Raspberry Pi suffers manufacturing error, shipments delayed

[Shawn Knight]

The Raspberry Pi foundation has announced that shipments of the $35 computer that went on sale at the end of last month have been delayed due to a manufacturing hiccup. The factory where the devices are produced accidentally installed the wrong type of Ethernet jack onto the PCB, effectively rendering the port useless.

The foundation specified to the manufacturer that the computers must have network jacks with magnetic components. The manufacturer accidentally substituted the component and soldered in non-magnetic jacks. As such, all of the jacks will need to be replaced before the computers can be shipped out to customers.

In a post on the foundation’s blog, a volunteer for the foundation says the company has known about the issue for several days but wanted to test other components before making the news public. Fortunately for buyers, it’s a very minor problem to fix (desolder the bad jack and solder on a new one) and the factory is nearly done with the first set of boards.

Subsequent boards could see a small delay as the foundation works at a feverish pace to source the correct magnetic jacks for additional builds. Partners at Element 14/Premier Farnell and RS Components are said to be helping with the search to expedite the process.

The Raspberry Pi was the talk of the town a week or so ago when the $35 Linux-based micro PC finally went on sale. The entire production run sold out almost instantly with one distributor claiming orders were coming in at 700 per second and demand was 20 times greater than the supply on hand.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/47734-raspberry-pi-suffers-manufacturing-error-shipments-delayed.html

 

[oldikes]

Is any company actually going to mass produce something with this computer? like a tablet or a media PC or something?

 

[Darkshadoe]

ikesmasher said:
Is any company actually going to mass produce something with this computer? like a tablet or a media PC or something?

From what I have seen, you don't really need someone to make something out of it. Why waste X amount of dollars to some company when you probably could do it yourself and fit your needs better.

 

[Burty117]

ikesmasher said:
Is any company actually going to mass produce something with this computer? like a tablet or a media PC or something?

Thats the great thing about this though, you buy just the board and you can retro fit it into anything you desire, thats what will make it great, you will soon be able to go onto ebay one day and find tons of cases this thing fits into and all different styles etc... They will also more than likely cost peanuts.

I think this is a great idea but they just need to produce more!

With popularity comes a modding community, With a product designed with just that in mind it could become very very popular and useful.

 

[Vrmithrax]

ikesmasher said:
Is any company actually going to mass produce something with this computer? like a tablet or a media PC or something?

I like to think of the Raspberry Pi as the illegitimate love child of a Linux computer and an Arduino...

It is what it is. It's a small platform for learning, tinkering, inventing. You can make whatever you want with it, like a tablet or media PC. If it stays popular and keeps up the production numbers, you'll probably see kits made up that you can pop a Pi into for "instant" products like those you are imagining. For now, though, it's a hacker/tinkerer's playground.

 

[RubinOnRye]

I would buy one. It would make a great HTPC receiver unit. What I mean by that is, a unit that will read off your NAS and re-play it on your TV. So it won't be the storage but rather just the interface.

 

[Vrmithrax]

RubinOnRye said:
I would buy one. It would make a great HTPC receiver unit. What I mean by that is, a unit that will read off your NAS and re-play it on your TV. So it won't be the storage but rather just the interface.

That's exactly what my first unit will be doing (whenever it arrives) - make my dumb TV a smart media center. Planning on using the RaspBMC system and tapping my network for media storage. Just have to figure out Netflix streaming once I get it in place... Silverlight can be so annoying!

 

[chaboi390]

ikesmasher said:
Is any company actually going to mass produce something with this computer? like a tablet or a media PC or something?

Gonna Try make our own tablet with my friends XD

 

[Guest]

What are we talking about here ?
#1 ferrite beads ?
#2 inductors ?
#3 transformers ?

Why are integrated magnetics required ?
99guspuppet

 

[Guest]

How is this device powered anyway?

 

[Guest]

By the power of thought!
Had any thoughts how you can use it .. lately?

 

[EXCellR8]

700 orders a second... that's crazy. I wonder how many people who ordered one actually know what they are getting...

 

[Leeky]

How is this device powered anyway?

By USB. You can use another computer to power it, or a mains powered USB lead will work just as fine. In either case, it has super low power consumption.

I can't wait to get my hands on a couple.

 

[Vrmithrax]

EXCellR8 said:
700 orders a second... that's crazy. I wonder how many people who ordered one actually know what they are getting...

I would say the vast majority of the buyers who are figured into that product launch figure of 700 per second knew exactly what it was. Particularly considering the fact that both vendors had their sites killed by the mad rush of traffic and were actually sold out before the majority of the reports of the product launch made it to the more mainstream tech blogs and sites (like this one). Those following the product and paying attention were the ones who sucked up all of the first run units, with maybe a spattering of consumers who stumbled upon it, saw "computer" and "$35" in the same sentence, and threw caution to the wind...

 

[RubinOnRye]

Vrmithrax said:

RubinOnRye said:
I would buy one. It would make a great HTPC receiver unit. What I mean by that is, a unit that will read off your NAS and re-play it on your TV. So it won't be the storage but rather just the interface.

That's exactly what my first unit will be doing (whenever it arrives) - make my dumb TV a smart media center. Planning on using the RaspBMC system and tapping my network for media storage. Just have to figure out Netflix streaming once I get it in place... Silverlight can be so annoying!

Let me know how it goes.