

Raspberry Pi faces distribution troubles over CE certification - GigabyteCoin
http://www.engadget.com/2012/03/29/raspberry-pi-ce-certification-mark-linux/

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chrisacky
This seems like one of those things that should of been negotiated before they
appointed the contract to RS/Farnell, right?

Presumably RasPi or Farnell/RS had previously discussed the distribution of
the devices and I'm assuming that they at least made some suggestion that they
aren't going to ship until CE certification was granted. So this shouldn't
really be a surprise. If on the overhand Farnell/RS have both just said that
they aren't going to ship out of the blue, then the cynic in me would probably
guess that there would be some other underlying reason why there is a delay,
such as other manufacturing problems.

Either way, I don't think too many people are going to be too concerned. They
will get here when they get here.

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latch
I cannot reconciliate the fact that I believe regulations kill innovation in
our industry, while at the same time believing that lack of regulation in
finance is destroying the economy.

~~~
retube
> while at the same time believing that lack of regulation in finance is
> destroying the economy

It's not a lack of regulation in finance that's destroying the economy, it's
too much.

The rules and regulations now are so punitive, so lengthy and so complex that
it's making some (many) banking services non-viable or at best very expensive.
And ultimately it's the end consumer which bears these increased costs as they
get passed on. This means banks make less money, customers have to pay more,
staff get paid less or cut, shareholders get reduced dividends, pension funds
lose out from suppressed stock prices etc.

Many of these rules don't make sense or make the bank "safer" - they're really
just a penalty for conducting finance-orientated business - with such rules
sadly being driven by politicians attempting to appease the baying mob.

It's unfortunate that these regulations will have the opposite effect of what
they are trying to achieve. Indeed some very large names may actually go out
of business as a result which would be catastrophic for the economy.

~~~
nl
The evidence doesn't really back you up.

Countries with stronger financial regulations didn't have to bail out banks in
2008/09.

~~~
retube
I can assure you that new regulations are strangling growth. And that they
will not prevent or avert some other disaster. No amout of regulation can
prevent a bank or indeed any company making reckless or badly informed
business decisions.

> Countries with stronger financial regulations didn't have to bail out banks
> in 2008/09.

That's because other countries didn't have retail banks or mortgage brokers
dishing out 700k mortgages to fruit pickers on 14k. _This_ was the root cause
of the banking crisis and this is the industry which needed tightened
regulations (such as those seen in the UK or most European countries).
Inventing punitive rules on banks' capital ratios and funding reserves etc
doesn't help anyone or address the root cause of the 2008 implosion.

~~~
yardie
_That's because other countries didn't have retail banks or mortgage brokers
dishing out 700k mortgages to fruit pickers on 14k._

This was one of the root causes but there were many. You should take a step
back and really understand what happened. In fact fruit pickers weren't the
problem at all. They never applied for those loans and the ones that did were
in the minority. No, what you had were a bunch of middle-class people with
houses buying up investment property to secure their future.

The condo I used to live in (in Miami) had a 50% occupation rate and it wasn't
occupied by fruit pickers. Instead you had doctors, lawyers, and even hackers
looking for a 2nd or 3rd or 4th home to rent out. And they all had good
credit.

Everyone likes to think it was poor people buying up McMansions (and I don't
doubt there were some) but the mortgage crisis was caused by normal people who
were way over leveraged and a Fed that let it continue until it collapsed.
This

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retube
Sure, I realise the fruit-picker example is extreme. But it was the sub-prime
/ alt-a mortgage market that imploded with default rates in some pools hitting
90%. But yes of course everyone jumped on the bandwagon across all of society
- I'm not for a minute attempting to blame "poor" people for being financially
irresponsible - far from it - I realise there was a complex interplay between
the lenders/brokers/borrowers, the banks that securitised the pools and the
people that bought the end product.

My point is that the rules and regulation around mortgage lenders and lending
were lax to the point of non-existence and that penalising banks (most of whom
didn't originate these mortgages in the first place) is just easy scape
goating and is exacerbating the very issues it's trying to solve.

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yardie
You and I know it's an extreme example but there are lots of people that
honestly believe the mortgage crisis was caused by poor people getting
mortgages. Then they reference some civil rights era act that they believe
forces the banks to lower their lending standards. In fact the law says you
can't deny loans based on where the applicant lives (aka, redlining).

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ukdm
Eben states in the comments on the original post that both distributors didn't
include compliance people during the contract stage. Raspberry Pi assumed that
they could be like the Beagleboard and not require CE marking. So everyone
involved overlooked it. More of the blame lies with the distributors I feel. I
mean, they are meant to be the experts here, and have done this many times
before.

