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Testing’s done!

Good news! We just received confirmation that the Raspberry Pi has passed EMC testing without requiring any hardware modifications.

As you may know, we’ve had periods booked in a testing chamber at Panasonic’s facility in South Wales for the whole week. Jimmy, Craig and Gareth from Gainspeed, our EMC consultants (with assistance from Phil the EMC lab manager, occasional assistance/hampering from Eben and the aid of many Asda sausage sandwiches), have been working into the evenings, and lost their Good Friday holiday to get all the testing finished. There is still a mountain of paperwork for us to sign, and that then has to be looked over by RS Components and element14/Premier Farnell; but that’s a piece of cake compared to what we’ve been doing all week. Given that we’ve had the chamber for the whole week, we’ve used the time to make sure that alongside the CE requirements, the Raspberry Pi also complies with FCC regulations (USA) as well as CTick (Australia) and what we’ve been calling “that Canadian thing”.

The Raspberry Pi had to pass radiated and conducted emissions and immunity tests in a variety of configurations (a single run can take hours), and was subjected to electrostatic discharge (ESD) testing to establish its robustness to being rubbed on a cat. It’s a long process, involving a scary padded room full of blue cones, turntables that rise and fall on demand, and a thing that looks a lot like a television aerial crossed with Cthulhu.

A cute story. Radiated immunity testing involves hitting the Raspberry Pi hard with narrow-band EM radiation, while checking (amongst many other things) that the device is still able to send Ethernet frames to a hub. The first time the team did this, the light on the hub stopped blinking: no frames were making it through. They did it again: still nothing. Finally, they discovered that the hub (which, I should point out, gave every appearance of being CE marked, so it should have been able to get through these tests itself) was being knocked out every time somebody pressed the button. Jimmy used a longer cable, put the hub outside the field, and found that the Raspberry Pi got through its immunity tests with no problems at all.

Finally, there’s small change to the legal gubbins. I know some of you felt like I did about the paragraph in our trademark rules which said that in products and websites, the words “Raspberry Pi” should only be used as an adjective to avoid genericisation – namely that it was a bloody stupid idea. This thing’s called a Raspberry Pi, not a Raspberry Pi computer. We at the Foundation call the computer a Raspberry Pi in conversation. So does everybody we’ve spoken to about it. We don’t abbreviate it to Raspicomp, but to Raspi or RP; none of the mountains of press coverage we’ve had have used Raspberry Pi adjectivally. So we had a chat about it; reminded ourselves that advice we get from our legal team is just that: advice, not binding instruction; and we’ve removed the paragraph from the trademark rules.

235 comments

Great news! Congratulations!

Excellent :D

Good news.. now let’s cut the crap and let’s roll some pick & place machine!

Did you have to do the 20V/m test. Also wandering around in the chamber is ab it like having sensory deprivation, there is no audio (and as design EM :) ) reverb.
Last time I was involved with this kind of thing the independent witness wanted to be in the chamber while the test was underway. Funnily enough the site guys told him to politely go forth.. Anyway Congratulations :), now go and relax :)

More than anything else, it’s *really* boring, while you wait for hours for tests to finish. I do not envy the Gainspeed guys doing this every day at all!

Congratulations! Can’t wait for the Pi to arrive now everythings together. Thank’s for the exhausting job You did all the years through! Amazed you realy spent the holidays working on the Pi!!!! WOW Great job! Thanks a lot!

This is not the first holiday Eben and I have spent working on Raspberry Pi – we do plan on taking Monday off, though!

So from what I understand Raspi can now withstand even a nuclear explosion ;-)

If your Raspi is destroyed in a nuclear explosion, the Foundation will happily provide you with another one. ;)

Actually, I would expect that War and acts o god would require the foundation to be held harmless in warranty claims.

I think I will have to hold you to that Liz ;)

whoa whoa whoa! pump the brakes young lady. does this offer go just for Michael, or for everyone that gets one?

*constructs a shelter entirely out of RasPi boards*

Hoo-ray! Glad it’s still early on The Coast so I can be one of the first to congratulate you and thank you for all the hard work!

Yes now i’m going to sleep and have sweet dreams with the RP.:)

Superb news, congratulations! Now let’s hope RS and Farnell pass those docs with green light.

Fantastic news! Congratulations. A relief I’m sure even if it felt like there would be no problems.

We *did* have a really nasty moment with that hub – it’s quite funny in retrospect, but it was HORRIBLE when we thought it was the Raspi causing the problem.

Hub: Low budget mass production EM testing. Paste CE sticker, ask no questions, play dumb if device fails.

No surprise you guys did it right. Good job!

Rubbed on a cat… LOL
Thanks for everything.
Again.
^_^

Thank you for giving Raspberry Pi his/her/its name back. I do hope that Raspberry Pi becomes so insanely popular that your solicitors keep worrying about generic term issues.

I’m very glad that so many of you emailed and posted here to say that you also thought it was dumb – it gave us a good excuse to change it back to the way it was.

Yesbut, now if somebody makes an RasPi clone, they can call it as RasPi even if the quality is not up to par or it’s not 100% compatible. What you should do is say that the computer is a “Pi” and you call yours a Raspberry, but that other people are welcome to make similar computers as long as they don’t use Raspberry.

Although, hehe, I would recommend against anybody calling theirs the “Apple Pi”.

