Dude, where's my BeagleBone Black?

[Jason Kridner]

Just about to post this to http://beagleboard.org/blog, but it
wouldn't hurt to get a bit of community feedback before pushing this
out there....

Dude, where's my BeagleBone Black? I hear that question a LOT. No, we
weren't sleeping, but sometimes it takes a minute for a plan to come
together. And don't you love it when a plan comes together?

Your BeagleBone Black is on the way and below are the whys and hows.

Buying a BeagleBone Black back around October last year was easy---and
then suddenly they were gone. Having a big launch and then slowing
down to a more steady pace of production is what is normally expected.
Demand was strong, but distributors were showing a small amount of
stock and people were getting their boards on demand. Based on the
status, distributors had requested CircuitCo (the Richardson, Texas
based manufacturer of all official BeagleBoard.org boards) to provide
boards at a certain pace, and production dropped from about 6,000 a
week at launch to around 3,000 a week.

Then came Radio Shack, filling their stores with Make's Getting
Started with BeagleBone kit. Then the Christmas rush. Then the Georgia
Tech massively open online course on control of mobile robots hosted
on Coursera. We had a couple of small production boosts, but haven't
been able to make any dent in the demand. Everyone is starting to find
out what BeagleBone Black can do, using it in their classes, hobbies,
prototypes---and products.

When it comes to those people using a BeagleBone Black in an end
product, well, the BeagleBoard.org terms and conditions clearly say we
aren't responsible for the quality in those cases. Nevertheless, the
quality speaks for itself and many people are choosing to simply drop
them into things beyond just a few prototype units. In practice, we'll
never know unless you try to return a bunch of boards at once for
repairs. Our desire is that people using the boards in products work
directly with a contract manufacturer or distributor to enable boards
builds to be planned out in time and with terms and conditions that
won't hurt BeagleBoard.org's ability to supply classrooms, hobbyists
and professionals building prototypes. Still, if distributors show
stock, I expect people building products to continue to chew up some
of the board supply.

While these people building products are certainly sucking up a lot of
boards, it is clear they aren't the only source of the high demand.
Some of our distribution partners, most notably Adafruit and Special
Computing, put quantity limits of one board per customer on their
orders to help keep supply going to individual makers. I took a look
at Adafruit's website while they were showing some sock and observed
board disappearing at the rate of about 2-3 PER MINUTE. One tweet from
me and they were sold out again.

This all leads to the obvious conclusion: we need more capacity. To
accomplish this, we are taking a multiple prong approach of increasing
capacity at CircuitCo as well as bringing on an additional
manufacturer. These two prongs are summarized below.

Prong #1 - Ramping up production at CircuitCo

Ramping up production costs money. More test equipment is needed.
Orders on various parts must be accelerated. Additional staff must be
hired to run additional shifts. CircuitCo has been fantastic at taking
the risk for us, but the margins for BeagleBone Black aren't the
friendliest for them to take on these additional costs. At initial
launch, it is a benefit for them to get exposed to more customers for
their core business, complex circuit assembly and engineering
services, but shipping more of the exact same board isn't going to
give them a lot more exposure.

We're really close to shifting the distribution shipped on our boards
from Angstrom Distribution to Debian. Feedback from different people,
especially Adafruit, tells us this will improve usability in the
largest segments of our community. Angstrom Distribution is much more
customizable and is very friendly to professional developers looking
to tweak the most out of the system, but for many novices it
introduces a barrier to learning. Debian is the basis for Ubuntu,
includes ARM Cortex-A8 support in their mainline and is very familiar
to a huge population of developers. It also takes a bit more space on
the flash storage to provide the best user experience.

To provide the best experience of using Debian on BeagleBone Black, we
are connecting the switch-over to an increase in the on-board eMMC
flash storage from 2GB to 4GB, leaving more free room in which you can
work. The eMMC is faster and more reliable than micro-SD cards, so
this is adding a lot of value---and a little bit of cost.

These BeagleBone Blacks with Debian and 4GB eMMC will be called Rev C
and they will likely cost a bit more at most distributors. This extra
money is helping CircuitCo pay for the additional expense of the eMMC,
but also to cover costs for ramping production to higher-than-ever
rates.

With the additional capacity CircuitCo is bringing on, we expect to be
able to fill all end-user back-orders for the Rev B boards by early
May and shift all production to Rev C. With around 150,000 boards on
*distributor* back-orders, we'll be working with distributors to
quickly accept board shipments such that CircuitCo isn't sitting on
any units.

Come mid-May, you should be able to easily get your hands on a Rev C
board. Some distributors are already taking back-orders for them now.
We'll continue to try to push as many boards as we can through
distributors *not* taking back-orders as well to make sure there is a
continuity of supply.

