Well, I've been in Greece for the whooping time of 20 hours - but we managed to find solutions for the remaining annoyances I had when assembling the units.
Here are all the issues I encountered while I was assembling the first 200 units:
a) It was hard to close the top lid. We needed to be extra careful and cracked a few screens
b) The DPad hit the case on the opening when pressing down
c) The nubs got stuck
d) The lower shoulder buttons didn't work properly (they got stopped before they properly pushed the button)
e) The battery cover was almost impossible to open
Here is what I had to do to fix them:
a) FormAction added some tiny supporting pegs to keep the display in position... their idea might've been good (even though they didn't ask for permission on that), but the problem is that single pegs lead to an extra force applied to the display. This is not a problem when the display is correctly inside the case, but while assembling, it easily cracks the screen if you're not careful. Therefore, we did cut all these manually with a knife.
b) We had to manually mill the case to prevent that from happening.
c) This was the most annoying thing... again, we had to mill the area around the nubs to make the plastic a bit thinner and ensure the nubs won't hit the plastic.
d) This also was a bit of work - we needed to manually cut the case a bit more open to make sure that the button can be pressed and doesn't hit the case first.
e) Aaaand another area where we had to manually cut plastic with a knife. If we cut too much, the cover can't be closed anymore. So we needed to cut, test, cut again, test, and so on, until it was properly working.
How has this been fixed now?
a) The pegs have been removed from the mould, the machine temperature has been optimized to ensure the case is not too tight. Opening, closing and especially assembling the lid is now a lot easier and faster.
b) The mould has been modified so that the DPad doesn't hit the case anymore.
c) This was one of the things we investigated together during my last Greece visit. The solution: The nubs are now transparent. Yes, really. I'll explain further below
d) This also was one of the things we worked on. We carefully increased the height of the peg that pushes the button step by step. 0.1mm, 0.2mm, 0.3mm until we reached 0.4mm, which seems to be the value that makes the shoulder button feel good. Increase it too much - and it's not fixable anymore. That's why we did it step by step.
e) The battery cover has been completely redesigned, as you already know
Okay, how does making the nubs transparent fix things?
Well, this was a surprise to me as well. In case you don't know: Plastic is usually transparent. Color is added with pellets.
These pellets change the plastic physically. This usually isn't such a big problem as the plastic is 1mm strong. But the nubs have a very thin disc. And if you put the black ones on the table, it can be seen that this small disc is warped a bit on the black one whereas the transparent ones are fully flat.
This warp was enough to make the nubs get stuck inside the case. We tried the transparent ones inside different black cases - and they always worked.
This was also the reason the battery cover was too tight with the black case - whereas it worked fine with the transparent ones...
On a side note: If you twist and turn a black case, it will break - that doesn't happen with the transparent one. So yes, the color DOES change the case physically.
Don't worry - it only breaks if you REALLY twist it with force... that's not possible with an assembled Pyra.
So, I can now continue to assemble the remaining cases I still have here - using transparent nubs and the new shoulder buttons as soon as I receive them.
In the mean time, we'll produce more cases which will then go to the painting company.
Here are all the issues I encountered while I was assembling the first 200 units:
a) It was hard to close the top lid. We needed to be extra careful and cracked a few screens
b) The DPad hit the case on the opening when pressing down
c) The nubs got stuck
d) The lower shoulder buttons didn't work properly (they got stopped before they properly pushed the button)
e) The battery cover was almost impossible to open
Here is what I had to do to fix them:
a) FormAction added some tiny supporting pegs to keep the display in position... their idea might've been good (even though they didn't ask for permission on that), but the problem is that single pegs lead to an extra force applied to the display. This is not a problem when the display is correctly inside the case, but while assembling, it easily cracks the screen if you're not careful. Therefore, we did cut all these manually with a knife.
b) We had to manually mill the case to prevent that from happening.
c) This was the most annoying thing... again, we had to mill the area around the nubs to make the plastic a bit thinner and ensure the nubs won't hit the plastic.
d) This also was a bit of work - we needed to manually cut the case a bit more open to make sure that the button can be pressed and doesn't hit the case first.
e) Aaaand another area where we had to manually cut plastic with a knife. If we cut too much, the cover can't be closed anymore. So we needed to cut, test, cut again, test, and so on, until it was properly working.
How has this been fixed now?
a) The pegs have been removed from the mould, the machine temperature has been optimized to ensure the case is not too tight. Opening, closing and especially assembling the lid is now a lot easier and faster.
b) The mould has been modified so that the DPad doesn't hit the case anymore.
c) This was one of the things we investigated together during my last Greece visit. The solution: The nubs are now transparent. Yes, really. I'll explain further below
d) This also was one of the things we worked on. We carefully increased the height of the peg that pushes the button step by step. 0.1mm, 0.2mm, 0.3mm until we reached 0.4mm, which seems to be the value that makes the shoulder button feel good. Increase it too much - and it's not fixable anymore. That's why we did it step by step.
e) The battery cover has been completely redesigned, as you already know
Okay, how does making the nubs transparent fix things?
Well, this was a surprise to me as well. In case you don't know: Plastic is usually transparent. Color is added with pellets.
These pellets change the plastic physically. This usually isn't such a big problem as the plastic is 1mm strong. But the nubs have a very thin disc. And if you put the black ones on the table, it can be seen that this small disc is warped a bit on the black one whereas the transparent ones are fully flat.
This warp was enough to make the nubs get stuck inside the case. We tried the transparent ones inside different black cases - and they always worked.
This was also the reason the battery cover was too tight with the black case - whereas it worked fine with the transparent ones...
On a side note: If you twist and turn a black case, it will break - that doesn't happen with the transparent one. So yes, the color DOES change the case physically.
Don't worry - it only breaks if you REALLY twist it with force... that's not possible with an assembled Pyra.
So, I can now continue to assemble the remaining cases I still have here - using transparent nubs and the new shoulder buttons as soon as I receive them.
In the mean time, we'll produce more cases which will then go to the painting company.
