Cheap source for Teensy 2.0 and 2.0++ controller from east Asia

7bit · 21 Mar 2015, 10:20

Does anybody know a cheap source for Teensy 2.0 and 2.0++ from East Asia?

They are surely not produced in the USA, so might be cheaper if purchased from East Asia.

Muirium · 21 Mar 2015, 10:43

Maybe Kaihua makes them, like how they are the goto source for "MX switches" now too.

7bit · 21 Mar 2015, 10:54

I don't want clones. The Teensys are not produced in the USA, so might be cheaper to source them more directly.

Muirium · 21 Mar 2015, 10:56

Who's your HyperMicro PCB supplier? I want to cut out the middleman. He's made back his investment already by now.

idollar · 21 Mar 2015, 11:09

If your project is compatible with the pinout of the pro-micro, you may get them from China at $4 the unit, including shipping:

http://www.aliexpress.com/snapshot/6513305847.html

Differences;

- pinout
- boot loader - need to reset twice on boot. I have done it may times without any problem
- programming interface
- price

There is a thread on this from scottc here. Thanks Scottc !

7bit · 21 Mar 2015, 11:14

I don't want clones, but the original!

In fact I plan to design my own controller one day, but until then, I need Teensy 2.0 and Teensy 2.0++.

scottc · 21 Mar 2015, 11:14

I'd tend to agree with idollar! If we could squeeze an optimised matrix on to the available pins on the Pro Micro, it would be great. I don't think it will work for the HyperMacro, though.

Muirium · 21 Mar 2015, 11:26

My Pro Micro's been a lot of trouble. Its flaky powering my AT off a USB hub while I've never had trouble with any of the Teenies I've used in that rôle. And getting a firmware onto it in the first place is a nightmare I don't want to have to ever repeat. Lesson learned. I'll gladly pay the Teensy price!

But what you should really* do is use the ATmega chip directly. All the cool kids are doing that on their PCBs. Way cheaper, way smaller, way more elegant. Don't you even get Teensy Loader compatibility if you buy the chips from PJRC?

*No. What you should really, really do is use an ARM processor. But that requires building your own software too. AVR / ATmega is pure shit. Horrible high power consumption, pathetic performance, and so little RAM to play with in this day and age it was surely made by a sadist! Even keyboard scancode lookup tables are huge compared to its resources. What hope have we to ever drive Bluetooth from a single chip! But like all of us here, I love the software that runs on ATmega, so I use it incessantly too! PJRC pretty much created this space, and did so around ATmega. We really need to break out of it sometime.

idollar · 21 Mar 2015, 11:44

7bit wrote: ↑I don't want clones, but the original!

In fact I plan to design my own controller one day, but until then, I need Teensy 2.0 and Teensy 2.0++.

The difficult part of the design is the bootloader. This is what makes the Teensy different.

Muirium · 21 Mar 2015, 11:46

Yes.

But he's quite clear he wants to steal "import" complete Teensy boards as an end run around paying PJRC.

scottc · 21 Mar 2015, 11:50

Eh, well it only makes sense to try to move on from Teensy, for all of the reasons that you described above and more. They're also bloody expensive. The better route to take would be to just build the controllers into the PCB directly.

vvp · 21 Mar 2015, 13:50

If you like some ATmega firmware and it is built on LUFA than it is very easy to port it to ATxmega. ATxmega is cheaper than ATmega and has more resources.

But I agree with those who think we should use the chip directly. If you are not hand wiring your keyboard matrix then you need a PCB. If you need a PCB then adding a controller chip there is easy. In the case of ATxmega it is only 8 components in the most simple case: controller, LDO, and 6 capacitors. Price for these components in small quantities is about 3.8 + 0.36 + 6*0.01 = 4.22 (+VAT). Why to buy teensy for about 16 when you can have somewhat stronger hardware for 4.22? Soldering a TQFP package is not that hard.

scottc · 21 Mar 2015, 13:54

I know I'd find SMD soldering a pain in the ass, really.

vvp · 21 Mar 2015, 14:05

Muirium wrote: ↑But he's quite clear he wants to steal "import" complete Teensy boards as an end run around paying PJRC.

Isn't it all open source? All, except the boot loader? If so then there is nothing shady there if 7bit uses a different boot loader.

vvp · 21 Mar 2015, 14:32

scottc wrote: ↑I know I'd find SMD soldering a pain in the ass, really.

TQFP is quite big. It is easy, especially if you have a PCB with solder resist. Just do not skimp on flux and it will go fine even with a standard temperature controlled iron.

: tqfp-44.jpg (47.36 KiB) Viewed 3409 times

sphinx · 24 Mar 2015, 12:28

i just ordered one from aliexpress for 15€

dunno if its legit or not, but YOLO

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Teensy-2 ... 78237.html