Prong #2 - Enabling production of the BeagleBoard Compliant Element14
BeagleBone Black

We've launched a BeagleBoard Compliant logo program,
http://beagleboard.org/logo. Element14 is currently the exclusive
licensee of this logo program and has agreed to pay a small royalty to
the BeagleBoard.org Foundation as part of this license. It means that
we've verified they can produce quality clones of BeagleBone Black. It
will be up to them to maintain the quality. As with everything going
on around BeagleBoard.org, we'll be closely monitoring the public
BeagleBoard mailing list, http://beagleboard.org/discuss, for any and
all feedback.

Element14 is the parent company for Embest, who has been making
BeagleBone Black replicas for the China market since the initial
launch back in April of last year, so they have some experience
already. This move takes them beyond just China and will keep them in
more lock-step with software and hardware revisions coming from
BeagleBoard.org. To satisfy demand, they initially offered some of the
Embest-branded boards in the US market, but you'll see the future
BealgeBoard Compliant boards will be branded as "element14 BeagleBone
Black".

Element14 has a world-wide reach and a notable production capacity.
With all of the growing demand for BeagleBone Black, they will need
it. I consider this a huge win for open hardware!

--Jason

[Drew Fustini]

Excellent, I think this really helps to clarify a lot of the questions hanging in the air.

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[Charles Steinkuehler]

Great writeup Jason!

Most of the info exists in bits and pieces around this forum and
elsewhere, but it's a great all-in-one summary. I really like that
you're sharing the plans for moving forward and reasons for some of the
decisions. Open communities thrive on information and communications!

--
Charles Steinkuehler
cha...@steinkuehler.net

[William Hermans]

Good information and thank you Jason for sharing. I see there is also someone else producing miniature versions of the BBB, but . . . not my own thing.

Personally, I would like to see other "upgrades" as well, but I voiced those last year, and from the response I received from Gerald seems to indicate that my own wishes are not inline with beagleboard.org's current roadmap. However, the minnowboard MAX is a perfect fit( even though using a different processsor architecture ).

Personally, I never would have guessed last year at launch that the BBB would take off like this. But very pleased that it did.

[Jason Kridner]

On Sunday, April 13, 2014 8:03:56 PM UTC-4, William Hermans wrote:

Good information and thank you Jason for sharing. I see there is also someone else producing miniature versions of the BBB, but . . . not my own thing.

Who and what?

 

>> email to beagleboard+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.

>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
>>
>


--

Charles Steinkuehler
cha...@steinkuehler.net

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[William Hermans]

He's on the list here, saw the post last night. But already deleted it, and cannot remember his username.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to beagleboard...@googlegroups.com.

[robert.berger]

Hi Jason,

On Monday, April 14, 2014 2:07:00 AM UTC+3, Jason Kridner wrote:

Just about to post this to http://beagleboard.org/blog, but it
wouldn't hurt to get a bit of community feedback before pushing this
out there....

 
What I would be interested is software (binary) compatibility between the Circuitco BBB and the Embest BB Black.
I can't find it right now, but Rob Nelson mentioned something like "only supports the Circuitco Version".

Can you please enlighten me a bit on possible differences which require software adjustments?

I mean can I take an SD card which runs on a  Circuitco BBB and expect this to work on an Embest BB Black?

BTW I will do a webinar "From Arduino Uno to BeagleBone Black (and back)![1] on 17th and such a question might arise.

Regards,

Robert

[1] http://www.element14.com/community/events/4021

[Micka]

Well I can't agree more with you ... I'm not using the eMMC because I need the pins that the eMMC use .... . 

Why not only using sdcard ? it's much more easy to programm the BBB with sdcard than with eMMC ....... .

On Mon, Apr 14, 2014 at 9:25 AM, rh_ <richard...@lavabit.com> wrote:

On Sun, 13 Apr 2014 19:07:00 -0400
Jason Kridner <jkri...@beagleboard.org> wrote:

--8<--

> To provide the best experience of using Debian on BeagleBone Black, we
> are connecting the switch-over to an increase in the on-board eMMC
> flash storage from 2GB to 4GB, leaving more free room in which you can
> work. The eMMC is faster and more reliable than micro-SD cards, so
> this is adding a lot of value---and a little bit of cost.
>
> These BeagleBone Blacks with Debian and 4GB eMMC will be called Rev C
> and they will likely cost a bit more at most distributors. This extra
> money is helping CircuitCo pay for the additional expense of the eMMC,
> but also to cover costs for ramping production to higher-than-ever
> rates.
>
> With the additional capacity CircuitCo is bringing on, we expect to be
> able to fill all end-user back-orders for the Rev B boards by early
> May and shift all production to Rev C. With around 150,000 boards on
> *distributor* back-orders, we'll be working with distributors to
> quickly accept board shipments such that CircuitCo isn't sitting on
> any units.
>

So no more 2GB eMMC models ever?  What about one with no eMMC
at all? I know there are more than a few people here that boot from
network, sdcard or usb.

