Prototype Limited Edition and missing capacitor ?

Hello to the Arduino community !
I bought an Arduino this week at http://robotshop.ca/.
It's great ! No issues at all.

But, I'm curious about two things.
I took a look at pictures on the internet and noticed differences between my board and the other Diecimila board.
Why is it written Prototype Limited Edition on my board ?
Why is it missing one of the 25 Volts capacitor ?

Here is a picture of my Arduino Diecimila board:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/17/Arduino_Diecimila.jpg

Thank you !

Damn. I must be blind.
Mine says that too and I never noticed it. ;D

Mine has both capacitors however.
You might have gotten a dud.

I think that's the last prototype before the production run. You are missing one of the capacitors. It looks like it snapped off, as you can sort of see the SMt pin mark in the solder.

D

PS: what camera setup did you use to take such a fantastic picture?

ATH500, look at the positive side, you might be owning a piece of Arduino history! And if you don't use the external power supply, then the capacitor is not needed.

Yes I'll be using an external power source like a 9 volts battery or a 9 volts DC transformer.
And I already used a 9 volts transformer on it for short time, and it worked fine.
I think that capacitor is used in conjunction with the other one to equalize the current right ?

Can the fact that one is missing capacitor have a future impact on my Arduino ? Like stressing the electronic components ?

I'm thinking of calling RobotShop and telling them that I got one with a missing capacitor, they might send another one back to me.

Thank you for you help.

PS: what camera setup did you use to take such a fantastic picture?

A 10 megapixels Canon A640, with white paper under the Arduino and a fluorescent light on the side.

Yeah just send them a email saying its a dud or alternatively you could just get a similar capacitor and solder it on.

Do you think it's so bad to have a missing capacitor on my board ? Even if I used external power source my Arduino seems to work with no noticeable problem, maybe it's because I am not using all the inputs and outputs on my board.

There is still one 25Volts capacitor on my board, maybe this one is doing the job, I don't know...

Hello

You should be able to get a replacement board from the distributor

The capacitor obviously fell off during transport between them and you.
It happens sometimes with postal delivery.

the board would be working properly anyway for most of the applications even without that capacitor
(do get it replaced anyway)

massimo

The capacitor obviously fell off during transport between them and you.
It happens sometimes with postal delivery.

massimo

It is the "David Copperfield" capacitor then... because it disappeared, right?

My Arduino is in its box, waiting after UPS to come and ship it back to RobotShop for an exchange.

By the way, it came in a plastic envelope inside a big box and was really well protected, I would have found the capacitor inside somewhere if it snapped off because of the shipping from RobotShop to my house but I didn't, so it didn't came off because of that.

The capacitor obviously fell off during transport between them and you.
It happens sometimes with postal delivery.

I have a customer who received an Arduino without capacitors also, and they were not in the bag. looking closely at the PCB you can see the the parts were never placed rather than broken off

So, there must have been a flaw that happened in the surface-mounting process of those electrolytic capacitors.

it's the Darn *%!$# ROHS solder... has to be done exactly right or it's not as good as old-fashioned, poisonous lead type.

D

Just an update to tell you that I sent my Arduino back to RobotShop Tuesday and received a new one Friday, it has both capacitors, yay!