Just seen Embest (a Farnell company ) is producing their own clone of the BeagleBone Black
Just seen Embest (a Farnell company ) is producing their own clone of the BeagleBone Black
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.
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
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