Another thought occurred, has beagle or circuitco done any long duration
eMMC testing? How graceful will the BBB handle a failed eMMC part?
Failed as-in worn out from use not a defect. I think some people are
concerned with eMMC failures and so they don't use it or don't rely
on it.

[Bas Laarhoven]

Robert,

The Embest board I received from Farnell last week ago has been used in my BeBoPr++ production test system and I have not experienced any incompatibilities.

As I posted earlier, the Angstrom software on the board was identical to that on a original rev B BBB. The only differences discovered thus far are mechanical and quality related. I replaced Angstrom with the Debian trial image and have had no problems (other than those that were present on the original BBB too).

The on-board EEPROM contents differ and can be used to identify the boards if needed:

Embest:

0000000 aa 55 33 ee 41 33 33 35 42 4e 4c 54 30 30 41 35
0000020 33 30 30 31 42 42 42 4b 39 36 30 30 58 41 58 58
0000040 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
0000060 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 41 42 43 44 45 46
0000100 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff

strings: "A335BNLT00A53001BBBK9600XAXX" "0123456789ABCDEF"

BBB:
0000000 aa 55 33 ee 41 33 33 35 42 4e 4c 54 30 30 30 42
0000020 31 30 31 34 42 42 42 4b 31 30 39 33 ff ff ff ff
0000040 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
0000060 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
0000100 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff

strings: "A335BNLT000B1014BBBK1093"

Except from that, both boards seem identical from a software point of view.

-- Bas

[Charles Steinkuehler]

On 4/14/2014 12:11 AM, Jason Kridner wrote:
> On Sunday, April 13, 2014 8:03:56 PM UTC-4, William Hermans wrote:
>>
>> Good information and thank you Jason for sharing. I see there is also
>> someone else producing miniature versions of the BBB, but . . . not my own
>> thing.
>
> Who and what?

SoM version of BeagleBone:
http://www.mentorel.com/product/usomiq-am335x/

From this post:
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/beagleboard/KCr_Sm8tP_o/6YVEfI8Dc-4J

--
Charles Steinkuehler
cha...@steinkuehler.net

[Jason Kridner]

On Mon, Apr 14, 2014 at 2:59 AM, robert.berger
<robert.ka...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Jason,
>
>
> On Monday, April 14, 2014 2:07:00 AM UTC+3, Jason Kridner wrote:
>>
>> Just about to post this to http://beagleboard.org/blog, but it
>> wouldn't hurt to get a bit of community feedback before pushing this
>> out there....
>
>
> What I would be interested is software (binary) compatibility between the
> Circuitco BBB and the Embest BB Black.
> I can't find it right now, but Rob Nelson mentioned something like "only
> supports the Circuitco Version".

Before switching to the "Element14 BeagleBone Black" branded boards,
they sold off some of their older stock which had some really old
firmware on it. It was determined that the really old firmware was to
blame for Robert's code not booting. Reflashing the board solved the
issue.

>
> Can you please enlighten me a bit on possible differences which require
> software adjustments?

There are none. Future boards should line up with the same software
version we deliver to CircuitCo.

>
> I mean can I take an SD card which runs on a Circuitco BBB and expect this
> to work on an Embest BB Black?

Yes.

>
> BTW I will do a webinar "From Arduino Uno to BeagleBone Black (and back)![1]
> on 17th and such a question might arise.

Sounds interesting. Will you talk about stuff like Userspace Arduino
and using the PRUs?

>
> Regards,
>
> Robert
>
> [1] http://www.element14.com/community/events/4021
>
>
>
>

[Jason Kridner]

On Mon, Apr 14, 2014 at 3:25 AM, rh_ <richard...@lavabit.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 13 Apr 2014 19:07:00 -0400
> Jason Kridner <jkri...@beagleboard.org> wrote:
>
> --8<--
>

>> To provide the best experience of using Debian on BeagleBone Black, we
>> are connecting the switch-over to an increase in the on-board eMMC
>> flash storage from 2GB to 4GB, leaving more free room in which you can
>> work. The eMMC is faster and more reliable than micro-SD cards, so
>> this is adding a lot of value---and a little bit of cost.
>>
>> These BeagleBone Blacks with Debian and 4GB eMMC will be called Rev C
>> and they will likely cost a bit more at most distributors. This extra
>> money is helping CircuitCo pay for the additional expense of the eMMC,
>> but also to cover costs for ramping production to higher-than-ever
>> rates.
>>
>> With the additional capacity CircuitCo is bringing on, we expect to be
>> able to fill all end-user back-orders for the Rev B boards by early
>> May and shift all production to Rev C. With around 150,000 boards on
>> *distributor* back-orders, we'll be working with distributors to
>> quickly accept board shipments such that CircuitCo isn't sitting on
>> any units.
>>
>

> So no more 2GB eMMC models ever? What about one with no eMMC
> at all? I know there are more than a few people here that boot from
> network, sdcard or usb.