Unless of course, you have some sort of litigation fetish involving fruit-bearing woody plant species.

Actually, that really makes a lot of sense.

The only thing is, the whole point of this is to make a very affordable PC. Are there really going to be that many companies trying to undercut it? It doesn’t seem like it would be very worthwhile. Hence, it kinda seems like there’s nothing to be protected from.

Could make it that Raspis are Raspis, and Raspi compatibles are Raspi compatibles.

Seems sensible enough to me.

PS: A hardy “Congratulations” to you all. I’ll also be waiting to read the apologies from the more offensive “nay-sayers” (although I’ll not be holding my breath)

I think the only naysayers will be those who wish they had thought of this first. I mean, what Fortune 500 company would even consider such a concept as a $25 to $35 PC?

Excellent news!! Well done, and thanks to everyone that’s given up their holiday for this – it’s greatly appreciated!!

Congratulations Eben ;-)
!!! And the rest of you hard working folks of course! Sorry but I couldn’t think of an acronym that was as appropriate for you…
Let the Raspi revolution begin!

Congratulations Everyone?

Darn, you got me! It must be due to the Belgian beer I’m on. I heartily recommend the stuff!

That really if excellent news Liz, and thanks must be given to Eben and all the ‘team’ for what must have seemed like a very long week!
I suppose it’s a bit early to ask… but I am going to anyway… would you like to give us your best guess as to when Farnell/Element 14 and RS components will now be able to start shipping out the first batch to the fortunate few?

At my most pessimistic, and bearing in mind that it’s a Bank Holiday, I’d say 7-10 days.

Lets just hope they don’t want to send to boards off to another factory just to print the CE / FCC stamps on them, or we’ll be talking longer than your pessimistic view! ;)

We’ve discussed that with them, and happily the rules say (and both distributors are happy with this) that for a limited period after certification we can use a sticker or print the CE mark on the packaging instead of silkscreening the PCBs. We’ll be silkscreening the next run, but those with a very early Raspi will have another identifier they can boast about!

Excellent news! especially for those getting a first batch board.

So all the effort was worth it at last! well done to you, Liz and Eben, and to everyone else involved. Thank you all.

I guess that makes today a “Good” Friday!

That’s brilliant news, congrats! Glad everything went okay without any problems.

Great news! Enjoy your weekend!

Congratulations :)

Ex-CE-llent news. Many congratulations on a successful outcome. I’m sure that there will have been a collective sigh of relief from everyone that’s heard the news. Best wishes for a well-deserved and relaxing(!) long weekend.

My cortisol levels have been at a record high all week. I am currently eating a 2-days-early Easter egg to help de-stress, and I feel BRILLIANT.

Well you should. You and the rest of the Foundation is well on the way to earning that spot in the pantheon of computing innovators.

As every one knows choclate fixes everything

Does this mean that I could duct-tape a raspberry pi onto my cat? :-D

or my puppy – congratulations!

Launch of Feb 29, and testing on Good Friday – the Raspi team really makes a [BIG] difference. :)

Of course, we never doubted that the Pi would pass with flying colours!

Congratulations to all concerned, now don’t touch a computer until Tuesday! Its the Bank Holiday weekend, Go and eat Easter Eggs until chocolate comes out of your ears!

:-)

So…
The conclusion here is: Don’t let your cat go near your ethernet hub !

A friend of Mine was SSH tunnelling to his home computer from work when It stopped working. “Ah” says he “that will be the cat”

Apparently when he is at work the warmest place in the flat is on top of the router and the cats tend to kick the power cable out.

Hi Liz congratulations passing the tests. Was it you sat in the car by the security lodge this morning (9:10) when I arrived at work?

Nope – I was there earlier in the week. (And Eben was there more than I was – him being the actual engineer and all.)

I wish I’d of know it would of been great to meet you both in person to congratulate you on the success of the project.

That’s what we’ve been waiting to hear- outstanding news, and thank you for all your hard work!

…and maybe you should cut out and frame all the posts saying that EMC testing would be really difficult to pass without using a case or enclosure.

I look forward to seeing those people drop by here to politely acknowledge that they were wrong (and often pretty darn rude). I also look forward to Mooncake the cat learning how to do the washing up.

Too right!! (on the acknowledgement, not the cat – I have no idea what that’s about)

You need to buy it buy it some tiny cat Marigolds. But it’s going to be messy without opposable thumbs.

That’s what you think!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6CcxJQq1x8

Well done and thanks for your hard work. I guess my earlier comments were really based on my thinking that Part A is just a starting point in the real world. I am also not a lover of EU regulations and laws.

Congratulations!

I can’t wait to get my son into coding. I remember typing basic programs into the Vic20 out of a magazine and the buzz not of seeing the program run but of seeing my tweaks have an effect. Really happy memories that you will allow me to pass to my son. You should be hugely proud of what you are making happen.

Happy Easter and thanks to you all for the hard work.

Good things come to he who waits…

“I remember typing basic programs into the Vic20 out of a magazine and the buzz not of seeing the program run”. Sorry for the misquote but it made me smile. Yeah, mostly stuff didn’t run when you first typed it but I don’t rememer the “buzz”! :)

Wonderful news!

Have a great Easter break :-)

Great compliment for a layout that passes compliance tests worldwide without the need for a metalized case. You’re doing a great job! Thank You!

