Humble Pi?

[John Rumm]

Slight cockup it seems:

[Tim Watts]

Oops. Wonder if someone cocked up writing the Bill of Materials - or did the factory read it wrong?

[fred]

Somebody said, "these look expensive, I'm sure these others will do".

Or a kinder analysis, "these are on a 16 week lead, I'm sure these others will do". (exotic mags and integrated solns are usually on a long lead)

[Tim Watts]

If that were the case, the factory has learnt an expensive lession as they sink the cost of manually reworking 10,000 units.

In my one tiny foray into the world of electronics manufacturing, and IMELE, one would writ ethe BoM at the protyping stage and built from that.

And amend the BoM as required by tweaks in the prototypes.

After that, in theory, no-one should substitue anything without recourse to the engineers, unless there are predefined alternatives on the BoM or accompanying documents.

OK - that was automotive stuff where field servicing was a PITA and the product cost more in order to be engineered well.

But all the same, being meticulous about this part of the process is not that onerous and even though the unit price the cheap, the price of the run is sodding expensive.

Be interesting if the actual reason becomes known...

[Andy Burns]

Their phrase

"We?ve known about this for four days now, but we haven?t been able to tell you about it because it meant we had to do some further tests [...]"

hardly rings of openness, what prevented them telling people about it, regardless of the outcome of the tests?

[Brian Gaff]

Did you expect anything else. its a true tradition in this sort of thing. Remember the Sinclair QL? Dongle out the back for first units to patch the rom. Brian

[Tim Watts]

Surely you have to have magnetics somewhere with ethernet - if not in the socket, wouldn;t you have to add them to the board?

[Gordon Henderson]

AIUI, the sockets they needed had the on-board isolating transformers, etc. (the "magnetics") but the ones the factory fitted didn't - that resulted in a short to ground on 2 of the incoming Ethernet signal wires... So no option really, but to remove them and fit the right ones.

Looks like it wa an optimisation on high density components - the isolation transformers are needed, but do you put them inside the socket, or on the motherboard PCB...

I think the real world is moving to this high-density approach now anyway and it won't surprise me if new PCs, etc. are already using these types of sockets...

So hopefully they've been able to boot them via SD card, perform all the other tests with just the Ethernet side failing...

Gordon

[Man at B&Q]

RJ with integrated magnetics are hardly exotic. I can see quite a few

1000 in stock at various well known distributors.

MBQ

[Man at B&Q]

The test is simply to look at the board and see if it separate discrete magnetics.

If it's magnetics v. no magnetics no.

It sounds like they may have fitted the *wrong* RJ with integrated magnetics that required them to do some testing.

MBQ

[John Williamson]

The story linked to says they fitted ones *without* a transformer, not the wrong type with a transformer. The again, it *is* The Register...

The problem hinted at in getting replacements may be finding ones with transformers that physically fit the space allowed by the makers on the board for the ones without. If they can't, they've got several thouand scrap boards on their hands.

[Man at B&Q]

In shich case they don't need to do 4 days of testing.

That's more than a simple BOM problem if the board has been designed for ones without magnetics. That's a major c*ck-up!

MBQ

[Jules Richardson]

I don't think I'd actually want any on-board connectors for any kind of real-world application anyway, because the board would have to go in a case*, and I don't think it makes good product sense to have connectors to the outside world on the front back *and* sides.

I'd much rather a connectorless board with solder points for attaching chassis-mount connectors via trailing cables (of suitable length according to my intended application / layout) - particularly if the lack of connectors drops the price a bit!

• even for personal "just hacking about with it" use, I don't like having operating PCBs running exposed on a bench for any longer than I have to!

cheers

Jules

[Tim Streater]

Or to check that this was the *only* affected part - no other wrong parts fitted. At least that's how I read what was written.

[Mark]

OTOH the pi is aimed at kids so requiring soldering to make it work might not be ideal.

Someone will surely start marking a box at an extortionate price soon.

[Tim Streater]

Why? I was doing soldering at 14 or 15 or so. Not well, perhaps, but still doing it.

[Dave Liquorice]

Eh? No.1 Daughter has done soldering at school. You can't get more risk averse than schools these days...

Pi themselves intend to bring out a transparent box at some point.

[Mark]

It's probably against the law now ;-)

[S Viemeister]

You were a late bloomer, then - I started much younger! By the time I was 14 or 15, I'd built our first colour TV, a couple of tape decks, an electrocardioscope, etc... I loved HeathKit.

[Bernard Peek]

If the Pi is as pupular as it seems then I fully expect Poundland to stock them.