Never say never, but we are unlikely to make any more 2GB eMMC models.
I've been kicking around the idea of doing a kickstarter for a no-eMMC
model, but I'd like to wait a month or two to see how the Rev C and
Element14 boards are doing out there.

>
> Another thought occurred, has beagle or circuitco done any long duration
> eMMC testing? How graceful will the BBB handle a failed eMMC part?
> Failed as-in worn out from use not a defect. I think some people are
> concerned with eMMC failures and so they don't use it or don't rely
> on it.

The only data we have is from the manufacturer and the community.
After a year, we aren't seeing wear-out issues. The ext4 file system
if fairly robust, but if writes start failing, end-user failures can
occur in odd ways. If you are creating a mission-critical app that
must stay deployed for many years without the ability to perform
replacements, I'd encourage you to alter the eMMC contents to
read-only, except for your critical data acquisition.

[Jason Kridner]

On Mon, Apr 14, 2014 at 5:01 AM, Charles Steinkuehler
<cha...@steinkuehler.net> wrote:
> On 4/14/2014 12:11 AM, Jason Kridner wrote:
>> On Sunday, April 13, 2014 8:03:56 PM UTC-4, William Hermans wrote:
>>>
>>> Good information and thank you Jason for sharing. I see there is also
>>> someone else producing miniature versions of the BBB, but . . . not my own
>>> thing.
>>
>> Who and what?
>
> SoM version of BeagleBone:
> http://www.mentorel.com/product/usomiq-am335x/

Looks pretty cool, thanks. Another win for open hardware!

>
> From this post:
> https://groups.google.com/d/msg/beagleboard/KCr_Sm8tP_o/6YVEfI8Dc-4J

Sorry I missed it.

>
> --
> Charles Steinkuehler
> cha...@steinkuehler.net
>
> --
> For more options, visit http://beagleboard.org/discuss
> ---
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "BeagleBoard" group.

> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to beagleboard...@googlegroups.com.

[Jason Kridner]

On Mon, Apr 14, 2014 at 3:41 AM, Micka <micka...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Well I can't agree more with you ... I'm not using the eMMC because I need
> the pins that the eMMC use .... .
>
> Why not only using sdcard ? it's much more easy to programm the BBB with
> sdcard than with eMMC ....... .

There certainly is a value to going back to no eMMC, but the
reliability, performance and cost advantages make it more practical
for the standard BeagleBone Black.

[Robert Berger]

Hi,

>>
>> I mean can I take an SD card which runs on a Circuitco BBB and expect this
>> to work on an Embest BB Black?
>
> Yes.

OK thanks!

>
>>
>> BTW I will do a webinar "From Arduino Uno to BeagleBone Black (and back)![1]
>> on 17th and such a question might arise.
>
> Sounds interesting. Will you talk about stuff like Userspace Arduino
> and using the PRUs?

Not really. It's just 30 min ;)

For the average Embedded software person it's quite painful to create
(or let others create) prototyping hardware in order to write software
which talks to sensors and actuators. On the one hand it's quite
straightforward to build up some hardware and write test software with
libraries available for the Arduino UNO, on the other hand it's not that
easy to do the same thing "right" in Embedded Linux. Wouldn't it be nice
to reuse this tested hardware prototype and write code for Embedded
Linux to talk to it? I intentionally don't want to use Arduino wrapping
libraries on Linux since those are typically not industrial strength,
but targeted towards hobbyists. This is what's going to be presented
here. BTW the prototyping hardware is not only able to convert signal
levels from an Arduino UNO (shield) to a Beagle Bone, but also to
convert signal levels from a Beagle Bone (cape) to an Arduino UNO if
that's needed.

[William Hermans]

Charles, yes thats it thanks.

Jason,  Just on a rough guess, how much would a 4GB model with GbE, and 1GB memory cost ? Since you mention KickStarter, I figure if the price point could be low enough, it also might be worth it. Dual GbE would even be better( I bet you all can see where I am going with this ).

[Gerald Coley]

Drop the expansion headers and a lot of things could be done. Keep them, and you won't get Dual GbE. You might be better waiting on the next generation offering.

Gerald

[Don deJuan]

any chance we will get a bump in RAM any time soon? Would love to see
1GB or catching up to some of the other boards with 2GB. I realize it
would be a cost increase, but I think that would be a better option than
no eMMC.