That is entirely down to Pete, who does a superb job.

I can tell you a story sometime about taking off 60,000 plastic cases for a metallic interior spray paint job. Absolutely no fun whatsoever. As much as we all want the Pi to have a case, we can certainly be glad it doesn’t need a metallic one! Great job, all!

Fantastic news. Congratulations to you all, I bet you can all breath a sigh of relief and enjoy your easter.
I am so looking forward to receiving my Pi at the end of May according to Farnell.

Absolutely brilliant news! Well done, indeed.

Hurrah!

Congrats to you guys and a big thank you for all of your time and efforts with pushing this through so quickly. Did the cat pass too?

No, the cat failed. Sadly, Raffles is made of fail :(

Mooncake is a bit winning-er than her brother, though.

Egg-cellent news

Just to say “Thank you” for all the hard work done by you both, especially at a holiday time and when you should have been taking things slightly easier to recover from your accident and catch your breath after your US holiday. Once again “Thank you”

Thank you RP team. Most of us appreciate the great work you are doing, the rest can go and take a flying jump.

Hopefully the RP is now on final approach.

I needs the precious.

What have I got in my pocketses?

I know, I know…and I’m sooooo jealous !

Handses!
Knife!
RasPi, or nothing!

Well, between “kitten morphing” and “cat ESD testing”, just how nervous is Mooncake getting these days? My bengal Simone is not sure I should be bringing a Raspi home :) :) :)

And of course a big “Well done!” and a huge “Thank you!” to the team for this accomplishment in such a short time!

Thanks, it means a lot. Not sure my stomach lining can take many more weeks like that one.

Mentioning Chtulhu reminds me of having to buy and read some H.P. Lovecraft. Thanks for that ;)

Whoo! This is awesome. I can’t wait to see these guys start being distributed. All my friends will be like “Whoa, dude! You got a credit card!” and I’ll be “Yeah, sure.” and I will feel that much cooler/geekier.
Take some time off and enjoy your epicry!

Well done! Hooray!

You guys and gals are incredible! Well Done!

Congratulations on the CE mark. It’s not easy to pass first time, especially with no shielding.
And I can have my “Contains Raspberry Pi” label too!

Now gimmie! Gimmie!! GIMMIE!!! No more excuses. We know you’ve got ’em in there!!

Trouble is, now they have to be sent back to China to have the CE/FCC etc. certification logos applied … :D

We intend to use the MAGIC OF STICKERS ™.

Great news, I wish that electronics in the US would be tested with such scrutiny by the FCC!

Just want to add my congratulations and admiration for what’s been achieved.

This might as well be one of the only seriously conducted CE, FCC etc inspections ever

Amazing work on the schematics avoiding the need for a case altogether! If all devices were designed like this, the world would contain a lot less RF interference

Awesome news. Congratulations… and I’m very pleased to read that you did not forget “that Canadian thing” :-)
I also watched Eben’s excellent webinar yesterday, booted up my Puppy Linux USB stick and wrote my first Python program. It brought back many happy memories of writing programs on the BBC Micro. I was also pleased to hear there are plans to have a BBC BASIC port on the RasPi.
BTW, I saw a photo of the composite output with a text editor. Does that deliberately look like MODE 7??

Nah – I think everything just looks like MODE 7 when you shove it down a composite cable. Someone *should* do a font with the appropriate 1/4 pixel additions to give us pretty but low-resolution output to interlaced displays.

Awesome. Glad to know it meets the FCC standards. I look forward to ordering mine soon.

Woah… Broadcom should be throwing you guys quite a celebration now! This speaks very favourably of their SoC, or of Pete’s ability to intrinsically design PCBs for unforeseen circumstances.

Yeah – you’re looking at an electrical engineer and an ASIC team at the top of their respective games. I’m proud to know both of them.

so are we!

Ok so what is the next step? When will the batch ship?

Didn’t want to feel left out:

C o n g r a t u l a t i o n s

Take a long weekend but first thing Tuesday morning kick some Farnell & RS Butt

Obviously the CE marking on the hub is the version that means Chinese Export.
Congratulations with passing the test.

Congratulations and thank you for the hard work, I know these tests can be a royal pita ^^

That is great news!

Excellent news – look forward to having a taste soon!

Congratulations and a big thank you to all those involved for their hard work :-)
Now the big question is did the cat suffer any ill effects from being Raspberry’d?
Oh dear there’s me using it as a verb…

Irritation, dry skin, minor loss of fluffiness.

Congratulations on getting through CE, FCC, CTick, that Canadian Thing and the Cat-Fur testing so quickly and without a case.

Did the RasPi pass the dog-lick test, or will I still need a case to resist the cold wet nose?

Happy Easter – Maybe the first batch should be shipped with commemorative Easter Eggs?

I can imagine the dog lick test might result in what we call a “soft failure”, requiring a reset.

Depends on how mad the dog gets when it gets shocked with 5V to the tongue….. :-)

Haha, tickle!

Congratulations on passing those tests!

A question though. If I ordered an RPi to be shipped to Israel, would it need to be approved by the IIS (Israeli Institude of Standards) before shipment?

Thanks in advance.

In the words of the great Fred Flintstone:
“Yabadabadooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!”

Congratulations.

More a Barney Rubble guy myself (hotter wife).

