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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : Maxi/Micro Mites too expensive.
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Gizmo Admin Group  Joined: 05/06/2004 Location: AustraliaPosts: 5016 |
This is a rant. Probably un called for, just my own view, and I dont want to step on anyone's toes. The Australian supplied Mites are too expensive. A MicroMite from Silicon Chip costs $25. The over sea's suppliers are well priced, but the low Australian dollar also makes them expensive for Australian buyers. Still its cheaper than buying from Silicon Chip! Rant over. The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now. JAQ |
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Grogster Admin Group Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9063 |
Short rant! 
You are correct though - SC's prices for a MM chip are a bit rich. This is where robert.rozee's ascii ISCP comes into play. With one of those(costs less then US$5 to make), anyone can program their own MM chips for much less then SC charge to sell you a pre-programmed one. In some ways I sympathise with SC though - they are running a business, so it has to be profitable for them to sell the chips, and they get that from mark-up. ....not trying to be the Devil's advocate here.... Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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Geoffg Guru  Joined: 06/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 3165 |
Yes, I tried to get them to sell it cheaper as I figured that they would get more volume - and might even make more money. But I believe that they wanted to keep a consistent price structure. They try to support their readers with all unusual parts and I suppose that they win on some and loose on others. I am not worried too much, you can buy the chips and a programmer cheap enough on the open market. Geoff Geoff Graham - http://geoffg.net |
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| hitsware Guru Joined: 23/11/2012 Location: United StatesPosts: 535 |
Do they have some monopoly ? Someone else could do it cheaper ? |
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| Grogster Admin Group Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9063 |
Nope. They are the only COMMERCIAL agency selling the chips in our neck of the woods that I am aware of, so if you felt like selling them to people over there in the grand ole U. S. of A, I am sure your fellow Americans would appreciate your efforts. 
When you sell something commercially via a business entity, the product has to generate profit for the company, or it is simply not worth selling it in the first place. Hobbyists have the unique position of not having to worry about business overheads, so they can program and supply chips much cheaper then any business entity could. SC magazine is a business entity, and so...... Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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| isochronic Guru Joined: 21/01/2012 Location: AustraliaPosts: 689 |
AFAIK the publishing trade does indeed have steep import duties or similar, which protect british and Australian publishers. Which makes the publishers rant supporting less protection for local industries kind of hard to fathom. It would be interesting to see SC set their prices at the level that imports have to use, eg $20/copy - and then see what their sales are like. There still seems to be quite a "brit-skippy" canopy in Aus technology, let alone the so-called Public Service. [ed] Apparently Aus is (or used to be) a good marketing laboratory - a new product can be trial-marketed easily in the smaller cities using the local image, then boosted etc. I have lost count of the number of products hyped as "Australian" only to find that they are multinational derivatives. Of course SC has to chase the money. But more and more, SC is becoming a technology consumer rather than a technology producer. Which means less technical articles...less hardware sales..less profit...and so on. You have to wonder how the companies rise and fall so emphatically in a very limited market, eg EA, ETI, DSE, Jaycar, and on and on. |
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| hitsware Guru Joined: 23/11/2012 Location: United StatesPosts: 535 |
> They are the only COMMERCIAL agency selling the chips > in our neck of the woods that I am aware of, > so if you felt like selling them to people over there > in the grand ole U. S. of A, I am sure your fellow Americans > would appreciate your efforts. I meant why couldn't you yourself (if inclined) underprice SC on MM's ? (there in Oz) |
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palcal Guru Joined: 12/10/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1802 |
I've just about had enough of SC after subscribing since the 1990's. I thought hard last time about my subscription but next time I thing it's gone. Every month all you get is re hashed old projects. Paul. "It is better to be ignorant and ask a stupid question than to be plain Stupid and not ask at all" |
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| Gizmo Admin Group Joined: 05/06/2004 Location: AustraliaPosts: 5016 |
Hey didn't want to put any blame on SC, they are a business after all. I just find it annoying an Australian developed system is cheaper to by from overseas. The prices offered by Circuit Gizmo and Micromite.org are spot on for their own countries, but our dollar is not very good now, so ideally we should be able to buy local. The MicroMite is fantastic, brilliant, but PicAxe chips are much cheaper and I can but them at the local Jaycar/Altronics outlet. The PicAxe is a toy compared to the MicroMite, but for simple projects it will have to do. Been reading up on robert's(.rozee) programmer, its a logical step to take if you want more than one MicroMite. Glenn The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now. JAQ |
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| Grogster Admin Group Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9063 |
Oh, I see. 
