What happens to the Pi’s that are proven to be working ok? Are these returned to Farnell for re-sale or used elsewhere?

This is what we need, more young people getting interested in tech!

Well done Jessica.

Can I have Jessica’s job when she’s finished with it please? ;-)

Cheers,
Norm.

Is that sunny Hunstanton?

I think it would be helpful if you created an official troubleshooting page with at least these two issues, namely duff power supplies and needing to use the latest raspbian image that supports the hynix RAM. I know there are third party FAQs and troubleshooting pages, but I think it needs more prominent exposure on the main website, i.e. this one.

Cheers

Andrew.

With all of the things that are so easy to do that a 10 year-old can do them, I keep within shouting distance of some at all times (it helps to be teaching in a school ;) ). They can even solve the flashing 12:00 on a VCR after the power goes out (little show-offs), and yes, they can do it without the remote control, which they can later find deep in the sleeper-sofa upstairs using some sort of in-bred nerd RF detection ability. Don’t even ask why there is a VCR in proximity unless you haven’t taught in a modern classroom such as mine … built in 1955 … by the Army! Yes, the VCR is painted in many layers of thick, white enamel because it doesn’t respond to saluting (on a military base, so the advice to new recruits goes, “If it moves, salute it, and if not, paint it.”).

Anyone who doubts the existence of evolution only needs to hang around some 10 year-olds for a few minutes to realize they are a completely different species from us old fogies! Go Jessica! :D

Would be good if they were made available to buy as a used unit.

Juan

Well done Jessica;

I’ve been tying to convince my boss we should go here http://www.diggerland.com

as our after work playground….

I feel your pain. I’m doing an OU degree and one chap posted a rant about how the course material was not up to scratch and how it was falling below legal standards, although was never sure what he meant by that. He posted a screen shot of a command that he said did not work even though he ” had followed the instructions to the letter “.

You know what’s coming, the screen shot showed he had miss typed the command substituting cron with corn. LoL

Sad thing, not an isolated case.

looks like slave labour to me :)

I don’t know if this exists, so pardon my ignorance if it does.

Is there a tool for Windows, Mac, etc. that can do some sort of CRC or MD5 checksum on the SD card? I know you give the checksums for the OS images, but after you flash the SD card, there should be a tool to verify that the card has a valid image, as well as the version of the image. Might save some returns.

Those who may be wondering if their problems are power related might find my post Powering the Pi – Current and Voltage Restrictions and the subsequent comments by others to be useful.

FWIW I recently returned a brand new model B (made in China). It did not boot w/ an SD which worked with an earlier Pi that I had. (Even with repeated attempts.) Neither did its replacement – but the latter did work, however, with the use of a diifferent SD.

You say the Sony factory is in Wales, but mine says “made in China” on it. Does Allied Electronics manufacture them elsewhere?

“Jessica finds another working Pi. Later, we’re sending her up that ladder to clean out the asbestos tube.”

That’s not even funny to joke about – you should be taking the safety of children much more seriously.
A mini scaffold would afford much better support, and allow both hands to be used for cleaning purposes.

I am curious. What types of issues are you seeing with the 0.02% of returned pis that are not working properly, and what is your failure mode analysis showing; were they defective from the factory, damaged in shipping, damaged by the customer, etc.? It would be good to know when offering help to users on the forums.

Just fyi
in reply to getting your sd card from one of the “approved dealers in the upper right”, I bought my PI from
Element 14 along with an unbootable SD card. ;-)
HWF

“Many no-name supplies (especially in the US, for some reason) do not actually provide the voltage that they claim to”
One factor might be US mains power is 110 Vac instead of 220. The switcher circuit is ‘nominally’ capable of handling this, but on the cheap end, maybe not really? Still fine for a cell phone, it just charges more slowly, but not good for R-Pi.

I notice she is being ably assisted by the Raspberry Pi Bear whose name I have already forgotten. Well done. Are those for sale anyplace? I just supported another project for Raspberry Pi on kickstarter. This one a Lego robot interface.

