Hey all! I’m thinking of assembling a Polaron, which is based on the Teensy 3.6. I have far too many microcontrollers and single-board computers collecting dust to justify buying another one. And yet… want.
So before I order a Teensy 3.6, I was wondering if anyone has an extra one kicking around. I’m happy to pay or trade for it, I’d just rather spare the environment a (teensy) bit of garbage if I can.
If I do end up buying supplies, would anyone like to build one of these things with me? If enough folks are on board, shipping should be pretty reasonable.
@rileyjshaw - other than the Teensy3.6 the rest of the parts are pretty cheap… the biggest hurdle will be the PCB… have you checked to see if they are available and what shipping will cost? i’m quite interested depending on the PCB availability…
PCBs can be shipped from the designer in Switzerland for 15 USD a pop, plus shipping. But since the hardware is also open source, it would be cheaper (and more fun) to get some boards printed just for us
I have sent a note to the developer to see if he has PCBs available and what shipping would be…
@rileyjshaw - you may want to look into what it would cost to get the boards made… the boards are large and i think the inexpensive Chinese PCB houses are pretty much shut down right now… but see what you can find out and we’ll see what is the most cost effective…
Heard back from the developer… He doers have PCBs and untracked shipping to Canada is $6US so the cost per board would be $21US (approx $29CA)…
Not sure if we can get boards made cheaper than that. I have no experience in getting PCBS made…
If anyone else is interested in purchasing let me know and I’ll see if shipping is cheaper for a group order
The Teensy 3.6 is available for around $45 at Lees and RP. The rest of the parts are pretty cheap… I have some of the WS2812 chip already (probably enough for 3-5 boards)… The rest of the stuff is pretty cheap and we can easily do a Digikey order for it all…
Oof! oshpark.com is estimating over $50 per board. On the bright side, JLCPCB gives estimates of < $5 per. According to their website production is up and running again… but I’m not sure how long the boards would realistically take to arrive.
If we’re waiting for boards to ship anyway, we might as well make a group order of some Teensys and save a few bucks
FYI…
RP has no Teensy 3.6
Lees has them for $46.00 (no headers attached I’m assuming) but low stock
DigiKey has them for $46.47 (no headers attached) or $52.74 (headers attached)
Looks like Mouser is the same…
So getting them at Lees is the cheapest…
If need be we can get from DigiKey as long as we order at least 3 to get free shipping) but no real savings… I’ll most likely have a Digikey order in a few weeks anyways…
Robotshop Ca has them for $39.00 (free shipping if order over $75)
Awesome, thanks for doing all this research! With free shipping, robotshop is even cheaper than getting it directly from the developer. Wild.
So it sounds like there’s enough momentum here to turn my “I can’t bear to buy another microcontroller” post into a “let’s group-buy a bunch of microcontrollers” post
Already looking forward to the impromptu jam sessions on assembly night.
