Buy an Axon, Axon II, or Axon Mote and build a great robot, while helping to support SoR.
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Microcontrollers are supposed to be inexpensive.
I just wanted to mention to saw the AXON announcement. I like the specs and the form factor but $130.00 is a bit expensive. I currently use the ARC v1.1 boards and AVR Butterfly for my projects. I'm looking for something new but at $130.00ea, I could design and build my own board. Microcontrollers are supposed to be inexpensive.
Quote from: jronald on July 22, 2008, 06:07:10 PMI just wanted to mention to saw the AXON announcement. I like the specs and the form factor but $130.00 is a bit expensive. I currently use the ARC v1.1 boards and AVR Butterfly for my projects. I'm looking for something new but at $130.00ea, I could design and build my own board. Microcontrollers are supposed to be inexpensive.be my guest
I could design and build my own board
I thought the Axon was using an ATmega 640? Am I missing something with the people mentioning it is a breakout board for an ATmega168? Honestly I'd fork over the money based on the fact it's using the 640 -- I don't want to try and solder one of those anytime soon.
The axon seems a bit overpriced from a components standpoint, but it's reasonable to expect to see some of the development cost absorbed into the product price, and it becomes even more understandable if the scale of production is such that each board takes a long time to produce (e.g. a lot of hand soldering). In terms of components in conservative quanties (e.g. 100), I'd expect the ATmega128 to be around $9, the USB-to-UART bridge to be about $2.50, maybe around $5 - $6 for the rest of the parts, and I'd guess around $2 - $4 per PCB. Unless I'm forgetting something or quantites are lower than I'm estimating, I'd think parts costs would come to around $20 per Axon when bought in lots of 100+, which would imply a reasonable retail price of between $80 and $100 before even factoring in things like development costs, manufacturing time and costs, and support.