I might look at doing that. @ Glenn - I might look at being a local supplier for NZ and AUS at a business level. I will talk to my accountant. If you can move plenty of chips, the price can be kept down low enough to be a real competitor to SC's chip prices, I am confident of that. The problem is that you can never guarantee you will move a hundred chips a month or whatever, which makes it hard to calculate if it would be worthwhile stocking it. However, having said that, I started my website for on-line sales among other things, so I will have a closer look at this idea for 2016. Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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| WhiteWizzard Guru Joined: 05/04/2013 Location: United KingdomPosts: 2794 |
@Gizmo Picking up on this thread, and having received an order from a 'familiar' name I am curious as to if it was you!!
If it was you, then can I just say that to make the total AU$ cost more 'economic' I include a free PCB for use with the MM. The PCB is one of BigMick's BP170 boards for use with a Touch TFT. I also included a SMD Vcap required for the MM. IF it wasn't you then please ignore the above! Regarding costs, I was shocked when I saw the SC cost, but then they are no doubt 'commercially' driven. Recently the new $5 RaspberryPi Zero was given away free with a magazine. I am thinking maybe I should link up with the EPE publication here in the UK and offer a Free MicroMite with one of their issues (once they catch up with the SC MicroMite publications). It would certainly get awareness of the MM; although ironically they have just started a twelve article series about the Arduino. One thing that I always recommend to people wanting to evaluate the MM is to try and get a free sample (or two, or three!!) from MicroChip of the MX170 28pinner. Then with a cheap Nano (or PicKit3 clone) then you can start to experiment for very little outlay. The other thing I find strange is the timescales that you guys on islands in the middle of nowhere have to wait so long for shipping of components. I know there is great pleasure in popping into a component shop, but as recent posts have highlighted, these shops are a dying breed and hence dependency on global suppliers is now the norm. One massive advantage here in the UK is that we can order from RS or Element 14 up to 8pm and have the component(s) delivered the following day by courier for free. I can honestly order one SMD resistor and have it delivered at unit cost as there is no minimum charge anymore (it used to be a minimum of £20 exc vat). I can't do anything about the Australian dollar, but if I can help anyone in sourcing components from the aforementioned suppliers then I will be happy to help. Shipping times are averaging 7 working days from UK to the 'far off islands'. Shipping costs are approx. £5 Airmail, and between £10-£15 for Tracked. WW For everything Micromite visit micromite.org Direct Email: whitewizzard@micromite.o |
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| Chris Roper Senior Member  Joined: 19/05/2015 Location: South AfricaPosts: 280 |
For projects that don't need the clout of the 32 Bit processor in the MicroMite I can highly recommend taking a look at Great Cow Basic. Version 0.95 has just been released on Sourceforge and it is exponentially more powerful than the last version in wide release. It handles over 90% of the 8-Bit PIC's as well as the Atmel Mega devices. To date I have used it on the PIC12 all the way up to the latest PIC18 and generated cleaner and more efficient code, in many cases, than Microchips own XC8 compiler, with the added benefit of portability to Atmel. So if you are interested in PICAxe, take a look at GCBasic. Cheaper, Faster and a much larger range of devices to choose from. The only downside is that you need a PICKit2 or better to program the target. Cheers Chris http://caroper.blogspot.com/ |
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| hitsware Guru Joined: 23/11/2012 Location: United StatesPosts: 535 |
> For projects that don't need the clout of > the 32 Bit processor in the MicroMite Yea  An 8 bit (8 pin) MMBasic would be way nifty ...... |
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CircuitGizmos Guru Joined: 08/09/2011 Location: United StatesPosts: 1421 |
I'm not sure that I can adjust my prices in any way that would make them more comfortable for Australia. I'm open to ideas. I would LOVE to see the audience for the 'mites grow. My belief is that there are a lot of potential users out there eager to get their hands on 'mites (if they knew about them). I think this group is NOT inclined to be the group that will program their own, but will use chips that are provided programmed. The $$ efforts I have made in advertising have not had any significant return. Micromites and Maximites! - Beginning Maximite |
