I received my Freescale Acceleration Sensor (RD3803MMA7660FC) evaluation kit last Friday (01/05) and was excited to try it out. This is an early review.
Everything needed was in the box I received, well almost. The kit comes with a very easy to follow setup sheet and CD. I inserted the CD into my HP laptop, as instructed, but the install program wouldn't run from the CD. I finally had to manually copy the installation zip file to my laptop. The USB to serial (VCP) driver would not install on my MS Vista operating system. After hunting through the CD, I ended up at www.ftdichip.com for the latest driver (2.06.00), which loaded fine. Well maybe not so fine since I lost USB connection to my printer.
But now I could run the demo software. There are several demos provided with the kit and they ran without problems. Each one demonstrates a different feature of the acceleration sensors. There is certainly more to explore with the sensors.
I was very disappointed with a short video included with the kit. Not with the content, but the quality. It was the worst video I have seen in a long while (including some home videos). The last few minutes are used to point out different components on the board, but the picture is so out-of-focus you can't see anything.
I hope to have more to say about the sensors in the near future and I look forward to the comments of other reviewers.
Thank you Alistair for the opportunity to evaluate this kit.
Gordon Margulieux
gordon.margulieux@garmin.com
