NUCLEO-F411RE: Buying from South Africa

[pjakruger]

Posted on April 17, 2015 at 08:22

Hello everyone,

I am from South Africa and would like to get my feet wet (so to speak) with the STM32 MCUs. I want to buy the NUCLEO-F411RE board online directly from ST. I was wonder if there are any fellow South Africans that have bought from ST directly in this way from ST that can share their experiences with me.My concerns are shipping fees and customs and import duties.Thank you #nucleo

[Tesla DeLorean]

Posted on April 17, 2015 at 17:01

I'm pretty sure there's about zero chance of buying directly from ST as an individual. Check their distribution partners in, or near, your country.

http://www.st.com/stonline/contactus/contacts/index.php?type=2&sc=salesoffices

http://www.st.com/stonline/contactus/contacts/index.php?type=4

Try the likes of Mouser, Digikey, Farnell, RS, whomever. Try eBay, lots of DISCO boards there.

http://www.binaryspace.co.za/?page_id=217

[pjakruger]

Posted on April 17, 2015 at 18:35

Thank you for the reply. I was in contact with ST and they said it would cost 30USD just for shipping. Thats nearly 3 x what the board costs.

I can get the board via RS South Africa, where it costs about 15USD. The shipping alone is about 9USD. The board is about 2 - 4 USD cheaper on eBay, but then it will take from 1 to 3 months to arrive, and I have to pay import and taxes of about 2USD.For those living in a developed country, all I can say is, you do not know how privileged you are 😉

[Tesla DeLorean]

Posted on April 17, 2015 at 20:24

Yeah, I think I paid $42 a piece for STM32F429-DISCO boards with $7 shipping (4Q2013), within the Continental US from Mouser. Takes 2-3 weeks to ship things out of China, and 4-5 weeks out of India/Latvia. The streets aren't paved with gold here either.

I bought some books out of India a while back, quoted something like 30 days for shipping, apparently mean't they wouldn't ship it for 30 days! Still the USPS managed to deliver it with just Name/Town on address label in about a week once they finally got it off the dock.