OSHW Spartan-6 FPGA board - Mojo

The Mojo is clearly a very nicely constructed product, but a Xilinx 6SLX9TQG144 costs only £13.86 in unit quantities, so there's ample room for OSHW doing its thing and deriving a far cheaper board that does roughly the same job, or alternatively, doing a lot more for the same price --- how about popping in an AM3359 instead of the AVR?  (*)

FPGAs still haven't had their "Pi moment".

(*) PS. Or if the aim is low cost, slapping a low-end Spartan on a BBB cape would eliminate virtually all the auxiliary  components on the Mojo, leaving little more than an FPGA on a bare board.  It's hard to see how that could cost a lot, although kits would probably need the FPGA pre-mounted.

Hi Morgaine,

I think the board while it seems nice, may sadly be in the unaffordable bracket for many due to exchange rates and the economy. It actually costs more than the same number in £ in the UK - robvo savvy is selling the board for about £86 including VAT. I don't know what the postal charge is, but from many stores that is usually expensive in the UK too. Others may feel different but to me it seems an awful lot of money that could be spent better.

For that reason, I've always planned to just create my own board either based on an existing gerber or my own, because I would rather hand-solder for half an hour and save half the cost. I know not everyone will want to do that however, so it is good to have options like Mojo, but Mojo is an expensive option it seems.

EDIT: Just saw the PS, I agree, a single FPGA on a cape, and re-use as much from the BBB as possible for programming and a 3.3V supply would bring down costs.

But, I think many vendors want to charge 3 times the BoM cost, and so the £13 part becomes a £39 part on the board :-(

In that respect the Papilio One is a nicer board because although the FPGA is less capable, it is at a reasonable price if imported into the UK because there is free shipping >$50 so you can add a bit more to the order. And I think they may be no duty or other charges to pay at the $50 mark, since it is just under £35 - I could be wrong.

Yep, my view of pricing is quite similar to yours.

In addition, and as I've said in other threads, I don't really see OSHW enthusiasts as "consumers" in the normal sense.  The whole point of OSHW is to get out of the very unhealthy position of subservience to the production whims of companies, and to take hold of the means of production for ourselves and sometimes for small numbers of like-minded people.  As a result, we're generally not after finished product, and consequently the very high markup common to finished product doesn't seem appropriate either --- we're just buying components, even if they are modules or boards.

When OSHW works properly, as it does in the Arduino and 3D printing communities, the OSHW fans then become producers, and quite often it is original production, not only derived.  Admittedly, that's not working too well in these complex areas of ARM and FPGAs at this time.

Regarding BOM costs for FPGA boards, I'm reminded of Michael's very interesting estimate of a year and a half ago.  When assembly is removed from the process, the resulting numbers can be quite low.

Morgaine Dinova wrote:

 

In addition, and as I've said in other threads, I don't really see OSHW enthusiasts as "consumers" in the normal sense.  The whole point of OSHW is to get out of the very unhealthy position of subservience to the production whims of companies, and to take hold of the means of production for ourselves and sometimes for small numbers of like-minded people.  As a result, we're generally not after finished product, and consequently the very high markup common to finished product doesn't seem appropriate either --- we're just buying components, even if they are modules or boards.

I actually consider myself a "consumer" of OSHW boards.  The fact that I could take the schematics and build my own board is not important to me, because I don't have the facilities to make high-density assembled SMT PCB boards and even if I did it would rarely be a good use of my time for a single prototype.  But OSHW gives me two things which are vital: (1) I have the full schematic, so I can see how the board works and make small modifications, and (2) OSHW boards use components that have (mostly) open documentation, so I can use the board for anything its hardware is capable of doing (well, "mostly").  That's a lot better than RasPi, which doesn't provide a full tech ref, and boards that provide most of the pages of the schematic, but leave off the page I need to program/access chips via FLOSS tools.

SparkFun has a great business model as I understand it.  Basically, they make lots of boards and other thingummies and sell enough of them to pay for the development and manufacturing cost.  But they realize that if any of the products become big sellers, the Chinese will outproduce and underprice them.  So they have to keep designing fun new products with enough margin to keep the model going.  Sparkfun's Chris Taylor gives a great comment about how OSHW works in this EDN article:

In open source, a lot of... concern comes from wondering “What if someone steals my design?”  Well, good, that’s kind of the point.  Let them steal it.  If they can make it better, you can steal it right back and make yours better.  That’s what makes the product a quality product.  Then you design the next cool thing.  The information is free, but at SparkFun, the hardware is where we make the money.

John Beetem wrote:

 

I actually consider myself a "consumer" of OSHW boards.

Although various other things come into play, the defining characteristic of "consumers" is passivity.  They are not part of the process and industry which gives rise to production of the things that they are buying, and that passivity makes them powerless to affect the processes which collectively define their world.

That's the central issue which separates consumers from manufacturers and creates a two-tier civilization in which one tier makes all the decisions and the other tier can only labour hard to have the money to buy the items that reinforce their own disempowerment.  It's a very bleak world for the consumers, made palatable only by highly efficient marketing that has portrayed enslavement to manufacturers as something to be enjoyed.  The blue pill industry is alive and well.

You say that you consider yourself a "consumer" of OSHW boards, but you then immediately demonstrate that you are not at all, because you are not passive in the process.  You understand the operation of nearly every part of the boards you buy, so you are immune to the marketing hype that drives the cycle of consumption.  You highly value complete documentation of your boards, which is total anathema to most manufacturers and of zero interest to most consumers.

And you modify boards --- your credentials as a "consumer" are hereby revoked forever.

What I'm saying is that merely buying things is not sufficient to make you a simple "consumer" within the meaning implied by that term, because that concept embodies a level of personal disempowerment which you do not possess.  You buy boards in the same spirit with which a manufacturer buys components --- it's a relationship of empowerment, not of passivity, and you use your knowledge to add value to what you have bought.  You are not content with closed black boxes which you then blindly use as per the manufacturer's instructions.  In fact you see boards that you purchase as pre-assembled kits.

The OSHW community embraces the empowerment created by riding on the shoulders of giants by buying their parts, but rejects the disempowerment that results from just passively using  purchased items.  Through understanding the construction and operation of the items we buy, often modifying them, and sometimes designing new items using the knowledge we obtain by studying and learning from well-documented products, we break that relationship of blind and passive dependency which is the hallmark of the consumer.

It's very similar to the FOSS social dynamic that operates in software, but currently harder to type 'make'.

Morgaine Dinova wrote:

 

And you modify boards --- your credentials as a "consumer" are hereby revoked forever.

Uh oh... does this mean I can't ever go into an Apple store?

John Beetem wrote:

 

Uh oh... does this mean I can't ever go into an Apple store?

Just don't tell them that you actually want the Gorilla glass facia for your next project.