RS vs Farnell build quality

Hi guys and girls,

Having RPi's from both RS and Farnell I notice some build quality differences between them. I'm not going to say which one is which, because I want your feedback to decide if I've just received a Friday afternoon build, or if one supplier is using a better fab house.

The not quite so good RPi features:
- Composite connector not soldered on square.
- Edge cut of board not as clean

Both boards work fine, and a slightly wonky composite connector can be easily corrected.

So has anyone else got one from each and noticed a difference?

viewtopic.php?p=117793#p117793 and http://elinux.org/RaspberryPi_Boards

AFAIK we still don't know if each distributor has their own production/assembly lines, or if they're both buying boards (being made in different batches) from the same factory. And this might be 'confidential info' we'll never know?

- Composite connector not soldered on square.
- Edge cut of board not as clean

It is difficult to be sure without pictures, but this sounds like normal cosmetic variations.

The PCB holes for the through-hole connectors cannot be made a tight fit, so they will end up soldered in slightly varying positions. It is not a fault as long as the connector is flush with the board vertically and the pins are not bent.

It is not usually possible to machine cut a board on all sides, because then there would nothing left to hold it by. My RasPis appear to be cut cleanly on the Ethernet/USB side and parts of the other short side, but scored with a V-groove and snapped on both of the long sides. Snapped edges will naturally vary in appearance. Again, it is not a fault unless the board has snapped in the wrong place, so that internal copper layers are revealed.

It is not usually possible to machine cut a board on all sides, because then there would nothing left to hold it by. My RasPis appear to be cut cleanly on the Ethernet/USB side and parts of the other short side, but scored with a V-groove and snapped on both of the long sides. Snapped edges will naturally vary in appearance.

Nothing a light rub with sandpaper won't fix, if it's something you're that concerned about

LOL... Bit hard to sandpaper under some of those connectors!

Anyway, yes, the Ethernet/USB edge is machine cut on both boards. The other 3 are scored and snapped. Just one board doesn't seem to be as deeply scored before snapping leaving it a bit rough. Maybe the blade was wearing out.

Anyway, they both work fine, and if the composite connector causes any issues with a case (or just annoys me too much when I look at it) I'll warm out the hot-air rework station and straighten it out

I was just curious if anyone else had noticed a lower quality on one source vs the other.

I've got a third board arriving any day now, it will be interesting to compare.

I've got three boards and they all look really good. Two of them came from Farnell and one came from RS.

There's a tiny little "tooth" sticking out on the corner next to the power connector on the board from Farnell, but it's really small; easily smaller than 1mm.