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atmega8 Guru Joined: 19/11/2013 Location: GermanyPosts: 712 |
Hey, the AVR fraction should look at LUNAAVR http://avr.myluna.de/doku.php All others shoul rethink the advantages for an Interpreter like MMBASIC is !!! |
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| isochronic Guru Joined: 21/01/2012 Location: AustraliaPosts: 689 |
Microchip will supply chips with software already burnt in, for a few cents extra. I don't know if there is a generic minimum order size. I think shipping costs about $15, the last time (some time ago admittedly) it was very fast. You have to supply the hex file obviously ! |
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bigmik Guru Joined: 20/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2870 |
Hi Hitsware, All, Well there are several people selling the programmed chips, I have them for $8AUS each and $2postage in Australia... I originally asked Geoff for permission to offer them back in the Maximite days, and whilst I have not actually asked him for permission to sell the MicroMites I have applied, the same permission to the micromites.. Maybe I shouldn't have done so.. But then, If Geoff is not happy I am sure he would have let me know by now. I buy in typically 20-25 chips at a time and after freight costs these come out at around $6.00AUS each landed.. I figure $8 is quite reasonable ($7 with any MuP purchase) not too bad and it is hard to beat my $2 for freight in AUS.. Kind Regards, Mick Mick's uMite Stuff can be found >>> HERE (Kindly hosted by Dontronics) <<< |
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| robert.rozee Guru Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 2289 |
my personal view is that postage costs have always been the big killer. and the single biggest cure to this is ebay china. in an ideal world, i believe that a major boost would be for one of the chinese ebay distributors such as sureelectronics to pick up on the dip-28 MX170, where typically they have zero postage charges to the buyer. i would then expect to see the total price delivered to the end user being similar to the part-price from microchip direct. another option would be for someone to convince microchip to create some sort of 'hobbyist channel', where small quantities of select microchip devices can be purchased with minimal or zero postage costs. the current free-sample scheme they run is great, but one has to feel guilty as this does cost microchip to run and is really only intended for users who will as a result of the free samples create revenue for microchip later on. given the low-cost programming options now available, having the device pre-programmed is far less of an issue, and indeed could be seen as an impediment as micromite basic continues to evolve. i would be more than happy to work with anyone wanting to get cheap pic32 programmers out there. cheers, rob :-) |
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| Gizmo Admin Group Joined: 05/06/2004 Location: AustraliaPosts: 5016 |
CircuitGizmo and WhiteWizard, your prices are spot on, its the exchange rate thats making it expensive for Australian buyers, and no, I would never expect you to offer cheaper to Australian buyers simply because our dollar is low. WhiteWizard, yes it probably was my order you saw, I bought the chip using my business email address as its for a project for a client of mine. BigMick, your price is also spot on. In fact I would be happy to pay a few dollars more and still think the price was good. What I would like to do is add a new forum sticky, with a list of people who can supply Maximite/Micromite/etc hardware. Only forum members can be on the list. How does that sound? That way readers can find the best option for their country and needs. Glenn The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now. JAQ |
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MicroBlocks Guru Joined: 12/05/2012 Location: ThailandPosts: 2209 |
China subsidizes the post so they can offer very low prices. Other postal services carry most of the cost as it is the delivery part that cost the most money. Anyone in another part of the world will be unable to do that, basically killing e-commerce from most western countries (including Australia and New Zealand). From Thailand the minimum is about 2US$ for a padded envelope. That is still ok, the same from Europe would cost me about 5US$. For small cheap parts this is a deal killer. Microblocks. Build with logic. |
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