Another manufacturer for BBB

I think it was Coder27 that pointed it out sometime last year.

However:

Embest: BB Black Development Platform based on TI Sitara AM3358 Processor Exclusively for China

The Exclusively for China bit says it all, don't think it's ever been made available here.  I sort of understand why, you'd need to market it as BBB 'compatible' or some such like to prevent people trying to RMA them to CircuitCo.  That said, with the proper caveats in place and ensuring the purchaser understands it's supported by Embest/e14 and not beagleboard.org or CircuitCo I really don't see why they're not selling them elsewhere.  I'd be quite happy to buy one on that basis.

It looks like you can purchase them, just tried the purchase option on the Embest site It took me to a checkout page saying Element 14 at the top, price  GBP 37.19  shipping Fedex Express GBP 38  ouch! so I will pass on that one.

Ouch indeed !

Could be double ouch if there's also import tax and duty to pay.

Seeed studio are also selling them for GBP 41.84

Shipping better but still high...  DHL 18.04, Fedex 20.59,  UPS 34.11

I came across this today: BeagleBoard.org - logo

Interesting read about the BeagleBoard Compatible program.  Hopefully a couple more board manufacturers will jump on the opportunity to help supply meet the demand.

I think that's existed for a while, I seem to remember there was one of the US distributors offering a 'commercial' version based on what I assume was those terms in the middle of last year.

It would be nice if e14 offered the embest version worldwide in line with that.  I'm reasonably confident that e14 could get quantity produced in China at the same places as are building things like the RIoT board - obviously after whatever lead time for parts.

At the same time I'd understand if e14 don't want to do that, preferring to try to sell the RIoT as their own product at a bigger margin

Brian Welsby wrote:

 

Could be double ouch if there's also import tax and duty to pay.

It depends on a couple of things, where you're importing from and what customs code the sender uses, but basically if the value of the goods excluding shipping & insurance is less than £135 then you don't pay duty.

Also, when you look through the various customs codes it seems that for import into the UK there's no duty on computer parts or electronic components. You do have to pay VAT though and you pay that on the total cost including shiping, insurance and any duty.

Unfortunately, in what seems to be a scam by the UK government, they'll assume that your 30cm cube parcel should have cost $200 to ship in from the US and charge you VAT on the $200 even when the supplier has free shipping and the actual value of item plus shipping was only $50....

I looked into how it works last year when ordering some Wandboards from the US and what some of the US suppliers are doing is shipping things pre-cleared to a clearinghouse elsewhere in the EU and then shipping on from there.

I think it was Mouser who were using somewhere in France, and my stuff from futureelectronics came in something called DHL BreakBulk Express via Germany - essentially they ship a pallet with many orders for Europe then split the contents in Germany.

I don't know how the likes of Seeed are shipping stuff from China, but you'd like to hope they're using the same methods

From the online calculator at www.dutycalculator.com

Still ouch...

fyi - seeed studios does resell the embest-made bbb:

http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/BeagleBone-Black-Embest-p-1736.html

embest's bbb page: BeagleBone Black

Looks like a price increase is happening:

http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.hardware.beagleboard.user/64166

Since it seems to be aimed at getting more manufacturers involved in order to increase supply, I'm surprised that e14 isn't using the embest one for this.

Still, a price increase is dubious at best. The BBB is already more expensive than the more capable OLinuXino-LIME and it won't take much to push it into head to head competition with e14's RIoT board.