Were you at Panasonic at Duffryn, Newport? I work the other side of Tredegar House and ran past Panasonic twice in my lunchtimes last week, if only I’d have known I’ve have popped in and you could have used the static from my running tops :-)

No – we were at a place somewhere in Cardiff (despite being originally a boy from the valleys, my knowledge of local geography is shamefully sparse).

…frantic Googling…

Ah, it was the TV design centre on the Pentwyn industrial estate.

Diolch yn fawr iawn

My hen laid an adder on top of a tree.

bit of a jump but you’ll understand why….

I could stew a hare here and brandish Dan’s flan

Pasg Hapus!

If there are any locals out there perhaps they could organise a blue plaque to be put up there. Or at least on Asdas

Sadly the TV Design centre closed in December 2011. I am 1 of the 8 that remain (from 140). We now have a new name: IDSC (IPTV & DTV Solution Centre). The EMC guys now fall under HAD (Home Appliance Division).

You should of popped up for a chat and a cuppa. As we have all been following the RPi quite closely as it lends itself quite well as a prototype platform for IPTV apps. You could of even used one of our meeting rooms for your webinar! Although my manager probably would of insisted on a sample RPi to complete the deal ;)

Well I’m sure we’ll be back when the cased version needs testing – so we may take you up on that!

IANAL, but if you do not protect your trademark, doesn’t that mean you risk losing the right to claim it as an exclusive trademark?

Protecting a trademark is done in many ways which we are pretty strict about already, but turning it into a part of speech which it simply *isn’t* is not one of those. (I trained as a lawyer, so happily I’ve a a reasonable amount of understanding around how this works.)

Heh, I have learnt not to argue with a lawyer, I am sure you are right ;)

Great work all round, btw!

I learned that pretty quickly When I married one

Nah, it’s the same with all wives whether they’re lawyers or not. ;-)

I suppose the Raspberry Pi costing were accounted for in 3 minute intervals?

Super! Thanks for sharing with us.

Oh, and have a happy Easter all of you.

This is great news!

Thanks to everybody in the foundation for working so hard. And hopefully everybody in cambridge will keep up their great work …, I want to hear more in the future!

Now I hope I get one of the first Raspberry Pi’s, then I could start making some programmes.

cheers and happy easter

Great news! Congratulations. Glad you guys made it in time to get most of your Easter break and bask in success. Hopefully there is now nothing in the way of Farnell and RS really getting production ramped up to bring down lead times. (I guess component sourcing and factory (ies) capacity is now the limiting factor?)

That’s pretty awesome.
Can’t wait to get my Raspberry Pi, especially now I know it’s safe to rub on cats.

Good work :)

Rubbing your pussy with a Raspberry Pi while it’s switched on is not recommended, it could be a shocking experience! ;)

Mrs Slocombe would be proud.

I have heard that something like a third of all CE and similar compliance markings are actually fraudulent, because the likelyhood of getting caught is so low. Kind of sad that you as a charity wind up having to do the Right Thing when so many don’t even bother.

My understanding is that a lot of the marks that say “CE” actually mean “China Export”. The problem is that you have to self-certify, so unless you’ve got distributors like ours who care about quality and legitimacy, a lot can get swept under the carpet.

Funny fact — the logos are a TINY bit different. Wikipedia to the rescue – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CE_marks.jpg

This was surely one of those fits of brilliance on the part of our Chinese brethren.

It’s underhand, but it is *impressively* sneaky-clever.

I expect that units sold in the USA would also have the distinctive certification mark of that famous orthodontic and safety testing bureau Underbiters Laboratories. Look for the mark on genuine Sorny and Panaphonics televisions.

[oops, also congratulations to Pete and the Pi team on another hurdle overcome by engineering nous and hard graft]

the commission-
….will look into trade-marking the logo and that it is in discussion with Chinese authorities to ensure compliance with European standards.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ce_mark#China_Export

re:Jason Ozolins. My understanding is that UL is a safety mark. How many 5V USB-powered devices carry this mark? I live in the US, I have a number of them, but none of them are UL-marked.

Oops, what I had meant to suggest was that off-label appliances sneaky-cleverly labelled as CE for “China Export” could well have a rating from Underbiters Laboratories as well. Not saying that about the ‘Pi – that would be churlish indeed. =:^/

You won’t try using a cat’s whisker wifi again will you?

Good news for the team and computing in general. Thanks.

Fantastic a month earlier than I was expecting having done CE approval before so could you now import 10,000 units so I can order more than one my projects going to need a couple of hundred in the first year hopefully dependent on me finishing the project in good time Q4 is the dead line anyway good luck in the coming months and lets get Pi ed

Congrats Eben Liz and team for jumping thru yet another hoop successfully! So glad you can stick on those CE stickers and finally ship at last, they will be a badge of honor to first-gen owners. One question – will Farnell accept your results from the lab on the FCC etc portions on the test to allow shipping to the US without further ado, or do you have yet more bureaucratic hoops to jump thru before shipping outside of the EU to America/Canada/Australia/etc?

Excellent news. Now start shipping them! ;)

Very cool that you managed to comply with FCC regulations in just one week, when large companies like Motorola, Samsung and Apple take more than one month- FCC filings are often a way where news about devices are leaked, well in advance of public releases.