Sadly the world is full of know-alls like the moron who hadn’t even loaded the SD card with Raspian before trying to boot.
Just when you make something fool-proof, Mother nature goes and invents a better fool and then puts him in to the world to tick off the rest of us! :-)

I am aware of one person who sent SIX Raspberry Pis back to Farnell one after the other, insisting that they were all broken, that we/Farnell were charlatans, etc. etc. In the end it turned out that he hadn’t actually flashed the SD card at all

Many years ago I seem to remember one of the Acorn magazines which sold kits of hardware for the projects they featured (may even have been Mike Cook) complaining that they’d had a bit of a shouting match from a customer because a kit wouldn’t work, only to find out that he’d superglued the components on rather than soldering…

And people look at me oddly when I spend a few minutes reading the manual before plugging any new purchase together…

Liz,

Doesn’t your post indicate the need for an official “complete” raspberry pi kit to be the default that is sold to Joe Public? Something that includes an authorised power supply and a proper SD card ready to go?

As you’ve pointed-out there is a lot of scope for non-technical users to run into problems and therefore blame a perfectly functioning Pi, and you guys by extension.

Most non-technical people just need something they can buy and plug-in straightaway without resorting to having to buy dodgey equipment from eBay, Amazon et al.

Mark

In the early eighties I worked in the editorial department of an electronic hobbyist magazine (ETI if anyone remembers that). We published a project for a temperature-controlled soldering iron. Part of the circuit was obviously high-current, so the parts list specified 1mm square wire. I got a letter from a reader asking where he could buy square wire.

A more apocryphal story which pre-dated my time there was of the man who sent in a completed project complaining that it wasn’t working. Every component was in its correct place. Every component had its leads bent perfectly at 90 degrees and securely fixed to the PCB tracks.

With Araldite.

Big credit to the authors of the http://elinux.org/R-Pi_Troubleshooting section, it is very comprehensive.

Also, if you spot something which is missing then try to update it, it will save someone (probably many others including Jessica) a lot of time and effort.

“Later, we’re sending her up that ladder to clean out the asbestos tube.” It is really black humor according to this article: http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/asbestos

The humour is indeed predicated by the inclusion of a dangerous material and a minor. The intimation that any person might be casually exposed to such a noxious substance without proper training and specialist equipment is so ludicrous that the resulting cognitive dissonance causes mild amusement in many people. The fact that that person is a child is a hyperbolic device that exponentially amplifies the throwaway jeopardy and therefore the humorous element.

In short, a classic case of black humour, albeit one that will not be enjoyed by all.

Well done Jessica.

I think the Raspberry Pi has two competing interests they must balance (flexibility vs accessibility).
The XBox 360 is very accessible, but it is not very flexible. You face barriers to modifying your XBox. I think the role of teachers and volunteers is to help young people with the accessibility issue and allow the kids the flexibility to learn and create at a higher level,
Tom Dubick

Amazed by my first pi I bought a second one not from one of the listed online shops but from a reseller I trusted .. It never was as stable as the first one .. I couldn’t over clock it looked like a fine black dust was over the whole board. Not fair to send it back to a charity so …. I sprayed WD40 all over it …(LOADS) .. wiped it all off carefully .. left it to dry …. Now as good as my other pi … complete turn round … xP

Excellent work, Jessica!

As a licences sparky I can’t let the question of the square cable go without some comment. Cable sizes are given in square millimetres. NOT millimetres square. And for good reason. Millimetres square infers a measurement of 1mm X 1mm, which in this case has a cross sectional are of 1 square millimetre. Now think about a cable measuring 2mm X 2mm. This could be called, and is in fact 2mm square, whereas its cross sectional area is 4 (2 X 2) square millimetres which gives it around twice the current carrying capacity. If you go up to 3mm it becomes 3 times. So the correct terminology is square millimetres not millimetres square.

Damn iPad – that should be licensed electrician.

idea for future reference which might help lower the super low return rate…

put on corner of front of box “if having trouble, go to

and have the troubleshooting URL printed on the box!

i know it would be kind of idiot proof to do that before returning it and claiming its broken, but some people arent all there and need it even more idiot proof!

food for thought?