troubleshooting topics zooms past 1000 (now 6000)

jamodio: "...Based on the volumes we are talking, even before they realized that demand was much much higher than anticipated, the $25 target, and the credit card size, are just BS. What's the difference between a $25 product that has design and reliability issues to a $28 that works properly?..."

"...The $25/$35 is really a joke, when you factor in that you need to buy a keyboard, a mouse if you want to work in graphics mode, a power supply or several of them you need to try to make sure they work and don't blow up your TV, a collection of SD cards to figure which one works with your Pi, a powered USB hub (of which some were reported not to work properly) if you want to have some extra stuff or even power hungry USB devices connected to the Pi, the HDMI cable, and if you don't have one, a monitor. Plus if you want to provide some protection to the board, a case.     What one really can criticise now...."

I really couldn't agree more with these sentiments (and the rest of your post).

It's all a bit late now but while "cheap and flaky" might be ok for experienced hackers who are looking for a project (or for those inexplicable ebay types who seem happy to take a punt on far Eastern junk that everbody else knows is a ripoff), but most consumers would want "reasonably priced and functions properly" and the UK educational system (which can be likened to an industrial grade customer imo) wouldn't settle for less than "rock solid at a reasonable premium and with Walk On Water support".

The hardware cost of a classroom's worth of of Pi boards is pretty insignificant compared to the cost of training all those teachers in some pretty deep topics. Then there's the cost of peripherals and accessories for e.g. GPIO interfacing, study materials, SD card duplication, all those thousands of meetings...

It made no sense to cheap out on the board to the current extent, but now that it appears to be pretty much finished then it makes even less sense to cheap out on getting it working bess poss. One guy with a USB sniffer devising workarounds in his spare time? Remember that the Foundation were initially hoping to shift 10,000 units eventually to finance the educational push. It now looks like that sales target will be exceeded by two orders of magnitude.That should pay for some development time. Or a new kitchen.*

I'm sure this soap opera will run and run.

*in-joke.

It may have made some kind of marketting sense to sacrifice good design in order to get the first Model B under $35 in 10-30k volume quantities, but those original design choices no longer make any sense when half a million boards have been shipped.

The BOM cost is now far below what it was originally for the Foundation, and as a result a huge range of improvements could be made to a new model of the board while still remaining below $35.  The fact that no such wholesale redesign is being undertaken by the Foundation (as far as we know) suggests many things, all bad.

Morgaine Dinova wrote:

 

It may have made some kind of marketting sense to sacrifice good design in order to get the first Model B under $35 in 10-30k volume quantities, but those original design choices no longer make any sense when half a million boards have been shipped.

 

The BOM cost is now far below what it was originally for the Foundation, and as a result a huge range of improvements could be made to a new model of the board while still remaining below $35.  The fact that no such wholesale redesign is being undertaken by the Foundation (as far as we know) suggests many things, all bad.

I don't think they're doing wholesale re-design, since the basic combination of BCM2835 and LAN9512 still fits the goal of the Foundation: lowest-cost educational platform.  I do believe they're doing minor redesign to fix problems identified here at element14 and at the RasPi Forum, but the practice of the Foundation is to redesign in secret and the only way to find out things have improved is for alert RasPi buyers to wonder why their new RasPis doesn't look the same as the published PCB photos.  I think this is a Bad Approach, since if RasPi were to publish schematics and layouts before committing to a new rev, we'd have a chance to say things like: "Wait a tick, if you directly connect USB port A +5V to the 5V0 plane instead of using a 0 Ohm jumpers then you have no way to fix voltage dip and other problems."

I fully expect to see a future RasPi Model B rev 3.x with switching regulators, but no announcement until after it's shipped.

John Beetem wrote:

 

if RasPi were to publish schematics and layouts before committing to a new rev, we'd have a chance to say things like: "Wait a tick, if you directly connect USB port A +5V to the 5V0 plane instead of using a 0 Ohm jumpers then you have no way to fix voltage dip and other problems."

 

I fully expect to see a future RasPi Model B rev 3.x with switching regulators, but no announcement until after it's shipped.

Well they are inept organizationally, we know that.  But what's worse than their organizational ineptness is that their secretive approach results in a far worse product than if they did their work openly, as has already been demonstrated through the community identifying faults and other issues that could easily have been caught at design time.

They really don't get it that hundreds or thousands of engineering eyes are better than the few that they have in-house.  I'm not sure if it's because of unwarranted confidence in their own abilities, or simply a matter of ego, but it's present and it's very strong.

Everyone in the Pi ecosystem is suffering because of the Foundation's myopia, including Element 14 and RS who would benefit greatly from a product without faults.  But the most ridiculous part of the situation is that even RPF themselves would benefit, but are too short-sighted to realize.

Morgaine.

John Beetem wrote:

 

if RasPi were to publish schematics and layouts before committing to a new rev, we'd have a chance to say things like: "Wait a tick, if you directly connect USB port A +5V to the 5V0 plane instead of using a 0 Ohm jumpers then you have no way to fix voltage dip and other problems."

 

I fully expect to see a future RasPi Model B rev 3.x with switching regulators, but no announcement until after it's shipped.

Well they are inept organizationally, we know that.  But what's worse than their organizational ineptness is that their secretive approach results in a far worse product than if they did their work openly, as has already been demonstrated through the community identifying faults and other issues that could easily have been caught at design time.

They really don't get it that hundreds or thousands of engineering eyes are better than the few that they have in-house.  I'm not sure if it's because of unwarranted confidence in their own abilities, or simply a matter of ego, but it's present and it's very strong.

Everyone in the Pi ecosystem is suffering because of the Foundation's myopia, including Element 14 and RS who would benefit greatly from a product without faults.  But the most ridiculous part of the situation is that even RPF themselves would benefit, but are too short-sighted to realize.

Morgaine.