A video. Again. Mostly about cases.

[fusion_power]

It's interesting to see after all these years the (final) cases are ready - sort of. Well, also interesting to seethat the old company tinkered years onto these shapes and was not able to make it good looking. I would not hire this company for anything again and warn others to do as well.
Making molds that do what they should is part of the job. I know that injection molding is a science of it's own, you have to look at thousands of things so that it will work at the end. Constant thickness of the walls of an injection molded plastic piece for instance is critical and can lead to this kind of distortion ED showed us in the Video. Choosing the best spots for the injection of the material is also important, Molding Companies should know this as well.
I just can make a guess that the actual design of the case is also an issue, maybe it is not the best design to be used as molded parts, maybe other shapes and forms would lead into better results, no clue. Fact is, even chinese companies can do good quality today when it comes to injection molding. I recnetly folowed an Shop owner and his trip to China to visit Factories that make (legal!) LEGO alternatives, and there are many companies in China that do compatible bricks and parts. A lego (compatible) brick needs tolerances up to 1/1000mm if you like to know. So it must be precise or it just does not work. A Pandora case is compared simple to that I would assume.
I'm sure Azuls and the new company will make a great job and fix most of the remaining issues.

Well, back to the topic, the cases look "usable", I just would spice up the colours more, to dull, to flat. We don't want shiny surfaces but a little bit more "depth" and "saturation" into the colours should not hurt.
If you really need to paint the pyra case, well please use at least a paint that STICKS onto the surface, unlike the Pandora paint.

 

[Djoga'Ro]

Clear cases won't work with the backlit keyboard and the backlit top logo. They were only for prototyping and testing the moulds in the early days, and was never planned for the final product.

Well, for one some folk don't seem to mind, but rather prefer that. And then, a clear case may serve as a canvas to colour it oneself on the inside - I'm aware that due to structures on the inside you cannpt colour it gapless.
So, if ED would, after finalization of the molds, have a minimal economically sensible batch produced to put on the shelves, I'd order.

 

[Farox]

Thanks ED for the video.

For me we need to paint the case...i don't really like discolorations.

 

[Pyramancer]

Gosh EvilDragon... retract the blade of your knife before waving your hands around near it. I had to play the first part of the video three times 'cos I couldn't focus for worrying you would chop your fingers off!

BTW: This time, I made a one-shot video without any editing (similar to a live stream).
Such videos are way easier and faster to produce than the other videos I did - if you're interested, I could do more like these. Let me know

1. I definitely think an informal, one-shot video like this is just fine. (It's not worth wasting the time for fancy video production for this sort of information.)

2. Are the unpopulated circuit boards already made then? I didn't quite understand that bit of the video -- you didn't mention them explicitly (I don't think) but you did say that everything was ready to go for assembly.

3. With regards to painting the cases, if it improves the appearance and doesn't much increase the cost and doesn't much delay production, I would be okay with a painted case (with the underlying plastic close to the same colour as the paint). But I really think it would be better to go with these slightly blemished cases and get the product out -- they're definitely good enough.

4. Does it make sense to mass produce 1000 cases in the first run? Would it not make more sense (I wonder) to just make the 500 (520 or whatever) that you need initially, to allow for possible slight improvements in the second case production run?

5. I would be fine with any of these three colours (the dark grey, the black, and the blue). But I was a bit disappointed with the blue. I was hoping for something darker but a purer blue (less grey in it).

 

[Wrath Of Khan]

Hopefully we can still get the dark red cases but otherwise the blue looks ok. If painting is an option then yeah let's do it! I remember the pandora hinges were tighter due to paint etc though and shoulder buttons too- but let's see. Funny how the colour pellets turned out more brown than red - was this a temperature based colour change or? Yup, quicker videos are fine- no need to spend too much time on them.

 

[Silent-Hunter]

I like the grey. If painting will cause any further delays I recommend against it.

 

[Arkay Firestar]

PLEASE do not paint the cases because of some discoloration. The Pandora (I’m so sorry to say it because I love the thing) looks so cheap as the silver paint starts to scrape off. It makes me less comfortable to use it. It makes me want to baby it. If the material is strong, who cares if it isn’t perfect. Look at Teenage Engineering’s OP-Z. It uses a plastic fiberglass material that is naturally discolored/patterned. It adds charm.

There are a million cheap feeling painted plastic electronic devices out there. Can we spare the Pyra that fate?

 

[ThinkPad]

Good Stuff,
I don`t care about the discoloration, afterwards the back will be full of penguin, 4chan, and metal bands stickers anyway.

Speaking of stickers, a stencil stickers with the same or similar dimensions as the problematic surface areas, can be a great cheap alternative to paint.

 

[docbroke]

I will only say this,
JUST START THE PRODUCTION !

 

[Silent-Hunter]

Good Stuff,
I don`t care about the discoloration, afterwards the back will be full of penguin, 4chan, and metal bands stickers anyway.

Speaking of stickers, a stencil stickers with the same or similar dimensions as the problematic surface areas, can be a great cheap alternative to paint.

I'd be concerned about stickers coming off, especially for people with sweaty hands.

 

[Grench]

I will only say this,
JUST START THE PRODUCTION !

Not quite that simple unfortunately. If people get units with 'issues' that are not previously disclosed, then ED is faced with an RMA nightmare.

Regarding the cases - the best solution I have to that is to have the black cases all painted black - and charge ~$10 more for the 'Piano Black' cased units Vs the unpainted 'fun' blue and 'red' cases or the grey. That would give an option to customers who demand a perfect finish without foisting paint on the others who couldn't give a care to whether the case shows naturally occurring marks in the plastic or not.

