Is this a counterfeit Teensy 4.1

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phantomchips

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Hi

I just purchased a few Teensy 4.1s from an amazon seller. The cards that have come with them have no images on the back and the card stock is different to normal leading me to think they are counterfeit.
Here's an image of the back of the card.

Is there any other way to tell if they are counterfeit?

Thanks

teensyback.jpg
 
That looks perfectly fine; the 4.1 cards didn't have the diagram on the back at the start. I've seen the card with the back image here on the forums but I don't know if they've made it into production yet? The 4.1 cards I have here aren't quite as glossy as the 4.0 cards, and are a couple of mil thinner, so they look and feel a bit different. It's just different paper stock.
 
Ah ok, the stock seems very different. And the images of the card on the website really threw me off. I guess I will plug it in and see
 
Yes, I can confirm the Teensy 4.1 cards got off to a rough start. PJRC has been running short-staffed since March 2020. Teensy 4.1 was released in May 2020. Several compromises had to be made. The first few batches of cards were printed without the info on the back side. For most of 2020 the Teensy 4.1 product page had one scant info about actually using those things.

The current rev of the Teensy 4.1 card with info on the back started shipping in early February this year. All the Teensy product pages had major updates in December & January.

The PDF for that original printing the card is still on the PJRC main server. Here's a direct link.

https://www.pjrc.com/teensy/card11b_rev1_web.pdf
 
I got similar weird back side cards yesterday. I did recall some discussions about that info somewhere, so I just assumed I got some older stock or failed prints. (And these days, it seems that in general getting any stock is a case of being lucky, many places running out of stock and not getting new stuff from suppliers/manufacturers. Darned industry-wide issues and corona and side-ways parked ships in Suez and ...)

For me, the bigger what?-effect was that one of three Teensy 4.1's had its USB socket slightly misaligned (enough for me to notice it in the first few seconds of checking the thing). The pins seem to be soldered on right spots, though, and I assume it has gotten a usual "it can be programmed and blinks"-check anyway.

So, no worries, once I get some time, I'll be blinking those LEDs, too :p
 
bugi74 said:
I got similar weird back side cards yesterday. I did recall some discussions about that info somewhere, so I just assumed I got some older stock or failed prints. (And these days, it seems that in general getting any stock is a case of being lucky, many places running out of stock and not getting new stuff from suppliers/manufacturers. Darned industry-wide issues and corona and side-ways parked ships in Suez and ...)

For me, the bigger what?-effect was that one of three Teensy 4.1's had its USB socket slightly misaligned (enough for me to notice it in the first few seconds of checking the thing). The pins seem to be soldered on right spots, though, and I assume it has gotten a usual "it can be programmed and blinks"-check anyway.

So, no worries, once I get some time, I'll be blinking those LEDs, too :p
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, as you noticed the 5 USB host pins on the inside of the Teensy 4.1 are not aligned to 0.1" boundaries. This means that you can't use a standard prototype board to bring out these 5 pins. The reason is the Teensy 3.6 has its USB host pins in the same position (and the extra analog/ground pins for the Teensy 3.5), so the Teensy 4.1 is being compatible.
 
I meant this thing:
20210427_173704.jpg

I think the reason is that the holes for the connector's case/frame are bigger than the through-hole legs, so it has room to shift before it gets soldered. And needs to be held in place while soldering (one way or another) for it to stay in proper orientation/alignment. As long as the pins hit the correct spots, it is mostly cosmetic (unless one has really tightly fitting case or something).
 
While that doesn't look perfect to me, the standards for what constitutes a misaligned component allows for a surprising amount of misalignment. Considerably more than the naked eye would be able to see.

For what it's worth, I have purchased a lot of Teensy 4.1s and never seen anything close to this - connector or other component. I assume their assembler(s) are very good. On the other hand, you see a lot of stuff out of China with badly misaligned connectors. Probably done by the lowest cost subcontractor.
 
Perhaps the alignment optical feedback system isn't programmed for the connector, or there are reflection/glare
issues - good pick-and-place machines finalize the orientation and position using a camera system.

Certainly my two T4.0's have slightly wonky USB sockets, at different angles - but the BGA placement is of course
spot-on as it has to be.
 
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