back to article Raspberry Pi 2.0 ready to ship

A new version of the Raspberry Pi has made its way into distribution channels. Revision 2.0 boards, as the new model is known, don’t feature any substantive changes and the Raspberry Pi Foundation says most of us can ignore the upgrade, as: “We don’t believe that the changes are large enough to make it worth “holding on” for …

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  1. E 2

    Ooooh, errr I like new holes!

  2. Christian Berger

    Holes would be great, also the possibility to connect external audio codecs.

    In general the main pet-peeve I have with the design is the lack of medium speed interfaces. It would be great if there was a multi channel audio input. That way you could use it as part of a multi channel MIMO radio.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Seems like a special request

      I can't imagine the bulk of users would be interested in that feature. Could you not get a usb device that will allow you to do what you want?

    2. Peter Mount
      Boffin

      Radio on the pi

      Ive got an am/fm/sw breakout board sitting next to my development pi waiting for me to find some time to hook it up.

      The lack of audio in is a pain but understandable as not everyone using a pi wants it & it needs more circuitry - the audio out is done using the existing pwm outputs of the CPU.

      Anyhow with that chip if I can fathom out the codec used by that chip I'll have digital in working anyhow.

  3. wowfood

    Kinda hope

    I get one of these ones over the 1.0 ones. I placed an order with RS a while ago, and if some people are already being shipped the 2.0 boards I just hope I'm one of them.

    Not so much for extra holes etc, mostly for the allowance to power it from a USB hub. I have plans.

    1. Disgruntled of TW
      Unhappy

      Re: Kinda hope

      Hmmm ... I've been waiting on RS for 6 months now. Shocking communications - been told "shipping now" a couple of times, then I get an Email to say "delayed by up to 9 weeks" at the end of August. I won't bore this thread with the details, but RS scores a poor "must try harder" on their report card. Logistics planning absolute #FAIL. If it's not their fault, they would do well to say so.

      I hope we're getting version 2.0 of the logistics and customer communication pipeline.

      1. Captain Underpants

        Re: Kinda hope

        I've read a number of people having similar problems with RS both in the UK and Ireland. Oddly, Farnell seem to be just fine.

        On the whole "power from a powered USB hub", there are many people who've done this already, so I'm wondering what exactly has been changed to support this?

        1. blcollier

          @Captain Underpants Re: Kinda hope

          USB ports hubs should not feed power back into their upstream ports, so the Pi had circuitry to (in theory) prevent this from happening. However it seems that this wasn't always working correctly and caused a number of issues for people...

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Kinda hope

          To power my Rev 1 board from a Logik hub, I had to snip a wire inside the hub and then also require two leads from the hub - one to power the PI, and then another for the actual usb hub data connection. Bit of a bodge job really.

          I believe with Rev 2 boards its more safe to just use the power coming into the Pi on the data socket - so no need for the separate power cable from hub into the Pi power socket.

          1. Matt Hawkins
            Megaphone

            Re: Kinda hope

            Unfortunately powering the Pi directly on the USB port means your hub is badly designed by someone not bothering to follow the USB specs. A hub should not "back power" the device it is plugged into. Not sure I would trust such a device with my Pi. I would certainly never trust something like that with a PC.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Kinda hope

        Ordered one from CPC (the more consumer-friendly arm of Farnell) couple of weeks ago. Turned up next day.

        1. Annihilator
          Go

          Re: Kinda hope

          "Ordered one from CPC (the more consumer-friendly arm of Farnell) couple of weeks ago. Turned up next day."

          Indeed, don't believe the hype, they're just overly managing expectations. Even in the "2 months wait" period, mine took less than a fortnight. If your supplier is taking 9 weeks, get a new supplier! :-)

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Kinda hope

        I pre-ordered from RS back in June and was told it would be 4 weeks; it arrive at the beginning of July, so pretty much spot on. I do order a lot of hardware from RS though - don't know if that made a difference.

      4. Mr Temporary Handle

        Re: Kinda hope

        "I've been waiting on RS for 6 months now."

        That doesn't surprise me. They have a well earned reputation for unreliability and appalling customer service.

  4. 27escape
    Unhappy

    Still waiting for mine

    And it was ordered at the start of July, apparently it may arrive in October!

    So likely to be a rev 2 board by then

    1. dont care what ever

      Re: Still waiting for mine

      same here , still waiting for mine ,11 weeks after ordering it from rs ( only another four weeks to go !! well untill i get another email from rs telling me there is another delay !!) so if you`r thinking of ordering one avoid getting it of rs . cpc farnels seam to to be able to ship them with in days

      have a read about rs rubbish customer service here

      http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=15879

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Still waiting for mine

        RS are basically a total disaster - they couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery. Cancel your order from them and get it from Farnell, who are slightly less of a disaster. It amazing that two large companies like this could be so appalling, esp. RS.