Maybe you should extend the charity to create an industry leading turnaround Raspberry Pi Testing service :-) Those trademark lawyers may have been on to something…

Anyway, a question: there was talk of the HDMI having had changes to the parameters for compliance reasons. Does this mean we’ll see updates to the Linux distributions, to include the a new CE-compliant firmware?

Thanks!

There will be a firmware tweak – we were bringing out a new Debian next week anyway, so we’ll roll it up in the reference image so it can be propagated to the other distros too. (Arch have had a new image ready for a couple of weeks, but with Pepedog’s agreement we’re holding off on sticking it on the downloads page until the firmware tweak can be incorporated.)

Congratulations to the members of the Raspberry PI foundation, and a happy Eastern.

This also means that the announced transparent case won’t be impossible, because no shielding is necessary. Brilliant work!

Liz, I am not sure if your leg still hurts, but this should help to forget about that.

Mostly I forget about it as long as I’m moderately careful to take stairs one at a time, but because walking about on it on the flat is not painful, about three times a day I accidentally crouch. (Today: putting the shopping in the fridge, picking up a cat, getting a bottle of sake *out* of the fridge.) Then it’s brought right to the top of my mind.

Lucky you had the bottle of sake at hand!

What about more testing? Does RPi resist vibrations enough to work on quadrocopters? What’s the exact power consumption?

Great news!

What happened to the cat.
Was that part called a CAT scan :)

Great News,

Thanks for all your hard work.

I worked for a military aircraft manufacturer and they have an anechoic chamber big enough to put an entire aircraft in (on stands that allow them to raise and lower the undercarriage during testing too).

It’s the most eerie place I’ve ever been.

Good that it whistled through the testing – “easy-peasy lemon sqeezy, apple pie and custard” is the common verncular at my little boys school for occasions such as this.

We are very, very lucky that we had someone as experienced and as damn good at electrical engineering as Pete to design the original hardware. We’d be looking at terrible delays if the hardware hadn’t passed in its current state; we’re very fortunate that he’s part of the Foundation.

http://flosslinuxblog.blogspot.co.uk/ references this, the change to a formulated trademark policy, and Eben’s video over at Element14 – also some comments about Debian armhf – also on Planet Debian (planet.debian.org)

Bloody marvellous – get ’em shipped!

Testings done? Does that mean I’ll be daddy soon ?

Thanks, Liz. Great news! Congratulations to the team! Hope they can get sent out soooooooooon!

Cool stuff. Congratulations :-)

Funny, I was reading about these chambers earlier in the week:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2124581/The-worlds-quietest-place-chamber-Orfield-Laboratories.html

So, we know there are 2,000 Pi’s in the UK, what happened to the other 8,000 from the “first batch” – are they ready to ship to the UK from China? If not, why not?

…and now that we know that the CE certification is good, how long before RS/Farnell go into full production?

…oh, and great work on the initial design and rapid approval!

Congratulations! Looking forward to *finally* getting my Pi. I have been in a few rf testing chambers, and it gets weird after a while seeing walls all around you, but not hearing any echos from those walls.

Eben, Liz, Pete, Jimmy, Craig, Gareth, the Puddytat, and the Rest of The Team,

I think I can best express the emotions for the rest of us by quoting the following from the first Moon landing by Apollo 11:

MISSION CONTROL IN HOUSTON: “30 seconds [fuel remaining].”

APOLLO 11 LUNAR EXCURSION MODULE/LANDER EAGLE: “Contact light! O.K., engine stop . . . descent engine command override off . . . ”

HOUSTON: “We copy you down, Eagle.”

EAGLE: “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed!”

HOUSTON: “Roger, Tranquility. We copy you on the ground. You’ve got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We’re breathing again. Thanks a lot.”

This is just such outstanding news, and ranks right up there with the proclamation of the Magna Carta, Columbus discovering excellent new beachfront property, and the Wright Brothers figuring out new uses for bicycle parts :) It will be particularly nice to be able to use clear cases unobstructed by mesh or metallic paint. I take it that the Model A boards will go through separate tests … much later.

The cat comment is priceless … I’m sure PETA and the humane societies have been sitting on pins and needles waiting for that news! In addition to the excellent engineering exemplified by passing these test, this is exactly the kind of thing that separates the Foundation’s efforts from the boring corporate stuff we have to put up with day in and day out.

I can’t wait to start testing Pi-finity! on my actual board to verify my ideas for ensuring that the game can only run on the R-Pi. I’ve started prototyping the engine and should have a rough alpha version of the game available about the same time as I and the other first 10,000 Pi-niacs receive their boards … in our stockings at Chistmas, you promise, right? ;)

>>> print( frustration_level)
1000000
>>> frustration_level = frustration_level – 1
>>> print( frustration_level)
999999

Mazel tov

Great News from here. :)

Firstly, congrats.

Couple of points however …

# The hub failing the RadImm test. Is the lab sure the hub was at fault? The hub is connected to the RP via an ethernet cable (aka an antenna). For this test the ethernet cable can couple noise into the RP board in addition to the router. If the lab changed the length of the cable, they change the frequency the ‘antenna’ is tuned to. Secondly by moving the hub out of the chamber, the routing of the ethernet cable is changed. If the lab just repeated the failing band with this configuration, and declared a pass, well, personally I don’t think that is the correct approach. At a minimum the entire test should have been redone.

