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Raspberry Pi Forum Poor manufacturing quality of new boards
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Forum Thread Details
  • Replies 25 replies
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  • raspberry_pi_space
  • raspberry pi 3 a+
Related

Poor manufacturing quality of new boards

ralphjy
ralphjy over 6 years ago

I received a new Raspberry Pi 3 A+ board from Newark/Element14 on Monday.

 

It arrived in a padded envelope instead of a box and the thin RPi box inside had been squashed.  This prompted me to do a quick inspection of the board and I was quite appalled by what I saw.

 

The first picture shows rework that was done on the board.  Very poorly done.  Solder reflow on the pads is bad and the solder flux and solder debris have not been cleaned off.

The second picture is of the GPIO connector.  The solder fillets are rough and you can see small balls of solder on the solder mask between pins.

 

I can't believe that this board would have passed final inspection.  The silk screen says Made in the UK.  I'm not sure where it was assembled.

 

Needless to say, I did not attempt to use this board.  I got an RMA to return it.

 

In an earlier discussion with ianbinnie, he indicated that he saw issues with his new RPi 3 A+ also.  Hope this is not an indication that there is a problem in the manufacturing line.  I have another board coming from Adafruit later this week.  I'll keep my fingers crossed.....

 

imageimage

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  • danzima
    danzima over 6 years ago

    Hi Ralph, have you already returned the board with the issues?

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  • ralphjy
    ralphjy over 6 years ago in reply to danzima

    Hi Daniel,

     

    Yes, I returned it last Friday.

     

    The RMA # is 285677.  Here is the shipping label

     

    Just as an aside, the board I ordered from Adafruit hasn't arrived yet.  Something has gone awry with USPS (been in transit with no updates for a week).  I'll let you know if it has the same issues if and when I receive it.

     

    Ralph

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  • danzima
    danzima over 6 years ago in reply to ralphjy

    Thanks Ralph, I've forwarded the return info to the folks I've been communicating with, they wanted to route the board to a specific group to check out the issues with it. Hopefully they can arrange that!

     

    And it would be interesting to know about the Adafruit one, thanks!

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  • jomoenginer
    jomoenginer over 6 years ago in reply to ralphjy

    Was it intended to post this so the whole world can see the shipping label?  I can see this even when not logged in.

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  • Jan Cumps
    Jan Cumps over 6 years ago in reply to ralphjy

    I know where your house lives image

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  • Jan Cumps
    Jan Cumps over 6 years ago in reply to ralphjy

    I know where your house lives image

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