But, he does still need to build a proper software based hardware test suite so that he can minimize the RMA load.

At this point the parts that require invention are nearing the end.

 

[pimaster]

1 shot video was great. 20 minutes feels like long enough though unless you have a lot more content to cover.
The cases look fine. I know there are visible marks but you had to work hard to find them in the light. With the keyboard lighting and the logo lighting surely they'd almost disappear.
I would definitely like to see a nicer red produced. I would love to get 2 black cases, 1 red and 1 blue so that I can have mostly black cases with red and blue accents to go on my pyras.

 

[ToastBucket]

I have a unit with the grey case that ED sent me a while ago for development. I gotta say the video makes it look worse than it looks in person. Sure the discolorations are there and a little more prevalent than you’d find on say a Nintendo DS, but they don’t seem out of the ordinary. Nothing jumps out at me and is noticeably low-quality. It just looks like I’m looking at a funny shaped originals Nintendo DS. From my perspective, the case looks and feels really good. Especially after considering that the ones that made it didn’t have the budget or resources of Nintendo.

As a side note, I just want to point out I really like the keyboard. It took me by surprise and stood out as something on the unit that had a lot of thought go into it. It’s really quite comfortable to type on. I don’t think I’d want to write a novel, but I enjoy dinking around in bash a lot more than I thought I would. I haven’t written any code on it yet, but I think it’s about as good as you can get for this form factor.

 

[Alphasys]

Well, if this means I won't be getting my hands on the burgundy color pyra, I'll settle for black and go to town on it with some heavy duty laquers and weathering techniques. That was the plan anyways, but a burgundy base would've made things a lot easier.

And yeah, that means I won't need it painted beforehand.

To be honest, the functionality of it all is what I'm mostly interested about. The cheaper it looks, the less likely it'll be that it'll get stolen anyways and I aim to make mine look like it's been in use for decades.

 

[Grench]

I have a unit with the grey case that ED sent me a while ago for development. I gotta say the video makes it look worse than it looks in person. Sure the discolorations are there and a little more prevalent than you’d find on say a Nintendo DS, but they don’t seem out of the ordinary. Nothing jumps out at me and is noticeably low-quality. It just looks like I’m looking at a funny shaped originals Nintendo DS. From my perspective, the case looks and feels really good. Especially after considering that the ones that made it didn’t have the budget or resources of Nintendo.

As a side note, I just want to point out I really like the keyboard. It took me by surprise and stood out as something on the unit that had a lot of thought go into it. It’s really quite comfortable to type on. I don’t think I’d want to write a novel, but I enjoy dinking around in bash a lot more than I thought I would. I haven’t written any code on it yet, but I think it’s about as good as you can get for this form factor.

In case you missed it - we are all quite jealous and would all love to see pictures or videos of your grey prototype in action. If you have one of the granite grey cases (medium grey with sparkly bits in it), then you have the same case that I'm wanting to get on my prototype.

As to the keyboard, that layout required a rather lengthy process with much thought, argument, infighting, multiple polls, hurt feelings, consternation, and collaboration. I suspect the total number of posts regarding the key layout numbers in the tens of thousands with well on a hundred or more versions and revisions.

There is nothing on that keymat by chance and nothing placed on accident. There are rules inside rules to how the keys are placed within the Fn layer. For example, the keys on the right side of a normal keyboard are 'kept together' on the Fn layer with their unshifted and shift modified versions over/under each other such that they will be easier to locate, learn and memorize. There is an entire 'hidden layer' on Fn+shift+key that can be user defined as well. If I can get ED to send me one of the 'junk' pre-production keymats, preferably without the gel caps on it, I plan to frame it and hang it on the wall in my home office.

And, before someone else says it, all your threads are belong to keyboard.

 

[comradekingu]

The lack of paint can actually be profitable when considering the environmental factor, which is the most important ethical consideration going, as everyone understands it.
Besides, nothing to go wrong, no added cost, unique product, less complexity, less effort, quicker and lighter. I would vote for that any day, especially for the initial batches.

 

[Neelix]

PLEASE do not paint the cases because of some discoloration. The Pandora (I’m so sorry to say it because I love the thing) looks so cheap as the silver paint starts to scrape off. It makes me less comfortable to use it. It makes me want to baby it. If the material is strong, who cares if it isn’t perfect. Look at Teenage Engineering’s OP-Z. It uses a plastic fiberglass material that is naturally discolored/patterned. It adds charm.

There are a million cheap feeling painted plastic electronic devices out there. Can we spare the Pyra that fate?

I feel the need to point out that a big part of the reason it looks cheap as the paint starts to scrape off is because the plastic underneath the silver paint is black. That's why ED has been making a point of saying that the paint would be the exact same colour as the plastic, that will make patches of worn-off paint a lot less noticeable.

-Neelix

 

[erico]

Great news! Paint it and let´s go.

 

[ible]

As a side note, I just want to point out I really like the keyboard. It took me by surprise and stood out as something on the unit that had a lot of thought go into it. It’s really quite comfortable to type on. I don’t think I’d want to write a novel, but I enjoy dinking around in bash a lot more than I thought I would. I haven’t written any code on it yet, but I think it’s about as good as you can get for this form factor.

all that time i spent working on keyboard threads!

Spoiler

[edit] obviously it was a team effort. i can't claim sole responsibility.

 

[KidPaddle]

Thanks for video.

I think it's more crucial at the moment to have a few Pyras in the wild, mechanically ok, than one with no discoloring.
In my opinion, it doesn't have to be painted for the optics, which is another process step that only makes it more expensive.
Maybe later, the molds can be revised, if there is enough interest in the Pyra.

Thomas