Case Improvements and the keymat

[JDTAY]

I don't understand any of the case stuff, personally. I am on quite a few prescription drugs though.

My plan was always to let ED handle the hardware and just try my hand at software. Otherwise, I'd be rocking an RPi in an Altoids tin by now.

 

[rygD]

For those thinking that blue doesn't look too bad, make sure you go back to ED's original post of it, then click on the picture to see if full size (I've not idea why that doesn't work if someone's quoted it). The splurge around the right nub is really prominent

I know, isn't it beautiful? Just add some sparkle and I bet it would pop. Not sure how it would look without transparent colors, so maybe we should be looking at opaque black or brown or beige to see the worst it can be.
[doublepost=1554621998,1554621627][/doublepost]

I would like to see a picture of the black case you mentioned even if/though it is ugly. It could give us an idea of how bad is bad? It may very well be impossible to fully remove this effect. Maybe it would be more pallatable to have those patterns appear in a primary color instead of black? Gradations of black tend to clash with each other. Gradations of red (or other color), for example, can be quite complimentary.

I suspect that the lid with it's central fill point has an awesome sunburst pattern. Maybe this is something natural to be embraced instead of overcome? Hard to know or speculate on how a depth-less solid color would look from the blue jelly case picture where we see depth and internal textures.

I agree. Show us the black case, maybe try red/dark red to see if it is as bad, and possibly just embrace it if it can't be solved quickly/easily/cheaply.

 

[pmprog]

Put it this way... If your first few batches of cases have this "marble" effect, people here and ready to buy will take them, and that'll give you time to look into the "clean" cases...

It's the same with your heat pipes. Imo, you need to start getting some units out with what you've got, batch 2 can have some improvements, and hopefully by then the software will have seen more developers and things will be coming together

 

[crazyhorse]

I wonder if the previous case company somehow sabotaged the moulds in retaliation for you moving the moulds.Or they knew the moulds were faulty and thats why they never produced any cases (only the transparent ones)

 

[EvilDragon]

I wonder if the previous case company somehow sabotaged the moulds in retaliation for you moving the moulds.Or they knew the moulds were faulty and thats why they never produced any cases (only the transparent ones)

No, these issues was also one of the main reasons I moved, as their cases always looked that bad and they couldn't fix it.

 

[sm0kew0n]

as their cases always looked that bad and they couldn't fix it.

Isn't there an argument to made here that they don't look that bad (at least from the example you have shown) and that the time and effort required to 'fix' them would be unnecessary if enough of the pre-orderers accept the flaws as an enhancement?

Also, it was mentioned in another case thread that the changing of colours during manufacturing would produce unique parts that would be of interest to current orderers and that the backlight glowing through translucent parts was not a issue for some.

Perhaps now is the time to produce structurally sound case parts in mixed colours and effects to get things moving along whilst also turning out 500-1000 truly unique cases. After all, the modular nature of the pyra means that 'perfect' case parts produced later on down the line could be swapped out at the will of the owner, make them bold and funky now and if I want black and business-like in couple of years I will buy those case sets then.

 

[Neelix]

While I can certainly embrace the "accept the flaws and fix them in a later revision" approach suggested by many here, and it may yet come to that, it sounds like the new plastics company already knows what the problem is and how to fix it, and unless the old company has actually disposed of the copper anodes already fixing it may be relatively simple if I understood ED correctly. It sounds like the new company has a lot more actual expertise amongst their employees than the old one did.

That being said, I'd love to see a Pyra case with an intentional marbling effect and if that both looks good and hides the flaws in the mould, so much the better.

ED: if it's just the surfacing of the mould that needs to be fixed does that mean that the flawed pieces are structurally sound, or is there an increased chance of breakage along the flaws?

-Neelix

 

[vcoleiro1]

What exactly are these copper anodes?

 

[TrashyMG]

What exactly are these copper anodes?

Yeah a little unsure what he means by that.


an·ode
/ˈanōd/
noun
plural noun: anodes

1. the positively charged electrode by which the electrons leave a device.
   • the negatively charged electrode of a device supplying current such as a primary cell.

 

[Pyramancer]

Not necessarily. The heatsinks I bought look like they were actually cut from a way wider "heatsink-stick" (no idea how to call that properly) So like they produced a 1m x 15mm long heatsink and then cut it into small 15x15mm heatsinks.

@EvilDragon: Here (perhaps) are your heatsink sticks:

https://www.digikey.com/en/product-...hermal-solutions/extrusion-profile-heat-sinks

It says of these sticks that "[a] wide variety of secondary metal fabrication services through ATS' manufacturing services, including precision cutting, milling, punching, drilling, and notching, are also available".

