Geting a stm32 boad made by Olimex

[BJFreeman]

I apologize if this is the wrong forum to bring this up.
I would like cross the maple stm32 features
https://www.olimex.com/Products/Duino/STM32/OLIMEXINO-STM32/
with the stm32f4 discoveryboard
http://www.st.com/internet/evalboard/product/252419.jsp?referrer=70032480
using the STM32F417IG
http://www.st.com/internet/mcu/product/252133.jsp

I would like Olimex to design the board and provide production lot of 100, minimum.
I don't mind talking about this in the forum or in emails.

[olimex]

Hi
this forum is for technical support related issues, all post for requests for quotes, requests for design and etc are SPAM as totally unrelated to the goals of this forum.

The right thing is probably to delete this message after a while, as responding to it may encourage other people to do the same, but I will answer you here anyway: if you need quote please contact us on our web www.olimex.com have contact forms which you can use.

We do customization of our board for money, but for only 100 pcs lot it's non sense to make custom project as only the NRE will cost more than if you buy 100 pcs off the shelf OLIMEXINO-STM32, so you should go in this direction only if you can do the project yourself (and you estimate your own labor to be cheaper than the ready off the shelf solution) or if you can't implement your project with the existing boards.

There is someting important to point out: to achieve these prices of our boards you see on the web, we buy components in bulk and negotiate with all suppliers and ST for instance to purchase 10K STM32F103FBT6 to get good price, with your 100 pcs lot the price of your custom component STM32F417 will lead at least of x3 of the price you see for our off the shelf boards i.e. if you hope that your custom board with STM32F417 will be in OLIMEXINO-STM32 price range you are in the wrong direction, and do not consider at all STM32F4 discovery board price as refference as ST make these at loss, same does TI with their $4.30 Launchpad boards which have inside components for $15 not speaking for assembly etc.

You can check at Mouser the STMF4 discovery board price then check what they ask for the processor ONLY which is on this board - the price of the processor is more than to the development board.

I'm really puzzled by these STM32F discovery and Launchpad promotions, as when I do project I will never select the processor based on if the development board cost $4.30 or $43 but of what the processor will cost me later when I need volume. So my guess is that this is just wasting money from their side but I may be wrong and of course these are their money to lose so I do not care much.

Best regards
Tsvetan

[kenyee]

I'm really puzzled by these STM32F discovery and Launchpad promotions, as when I do project I will never select the processor based on if the development board cost $4.30 or $43 but of what the processor will cost me later when I need volume. So my guess is that this is just wasting money from their side but I may be wrong and of course these are their money to lose so I do not care much.

They write these off as "marketing" expenses.  TI even fedex' the Launchpads to you, so they lose a lot of money on the boards.  It's to get it into hackers/developers' hands.  The more people have experience w/ something, the more likely they'll use your chips.  Seems to work for TI, but less so for STMicro :-)