FPGA development board "Icarus" - DisContinued/ important announcement

[ngzhang]

so what are the actual specs?
569$, around 20W and 375 Mhash/s. correct?

what's shipping costs to germany?

569$/20W/380M/s

35$

[1714265304]

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[Chefnet]

+ 19% duty

[ngzhang]

+ 19% duty

i will follow customers' advice about the declare and invoice to as best i can to minimize the tax.

[aTg]

Have all circuits connected to a single ATX?

[ngzhang]

Have all circuits connected to a single ATX?

no, i only connected about 15

[BkkCoins]

+ 19% duty

Geez. If you were buying a few you'd be better off flying to China and bringing them home.

[antirack]

+ 19% duty

Geez. If you were buying a few you'd be better off flying to China and bringing them home.

Which makes no difference if the amount is over Euro 400 if my memory serves me right (that's the free amount when bringing home stuff you bought on holidays). And German customs are notorious for finding hidden stuff in your suitcases and/or pockets. In best case, you make it through without any problems. In worst case, you end up being stuck at customs for hours filling in annoying forms, you pay the tax on site, and you wait for a court date and letter from the tax man with your penalty.

Much safer having ngzhang declare it as samples for a low value when using EMS, or take a hit on shipping time and use (registered) airmail which might slip through completely undetected if he writes "Adapter US$ 25" on the little green CN22 form.

With EMS it will be difficult to use such  small value, because the shipping cost is already $35 and shipping is also added to the value for tax calculation.  Customs are not stupid, they know product low value with shipping $35 is somehow fishy.

My recommendation: EMS use something like $100 and just pay up (19% of $100+$35 shipping). Don't mention the product name anywhere in the package or invoice (they use Internet to search for real prices). Include a proforma invoice that mentions "Development PCB". In worst case use a friends senders address/name (after finding one guy who got caught with a under-declared parcel from ngzhang they make a record in their database). However, they may ask the buyer for a copy of his bank records to see if the payment indeed matches the $100+$35 if they are suspicious. So if you are paranoid and you want to be on the safe side, send ngzhang two payments. Yes, German customs have a lot of time.
 
Airmail use "Adapter $25" or "Development PCB $25". No invoice needed. Will probably slip through undetected in most cases. It's tax free up until Euro 22. (US$ 25 = ~19 Euros). And for airmail there is no requirement for invoice, so they cannot ask. It's what I would do if I want to avoid the 19% at any cost.

Same for Austria and probably some other European countries.

[Dhomochevsky]

Well, I'm from Romania and customs are not so strict here, it seems. Sure, if you have a package worth more than 40 or 50 € then you have to pay 24% vat + customs tax (which can range anywhere from 5 to 60%), depending on the product. Luckily, for my first package from ngzhang the people at the customs didn't bother to ask me questions OR tax me anything, even if the declared value was >60$. That may be subject to change, however, and you provide some nice advice there. Will definitely keep it in mind when making my next purchase.

PS - wouldn't this thread fit better in the newly-created FPGA section?

[eldentyrell]

Now I have to wait for eldentyrell to make progress to decide where my money goes next....

Send your money to the board-makers.  The more boards you have, the more money you stand to gain from the release of my design and therefore (hopefully) the more you will be willing to contribute.

Stay tuned on progress (I screwed up last night's build).

[Energizer]

Now I have to wait for eldentyrell to make progress to decide where my money goes next....

Send your money to the board-makers.  The more boards you have, the more money you stand to gain from the release of my design and therefore (hopefully) the more you will be willing to contribute.

Stay tuned on progress (I screwed up last night's build).

Are you planning to release Algorithmic bitstream for Icarus soon? I would like to be the first to donate for such bitstream!

[nedbert9]

Now I have to wait for eldentyrell to make progress to decide where my money goes next....

Send your money to the board-makers.  The more boards you have, the more money you stand to gain from the release of my design and therefore (hopefully) the more you will be willing to contribute.

Stay tuned on progress (I screwed up last night's build).

Thanks, Dr. Tyrell.

[ngzhang]

Now I have to wait for eldentyrell to make progress to decide where my money goes next....

Send your money to the board-makers.  The more boards you have, the more money you stand to gain from the release of my design and therefore (hopefully) the more you will be willing to contribute.

Stay tuned on progress (I screwed up last night's build).

Are you planning to release Algorithmic bitstream for Icarus soon? I would like to be the first to donate for such bitstream!

no, you will not. i will the first! 

[Energizer]

Now I have to wait for eldentyrell to make progress to decide where my money goes next....

Send your money to the board-makers.  The more boards you have, the more money you stand to gain from the release of my design and therefore (hopefully) the more you will be willing to contribute.

Stay tuned on progress (I screwed up last night's build).

Are you planning to release Algorithmic bitstream for Icarus soon? I would like to be the first to donate for such bitstream!

no, you will not. i will the first! 

Sorry Zhang, I will be the first!
Eldentyrell please send me your Bitcoin address, I will contribute today.

[rjk]

Now I have to wait for eldentyrell to make progress to decide where my money goes next....

Send your money to the board-makers.  The more boards you have, the more money you stand to gain from the release of my design and therefore (hopefully) the more you will be willing to contribute.

Stay tuned on progress (I screwed up last night's build).

Are you planning to release Algorithmic bitstream for Icarus soon? I would like to be the first to donate for such bitstream!

no, you will not. i will the first! 

Sorry Zhang, I will be the first!
Eldentyrell please send me your Bitcoin address, I will contribute today.

Falling over themselves to give you monies!

[Energizer]

Now I have to wait for eldentyrell to make progress to decide where my money goes next....

Send your money to the board-makers.  The more boards you have, the more money you stand to gain from the release of my design and therefore (hopefully) the more you will be willing to contribute.

Stay tuned on progress (I screwed up last night's build).

Are you planning to release Algorithmic bitstream for Icarus soon? I would like to be the first to donate for such bitstream!

no, you will not. i will the first! 

Sorry Zhang, I will be the first!
Eldentyrell please send me your Bitcoin address, I will contribute today.

Falling over themselves to give you monies!

I highly respect his work! been following his project progress for the last couple of months! I wish it will be 100% open source so we would learn from his FPGA optimization techniques "not just for mining!".

[NothinG]

When are you accepting new orders and roughly how soon are they to ship out?

[yxt]

on of the EMS partner in Germany is a crafty company (gdsk.de) (if someone gets post from them: http://www.blog.oscg.eu/2011/02/selbstverzollung-bei-der-gdsk/)  which slows down the delivery and tries to rip off the people! do not use EMS for Germany! DHL is much better and faster even though it is slightly more expensive.

or use registered airmail an declare value <30$ (charges less than 5 € are not collected --> 22+5= 27€ ~ 35$)

[Glasswalker]

When are you accepting new orders and roughly how soon are they to ship out?

ngzhang is currently shipping batch 3 orders (literally from the 11th to the 13th he is shipping out orders).

I am not sure if he has any boards left in batch3, we'll have to wait for him to get his head above water to respond on that. If he does he may be able to sell you some now, otherwise you'll need to wait for him to produce his 4th batch of cards, test them, and then ship them out. (I assume he would begin taking orders shortly for batch4, but not sure what the production leadtime is).

Hope that helps for now (until a more official answer from ngzhang can come)

[DeathAndTaxes]

it's a 2.5/5.5mm plug.

What is the length of the plug (metal part only)?

[ngzhang]

it's a 2.5/5.5mm plug.

What is the length of the plug (metal part only)?

any longer than 10mm will be ok.