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Early Review: Freescale RD3803MMA7660FC evaluation kit

gordonmx

I received my Freescale Acceleration Sensor (RD3803MMA7660FC) evaluation kit last Friday (01/05) and was excited to try it out.  This is an early review.

 

Everything needed was in the box I received, well almost.  The kit comes with a very easy to follow setup sheet and CD.  I inserted the CD into my HP laptop, as instructed, but the install program wouldn't run from the CD.  I finally had to manually copy the installation zip file to my laptop.  The USB to serial (VCP) driver would not install on my MS Vista operating system.  After hunting through the CD, I ended up at www.ftdichip.com for the latest driver (2.06.00), which loaded fine.  Well maybe not so fine since I lost USB connection to my printer.

 

But now I could run the demo software.  There are several demos provided with the kit and they ran without problems.  Each one demonstrates a different feature of the acceleration sensors.  There is certainly more to explore with the sensors.

 

I was very disappointed with a short video included with the kit.  Not with the content, but the quality.  It was the worst video I have seen in a long while (including some home videos).  The last few minutes are used to point out different components on the board, but the picture is so out-of-focus you can't see anything.

 

I hope to have more to say about the sensors in the near future and I look forward to the comments of other reviewers.

 

Thank you Alistair for the opportunity to evaluate this kit.

 

 

Gordon Margulieux

gordon.margulieux@garmin.com

  • I received my Freescale Acceleration Kit (RD3803MMA7660FC),  last Friday also. I had no problems setting everything up on my Thinkpad T30 Notebook, running Windows XP PRO, but when I tried to set it up on my Dell Latitude E6500, with Windows 7, I had all kinds of problems. After about 3 hours, of hunting for different drivers ,I went to emulation mode, for XP, and finally got it to work. The demos are great, but that video really was poor. I have been think of some types of applications, that I can apply this technology to. I am thinking of doing a 3-D demo video.

     

    Thanks Alistair, for the opportunity.

  • in reply to Former Member
    Hi guys. Thanks for that. I look forward to a more in-depth review later. The video does sound "interesting"

  • hi Friends,

     

    I just recevied my Freescale RD3803MMA7660FCRD3803MMA7660FC evaluation kit. It is very compact. As soon as i got it, i started to install it. And it was installed easily with no any problem. Because i was in hurry to give it a try, i did not read the installation guide first and directly plugged it into usb port. Windows found a new hardware but it failed to find the necessary driver, even i point the driver directory in the cd. So i read the installation guide then and fallowed the steps. First i installed the application and then windows found the new hardware and then i pointed the driver as written in the guide and installation successfully  finished. And then i started the application. application remembered the new hardware and i faced a window including many selections for different test purposes. So it has 3-axis sensor and the senitivity is very precise for x-,x+,y-,y+ but for z-, z+ you should make suddent movements. I do not know, maybe it is just for demo purposes. After i finished detailed tests, this may be not true.

     

    Anyway, i am happy with my new kit. I think, a few days will be enough to write a detailed review. I will post it here when my review is ready.

     

    Best regards,

     

    FIRAT KOCAK

  • in reply to Former Member

    This is only a test.  All my messages appear compressed into one massive paragrapgh, so I'm trying different formatting styles to see what works.

     

    This is a test...

    This is line 3

    This is line 4 followed by 2 blank lines

     

     

    This is line 7

     

    • Dog
    • Cat
    • Pig

     

    This section was pasted from MS Word.
    This is a test…
    This is line 3
    This is line 4 followed by 2 blank lines
    This is line 7
    • Dog
    • Cat
    • Pig
  • in reply to gordonmx
    This is a test
     
    This is line 3
     
     
    This section was pasted from MS Word.
     
    This is a test…
     
    This is line 3
    This is line 4 followed by 2 blank lines
     
     
    This is line 7
     
    • Dog
    • Cat
    • Pig
  • in reply to gordonmx

    Hi Gordon,

     

    All your posts have looked normal to me, how do you see them?

     

    Which browser are you using?

     

    I use Firefox 3.6 at the moment.

     

    Elias

  • in reply to Former Member

    Thank you for your response.

     

    I'm using IE8.

     

    It would seem the messages should be written in HTML.  The visual editor will convert your message for you, but doesn't always handle blank lines well if you paste the message from another editor.

     

    Gordon

  • in reply to gordonmx

    I've also noticed that copy/paste from some editors does not work nicely.

     

    What I usually do is paste stuff to Notepad++ to make it standard text format and then to web applications etc. if problems occur.

     

    Elias

  • in reply to Former Member

    Thanks for your comments, gentlemen. We are aware of some of the challenges with the text editor especially when copy/pasting from another program. We are continuously working to improve the site and will have a major upgrade to the platform in the next few months which will have several improvements to the editor to address exactly the issues you have mentioned.

     

    If you have any additional feedback about the site or suggestions for improvements, please visit the Feedback and Support area where you can leave more detailed comments. We welcome your input into making element14 better.

     

    Sincerely,

     

    Christy Zurcher

    Community Manager

  • in reply to Christy-Admin

    Thank you for your response.  I look forward to the future improvements.

     

    Gordon