The last time we checked in on the progress of getting the first batch of the $35 Raspberry Pi PC units to their customers, it had hit another roadblock. Now it looks like that barrier has been cleared but there"s still no word on when these PCs will actually ship to the folks that ordered them.
You may remember that a few days ago, the Raspberry Pi PCs were sitting in a warehouse, newly shipped from China. This was due to the PCs" two distributors, RS Components and element14/Premier Farnell, refusing to ship the units out until the PC received its CE mark, which would allow it to be sold in the countries that are a part of the European Union.
Now a new blog post from the Raspberry Pi Foundation reports after a week of testing, the PCs have now been approved to get that CE mark. In addition, the company has also made sure the PCs meet with approval of the USA"s FCC rules along with the rules of Canada and Australia.
The testing process to get the CE mark is also described with a bit of humor. The blog states:
The Raspberry Pi had to pass radiated and conducted emissions and immunity tests in a variety of configurations (a single run can take hours), and was subjected to electrostatic discharge (ESD) testing to establish its robustness to being rubbed on a cat. It’s a long process, involving a scary padded room full of blue cones, turntables that rise and fall on demand, and a thing that looks a lot like a television aerial crossed with Cthulhu.
Unfortunately, the blog still doesn"t have a ship date yet. It states, "There is still a mountain of paperwork for us to sign, and that then has to be looked over by RS Components and element14/Premier Farnell." However, it does add that it anticipates this issue to be "... a piece of cake compared to what we’ve been doing all week."