Author Topic: Model A vs. Model B (Read 8226 times)

MichaelMeissner · « **on:** January 04, 2013, 05:42:07 pm »

As my place in the shipping queue is now 129 (from 1,600 or some such), I decided to look at the directions for building it. I noticed that there was a model a and model b chip, with the on board Led on P1 for model a, and P0 for model b. Also, the I2C shield/lcd would not work on the model b unless you cut the trace to the led. http://digistump.com/wiki/digispark/tutorials/modelbi2c

I would hope that model B was a temporary aberration, and that going forward we won't have to cut the trace just to use I2C (particularly since you are selling the I2C extender shield and I2C lcd, both of which I bought). Are model B's still being shipped? Is it likely that in my order of 3 digisparks, I would get some A's and some B's, which would make it messy in terms of coding.

digistump · « **Reply #1 on:** January 04, 2013, 06:31:34 pm »

Orders only get one type -

Here is how it shakes out:
Model B was the design we presented on Kickstarter (or the final version of it) LED was on P0 because that made for a very simple quick start, the trace was cut-table for \"advanced\" users using I2C - these are what we put into production right after the Kickstarter ended.

After we started to see more and more people buying and adding I2C devices (at first they were the least popular) and through our own work with the Digispark found that I2C was much more essential then we thought we made the change to Model A (called model A since it will be the main version moving forward, unless we revise it again) - so we ended up with 1/3 model B and 2/3 model A - we had to decide between this or all Model B version, we thought it\'d be better to push the change mid-production rather than have everyone get a Model B. That said we feel Model B works just as well, we personally cut the LED once we have a circuit debugged anyway, it is easy to do, and is the device presented on the Kickstarter.

So:
We\'ve shipped nearly 10,000 Digisparks - and all Model Bs have gone out. Many, many model As have gone out as well.

Each order gets one type - we made sure of this.

If anyone has trouble with cutting the trace on the Model B we\'ll be happy to offer support via email.

MichaelMeissner · « **Reply #2 on:** January 04, 2013, 09:03:06 pm »

Thanks. While I\'m at the beginning end of programming microprocessors (but not programming in general), I find it useful to have a builtin LED to turn on/off as a debug aid. This is particularly true on the Spark, since you don\'t have the serial monitor to watch println\'s like you do in an Arduino. Since you haven\'t shipped mine yet, it looks like I will get a model A.

digistump · « **Reply #3 on:** January 04, 2013, 09:04:10 pm »

You will also have serial mon type debugging via usb hid - as of the software update going out tonight

MichaelMeissner · « **Reply #4 on:** January 04, 2013, 09:07:14 pm »

Ok, great. I\'m looking forward to it. Though I must admit, I have 2 kickstarter projects already that I got the hardware and I haven\'t had time to build them (Meet Roy and Hexy) and I\'m anticipating two more (Digispark & RadioBlock).