Done A Runner

In late 2007 I became aware of a Dutch company called EVISOL who were proposing to be showing off a new product called the EVI200 in their car called Thorr.

In early 2008 I purchased an EVI200 via Metric Mind Corporation. A few months after this it became apparent the product was not going to be delivered on time and that development was not complete!

Mid year we received a large crate of goodies, including the EVI200 from MMC. Upon unpacking the EVI200, we became concerned by the fact that it contained no documentation at all! After a few emails, it became apparent we had received a product that was not what we had paid for (it did not have software loaded and documentation was not available).

At this point EVISOL gave us some visibility of the software development that they were endeavouring to complete while we waited patiently. We offered to help with our software engineering skills, but this offer was declined as they did not want to expose their IP.

Late in the year we received the first cut of software from EVISOL that would in theory turn the motor. After installing this we found some functionality was present, but the motor did not turn. From discussions it was also apparent that even if the motor had turned, this software was not expected to be of much use due to the many incomplete features.

Just before Xmas 2008 Victor from MMC found that one of his EVI200's was missing an internal cable required for it to work and we were requested to check our EVI200 for the same fault. Upon opening the EVI200 to perform this check, we noticed what CPU EVISOL was using (Infineon TC1775 cpu). We looked up information on this chip and were shocked by what we found. The CPU had fundamental Silicon flaws documented in the errata that had no workarounds. To me this errata seemed to indicate that if one was using interrupts, the software application was guaranteed to eventually lock up or crash. In my opinion, the chip should never have been used in the first place.

EVISOL had been reporting that during testing their application would occasionally lock up after 10 or 15 minutes. I reported the silicon flaws identified in the errata to EVISOL and they agreed this was an issue and said that they had also recently become aware of this.

After attempts to help EVISOL sort these technical issues, with very little willingness on EVISOL's part to let us get involved and a half hearted attempt by EVISOL to keep us in the loop with their own progress, we chose to collectively (via MMC) ask for our money back.

I have not had any direct communication from EVISOL since this request was made.

-- Main.PhilipCourt - 22 Nov 2009