[Gerald Coley]

Not until the memory device is made that can get it to 1GB for sure. The best we can do then is 1GB. The small form factor does not allow us to add memory devices  Even then I am not sure we have the power supply to run it. If it means a redesign of the power section, it won't happen.

Gerald

[William Hermans]

Gerald, I for one would be willing to go with a larger form factor to gain more memory, and GbE.

Anyhow, yes I am not trying to push you or anything like that, just making my thoughts known. Sounds like I will have to keep my eyes out for the next Generation :)

IN the meantime, the minnowboard MAX *could* fit the bill, but I think I will wait and see whats going on with ARM for a while.

[Gerald Coley]

Sorry. Jason says it has to fit in the Altoids box. Originally the form factor was planned to be bigger, but that was a long time ago and before we shrunk it.

Yes, the next gen version will have a little bit more RAM and a little faster processor for you as well. And it will be bigger.

Gerald

[Jacek Radzikowski]

Would SO-DIMM socketed memory be a viable option? This would free some
space on the board, but might complicate signal routing?

j.

--
Given a choice between two theories, take the one which is funnier

[Gerald Coley]

The AM335x has only 16bits of data. SO-DIMM would be a big waste.

Gerald

[Gerald Coley]

We are not going to make a board without eMMC. Creating a bunch of different boards does not help.

If a manufacturer somewhere wants to make a board without eMMC, well, they just need to not put it on. 

All the design material for making this board is and always has been freely available. Anybody can build a board if they want to. All the material is open source. It is all described on the WIKI.

http://www.elinux.org/Beagleboard:BeagleBoneBlack#Terms_of_Use

But you cannot use the BeagleBone or BeagleBoard name. We control manufacturing. If we can't control manufacturing, it won't have the BeagleBoard name on it.

Gerald

On Tue, Apr 15, 2014 at 2:31 PM, rh_ <richard...@lavabit.com> wrote:

On Mon, 14 Apr 2014 07:01:14 -0400
Jason Kridner <jkri...@beagleboard.org> wrote:

>
> Never say never, but we are unlikely to make any more 2GB eMMC models.
> I've been kicking around the idea of doing a kickstarter for a no-eMMC
> model, but I'd like to wait a month or two to see how the Rev C and
> Element14 boards are doing out there.

We call this a not-yes.  Or not-yet-no.

Do you know what number of boards is the sweet spot for manufacture?
I'd guess it depends on the manufacturer.

What would be required for a manufacturer to make the BBB with no
eMMC? Are there any impediments to providing a PCB maker with
all the information and paying them to make 50 BBB?  What
restrictions apply? Does the design and goal need to be annointed
or blessed to make it legal and legit?

> The only data we have is from the manufacturer and the community.
> After a year, we aren't seeing wear-out issues. The ext4 file system
> if fairly robust, but if writes start failing, end-user failures can
> occur in odd ways. If you are creating a mission-critical app that
> must stay deployed for many years without the ability to perform
> replacements, I'd encourage you to alter the eMMC contents to
> read-only, except for your critical data acquisition.

There was some mention on this list that mixing read-only with
writable partitions on eMMC was potential problem since eMMC
wear-leveling don't know partitions.

[C Wong]

Hey Bas,

Quick side question: was wondering if you're able to run any PRU related test apps? I have an application that needs xenomai and the PRU(s) and had a hard time getting the standard-available debian eMMC image to play with xenomai and the pru nicely. I was able to quickly modify the cloud9-Angstrom build and add both xenomai where the pru module loads and ran the example apps fine, so off I went that route (with everything working except hdmi--ok for now). Debian offers some nice compatibility with folks I work with that use ROS, but don't want to about-face finding that I can't get xenomai or the PRU to work right...

thanks
--C

[Drew Moore]

C Wong, quick side answer..
check out machinekit!
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/machinekit

[Lenny]

Hi,

the fact that you try to meet the incredible demand by allowing the element14 clones of the Beaglebone Black sounds good. In Europe, I have seen some of those boards in stock (at farnell) around April 8, but they seem to be all gone by now. Does anyone have an idea if there will be some new boards available in the near future (next few weeks)? Has anyone experienced significant differences with the clones? How about buying from China?

Thanks

[armstro...@gmail.com]

It was out of stock at adafruit this morning but just received a message they were back in stock. I don't know how many for how long.

[David Funk]

Be prepared to order just as soon as you get that message and you too can be a proud owner!

Message from Adafruit Industries:
Thank you for ordering from Adafruit Industries,

This message was sent to you at the request of Adafruit Industries to notify you that the electronic shipment information below has been transmitted to UPS.

On it's way!  Oh yeah!

