Raspberry Pi - Hardware Flaws and Fixups?

Several people have commented on the hardware design of the Raspberry Pi. Some are buried in other topics so please post your comments here. I'll try my best to answer questions about the design decisions we made. The Raspberry Pi is not perfect, never will be. I've always found that perfect designs have a habit of never getting built, engineers are always a bit guilty of that, but I had Eben phoning/emailing me every day wanting to know when it would be finished. Also, one persons perfection is another persons nightmare.

e14 is the home for engineers so please contribute to make Raspberry Pi better.

Thanks

Pete

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morgaine over 14 years ago

Now that people have actually started receiving the boards so the design in final, is the schematic close to being posted? I looked around again in various likely places just now, but haven't spotted it yet.
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e14 Contributor over 14 years ago in reply to morgaine

actually, the design may not be quite final yet. Liz said: "Happily, we’ve found it doesn’t need a shielded enclosure to reach Class B, although it will require a (very minimal) redesign." http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/978, page 3, April 10, 2012 at 7:04 pm.

It hasn't been announced when such a change might be implemented, but probably better sooner rather than later, given the large production runs planned, perhaps along with a change to fix the SD card voltage issue.
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morgaine over 14 years ago in reply to e14 Contributor

Sure, future batches are likely to differ a bit, but the boards that customers are receiving right now are not going to change. The boards that are already in people's hands require a schematic.
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e14 Contributor over 14 years ago in reply to e14 Contributor

Did Liz not also clarify that the small change to be made was a software one, to reduce the drive level of the HDMI output?
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e14 Contributor over 14 years ago in reply to e14 Contributor

Did Liz not also clarify that the small change to be made was a software one, to reduce the drive level of the HDMI output?
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e14 Contributor over 14 years ago in reply to e14 Contributor

cookiemonster,
It's a bit confusing because there are 2 separate changes needed.
The software (gpu blob) change for the HDMI that you mention was needed
for Class A certification. A completely separate hardware redesign change
was found to be needed for Class B certification as Liz described in the
linked forum. Since there obviously wasn't time to make the hardware change,
only Class A certification was obtained.

We haven't been told exactly what the hardware change involves, or when it
will be implemented. Maybe PeteL can enlighten us soon.
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