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Raspberry Pi Gets a Red-Tape Delay; Awaits CE Certificate
judgecorp writes "After many delays, the Raspberry Pi computer has arrived in Britain, but has been stopped by the need for a CE approval sticker to say it meets European regulations. The Raspberry Pi Foundation expects the sticker to be a formality, and says it failed to apply because it thought the Pi did not qualify as a 'finished end product.'"
Nobody in that foundation even thought they'd need to meet CE regulations? What else have they forgotten about? Is it even RoHS compliant?
Who cares? You've already sold out to the next generation of budding technologists by refusing to consider a 20-30% initial price increase for the opportuntiy to build as much as possible locally, demonstrating that you don't consider it worth teaching the value of self-reliance and reintroducing a manufacturing base to the West. You haven't even come clean on the lack of exorbitant import taxes you kept wailing about - ones which you claim you had to pay precisely because this wasn't a finished end product, am I right? :-)
Next they'll have to prove that a Raspberry Pi is not a Genetically Modified Organism.
The foundation are saying they expect the delay to be about two weeks: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/european-technology/raspberry-pi-shipping-delayed-by-a-8220couple-of-weeks-8221/381
Been a week since the last Raspberry Pi post. Must make another one quick!
Next week "Raspberry Pi delayed because appropriate chicken was not sacrificed. Now waiting on God."
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The Raspberry Pi is already obsolete. Rhombus-Tech is coming out with a board based on the Allwinner ARM implementation, 3x as fast as the obsolete CPU the Pi crowd is using. "Mass-volume pricing (just for the CPU card, and therefore excluding tax, shipping, profit, a case and a power supply) looks to be on target for around $15:" They're also looking at reusing the BeagleBoard form factor (which is much like an Arduno) and coming out with a fast Linux board in that format.
By the time the Raspberry Pi crowd delivers, they'll be obsolete. Much like the OLPC.
it's starting to feel like Duke Nukem Forefer neverending saga. really don't like it, every week ther's some delay for things that obviously could have been correctly addressed way long before even starting the production, but noone took care of, speechless
I would think Xp embedded and the new Windows Mobile is the prefered platform from MS. CE is or in the process of being depreciated. No sense installing it for new devices as it is being retired.
http://saveie6.com/
I'm starting to wonder if the thing actually exists, or if it's the biggest fraud since Bernie Madoff or ENRON.
I'm confused how the Pi folks thought they could claim the device is both unfinished and finished to avoid the import taxes and CE certification? It kind of makes me question their competence.
"Raspberry Pi Foundation previously believed certification will not be necessary" reads the article. everything from electric pencil sharpeners to dishwashers goes through a CE certification so why wouldnt this? its roughly the same as UL in the states, and basically keeps things like toasters and tea kettles from murdering users.
Good people go to bed earlier.
The Raspberry Pi Foundation expects the sticker to be a formality
CE tests are more strict than FCC. If they have a leaky oscillator on the board - which is extremely likely if the board has poor ground or no shielding - then they are finished. I usually test prototypes on the bench, using a spectrum analyzer and a field probe. If that looks reasonable then the board goes into the chamber for measurements of real values.
It is not easy to meet those requirements. They are not liberal. The field will be measured up to several GHz, and the passing criteria is hard to meet if you have any sort of fast switching logic in your design. R-Pi has that.
They will be even testing for the noise that the switching power supply feeds back into the AC power. They better pick a good power supply. But wires are always a problem - they radiate as hell. That's why you often see ferrite beads on power cords - they are there not because the OEM decided to splurge on unnecessary stuff.
If they think getting the CE Certification is just a matter of filling out a formal application, then they are in for a rude awakening.
Raspberry Pi have reached the step, where there's actual hardware, which has arrived in Britain (and so is alread under the hands of the makers, can already be tested/developped on/hacked with/whatever by the internal developpers) and just awaits CE certification before getting shipped to the end-users.
The EOMA-68 card is currently on the paper stages:
The prototype schematics are presently being developed.
It will be some time before it ship, too.
Each time that some small scale, partially or fully open maker wants to put hardware on the market (be it Pandora console, OpenMoko FreeRunner phone or its newer GoldenDelicious motherboard, OLPC, Raspbery Pi, Always Innovating's SmartBooks, and countless other project), there are delays.
Because these aren't done by large-scale constructor with lots of expertise in designing circuit and who can leverage their big numbers of mass order to get priority for components. (Big names like Asus have experience. Big names like Apple get prioritised when ordering 4mio CPUs)
On the other hand, as these process are publicly documented, newer projects will learn from the mistakes of older ones.
