Documentation Hardware 2007 Revision Notices 
Headlines:
Revised contents of the Screw & Spacer Pack
GPSstix switching to NEO module for GPS
Related Antenna Change
Product Names Changes - waysmall stuart and waysmall original
Product Recall: Audiostix2 and GPSstix
Location Change: wifi module on wifistix-CF
CF Card Connector Change: Return to black, Type II connector
New Antenna Type: For wifistix and wifistix-CF
As of August 15, 2007, Gumstix will not use the tiny M1.0 Cheese-head screws and corresponding nuts in the Screw and Spacer kit. They are just too small.
They are replaced with Filister Head 0-80 screws and corresponding nuts.
As of July 10, 2007, Gumstix switched to the u-blox NEO-4S module for the GPSstix with version 1678.
Correction:
It had been announced that GPSstix board with the NEO module would use an MCX connector. This is not the case. The GPS board will continue to use an SMA connector for antenna - which is compatible with an ANN SMA Antenna.
Newly released and future boards, such as the goliathGPS-vx and the GPSstix-vx, will use the MCX connector.
ANN MCX antenna (e.g. as opposed to ANN SMA) would be the match and can be ordered here
This same u-blox NEO-4S module is being used in the GoliathGPS-vx expansion board.
The ethernet-capable microSD expansion boards for the verdex motherboard, such as:
use the LAN9117 high performance, single chip controller from SMSC, part of the LAN9118 family of products.
This LAN9117 ethernet controller requires new software drivers for both u-boot and linux, which might not be pre-installed by default on verdex motherboards. It will have to be installed in that case by the customer, which might require additional hardware such as a console-vx or consoleLCD-vx expansion board.
.
As of March 28th, 2007, these 60-pin expansion boards have name changes as follows:
| Product Name before March 28th | Product Name after March 28, 2007 |
|---|---|
| waysmall original | console-hw |
| waysmall stuart | console-st |
As of May 2008, the work to factory-generate serial numbers on each gumstix motherboard has NOT been completed.
In 2007, Gumstix was moving to put a factory-generated
serial number on each gumstix motherboard in the production process,
and to use Gumstix-assigned OUI for ethernet and USBnet MACs. The code is already in u-boot
r1236 to handle this - u-boot knows to look for the information in flash but Gumstix Engineering has not completed the work to put the
needed information in flash that results in unique mac-address assignment.
Gumstix motherboards that do not contain this guaranteed unique serial number have collisions that can only be avoided using a locally-assigned MAC address. This address is generated with a low chance of colliding with the other MAC addresses generated in the manufacturing process.
The Ethernet MAC address is calculated algorithmically by u-boot. Once this funciton is available, Customers will be able to update to the latest u-boot to get a more robust and less collision-likely MAC generation algorithm.
A bug was discovered in the u-boot MAC generation code which increased the likelihood of collisions, and this bug was fixed in revisions 1230-1236 of the buildroot trunk.
Any u-boot version greater than or equal to r1236 will have a much lower chance of collisions, once the flash writing has been completed.
As of February 19th, 2007, several audiostix 2 and GPSstix boards of revision -R1286 (approximately 25 of each) slipped through testing; they are non-functional and need to be repaired or replaced.
Customers should contact This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it to arrange an RMA under warranty coverage. The products at issue are identified by the product name on the board (Audiostix II PCB00012-R1286) and by 2 blue resistors. A drawing showing the location of these 2 resistors can be found at: here.
Those wish to do so may may field-correct this problem themselves by removing the two resistors from the boards, and also connecting 2 ground pads together as shown in the image.
Background: The power supply design was changed to allow an alternative version of the MIC5219 (the MIC5219ADJ instead of the MIC5219-3.3) that requires 2 resistors("R7" and "R8") to set the output voltage. This version of the PCB was also discovered to have a discontinuity in the ground plane (can be seen in the published layouts).
Schematics and layout are posted: here.
The wifistix-CF expansion boards being shipped in January 2007 have the wifi module misplaced on top of one of the through-holes, as shown in this picture below.
In the next revision of the wifistix-CF expansion board, expected in March 2007, we will rev the board and do 2 things: move the wifi module to the left and move the power supply down.
This will allow usage of that through-hole and will also let the bluetooth antenna be properly seated to the motherboard, without interference.
As of February, 2007. Gumstix engineering has gone back to using the black Type II RoHS CF Card Connector for the netCF and cfstix boards. The white CF card connector was only a Type I connector.
In addition, the boards are now being manufactured with improved quality control.
wifistix and wifistix-CF use the u.fl antenna.
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