Total cost of purchase

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Data
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Total cost of purchase

Post by Data »

Hi all.

I am very interested in buying one of these LCD displays and have chosen the LCD4041. However, I wish to import into the UK and just would like to confirm all the charges before ordering from Matrix Orbital over in Canada.

The following is a list of what I plan to buy along with their prices which are all in USD. I would be extremely thankful to anyone that can help out.

- LCD4041 (40x4) Alphanumeric Display - Standard 5 volt : $118.80
- 1ft Serial Cable : $5.49
- UPS Express Shipping : $14.27.

This is a total of $138.56 so far, which will be charged by Matrix Orbital themselves, but from this point on, I am slightly confused and would be grateful if anyone could tell me if the rest is correct.

- Import Charges:
- Customs Duty at 3.5% which increases price to $143.41
- VAT at 17.5% which then increases the price to $168.51

So my total charge be $168.51, which includes the display, cable, shipping and then the UK import charges. This is the equivalent to

Cheese
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Post by Cheese »

UPS will charge you on your door for customs, vat and brokerage ($10 if I remember right)... if you select DHL shipping they'll probably mail you a bill sometime afer delivery, though they might not (and they might not charge the $10, but they might).

:)

Gees I was helpful eh? The process seems to be a little hit and miss.

Rob.

Data
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Thanks

Post by Data »

Thanks Cheese for your reply.

Seems I'll have to pay for the items from Matrix Orbital, import charges and then this mysterious brokerage charge. Well at least I'll have a new toy to play with. :D

Just curious, Cheese, but you're from the UK and was just wondering what shipping option you chose and how long did it take for your display to arrive from Canada? It seems DHL isn't an option anymore so I guess its the UPS Express for me.

Thanks again.

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Post by Henry »

Shipping takes 2-3 days to the UK... I'll get Yuko from shipping to drop by tomorrow and hopefully give you more details...

{waves to Cheese}
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Re: Thanks

Post by Cheese »

Data wrote:Just curious, Cheese, but you're from the UK and was just wondering what shipping option you chose and how long did it take for your display to arrive from Canada? It seems DHL isn't an option anymore so I guess its the UPS Express for me.

Thanks again.
I've only ever had stuff shipped to me from MO by UPS and I have to say it's pretty damn speedy, never taken more than 3 days :) I haven't ordered anything for a while so I didn't realise DHL shipping had stopped, sorry for confusing you with talk about it ;)

Cheers,

Rob.

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Post by Henry »

DHL was droped because they didn't live up to their promises and messed us around, so we droped them.
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Post by Cheese »

Henry wrote:DHL was droped because they didn't live up to their promises and messed us around, so we droped them.
Sounds like a fine reason for binning them to me :)

Rob.

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Post by Henry »

The Calgary office told us, no brokerage charge, but the UK office said there always is, then other charges when they promised us no charges, then they made us use a dot matrix printer since their crappy dos software wouldn't work with our software, and thenthey made us buy that form feed paper, it was a general pain...
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Post by jleach »

Hmm.... About 12 years ago I wrote some DOS softare for DHL that would print out shipping labels on a dot-matrix printer. If they are still using that they sure got their money's worth - that's for sure.

Of course, I'm not a professional programmer so I guess they really did get what they paid for. :)

Data
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Post by Data »

Thanks to everyone that's replied so far; I appreciate it. :)

While I'm here, does anyone have any experiences with relays and GPOs? I ask because I'm considering using the single (Heh, don't laugh! :wink: ) GPO on the LCD4041 to drive a SPDT relay and then a bi-colour LED. In essence, the LED will always be lit but its colour will change according to the status of the GPO, rather than having an LED either on or off.

For example, the same LED could flash between red and green for when my current SETI work unit has been processed and requires attention just like the systray icon. Perhaps the GPO doesn't have to 'pulse' an output but just remain on and leave the LED lit on its red mode.

The thought of having a relay does seem useful. Another good example would be having a sounder (around a 3Khz beep) wired so that when the red mode is active on the LED, you'd hear a beep; this could denote a warning. (Anyone say CPU overheat?) Although, if two circuits would have to be driven by the relay a DPDT might need to be used. Plus, if I do use some sort of sounder, I will have a switch wired in series; the noise would drive me crazy if it came on quite often. Or should I call the sounder Delta and save the use of a switch? Moving on...

My question is what relay shall I use? I am thinking of using a low power type, such as the HRS2H-S DC6V, which has a 180ohm resistance and can operate at 4.5v, over at Maplins

Datasheets are hereand here.

Anyone have any comments on this? Shall I use another relay? I'm just scared to use a relay that may blow the display, and void my warranty, or use one that won't work. I'm sure someone out there knows the feeling.

I will be clamping, as the manual suggests, using a 100uf capacitor and the IN4001 diode. But I plan on varying the capacitor values between 10uf and 100uf (10uf, 22uf and 47uf) to vary the 'lag time' between the relay switchovers. Is this safe? Will the variation of capacitor values make a negligible difference in the 'lag'?

Or should I have posted this in the Hardware forum?

Many thanks again,
Data.

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Post by SiGmA_X »

Henry wrote:DHL was droped because they didn't live up to their promises and messed us around, so we droped them.
I had a good experience with them, but they wouldn't leave it at my house because they wanted me to sign it :( So I had to go get it the next day, and I really wanted it the same day :(
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Post by linear »

Data wrote:While I'm here, does anyone have any experiences with relays and GPOs?
Yeah, you should have posted in the HW forum. But what the heck....

Skip the relays. Nothing that you want to do really requires it.

What do you do in general when you want to switch more current or voltage thatn the GPO is rated for? Use a transistor. Cheap. Reliable. Solid-state. Silent. All things you'd be hard-pressed to say about relays (with a straight face anyhow).

For driving an LED, you can even skip the relay--drive it directly. Doing the bicolor trickery will probably require some additional cleverness, but a straight LED on/off won't.
BLK202A-4BR-BK + LK202-25-WB-V + LK204-25-V + VK204-25-V + LK-202-24-USB + MX212

Data
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Post by Data »

Thanks Linear for your reply.

I think I will use a transistor now mainly because of the noise; I don't think I'll enjoy the clicking.

Anyway, thanks again,
Data

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Post by Henry »

jleach wrote:Hmm.... About 12 years ago I wrote some DOS softare for DHL that would print out shipping labels on a dot-matrix printer. If they are still using that they sure got their money's worth - that's for sure.

Of course, I'm not a professional programmer so I guess they really did get what they paid for. :)
They are still probably using the same software.... I'll post a screen shot for you tomorrow...
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Post by Henry »

Image

weeee... dhl...
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