So you can expect that: when the next ARM-based gizmo gets announced, there will be delays, but fewer than with previous projects, and the device will be less likely to be obsolated, or ridden with un expected bugs. (See the difference with the first OpenMoko phones, which went thourgh several problems, and took longer to complete, and the newest motherboard from GoldenDelicious which was produced with a much shorter delay).
Maybe in 5-10 years, such projects will have collectively cumulated enough experience so they can avoid common pitfalls, share some design elements, designing experience, and so on. And thus most projects of this kind will be really faster to reach end-users.
But currently, the kind of delays that the Raspberry Pi expirienced are normal, and will probably still be seen with other similar small scale projects.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
As the Raspberry Pi Foundation failed to produce these first boards in the UK ( see this article, previously linked on Slashdot), the just have to put the China Exports CE mark. :)
What if it needs board mods to meet ESD - what'll they do with 10000 units? Muppets.
Yeah and maybe Farnell are being stupid just because CE marking covers safety too.
The articles I've read about this are not very clear about whether or not this holds up the shipments destined for the United States. I don't understand why the retailers would be worried about having EU approval for the lots destined for the US, unless I'm missing something. As a side note, damn Newark, they pushed back my ship date to August without even sending an email notification.
Now, tell me how a 10yo child will put this all together?
Oh, and you forgot to say how the OS will be delivered. Pretty simple though.
Quote from Element 14 (one of the two distributers) Full FAQs Here
The current situation is:
2000 Raspberry Pi’s are now in the UK. Pictures are posted here for anyone who doubts their existence!
The compliance teams of element14, RS and Raspberry Pi are working round the clock with the testing houses to assess the product now. Any issues that are identified (hardware or software) will then need to be rectified and we will ensure this happens as quickly as is humanly possible.
There are different compliance standards around the globe and we are focused on meeting all of those as quickly as possible. However, some may take longer than others.
As soon as these initial 2000 Boards are compliant to at least one set of required standards, we will receive our share of this first batch from Raspberry Pi. We will ship on a first come, first serve basis to countries where compliance standards have been demonstrably met. So, customers who ordered first in countries where compliance standards have been met, will receive the product first.
Regrettably, we cannot give any firm delivery commitments on Raspberry Pi’s until this testing is complete. Please be assured we will provide this information as soon as we can.
Once the product is fully compliant our manufacturing partners have the necessary stocks of components to ramp up production very quickly, so despite these frustrating, initial delays we are confident the picture will improve and lead times for new orders will reduce.
First read this
Electronics Weekly reports on the Raspberry Pi CE testing process
You know you can, its not difficult, you're supposed to be technically proficient.
Now, given this information, any of you care to retract your cretinous speculations? Hmmmmmm????
The problem seems to be the HDMI cable radiating extraneous signals and a solution maybe found in the cable.
AccountKiller
With any eagerly anticipated tech, be it software or hardware based there is a good chance that the appropriate hype and buzz surrounding a great product can be blown up into massive expectations (In particular when dealing with China / Korea / Thailand etc - Marketing is approached very differently by those guys).
All do yourselves a favour and lower your expectations
Expect delays in HW
Expect bugs in said HW
Expect potential flaws in FW / SW
Expect increased prices
It may sound deeply pessimistic but with a healthy balance you can stop being surprised / disappointed by such small issues in what remains an overall great product / service on most occasions.
'J
You really shouldn't make things up, you know.
The Arduino boards all have RoHS, CE, FCC Class B, and Life Zero Impact certifications.
Indeed, it seems there was some serious wishful thinking going on. The Foundation's people are so heavily invested in the project that they probably can't see it very objectively. Not too surprising I guess.
The BIS has just given them the bad news of how things really stand though. Here is a new update from Element 14's FAQ (one of the two Raspberry Pi distributors), quoting news from the Foundation's Eben Upton:
HOT OFF THE PRESS UPDATE FROM EBEN UPTON OF RASPBERRY PI EARLIER TODAY:
.
The above is no surprise to anyone who uses Arduinos. Like the Raspberry Pi, they're bare boards, also from a European company (in Italy), and are manufactured in the same kind of volumes as the Raspberry Pi. They're fully certified with RoHS, CE, and FCC (Class B) certifications (as well as something called Life Zero Impact).
The Pi is even more consumer-oriented than the Arduino, since it's a fully working Linux computer and the Foundation has repeatedly extolled its great multimedia capabilities, even writing articles about its use as a media centre. This guaranteed immense interest from virtually everybody, not just from electronics enthusiasts, so huge numbers of these will be going into regular domestic situations.
Thinking that 10 thousand of the boards could avoid industrial certification when a large proportion of them will be purchased by ordinary consumers was really rather naive.
Morgaine.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra