Hi fellow Udooers and A62ers, I just wanted to create this post since there seems to be some misinformation regarding support for the SECO SBC-A62 board. This board was born for one specific purpose: as an industrial-grade community board to enable makers to create a fully deployable manufacturing product (instead of being stuck with a proof of concept that isn't be industrial grade). That being said, it is still meant as a community board and is therefore open source. In fact, SECO is the first and only industrial embedded manufacturer to provide a single board computer with publicly available schematics. This board was meant to be used by people who have already developed in UDOO and experts in Linux/Android who do not need support. Think of it as a stepping stone from UDOO to Industry for new coming embedded pros! This of course entails that support for the A62 needs to derive from the community and SECO provides direct support only in four specific cases: 1. Under a business agreement, where a B2B customer guarantees a number of annual units for a prolonged period of time. This info is explicit on the A62 product page (http://www.seco.com/prods/usa/category/single-board-computer/sbc-a62-j.html). 2. Ticketing for hardware related issues, concerning malfunctions or supported features 3. Ticketing for software related bugs within the officially provided BSPs ( ANDROID AND/OR LINUX) 4. RMA for defective boards (hardware related issues only) Direct support regretfully cannot be provided for any case outside of these four, if you are not a B2B customer and especially for application level development or OSs that are not the official ones. For these cases, the community, which we are strongly strengthening, must come into play. The reason for this choice is to keep the price of the board low and accessible to everyone by not including the standard "support" cost into the board. Some of you may have opened tickets that haven't been replied to yet and SECO is currently working on that. However, all cases which are not B2B, are not deemed HW faults or SW bugs concerning SECO's BSPs, will most likely receive a "cannot support" reply. I hope this creates some clarity regarding this matter.
Hi Modjo, you're welcome and I will try to give as much support as I can to this wonderful team of adventurers! Sorry for the delay in the reply, but as you can imagine, I'm covering many bases. Regarding the changes from Rev A to Rev B, most changes involve components, voltage levels, watchdog manipulations, some modifications on the dedicated WiFi Connector, all of which are transparent to the user. The most important changes visible on the board are the expansion connector change (connector J8) from old IDE type to new connector. Also SECO added separate connector for Serial Debug.
@SECO_FAE I love the SBC-A62 but I am wondering why you do not sell those boards in the UDOO shop to allow the community to grow? Those boards are the perfect enhancements of UDOO portfolio some makers do not need the Arduino part to build their project. By the way the community started to support your boards You'll find an updated Yocto/Openembedded layer here: https://github.com/graugans/meta-udoo I am working on a SPL enabled u-boot for the SBC-A62 https://github.com/graugans/u-boot-seco So I hope this community will grow
I'm agree with you Graugans ++1 ! The Sa62 is a very nice board (with it's can module, rtc, 2 LVDS ...). In my case i never use the Atmel in my udoo quad, i just need to use some GPIO (A9 side is sufficient for that) --> Sa62 is perfect. The only point when the Atmel can be useful is for adc ... Another point, hopefully we have a guy like Graugans on this forum to improve yocto (for all the cards !) , but i'm sure if another makers can buy the Sa62 on udoo shop, the community can grow and finally we can have the best card for maker (even if now they have raspberry pi 3 ...). Then, pro side (also my case) we have an access to ticketing in your web site (long time that i didn't have answer, even if i update my ticket ...) is good but with this mean the information is not share when an issue is solved, with this forum it's the case and i hope the community will grow in future. You have design nice hardware )for a good price) but we just need a little more support (soft) to facilitate the use of your card !
@graugans @modjo Thanks guys for your feedback. I love this board too. As for purchasing, it is also very simple to purchase it online at www.seco.com. I've stated in another post the reason we can't sell on UDOO.ORG ( commercial agreements and market segment is not consumer). I am also extremely happy to see all the wonderful work you guys are doing. I am pushing the community like crazy among the customers that I am talking to who are interested in buying the board as well as with NXP. I believe we will soon have a strong community! As for ticketing, I apologize because you weren't provided correct guidance and info. I recommend you talk with your sales representative regarding the issue. I am constantly talking to our tech support staff to see what we can do but we are trying to remain along the guidelines given my management to allow the community to become self sufficient. So it is hard to find a perfect compromise. I also thank you for your patience as this is a path that no other manufacturer has ever taken in the past. We are the first industrial, non-consumer embedded manufacturer to offer an industrial board ( with the above mentioned features: rtc, CAN, multiple serial options, industrial temp option) as full open source, so it is also a learning process for us. I will keep you guys posted with all the info that I get bombarded with ( HAHAHA) as soon as I receive it. Thanks again and great work guys!!!
