Initial packaging for the Test kit was noticed to be recycled material. I find that very valuable in that it reduces non-biodegradable waste generated from packaging.
The board image on the box is blurry and may cause discomfort to some people with vision problems.
Opening the box I was dismayed to find the CD was not inside a sleeve. I tend to keep my development boards in their original packaging to keep things from getting confused and also so I can make sure the materials are in one spot if I need to re-install software. The CD rubbing on the anti-static material can cause scratches in shipping and might cause read errors.
I was also dismayed to find that the development board did not contain the same items represented on the box cover picture, with specific reference to the extra LED's and the battery clip. I immediately ordered the LED's and the battery clip based on information provided in the XL-Star page and went to work getting the software installed on my developments systems.
After the initial software installation, I found that the board did not power up correctly. Specifically the 3.3V LED did not illuminate. Investigation with a DMM showed that the board was only showing 1.2V on the 3.3V rail. The development board was packaged in a pink static bag, and sandwiched between pink static foam which prevented the possible damage caused by ESD. After finding the MCU voltage issue, I went to the schematics to trace where the 3.3V was generated and also what other components on the board utilized this source. To my dismay, the schematics provided for the board do not accurately represent the power regulator for the development board, but show a 5V-3.3V regulator based on a Freescale design. I was able to track down the power supply via pinouts and finding an miss-labeled IC and tracking down the marking to the correct power regulator. I was able to isolate the power problem to the MCU as it was warming up along with an increase in temperature of the regulator IC. I removed the IC from the board and confirmed the suspicion that the MCU was indeed shorting out and causing the power problem with the development board. After receiving the MCU and installing it. I was able to correctly load the provided test program to validate the operation of the MCU and provided LED's.
After completing the validation I embarked on the process of installing the remaining LED's and battery clip. The clip I ordered based on the page, was slightly smaller than the pad layout for the board and had to be widened to ensure it did not short out the negative and positive terminals for the battery block.
For the installation process of the LED's I found that all of the pads had solder bubbles as if they had been pasted before the board was run through the SMD oven. I find this an issue as it required the removal of solder from the pads to facilitate the installation of the LED's. Most hobbyists that will want the use the full LED set may not have adequate facilities to readily place 0603 LED's and may find the added solder to be misleading in the ease of placing them.
The addition of the remaining LED's and the battery clip greatly enhanced the experience of understanding the program in that it provided a better visual relation to the increased deflection angle that lit more of a direction string, giving a linear visual effect to amount of tilt.
My recommendation at this time would be to pre-install the LED's for programming ease evaluate a smaller central footprint for the battery area to accommodate different battery clip architectures.
The development environment based on Eclipse makes for an improved development environment, in that it isn't a new environment that has to be learned, to be able to do software development. The programming support provided on the CD is adequate in helping the beginning developer understand some of the more intricate points specific to the Freescale MCU. I did find however that the lack of integrated MM128 support in the chip wizard a little disheartening.
Overall I would recommend this board to someone that wants to get their feet wet into mems interfacing and LED control.
*edited 7/19/2011 to correct for misidentification of LED footprint size.*