    2. VinceH

      Re: Still waiting for mine

      "And it was ordered at the start of July, apparently it may arrive in October!"

      Yup. Ordered mine on 18th July, and the estimated delivery time (which it says is "up to" 11 weeks) could put it in October.

      Receiving it in October works for me because I want to bung RISC OS on it and check my own software works, and then take it along to the London show at the end the month, instead of taking my normal computer. However, if there's no sign of it by the end of the second week, I might order another from CPC (noting the comment from someone upthread that they did so and it arrived the next day).

      If the RS one then turns up, fine - I'll have a spare. I suspect I'll be buying a few more in future anyway. It's cheap enough. :)

  5. Ambivalous Crowboard

    Mine arrived from RS Electronics last week

    Almost as bad as Samsung - it ships, then becomes obsolete...

    1. James Hughes 1

      Re: Mine arrived from RS Electronics last week

      Or you could read the comment that says no major changes, no need to hang out for Rev2.

    2. Ambivalous Crowboard
      Joke

      Re: Mine arrived from RS Electronics last week

      Looks like I forgot this:

      <--

  6. JM987

    Waiting for the PoE version

    When I saw the article showing version 2.0 I had hoped they would of added PoE. I guess I will continue to wait for version 3.0, 4.0 or if it'll ever come....

    1. blcollier

      Re: Waiting for the PoE version

      You might be waiting a while. The foundation has no plans to do a major overhaul of the Pi any time soon, and PoE was deemed as too expensive to include. Part of the point is that it's a stable platform to build on and there aren't major changes every six months or so.

      You could always hack something up yourself for PoE, but you'd have to overcome the fact that the ethernet socket on the Pi uses magjacks...

      1. James Hughes 1

        Re: Waiting for the PoE version

        What he said - no plans at all for PoE.

        1. Callam McMillan

          Re: Waiting for the PoE version

          Not quite. This is what they have to say about it over at the Raspberry Pi website.

          Is power over Ethernet (PoE) possible?

          Not in the base device, but it’s been a very commonly requested feature, so we’re examining options for later releases.

          I can imagine it would be useful in classroom environments where all the devices could be plugged into a signle PoE switch rather than having tonnes of phone chargers to runnall of them.

  7. blcollier
    Boffin

    USB Hub Power

    Don't put too much hope into this. My understanding is that USB Hubs should *not* be feeding power to the upstream port if they're designed well. Many are p***-poor however and feed power back... Can't remember off the top of my head, but I'm pretty sure that goes against the USB specification.

    Best way to power it with a hub is to take one of the hub's *downstream* ports and plug that into the Pi's main power input. Of course that assumes that you don't have a hub which is clever enough to require devices to negotiate and request more power than the standard 100mA (the data lines on the Pi's uUSB power port are tied to ground), and that your hub's power supply is strong enough to power whatever devices you hang off it *and* the Pi at the same time. Or you could always feed power into the relevant GPIO pins, but you'd better be damn sure that you have external protection/overload circuitry if you do that. some of the GPIO pins are more or less a direct route into the processor, so you'd better make damn sure you don't screw it up.

    I'm more interested in the removal of the polyfuses on the USB lines. They've been a source of frustration for a while now. I *could* desolder and short them out on my current board, but it's so cheap to buy a revision 2 board that it's not really worth the effort; I may have to wait a while for it though...

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Holes?

    Don't suppose these conform to any standard? Think VIA have a similar-ish board but that adheres to (nano)ITX standard so there are cases availble that it will screw into with all the ports aligned to a standard "cut-out".

    1. kventin
      Joke

      Re: Holes?

      yes, they conform to a quite new standard. i'm not sure about its name, rpi form factor or something along these lines; its main feature being that holes for screws and ports are aligned to ports found on raspberry pi (however to use screws you need raspberry pi rev.2).

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Holes?

      Meccano pitch (half inch) or Lego pitch (8mm?) might be useful

  9. Chris Walsh
    Unhappy

    Still waiting for mine and I ordered mind in March!

    Still waiting for mine and I ordered mind in March!

    1. Graham Bartlett
      Happy

      Re: Still waiting for mine and I ordered mind in March!

      Well hopefully your mind will arrive before your Raspberry Pi does.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Still waiting for mine and I ordered mind in March!

      From RS I assume?

