Truthfully, it's sorta a non-issue from our point of view. Our products use original chips and they work reliably.
So, we wouldn't be involved in any kind of boycott movement. In the meantime, keep sending us your money. We'll spend it developing things you want to buy.
Ken Gracey
As far as I am concerned, if Parallax says they have this under control, then we shouldn't worry. We should just keep on buying their products
The photos I've seen that compare real and fake have all shown the FT232RL. Has anyone seen or heard that other packages or model have been faked, say the FT232RQ that is found on the prop plug? How about the newer FT231XS? I just built some boards with the '231X. I purchased them from main line suppliers, so I'm not worried I got fakes, but these threads have me wondering. I'll be building more.
I am not dumping FTDI, not a chance. I like their products that have enabled things for my small company that would not have been possible without them. Today I'm sending off 10 systems using that use the Vinculum chip, the vDrive, for the OWL2pe, BASIC Stamp 2pe40. I tested their new vDrive 3, which uses the Vinculum 2 chip, and found that it is backward compatible with my existing firmware. FTDI has been soooo diligent through the years about updating their firmware, advancing it, speeding it up, squashing bugs, responding to users, I still have great respect for them as a company and this incident has only taken off the slightest edge off of that. I fully expect them to make good this slip-up of judgement.
With regard to the FT231XS and possible alternatives. I spent hours upon hours poring through the data and app notes to understand how to customize and implement the full battery charging options with suspend, power-enable, and dedicated charger. I don't know if the SiLabs chips mentioned supports those, but it does not appear so on the surface, and even if it does there would be another mountain to climb to get there. I echo Ken's comment about the work required to switch over, include in that the investment in understanding and experience.
I know about the second source issue. It has bitten me many times. Just in the past weeks, I sent out a new assembly order for my OWL2pe data loggers, but found that the AT45DB081D flash memory chip was hard to get. Atmel sold the IP to Adesto Technologies, who came out with a version "E" of that chip which drops 5 volt input tolerance. Oh no. I had to scrape the bottom of the barrel to come up with enough Atmel "D" version chips. On the other hand, despite having discontinued the SX48 chip, Parallax has been super about keeping the BS2p series alive and the Parallax store still shows over 85000 SX48BD-G chips in stock. That is quite an investment in customer service longevity.
On the other hand, despite having discontinued the SX48 chip, Parallax has been super about keeping the BS2p series alive and the Parallax store still shows over 85000 SX48BD-G chips in stock. That is quite an investment in customer service longevity.
We certainly did our job well when it came to the EOL notification. Not a single customer was left without inventory to do lifetime builds of whatever they were making. This came at a cost, of course. Those remaining 85K chips are worth well over $100K and I'd be happy to turn that into some cash at this stage.
That's a heck of a lot of environmental dataloggers, in your case. But at least you can probably count on having these chips well into your retirement because we also have our own inventory locked up for the BASIC Stamp series.
Maybe somebody will design a high-volume, low-cost product from the remaining inventory that needs a 50 MIPS 8-bitter. I'm ready to offer these at a paltry 50 cents each.
We certainly did our job well when it came to the EOL notification. Not a single customer was left without inventory to do lifetime builds of whatever they were making. This came at a cost, of course. Those remaining 85K chips are worth well over $100K and I'd be happy to turn that into some cash at this stage.
That's a heck of a lot of environmental dataloggers, in your case. But at least you can probably count on having these chips well into your retirement because we also have our own inventory locked up for the BASIC Stamp series.
Maybe somebody will design a high-volume, low-cost product from the remaining inventory that needs a 50 MIPS 8-bitter. I'm ready to offer these at a paltry 50 cents each.
Ken Gracey
Hmm, at that price I may have to get a couple hundred of them!
Maybe somebody will design a high-volume, low-cost product from the remaining inventory that needs a 50 MIPS 8-bitter. I'm ready to offer these at a paltry 50 cents each.
Given small AVR's can 'sort of' do Low speed USB in Software, and on the thread topic of USB choices, can these be coaxed to do the same ?
Comments
I think you are right. I would not get into the "boycott" idea. The world is not about to redesign everything because of the debacle.
Only the "walking away" idea.
OK
As far as I am concerned, if Parallax says they have this under control, then we shouldn't worry. We should just keep on buying their products
I am not dumping FTDI, not a chance. I like their products that have enabled things for my small company that would not have been possible without them. Today I'm sending off 10 systems using that use the Vinculum chip, the vDrive, for the OWL2pe, BASIC Stamp 2pe40. I tested their new vDrive 3, which uses the Vinculum 2 chip, and found that it is backward compatible with my existing firmware. FTDI has been soooo diligent through the years about updating their firmware, advancing it, speeding it up, squashing bugs, responding to users, I still have great respect for them as a company and this incident has only taken off the slightest edge off of that. I fully expect them to make good this slip-up of judgement.
With regard to the FT231XS and possible alternatives. I spent hours upon hours poring through the data and app notes to understand how to customize and implement the full battery charging options with suspend, power-enable, and dedicated charger. I don't know if the SiLabs chips mentioned supports those, but it does not appear so on the surface, and even if it does there would be another mountain to climb to get there. I echo Ken's comment about the work required to switch over, include in that the investment in understanding and experience.
I know about the second source issue. It has bitten me many times. Just in the past weeks, I sent out a new assembly order for my OWL2pe data loggers, but found that the AT45DB081D flash memory chip was hard to get. Atmel sold the IP to Adesto Technologies, who came out with a version "E" of that chip which drops 5 volt input tolerance. Oh no. I had to scrape the bottom of the barrel to come up with enough Atmel "D" version chips. On the other hand, despite having discontinued the SX48 chip, Parallax has been super about keeping the BS2p series alive and the Parallax store still shows over 85000 SX48BD-G chips in stock. That is quite an investment in customer service longevity.
We certainly did our job well when it came to the EOL notification. Not a single customer was left without inventory to do lifetime builds of whatever they were making. This came at a cost, of course. Those remaining 85K chips are worth well over $100K and I'd be happy to turn that into some cash at this stage.
That's a heck of a lot of environmental dataloggers, in your case. But at least you can probably count on having these chips well into your retirement because we also have our own inventory locked up for the BASIC Stamp series.
Maybe somebody will design a high-volume, low-cost product from the remaining inventory that needs a 50 MIPS 8-bitter. I'm ready to offer these at a paltry 50 cents each.
Ken Gracey
Hmm, at that price I may have to get a couple hundred of them!
(one web example
http://www.workinprogress.ca/v-usb-tutorial-software-only-usb-for-mega-tiny/ )