# ESD … I’d be interested to know what test points were selected for the test, and if the board was grounded when the discharges were applied. Was the USB connected to a grounded PC?

This comment illustrates one of the reasons that companies like ours are typically reluctant to release information about EMC testing: this sort of Monday morning quarterbacking is *really annoying* when you’ve just lost a week’s sleep making sure tests are done scrupulously. Yes, the entire test was redone, and frankly I have no idea about the precise test points used for a test I wasn’t present for, but I am perfectly confident that it was done absolutely correctly. The reason we hire named independent EMC contractors and a named independent lab to do this stuff is in part so that we can be observed to be doing things by the book.

You have absolutely no justification for calling into question the competence of the test house. First of all, the test house would have to be complete idiots not to be very thorough, knowing that the eyes of so many people around the world were on them. Still, I suppose the internet is full of self appointed experts who know better than those who have been living and breathing a project for months… Anyway, if you’re so concerned about the veracity of the testing I suggest you hire a test chamber for a couple of weeks and conduct your own independent tests. Incidentally, I have no connection with anyone at Rasberry Pi, but I have brought several products to market, including direct involvement with EMC testing. I do wish RPi every success and congratulate them on all of their fine efforts.

Simon, don’t get your panties in a twist.

I replied below, but mistakenly not to the original post.

“Apologies, wasn’t my intention to anger you. From the information you provided via the cute story, it seemed obvious to blame the hub, but I was pointing out another possibility existed. I can fully understand with the pressures you folks are under to get this approved, this was the last thing you wanted to hear, my bad.”

I didn’t say the test lab were idiots. Simply pointed out another possibility existed which could be overlooked. I’ve worked with many labs over the years, and these things can happen. Not a reflection on anyone’s intelligence, or lack thereof.

“Still, I suppose the internet is full of self appointed experts who know better than those who have been living and breathing a project for months… ”

The lab hasn’t been involved in the project for months. The Foundation has limited EMC test experience and are relying on the lab for this.

“Anyway, if you’re so concerned about the veracity of the testing I suggest you hire a test chamber for a couple of weeks and conduct your own independent tests”

I wouldn’t need to hire a chamber. But it’s not something I want to do.

“Incidentally, I have no connection with anyone at Rasberry Pi, but I have brought several products to market, including direct involvement with EMC testing.”

Good for you :)

Sorry, but why would a professional test lab, contracted to do this testing to a specific standard, overlook something as blatantly obvious as this?. That’s the bit I don’t understand.
I believe to do full CE checking you need to use a chamber – I’m not sure there is an alternative if you want to do it properly.
I think I call concern trolling.

JamesH

I brought up the point originally on the RI anomaly, because it wasn’t clear enough from the “cute story” to determined the hub was at fault, at least to me. Liz clarified in response, fair enough. Closed.

The rest of my replies have been to folks, such as yourself, telling me that questioning this isn’t right, that I don’t know what I’m talking about, profession labs are this and that etc.

Your first question is answered in the post you replied to.

For the 2nd, there are alternatives to chamber testing, which are allowed for CE compliance. Read up on “in-situ” testing, although personally I wouldn’t want to be around for that one while immunity is going on, and I don’t think it could be justified for the RP given its size.

However, to be clear, what I said was I wouldn’t need to hire a chamber, not that I wouldn’t test in a chamber :) There is a difference. But again, that won’t happen. I’ve no interest in repeating the test.

I’d never heard of the expression, “concerned trolling”, learn something new everyday. But that’s not what this was.

I’d suggest then, that everyone give this whole topic a rest.

Before it gets to
one word per
line
:)

A
g
r
e
e
d

I have some serious concerns about how independent the cat was during this testing. This was presumably a Welsh cat but how certain is the foundation that a Scottish cat or maybe even a bilingual one from Canada would also pass the test? Is the foundation aware of ISO 34001 concerning the standardisation of cats worldwide? You make no mention of the cat complying with this standard and as such I question the validity of the tests. ;-)

Presumably you’re talking about the fifth cat (ie cat number 5 or just cat 5)? While I share you concerns about compliance, surely we should be asking what happened to cats 1, 2, 3 and 4? Also, slightly suspicious that the chamber was previously used by a Mr Schrodinger…

Congrats to the entire Raspberry PI Team for all their hard work!!!!!!!!!!

This is great news! I was just wondering whether you the Raspberry Pi is RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) compliant or not? I imagine there might be some issues if you wanted to use this in schools and it wasn’t compliant.

We have been very careful to make sure that it’s RoHS compliant all the way through development. Farnell and RS will be whacking a couple of Raspis with hammers and testing what dust results next week as part of the proper filing of RoHS paperwork, but at this stage it’s a formality.

“whacking a couple of Raspis with hammers”

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarggggghhhhhhh!

Please Nooooooooooooooo.

Eben and I were just discussing the breaking-down of the boards like this last night – it makes us both feel sick too. :(

Will it blend?

Sell the resulting debris on ebay. I’m sure more than a few people would be happy to own a historic…. wait… wait for it… piece of Pi.
./getmecoat.

Apologies, wasn’t my intention to anger you. From the information you provided via the cute story, it seemed obvious to blame the hub, but I was pointing out another possibility existed. I can fully understand with the pressures you folks are under to get this approved, this was the last thing you wanted to hear, my bad.