      Have RS actually dispatched any I wonder?

      1. Return To Sender

        Re: Still waiting for mine and I ordered mind in March!

        I originally tried to order from RS but ended up at Farnell (element14). From the comments looks like that was just as well, got my Pi a couple of months back...

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    But

    I got the impresion that the PI was supposed to NOT keep getting revised and "updated" into different versions.

    1. James Hughes 1

      Re: But

      This is a bug fix version. There are a couple of HW issues that need addressing (note, not the sort of issue that means all the ones already sold are useless, just minor niggles) and it gave the chance for drilling a couple of holes. The basics are just the same as before - same SoC, same distro etc. Minor change to the GPIO's, but nothing of real import.

  11. Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
    WTF?

    "don’t feature any substantive changes"

    I'd call fixing the 1.8V power supply flaw that may have the USB-LAN chip powering the rest of the board rather than the regulator which was meant to and getting rather hot as a result a substantive change. Especially as the manufacturer of the chip says that shouldn't be done and no one has any idea whether this is actually causing long term damage and limited lifetime or not.

    In removing the two USB power line fuses that were causing problems, and having not released the schematics for peer review before making the new version, let's hope they haven't made the situation worse for other cases. What happens if the micro-USB supply is slightly different to the USB hub supply? Have they just reinvented the 1.8V design flaw in another place?

    I'm a bit lost as to why you might want to hang on for 2.0 if adding a new audio codec - what's changed that means those cannot be used with the earlier versions?

    It looks a bit odd that the foundation mods are removing links [1] to photos of 2.0 boards [2] people have had delivered and again it seems the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. It sounds to me like the foundation are simply spinning it, underplaying the flaws and issues there were, hoping people with earlier versions won't demand a more fit for purpose version 2.0 replacement. Talking of which; is this still a developer board with no guarantee of fitness of purpose or now a finished product?

    It's often said, "never buy version one", and certainly not when there's no guarantee it will work. The great success story is perhaps the foundation and manufacturers convincing near a million people to have done so. It is notable there's no mention whether those who have boards with earlier design flaw are entitled to free replacements or not. The manufacturers were never clear in explaining its developer status so we could be looking at a entertaining and costly court cases on the horizon.

    [1] http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=16523&p=167225#p167267

    [2] https://dl.dropbox.com/u/8074630/IMG_1942.jpg

    Cue the popcorn and a flood of fanbois...

    1. a cynic writes...

      Re: "don’t feature any substantive changes"

      They've posted their own photo - the takedown might have been to do with the words "Made in the UK" printed on the board.

  12. Ian Johnston Silver badge
    Headmaster

    Oh yeah?

    Is that "Ready To Ship" in the most-companies sense of "physically existing and waiting to be posted" or in the traditional RPF sense of "we've appointed a couple of manufacturers who may be able to sell you one in a few months when they've actually made any". Since the first 10,000 they repeatedly said were on their way turned out to be wholly imaginary, I think we have to take their statements with a little caution.

    1. Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

      Re: Oh yeah?

      In this case it seems manufacturers have shipped to customers before they were announced to exist!

      Ironically past changes have been made to the boards without telling anyone and a 'we wondered when anyone would notice' attitude but it seems to have bitten them this time round.

  13. blcollier
    Flame

    Developer Board vs Final Product

    The Raspberry Pi Model B (and possibly model A) was always planned to be and still is a developer board. The vast majority of the issues now being faced - notably the supply shortage - is due to the fact that sites like hotukdeals got their hands on it and said: "Look! A £25 computer that plays 1080p movies!!! They've only got 10,000 though, let's get 'em quick!"

    The demand has soared beyond anything that they ever anticipated. That's not to say that I'm against the general public buying a Raspberry Pi, but the intention always was for the initial release to be aimed at developers & nerds; they're going to be the people who do a good deal of the work in making the thing usable and find all the issues, bugs & quirks. That is still going on of course, but now you also have a lot of disappointed people who were expecting to be able to spend £25 and have a machine equivalent to their average desktop computer. The media hype can be a double edged sword.

    And the person that takes either the RPF, or their suppliers, to court can put on some concrete boots and take a long walk of the nearest pier.

    1. Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

      Re: Developer Board vs Final Product

      And the person that takes either the RPF, or their suppliers, to court can put on some concrete boots and take a long walk of the nearest pier.