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polshaw
Can we use this opportunity to actually discuss what is involved in CE
certification in this case?

It doesn't have any radios so electromagnetic compatibility directive
shouldn't apply, and the low-voltage directive states it's for 'equipment
designed for use with a voltage rating of between 50 and 1000 V for
alternating current (A.C.) and between 75 and 1500 V for direct current
(D.C.)'.. since it runs on 5v DC and has no PS it should be ok there too [?:
If it shipped w/ an integrated PS, this would apply? would the whole device
need testing here or just the PS??].

So what does that leave and what does this testing involve?? (E: it seems to
be EMC testing from rPi.org, is this all, and what would it involve?)

FWIW, to me it sounds a little like F/RS want this to be certified as a
finished product so they can sell it in bundles, and profit maximise that way.

~~~
stephen_g
In Australia at least, pretty much _any_ electronic device has to be tested to
ensure unintended radiation emission between 9kHz and (I kid you not) 400GHz
is within acceptable limits before it gets a C-tick (similar to the CE
certification) and be sold.

I think most of the time they stick the device in an anechoic chamber and take
measurements at certain distances. For example, under the CISPR 22 standard
(that information technology equipment with a supply voltage of less than 600V
falls under) it must radiate less than 30dB (uV/m) of electromagnetic
radiation between 30 to 230MHz, measured at a distance of 10 metres with a
quasi-peak detector, less than 37dB at 230 to 1000MHz, and so on.

There are also restrictions of how much interference is caused from the power
supply (which shouldn't apply to the Raspberri Pi) and how much EM is emitted
from telecommunications ports on the board (which will apply to Ethernet, but
probably not USB).

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polshaw
I am guessing that most PCB/PS -like electronics would pass this without any
specific attention, given there were no major manufacturing defects?

I'm a little unsure why TI made efforts to avoid it.. or just because they
could?

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stephen_g
It depends on how fast things are clocked on your board. For anything less
than 100MHz, you wouldn't have to think about it. For faster clocks, you might
have to be a little wary (but it should be fairly easy for such a low power
device with proper ground and power planes, bypassing etc.)

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bprater
Non-hardware hacker question: as the Pi is modified over time, does it need to
be re-certified each time? Or is it certain components on the board that
require this?

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radiowave
Simple answer is "it depends". The device has to be assigned a risk category,
and depending on that there's a range of possibilities from the manufacturer
being able to self-certify (so long as they stand ready to demonstrate the
design process that went into a new revision of the product), and at the other
extreme, every revision having to be independently verified.

My employer is able to self-certify, but our products are much simpler than a
Raspberry Pi.

~~~
polshaw
What are your products? PCBs?

~~~
radiowave
Shackles, and other steel hardware.

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derda
I am wondering, why they haven't thought about those problems before. CE
certification, EMC testing, WEEE (european electronic waste regulations) are a
big part of why hardware is hard. I don't know about specific regulations in
the UK, but I guess they are similar to those here in germany.

You can get around those regulations if your product is for use by
professionals and/or for development purposes, that means there is some
professional knowledge needed to make the product work (soldering,
programming,...). For the rPI you only need a power adapter and a downloadable
image on a SD card, thats not really professional knowledge.

For CE certification, you can however put a CE badge on anything you want, and
refer to some regulation (I don't have the paragraph at hand atm). This
basically means "We think it will be alright". A frightening number of Chinese
imports do this. This is absolutely legal, the problem comes when something
bad happens, e.g. your product causes a pacemaker to fail, then you have to
prove that you took all necessary precautions to prevent this, which is
basically impossible if you haven't done proper EMC testing and such.

Designing complex circuits (like the rPI) that do not make any EMC problems is
extremely hard. I don't think most computer hardware would go through
testing/certification without problems, thats why your mainboard sits in a
metal case. My worst case guess is that they have to ship the boards in cases
or with some shields.

Disclaimer: I am a ECE student. My father is a consultant in the CE/WEEE
field. Statements above are based on memorys of conversations with him, when I
told him I had an idea for some hardware product (and he told me to forget it
unless I want to spent a lot of money on regulatory stuff)

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RLG_RLG
Sounds like this is going to be $99 by the time it is de-bugged (on
manufacturing side) and certified.

I am angry and frustrated because I want one ;-)

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ChuckMcM
Hopefully they aren't trying to sell them in Japan, the certification process
there is waaaaay painful.