The EMC standards, while detailed, still have a number of grey areas, which could be open to interpretation. The selection of ESD test points is one such grey area. My question was based on an engineering curiosity, to see what was selected.

The reason you hired a named independent lab was because the lab is accredited. You need accreditation to generate the EMC reports you need to apply for the CE mark.

Anyways, I wish you the best with the product launch.

The CE is self-certification is it not so it could have been done in-house.

The reason that we use external labs for this sort of testing is because they know what they are doing and this testing is a particularly specialised skill.

We work with them…. but they call the shots as they have the skills and the accountability.

As a matter of interest does anyone know from experience whether CE testing can be done as a paper study or are practical measurements required.

From the content in the original post I assumed you guys didn’t have your own internal chambers and other relevant equipment.

By the way, the accountability doesn’t reside with the lab. It resides with the manufacturer. The lab will document that the samples they tested (and only those samples) comply. If something goes wrong, the product is audited later and fails to comply, the lab won’t be the one worrying :)

I’ve yet to come across a fully paper based (no test) technical file. The only time I’ve seen non lab testing (but testing none the less) was when the product was physically too large to be tested in the chamber. You could perform an in-situ test, say on the factory floor, and document the results.

Thanks.

When I said accountability I meant accountability for the integrity of the measurements.

agree that if the production units are different to the test units in such a way that the compliance is affected…. then that is not the testers problem.

The reason the Foundation named the lab was so that no one could claim that they had gone to some fly-by-night outfit who rubber stamped the RasPi for a few quid. They didn’t have to name the lab or give any details. I have no idea, for example, where my phone or Xbox or toaster were tested, but I would never dream of writing to HTC or Microsoft or Breville to question the technical ability and integrity of their contractors, or to tell them that there were a number of grey areas, which could be open to interpretation. It would be presumptious and, to be honest, a bit odd ;)

The Foundation have made a rod for their own back by being honest and open. It would be much easier to say, “Testing is done, it passed with flying colours! More news soon.” But the glasnost thing is part of their ethos and part of what makes them extraordinary.

Congratulations to you all! My (virtual) hat’s off to Pete Lomas & the rest of the team. Well done!

Will you shipping the boards with stickers, like the one that comes along with the arduino uno (3 square cm stickers)?

nice that it passed everything:) so when will shipping start?
will I get it by the ETA I got from farnell ireland for the 14th?

Quote “By the way, the accountability doesn’t reside with the lab. It resides with the manufacturer”
Just on this point it ultimately resides with the “legal entity” in the country where sold, this can be the manufacturer, first importer or reseller. The CE marking is a “presumption of conformity” and self declaration is permitted, in theory it is possible without any testing using the TCF route but this is a very risky strategy and especially so if the business involved is a large and well established one such as RS or Farnell. To request an independent assessment was part of the due diligence process. There is further assessment underway for compliance with RoHS and REACH Article 33 and other Global compliance requirements commencing with EU, US, Canada and Australia. This is the “taking apart with hammers” that Liz is referring to !

Congrats, well done!

Now waiting for notification from RS :)

Regards,

Jose

We now have a “Release Date”!

– Check your E-Mails for Shipping details…

How come it needed ESD? It is a product at a board assembly level and not in a box! It should be handled with care (i.e. ESD care) by consumer . You cannot protect IC pins since they are exposed! If you use Human Body Model and a 10kV I bet you can easily kill the board! What voltage levels they used and at what points they zapped the ESD gun? Thanks.

AFAIK Normally in such cases the protruding (touchable) connectors are “zapped”.

Congratulations!

It only goes to show that if an engineer follows well established design principles with care and attention, you can achieve outstanding results.

Out of interest, how close were you to the more stringent medical grade standards? (Not that anyone would put a Raspberry Pi in a medical instrument)

We intend to do just that!, Raspberry Pi is an excellent platform that with some additional work could definitely be used for medical devcies.

Great job on the CE marking. Now did you have to test to Class A or Class B (commercial and industrial respectively)? If the RaspPi is a dev board then industrial is fine but if it is a publicly available product it needs to pass the more stringent commercial category?

This tweet may be relevant: https://twitter.com/#!/Raspberry_Pi/status/188691511360241664

It doesn’t however answer the question of the sellers responsibility to sell into the approved environment.
My guess is that 95% of R-Pis will be going into a residential environment, even from the initial batch(es), thereby requiring Class B certification OR an approved enclosure.

So, will RS & Farnell now cancel non-industrial orders for the initial offering or add a disclaimer to the product supply?

There will be a disclaimer. Like the one on the other development hardware you can buy and use in your home.

Thanks Liz for the update. Do you know if there is a recommended enclosure in the pipeline or shall we all get our nickel-plating kits out? :-)

We’ve got some very handsome cases in the pipeline already – more on that as soon as I’m able to tell you about it.

From RS today: The first boards have passed emission testing to Class A standard and comply with the requirements of the electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) directive EN50081-2 (1993) for the use of information technology equipment (ITE) in industrial or office environments. Equipment used in a residential environment may be susceptible to radio interference and to ensure that Raspberry Pi customers are fully aware of this, each of the boards will be supplied with a warning statement in accordance with EMC regulations.
http://www.electrocomponents.com/media/press-releases/2012/04/10th/

Unfortunately if the R-PI needs a shielded enclosure to reach commercial (class B) certification, it means that (with the current PCB) the promised transparent case is impossible.
Hopefully s small PCB redesign will fix that problem.

