Raspberry Pi Production Delayed By Factory's Assembly Flub

nk497 writes "The first shipment of Raspberry Pi devices has been delayed, after the factory manufacturing the cheap educational computer used non-magnetic jacks instead of ones with integrated magnetics. The problem is already nearly fixed, but new jacks need to be sourced for subsequent shipments, so those could be delayed slightly. 'It's inevitable, isn't it — you're freewheeling along perfectly happily and then you get a puncture,' said spokeswoman Liz Upton, apologizing for the delay."

Comments

Re:Magnetics

[Maddog Batty]

I have no idea what this means. How is this possible?

I guess because you didn't study properly at school... ;-)

"Without them you would effectively tie the RX and TX signals together and probably turn the entire network into an aerial for Radio 2 reception."

I disagree with the first part of this. Ethernet works off differential signals and the transformer does a good job of removing the common mode signals (non differential) coming down the wire. Without the magnetics the common mode signals (such as DC, mains interference, Radio 2 transmissions) picked up by a potentially long ethernet lead will turn up at the input to the ethernet phy (receiver) chip. This may or may not be enough to stop it from working depending on the interference received. The lack of correct voltage biasing (also done via the magnetics) will very likely stop it from working though. Even so the RX and TX won't be shorted.