      Can you point me to anywhere on the manufacturer sales sites that state this is a developer board and not a finished product? It would be up to the courts to decide if anyone claiming they were misled actually was.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Developer Board vs Final Product

        Bit of a warning in the R PI's faqs

        "If you want to use it for something that we haven’t tested, and that it’s not intended for (i.e. anything but the educational work we’re planning for it), then that development work is up to you."

        but if it genuinely burns out when it shouldn't and you've followed instructions you ought to get a replacement or refund

      2. blcollier
        Paris Hilton

        @Jason Bloomberg Re: Developer Board vs Final Product

        So you'd be quite happy to take a charity to court? A charity that aims to improve education?

        If you're in the position of being able to take them to court with such a claim then the chances are that you'd be using (or planning to use) the Pi in a commercial product and churning large volumes. In which case, I would expect any reasonable company or individual to purchase (or request) some samples so that they can do research & development.

        Developer board or not, taking a charity or their suppliers to court is a pretty sad state of affairs. Hence:

        And the person that takes either the RPF, or their suppliers, to court can put on some concrete boots and take a long walk off the nearest pier.

        Paris, because the whole idea is retarded as she is.

        1. Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

          Re: @Jason Bloomberg Developer Board vs Final Product

          So you'd be quite happy to take a charity to court?

          If I have been misled by a retailer of a product should I lose my consumer rights, lose my right to exercise those rights, simply because that retailer were a charity?

          Charities are not, and should not be, above nor beyond the law simply because they have noble goals. They are as accountable as anyone else in what they do.

          Besides; it would be the licensee manufacturers / sellers who any claim would be made against, not the foundation. They are commercial businesses not charities. The foundation may hold the IP for the product but it is the manufacturers who are selling them and advertising them in the way they do. If the manufacturers chose to drag the foundation into any claim, pass the buck to them, that would be their prerogative.

          1. blcollier

            Re: @Jason Bloomberg Developer Board vs Final Product

            I'm still curious as to what problems could potentially be caused by thinking that it's a "final" product as opposed to a development board. What purpose is it now not fit for - is it no longer an SBC with external hardware interface capabilities? Can you no longer plug in peripherals? Can you not use it as you intended? What exactly is the misleading aspect to all of this, and what impact has it really caused?

            As far as the USB issues are concerned, the majority of the issues are down to the fact that the peripherals people are using are either: drawing too much power (which should not be an issue for a keyboard or mouse, unless they're very poor quality indeed), or poorly designed and do not conform to USB specifications (as in the case of USB hubs sending power to the host).

            The power supply and voltage drop issues people have been using are down to the fact that the PSUs they're using aren't up to the job; USB tolerances allow for a minumum of 4.75v, but the Pi's tolerances are much tighter. Solution? Use a better quality power supply.

            Granted the 1v8 issue with the LAN/USB chip does seem to be a bit of a design issue, but has it yet been conclusively determined that it has a detrimental effect? Is the temperature of the chip outside of the specified operating range? Has it been proven that the current configuration will cause a seriously detrimental effect on the operational lifespan of either the LAN/USB chip or the Broadcom SoC?

            1. Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

              Re: @Jason Bloomberg Developer Board vs Final Product

              It's a simple case of a thing expected to do something from the way it was advertised versus not doing that because of what the product actually is. You only have to read the raspberry pi forum to find people who did not realise what they were buying was a developer board and thought it was something else.

              Were these people misled? Do they have legitimate claims? I'm not the judge of that. As I said; there's the potential for an entertaining court case if anyone decides to argue they were.

  14. a cynic writes...
    Thumb Up

    Made in the UK...

    They've just posted a follow up - the version two boards are now made in the UK at a Sony plant in Wales.

  15. Mr Bobsy
    Pint

    My board has the mounting holes and says "Made in the UK"

    So, based upon intensive research (i.e. quick google) I'm guessing this means I've got a v2.0 board?

    Received it yesterday and it's still in the box - I still need to work out what its purpose will be. Full marks to Farnell as the original "estimate" was 3 weeks for delivery, in the end it was just a week.

  16. crowley
    Facepalm

    Idiots

    "Version Identification Links

    The four GPIO signals originally used for version identification have been removed. These were never read by the system software and were redundant."

    So now they've swapped GPIO pins to the JTAG port and swapped the I2C lines, thus necessitating knowledge of the hardware version for any system image dealing with those pins, they remove the version feature to create a new port. I can't wait for the dual image releases, or reports of burnt out expansions or whatever...

  17. Barry Scott Here
    Happy

    'changes not worth the upgrade'

    now that's a line Apple could learn from

  18. Guillermo Lo Coco
    Thumb Up

    I go for HACKBERRY or OLIMEX A10

    http://olimex.wordpress.com/

    https://www.miniand.com/products/Hackberry%20A10%20Developer%20Board

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