-david

[Dave Nelson]

Wahoo! I got my order in right away.

Now I can use my Rev B in a permanent project and keep the C as something to play/learn with.

[agk...@gmail.com]

Thanks for this informative heads-up!

Does it mean that for bulk orders (we think of 1,000 or more pieces) there is no real plan how to go ahead? Of course, we would need a more or less reliable delivery slot. Or are you entering into a more widespread distribution and license scheme?

Also: is Rev C the only available rev from now on? Is it right to say that Rev A and B are not manufactured and available any more?

Am Montag, 14. April 2014 01:07:00 UTC+2 schrieb Jason Kridner:

Just about to post this to http://beagleboard.org/blog, but it
wouldn't hurt to get a bit of community feedback before pushing this
out there....

Element14 has a world-wide reach and a notable production capacity.
With all of the growing demand for BeagleBone Black, they will need
it. I consider this a huge win for open hardware!

--Jason

[Gerald Coley]

I think Embest has some bulk order arrangement set up for their board. You can try them. They build their own version and we allow them to use the name and logo in their advertising and marking. But at the end of the day, it is their product.

We have no plans for any different distribution scheme other than what we have now. And we have no plans for allowing anyone else to make Beagleboards  You can certainly take the information provided and build it yourself with no restrictions..

Yes, REV C is the only one we will make. We will not be making old revisions.It is right to say that REV A and REV B are no longer available from us.

Gerald

--

[Jones Jebaraj]

Hello all, May I know when Rev C products will ship? I ask this because I have ordered a board in India and still it is unavailable (it also seems the same way around the globe). So please inform us regarding the availability. Thank you.

[David Funk]

Had mine for over a week. They are shipping.  India might be a bit of a problem.

-david

[Gerald Coley]

We have shipped about 5,200 of them, 

http://www.elinux.org/Beagleboard:BeagleBoneBlack#Board_Shipments

Gerald

[Jones Jebaraj]

Thank You Gerald for the reply. It seems I have to wait because the two messages sent to the distributor didnt fetch me a reply. Waiting....

[gloria.a...@gmail.com]

still waiting.... till.......

dudes, is there now a fixed delivery date?

There was a promise for mid of may, now ist the begining of June - nothing changed...
If you ask at some dealer they expect with end of June..... (but still with a maybe)

Isn´t that a kind of craziness, is it?

[Gerald Coley]

Not sure what distributor you are referring to. We are shipping. Now, where your distributor is on the list and where you are on that distributor list, I cannot answer.

http://www.elinux.org/Beagleboard:BeagleBoneBlack#Board_Shipments

Gerald

[michae...@gmail.com]

Just as a note, we had our purchasing department price quantity 1,000 of the BBB using the Rev C. documents with a San-Diego-based company we already use for other PCBs in our products.

They quoted us $128 per unit.  So you can see that (a) the $55 for the Rev C board is quite a bargain (thank you, all), and (b) quantity and a willingness to make little or no profit have a huge impact on price.

Really appreciate Beagleboard.org's willingness to create a great prototyping and maker tool.  It's a hell of a little board.  Thanks Gerald, Jason, TI, and all the others involved.

[rohaan...@gmail.com]

Dear sir,
I am waiting for my BBB piece I have ordered it 2months back from INDIA with your distributor sumeetinstruments sumeetinstruments.com
And i am waiting eagerly but rply are like this it will take end of the month may be cant say. I just want to know when it might reach India
Please!
Thanks,
Rohan

[armstro...@gmail.com]

SparkFun has 24 in stock as of a few minutes ago 6/12/2014

On Sunday, April 13, 2014 7:07:00 PM UTC-4, Jason Kridner wrote:

Just about to post this to http://beagleboard.org/blog, but it
wouldn't hurt to get a bit of community feedback before pushing this
out there....

Dude, where's my BeagleBone Black? I hear that question a LOT. No, we
weren't sleeping, but sometimes it takes a minute for a plan to come
together. And don't you love it when a plan comes together?

Your BeagleBone Black is on the way and below are the whys and hows.

Buying a BeagleBone Black back around October last year was easy---and
then suddenly they were gone. Having a big launch and then slowing
down to a more steady pace of production is what is normally expected.
Demand was strong, but distributors were showing a small amount of
stock and people were getting their boards on demand. Based on the
status, distributors had requested CircuitCo (the Richardson, Texas
based manufacturer of all official BeagleBoard.org boards) to provide
boards at a certain pace, and production dropped from about 6,000 a
week at launch to around 3,000 a week.

Then came Radio Shack, filling their stores with Make's Getting
Started with BeagleBone kit. Then the Christmas rush. Then the Georgia
Tech massively open online course on control of mobile robots hosted
on Coursera. We had a couple of small production boosts, but haven't
been able to make any dent in the demand. Everyone is starting to find
out what BeagleBone Black can do, using it in their classes, hobbies,
prototypes---and products.

