A few months ago I purchased 4 of the freedom boards expecting to use them as the heart of a new medical product I am designing. This past week I powered up the device for the first time. It sort of worked. I was having issues reading a potentiometer which was using the 3.3 V supply on the Freedom board.
In the course of troubleshooting, I accidentally connected the 3V3 supply to a switch and not the pot. This, evidently, shorted it to ground and some of the magic smoke was escaping from the voltage regulator. This continued for 5-8 seconds before I disconnected it.
Well, we all know that life happens so I expected to replace the board. This was not a big deal because I had back ups, but I was not looking forward to unsoldering and resoldering the four double row headers I needed on the replacement board.
However, to be sure the board was truly worthless I tried it again in circuit wired correctly. I was very surprised to find that the board STILL WORKED!
So, Freescale, THANK YOU for designing your Freedom board robust enough to stand up against normal people like me who make mistakes.