Here's a stick that's 300 x 15 x 6 mm (I don't remember if you mentioned the height) that would cost about US$0.45 per heat sink (not counting the cost of cutting) for 16.5 x 15 x 6 mm heat sinks:

https://www.digikey.com/product-det...tions-inc/ATS-EXL61-300-R0/ATS2183-ND/5848391

Or here [1] for heatsinks cut to 0.650 x 0.601 x 0.300 inches costing about $US0.09 each. These ones are extruded longways and can be had in sticks 6 ft long and longer.

[1] https://www.heatsinkusa.com/0-601-new/

Summary: Search for "extruded aluminium heat sink" -- although I've no idea how you say that in German!

 

[Hellfleck]

 

[fusion_power]

And the black one looks really horrible... you don't want that. But yeah, maybe a mixture of two colors could be a solution. Would hide the issues and every unit would be unique.

I can imagine that plain black will look not that good but maybe we can go back to the "something almost black" idea like anthracite, which is also a mix of various different dark greys. Worth a try at least.

No, these issues was also one of the main reasons I moved, as their cases always looked that bad and they couldn't fix it.

How is this usualy solved? I mean, there are many plastic devices out there that don't have these issues, how does GPD solve that for instance? No aadditional coating pass? Different materials?

 

[levi]

The right nub is the injection point. The mold is filled from there. That is where the density and temperature, pressure, and flow differences will be most pronounced?

But it apprently isn't caused by the filling of the liquid plastic. It's caused by the application of the coating, which seems to be some kind of weird electrolytic process, if it needs copper anodes to work (but from my school level electrolytic knowledge, it's usually either the anode or the cathode that gets coated, so I don't really know how it works either).

Edit: Or maybe it's a coincidence and this one they've coated has worse injection marks that previous ones they've shown. Maybe they're mistaken in thinking it's all down to the coating.

 

[Farox]

There are many manufacturers for Heat Sink even with custom dimensions in Italy.

here are some examples:
https://www.britec.it/en/products/heat-sink/
produce copper and aluminium heat sink

http://www.tecnoal.it/en/prodotti-lista/?cat=1173
aluminium heat sink with accessories

http://www.padaengineering.com/en/extruded-aluminium-profiles.html
custom made heat sink

this are only some examples

 

[Neelix]

But it apprently isn't caused by the filling of the liquid plastic. It's caused by the application of the coating, which seems to be some kind of weird electrolytic process, if it needs copper anodes to work (but from my school level electrolytic knowledge, it's usually either the anode or the cathode that gets coated, so I don't really know how it works either).

Edit: Or maybe it's a coincidence and this one they've coated has worse injection marks that previous ones they've shown. Maybe they're mistaken in thinking it's all down to the coating.

See the video posted by Hellfleck above. The copper anode was used to create the surface of the mould itself, and isn't normally needed in the production process, which is why they weren't transferred to the new company with the moulds. It sounds like the moulds need to be resurfaced, like one would do to a damaged road surface to make it drivable again.

- Neelix

 

[levi]

See the video posted by Hellfleck above. The copper anode was used to create the surface of the mould itself, and isn't normally needed in the production process, which is why they weren't transferred to the new company with the moulds. It sounds like the moulds need to be resurfaced, like one would do to a damaged road surface to make it drivable again.

Thanks. My security setup and the design of this website means I don't see any indication that videos are present, other than an ominous gap which is easy to miss as you're scanning the boards. That is quite educational. Seems it's done before final finishing, so it's still a quite rough process, but it's still a step in preparing the surface for the addition of the coating later.

 

[rSl]

maybe a lighter solid colour would show less of the imperfections?

see these newly produced c64c cases done with original commodore moulds

not so good looking black

better looking light beige

 

[Eight Bit]

Those shrink marks on the C64 cases are what kept me from getting one of those.. shame really...
I do have one of those blue kickstarter cases, that too has shrink marks but it's less visible than on the SX64 grey one.

It does look less bad on the light case...

And what I do like, is that you grab every opportunity you can get to promote that light beige color @rSl

 

[rSl]

And what I do like, is that you grab every opportunity you can get to promote that light beige color @rSl

i'll do my best!
(but i don't want to come over as annoying, so this was the last time, promise)

 

[mclien]

Some quick update from me, this time with a new thread (as I don't want to hide that in the prototype assembly thread).
We're also looking inf different ways to properly apply the logo and metal plate. Glueing them manually is tedious. It would be best if the logos had some self-adhesive 3M glue on them, as it holds pretty well and it would only take seconds to apply them. The problem is: Right now they're laser-cut - but that would melt the glue
So we might need to punch them out, this would probably be the best way

Hope not beeing redundant 8have no time to read through):
Sure there is no lasercutting company, which is able to cut Aluminium with pre-applyed adhesive? (I can at least ask 2 companies).

Alternatiblyyou could just deliver it un-glued. So everybody can do it themselfes (or use an own logo if he/she wishes to)