When it comes to those people using a BeagleBone Black in an end
product, well, the BeagleBoard.org terms and conditions clearly say we
aren't responsible for the quality in those cases. Nevertheless, the
quality speaks for itself and many people are choosing to simply drop
them into things beyond just a few prototype units. In practice, we'll
never know unless you try to return a bunch of boards at once for
repairs. Our desire is that people using the boards in products work
directly with a contract manufacturer or distributor to enable boards
builds to be planned out in time and with terms and conditions that
won't hurt BeagleBoard.org's ability to supply classrooms, hobbyists
and professionals building prototypes. Still, if distributors show
stock, I expect people building products to continue to chew up some
of the board supply.

While these people building products are certainly sucking up a lot of
boards, it is clear they aren't the only source of the high demand.
Some of our distribution partners, most notably Adafruit and Special
Computing, put quantity limits of one board per customer on their
orders to help keep supply going to individual makers. I took a look
at Adafruit's website while they were showing some sock and observed
board disappearing at the rate of about 2-3 PER MINUTE. One tweet from
me and they were sold out again.

This all leads to the obvious conclusion: we need more capacity. To
accomplish this, we are taking a multiple prong approach of increasing
capacity at CircuitCo as well as bringing on an additional
manufacturer. These two prongs are summarized below.

Prong #1 - Ramping up production at CircuitCo

Ramping up production costs money. More test equipment is needed.
Orders on various parts must be accelerated. Additional staff must be
hired to run additional shifts. CircuitCo has been fantastic at taking
the risk for us, but the margins for BeagleBone Black aren't the
friendliest for them to take on these additional costs. At initial
launch, it is a benefit for them to get exposed to more customers for
their core business, complex circuit assembly and engineering
services, but shipping more of the exact same board isn't going to
give them a lot more exposure.

We're really close to shifting the distribution shipped on our boards
from Angstrom Distribution to Debian. Feedback from different people,
especially Adafruit, tells us this will improve usability in the
largest segments of our community. Angstrom Distribution is much more
customizable and is very friendly to professional developers looking
to tweak the most out of the system, but for many novices it
introduces a barrier to learning. Debian is the basis for Ubuntu,
includes ARM Cortex-A8 support in their mainline and is very familiar
to a huge population of developers. It also takes a bit more space on
the flash storage to provide the best user experience.

To provide the best experience of using Debian on BeagleBone Black, we
are connecting the switch-over to an increase in the on-board eMMC
flash storage from 2GB to 4GB, leaving more free room in which you can
work. The eMMC is faster and more reliable than micro-SD cards, so
this is adding a lot of value---and a little bit of cost.

These BeagleBone Blacks with Debian and 4GB eMMC will be called Rev C
and they will likely cost a bit more at most distributors. This extra
money is helping CircuitCo pay for the additional expense of the eMMC,
but also to cover costs for ramping production to higher-than-ever
rates.

With the additional capacity CircuitCo is bringing on, we expect to be
able to fill all end-user back-orders for the Rev B boards by early
May and shift all production to Rev C. With around 150,000 boards on
*distributor* back-orders, we'll be working with distributors to
quickly accept board shipments such that CircuitCo isn't sitting on
any units.

Come mid-May, you should be able to easily get your hands on a Rev C
board. Some distributors are already taking back-orders for them now.
We'll continue to try to push as many boards as we can through
distributors *not* taking back-orders as well to make sure there is a
continuity of supply.

Prong #2 - Enabling production of the BeagleBoard Compliant Element14
BeagleBone Black

We've launched a BeagleBoard Compliant logo program,
http://beagleboard.org/logo. Element14 is currently the exclusive
licensee of this logo program and has agreed to pay a small royalty to
the BeagleBoard.org Foundation as part of this license. It means that
we've verified they can produce quality clones of BeagleBone Black. It
will be up to them to maintain the quality. As with everything going
on around BeagleBoard.org, we'll be closely monitoring the public
BeagleBoard mailing list, http://beagleboard.org/discuss, for any and
all feedback.

Element14 is the parent company for Embest, who has been making
BeagleBone Black replicas for the China market since the initial
launch back in April of last year, so they have some experience
already. This move takes them beyond just China and will keep them in
more lock-step with software and hardware revisions coming from
BeagleBoard.org. To satisfy demand, they initially offered some of the
Embest-branded boards in the US market, but you'll see the future
BealgeBoard Compliant boards will be branded as "element14 BeagleBone
Black".

[Peter Lawler]

Hi,
FWIW I got an email overnight (4am Aussie time) saying Adafruit had
restocked.