Happily, we’ve found it doesn’t need a shielded enclosure to reach Class B, although it will require a (very minimal) redesign.

I’m hesitant to reply to this given the folks jumping over me in previous posts, but what the hell.

The EMC directive for Europe is 2004/108/EC.

For ITE, the required standards are
EN55022:2006+A1:2007 (Class A for RP)
EN55024:1997 +A1+A2
EN61000-3-2:2006+A1
EN61000-3-3:2008

I don’t see EN50081-2 in the Official Journal, so I believe it can no longer be used.

Perhaps a transparent case could have a thin tin layer applied that would be transparent (as used in some displays as electrical contacts) but still afford enough shielding?

Liz said “Happily, we’ve found it doesn’t need a shielded enclosure to reach Class B, although it will require a (very minimal) redesign.”
So I assume the next batch (made by Farnell, and RS) already will have this very small redesign (I assume perhaps a few ferrite beads in the power cable or something like that). So only this first batch will be class A certified, and the rest will be class B.
That is appropriate, as the first batch was never meant for consumers, but for developers.

I don’t know yet, but I had assumed that meant a PCB redesign. There isn’t much else that could be redesigned – it doesn’t come with a power lead for example! PCB redesign would take a bit longer.

Jason said “I don’t see EN50081-2 in the Official Journal, so I believe it can no longer be used.”
AFAIK (the actual language is so complicated that only EMC lab experts know all the details) the difference between the older EN50081-2 standard, and the newer standards that replace EN50081-2 are purely textual, the actual limit lines (the limits in dBM at a certain frequency) did not change, so if the device is certified for EN50081-2 it is automatically certified for the newer set of (subdivided) standards.

mahjongg

Unfortunately, the textual changes are the killers :) And they do matter. The devils in the details.

For example, the standard listed by RS, EN50081-2 (1993), while I’m not over familiar with it, I don’t believe the EU had EMC emissions requirements above 1GHz in 1993. EN55022 didn’t add them until 2007.

From the pictures Liz posted, emissions testing above 1GHz was performed, in a chamber with absorbers on the floor. I’m sure the lab are testing to EN55022:2006+A1:2007, or EN55022:2010 given that configuration (although it could have been only for FCC testing to ANSI C63.4:2009).

Another difference would be the telecom port conducted emissions test. Wasn’t around in 1993.

So, if the device was only certified to EN50081-2:1993, we cannot do a paper based change to EN55022:2006 etc.

I don’t know if RS came up with the reference to this standard, or it came from elsewhere, but ITE equipment require the standards I listed above for the EU. Those are the standards needed on the Declaration of Conformity.

A quote I read before sums this up quite nicely. “The nice thing about standards is there are so many to choose from” :)

Eben & Crew,

did you and Farnell/RS come together and decide that Class A(industrial) was going to be acceptable after all the ruckus about them actually saying its a consumer product?

For any of us in the industry, its obvious given the length of time for testing that it didnt go smoothly (probably HDMI I suspect). As a result I’m not surpised you’ve revised the levels to the easier class A limits.

This was never a consumer product so I’ve glad cooler heads have prevailed

A week in the testing chamber = not going smoothly? I’m prone to think quite the opposite :-P

Quite – a week in the testing chamber is *very* speedy, and we were only ever aiming for Class A; RS and Farnell were very clear that the board only has to be certified that far before the educational release. There’s been no “revision to easier limits”, I’m happy to say.

I think you are correct about the HDMI thingy – took a while to track down the problem (overdriven), then knock up a afix. Still, less than a week to do CE, FCC and the Canadian thing. Not too bad given how long each test takes.

and CTick for Oz!

Raspberry Pi; Foundation, Model A, Model B
Raspberry Pi’ers
Raspi
RPi
Bramble
Brambli
Credit card computing
The $25 computer
That thing the wonderful woman Liz keeps talking about
I accidentally Raspberry Pi

I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I’m approving your post because you very sensibly called me wonderful. ;)

Wonderful? Is that it? So if I said, your wonderfully need to buy me a beer, would that work? Lewis Carroll eat your heart out!
Although I would have to add, that I also have no idea what the OP is talking about.

Yaaaay im getting one tomorrow oh a greatbig well done they have all sold out for today

hi guys seeings how popular this little bit of kit is would there be a chance that in the near future there would be a more powerful sister pi also i have registered my interest on the rs web page am i guaranteed to get one and can i chose to have the b version? many thanks

Lots of people have asked similar things – trying searching the forum for Model C for what people think ought to be there. Although there are no plans at the moment.

What will the Raspberry Pi’s FCC ID be?

Never mind: For some reason I thought the rPi had Wi-Fi, and was therefore an intentional radiator that required an FCC ID.

Can you tell me more about the testing setups like frequency band for immunity to radiated RF electromagnetic fields and field strength, test voltage for immunity to electrostatic discharge, burst etc?

Per Liz – “Happily, we’ve found it doesn’t need a shielded enclosure to reach Class B, although it will require a (very minimal) redesign.”

Is this underway? There are a huge number of experienced people who can help make Class B happen. Where can Class A be used? The FCC definition is difficult to pinpoint. My understanding is in a controlled access environment like a server room.

Liz, will the board size or position of GPIO/ethernet/USB change?

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