower volumes you're just stuck with paying more.

shobley
 
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Joined: Fri Sep 07, 2007 5:16 pm

Re: Pricing ATMEL328 and support components.

Post by shobley »

Can you recommend a distributor?

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mctaylor
 
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Re: Pricing ATMEL328 and support components.

Post by mctaylor »

shobley wrote:Can you recommend a distributor?
Actually you would start by going to the component manufacturer's website and finding their distributor(s) in your geographic area, and contacting them.

Just to be clear, @mikeselectricstuff said buying "in volume" from a distributor. A full "reel" means typically starting at 1000, if not 2500 identical pieces, of each component for passives (i.e. not semiconductors).

So if you are getting started, and are planning on setting up with an inventory for less than 500 units (of your product), starting off buying components by the reel may be excessive.

Have you contacted Modern Devices to get a wholesale price quote for their RBBBArduino Kit? I don't know for sure, but would guess that would likely start at 20+ units which might be easier to budget for.

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westfw
 
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Re: Pricing ATMEL328 and support components.

Post by westfw »

I would expect Digikey and Mouser to be equivalent to "real" distributors (whatever that means) up until the point where you can start talking about "flows" of several hundred units/month or more, at least for all the "single source" parts.

Where you can save money is on the "jelly bean" components that frequently seem to be "overpriced" from DK/Mouser. Buying x40 headers and breaking them apart instead of getting 6 and 8 pin versions. Getting a full reel of caps or resistors so that the per-part cost drops under $0.01 Have you seen Adafruit's http://www.ladyada.net/wiki/partselector ?

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