Notecarrier-A grief

Hardware Notecarrier A
1

I have some problems with the Notecarrier-A, that should be easy to solve.

Notecarrier-A
Notecarrier-A1280×1194 312 KB

As you can see in the attached image, the antenna cable for the main antenna is too short. This really puts stress on the small connectors. I am also not sure if it is a good idea to have the cable above the chip. My suggestion is that you replace the cable with a longer one.

Secondly, as you can see (or should I say: can’t see): once the notecard is assembled, you cannot see the pin-labels of the connector.

No problem you might think, because heading to the datasheet gives you a section about the 22-pin connector. But in the datasheet the pins are not numbered and in the table you also skip a number of pins. So no help here either. Ok, there is the schematic in small print and also an image in the datasheet where you can start counting pin-sockets, but that is very cumbersome.

So I would suggest the following:

  • as a quick fix, update the datasheet and add pin-numbers to the existing table.
  • add pin-labels to the bottom of the PCB in the next revision
2

Hi @datalogger,

Unfortunately the Notecarrier A isn’t compatible with the Notecard Cell+WiFi for the reasons you point out (as noted in the store and datasheet).

3

Thanks, I should have read all the docs better. Nevertheless, is the sole incompatibility due to the short cable and the labels, or are there other reasons? Because the cable issue and the labels should be something that could be solved.

BTW: I think the only reasons I have Cell+Wifi is that the Cell-only Notecard was (and is) out of stock. I have no use for WIFI anyhow.