By the time I'd woken up and got to my computer about 4 hours later,
they'd sold out. I note that Sparkfun have also sold out.

I did have email notifications set up from Element 14, but I've not
heard about their stock level.

Cheers,

Pete.

[Peter Lawler]

On 13/06/14 09:33, Bill Mar wrote:
> Special Computing has stock in BBB kits and boards.
>
> https://specialcomp.com/beaglebone/
>
> Special Computing
> +1-480-818-5745
>

I must be missing something...

What's with the three different prices? The difference as pictured
between 'Kit (Hobbyist)' and 'Kit' seems non-existent, and I find it
hard to imagine that the 'Board' (a) isn't shipped in a box (b) costs
$15 more for not having a box or USB cable.


I don't get it.


Pete.

[Gloria Mohndorf]

will that be a story with an end?

Today i asked again at TIGAL. So they are waiting for a sending
receipt (since 14 days..) As soon they get, blabla...
No fixed date at all....... I guess i could be happy with end of this
month or the next.....

well lets say I am just speechless anymore .....


****On Tue, Jun 3, 2014****

still waiting.... till.......

dudes, is there now a fixed delivery date?

There was a promise for mid of may, now ist the begining of June -
nothing changed...
If you ask at some dealer they expect with end of June..... (but still
with a maybe)

Isn´t that a kind of craziness, is it?

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[Charles Steinkuehler]

Adafruit had stock for several days straight (posted Friday afternoon,
still had boards through Monday mid-day), and I just got an e-mail my
RevC from Sparkfun (on back-order since the RevC was announced) has
finally shipped.

So it looks like things are at least getting better...

--
Charles Steinkuehler
cha...@steinkuehler.net

[Mehdi Yedes]

Hello everyone :)
In fact I've been looking for a Beaglebone Black but apparently it's not available yet.. I just wanted to ask about the Embest (Element14) clone. Is it safe to use? I mean are there major differences when it comes to the quality of hardware? Because I really need to buy one and I wanted to make sure because it's so expensive for us here in Tunisia.
Thank you in advance

[Old Dog]

Medhi,

I recently purchased a BBB Rev C from Element14 and it works fine. Only difference I can see so far is that the white card that comes with it references www.element14.com/element14_BBB instead of 

http://circuitco.com/support/BeagleBoneBlack which now actually redirects to 

http://elinux.org/Beagleboard:BeagleBoneBlack. I have used Newark/Element14 before and had no problems.

[Mehdi Yedes]

Thank you for the calrifications :) I'll get one soon then.
By the way my name is Mehdi not "Medhi" :D

Have a nice day :)

[Mackenzie]

I have had a BBB rev C on backorder with Jameco since April 9th. Called them last week and they say it is likely to be mid to late August until it ships. I looked around (Adafruit, Sparkfun, etc...) and they still say out of stock.

All I want is 1 for a hobby project, perhaps those ordering 100s-1000s are getting priority?

On Sunday, April 13, 2014 7:07:00 PM UTC-4, Jason Kridner wrote:

[Gerald Coley]

Then watch Adafruit as they get weekly shipments. Or try Special Computing..

Gerald

--

[David Funk]

Be prepared to buy 'now', sign up for the email in stock alert from Adafruit.  When the email arrives, go online 'now' and purchase.

Since the "C's " have been shipping, I've purchased 2 this way.

-david

On Mon, Jun 30, 2014 at 8:48 AM, Mackenzie <themacken...@gmail.com> wrote:

--

[Wm Parker Mackenzie]

Thanks. I was under the (mistaken) assumption that all the vendors would be in the same boat. Just cancelled my Jameco order and have the phone set to buzz me when Adafruit says my new toy has arrived.

Kind regards,

Parker Mackenzie

[Special Computing]

Special Computing has dedicated stock reserved for hobbyists so we typically are always in stock (we don't use marketing ploys with email signups).

We typically ship same day from Arizona preferring USPS Priority Mail for 2-3 day delivery (next flight out service available).

https://specialcomp.com/beaglebone/

Special Computing

480-818-5745

[Gerald Coley]

http://www.elinux.org/Beagleboard:BeagleBoneBlack#Board_Shipments

Gerald

[David Funk]

You just lost major points with that cheap shot.  I do NOT view the email stock alerts as a "marketing ploy"

-david

--

[Mark Hopewell]

I live in the UK and have a BBB (Rev C) coming from Element 14 Farnell UK next week.

It's been on back order for just under one month.

However, any new orders made to Farnell (Element 14) for BBB are now shipping late August onwards.

From what I gather Farnell have their BBB's built by a 3rd party company and adhere to the original designers specification.

I'm looking forward to writing programs which do not require tedious Assembler.

All the best,

M.