Cnc Data

[2097]

Hello everyone!

Is it possible to get the data for the plastic parts, notably the case (for sweet modding opportunities)?
Both the current version (just for looking/doing prep work) and the adjusted version (after the last round of tweaks) would be really cool to have access to.

I'm thinking of asking a friend who knows about this kind of stuff to help me make some alterations that I have in mind (to personalize it a bit for my own use).

 

[lulzfish]

Probably not, the Pandora is not open hardware and there's no incentive for the team to give away data like that.

 

[hedwards]

Probably not, the Pandora is not open hardware and there's no incentive for the team to give away data like that.

But, what would it hurt? If I've understood the process, the hardware they're using has been moded pretty heavily already, one isn't realistically going to spend the money to buy all the parts somewhere else. And it would be kind of cool to know what sorts of strange things other people are doing with them.

I suppose one could try and replicate Pandora's box with it or such similar silliness.

 

[WizardStan]

Probably not, the Pandora is not open hardware and there's no incentive for the team to give away data like that.
And every incentive to keep it as secret as possible.

 

[rabidpoobear]

Probably not, the Pandora is not open hardware and there's no incentive for the team to give away data like that.

But, what would it hurt?

The design is a significant part of what's taken them so long. A chinese company could make a cheap knockoff of the Pandora with inferior parts, but price it at a lower point, and grab a great deal of Pandora's market segment. All the people who can afford a Pandora and know why it's a good deal will still buy a Pandora, but all their rich friends who go "cool, I want one!" will be like "well here's the official one for $330 and then this chinese one for $275, and it says right here on the page that they're perfectly compatible, I'll just buy the cheaper one!"

For example, you know how hard DaveC's been working on the D-Pad to make it way superior to any other handheld's d-pad? well the knockoff companies would get the benefit of that without any R&D whatsoever.

 

[craigix]

I'm sure someone will make something like a compatible mould file within time.

I guess we might release the files when we do a Pandora2. That's sort of how i'd look at it, like ID softwares policy on their source code.

 

[trats20050]

All you need to make a mold for the Pandora is a Coordinate measuring machine.
At work we use one and it just takes a few minutes to make a complete 3d model of an object.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinate-measuring_machine

 

[Matthias_H]

At work we use one and it just takes a few minutes to make a complete 3d model of an object.

And how are you going to get the "internal" surfaces (slots, hinges, etc)? A poking machine can only poke points that are pokable from outside

 

[trats20050]

At work we use one and it just takes a few minutes to make a complete 3d model of an object.

And how are you going to get the "internal" surfaces (slots, hinges, etc)? A poking machine can only poke points that are pokable from outside

You have to take it apart.Take the bottom part and place it in the machine.

 

[2097]

Probably not, the Pandora is not open hardware

Oh. I thought it was.

 

[2097]

For example, you know how hard DaveC's been working on the D-Pad to make it way superior to any other handheld's d-pad? well the knockoff companies would get the benefit of that without any R&D whatsoever.

I thought that was the point; so the total state of the art in d-pads would be improved. (For example, I hate Sony's segmented d-pad-replacement with a passion.)
I didn't automatically assume that they would deliberately keep that back. The Pandora's own design was limited by patents, according to the FAQ on the wiki.

Oh, what kind of world was I born into where people deliberately hold each other back?

I didn't even think of the idea of knock-offs when I wrote the OP, but now that you bring it up, decent quality knock-offs could be totally sweet. More people to play multiplayer games against, more people developing against the same target.

Listen, I know the team is stressed right now and I didn't want to stir up some kind of hornet's nest. I honestly didn't know it wasn't open, that's all. Guess I was confused by the name.

 

[lulzfish]

It's an understandable mistake that a few people have already made.

Let's hope that there are knockoffs of such a well-designed machine. But not ones that are too good.

 

[fireball87]

For example, you know how hard DaveC's been working on the D-Pad to make it way superior to any other handheld's d-pad? well the knockoff companies would get the benefit of that without any R&D whatsoever.

I thought that was the point; so the total state of the art in d-pads would be improved. (For example, I hate Sony's segmented d-pad-replacement with a passion."]
I didn't automatically assume that they would deliberately keep that back. The Pandora's own design was limited by patents, according to the FAQ on the wiki.

Oh, what kind of world was I born into where people deliberately hold each other back?

I didn't even think of the idea of knock-offs when I wrote the OP, but now that you bring it up, decent quality knock-offs could be totally sweet. More people to play multiplayer games against, more people developing against the same target.

Listen, I know the team is stressed right now and I didn't want to stir up some kind of hornet's nest. I honestly didn't know it wasn't open, that's all. Guess I was confused by the name.[/quote]Other people who take the time to look at the pandora will be able to take the good points about it and apply it to their designs, they'll just have to take their own time researching the tech. I don't want cheesy knockoffs from people who can't even take the time to understand what they're building by a proper reverse engineering (a board based on a SOC shouldn't be too hard to reverse engineer anyway, I'm guessing the thing will be documented by the community in the name of modification far before OP opens up the hardware.) As for knock off units being a good thing I'm not so sure, we as the pandora community would be relegated to supporting "compatible" units that may have issues not even present in the pandora and that'd put more weight on the devs (likely clones would appear with different dpads and nubs, other TI OMAPs and a whole slew of other changes that would split the platform... and none of the chinese companies that made these devices would ever support them...). Then we strip the OP folk of their R&D funds and likely kill off the chances of ever having a Pandora 2. I just can't see it being a benefit for the community... and it's certainly not a benefit for the creators (look at what was probably the best clone market for the consumers, the IBM clone market, IBM didn't exactly fare well because of it... even though they still have many many consumer leading products... people went for cheap instead...). I don't really want to see that happen to the Pandora... especially not so easily as to make the schematics freely available.

I can see how the OP name would confuse you though, soh.

 

[gruso]

The name of the console is just "Pandora". The addition of "open" is for a multitude of reasons (open platform / open source software / fits with the mythology / Pandora Ltd was probably taken). But it's not like "OpenMoko".

Anyway, I don't think you stirred up any hornets nest. Quite a few people have asked the same question, and people like trats20050 are already planning their own docks / add-ons that will require 3D scanning and CNC milling. I'm assuming they're going to share their learnings with the community so others can do similar things.

 

[Kramy]

Usually what happens when stuff like hardware designs go open source, is some huge company swoops in and either:

A ) Uses the advances to improve their own hardware. (In which case, shouldn't they owe these guys something? They just saved millions in R&D.)
B ) Decides that the way something is done is close enough to a patent, to try to sue your ass off.
C ) Creates knockoffs for a third the price, because they had no R&D costs and tons of money to throw around. This drives the competition out of business, and then they jack up the prices.

I really don't care if craig and the gang hold the hardware designs back. I'd actually like it to be that way, so that the community doesn't get fractured from tons of similar designs.

Mind you, custom cases would be sweet!

But I really don't want PCB designs or anything else to be released. Otherwise their hard work will just get ripped off, and the community fractured. Open Hardware is important if the intent of the hardware is to be modable, as would be the case with an Arduino, but it's unlikely to be important for a Pandora.

 

[2097]

From OP's perspective, I guess these two things would happen if Pandora was open hardware:

A. Zero or more people who wouldn't otherwise buy a Pandora would, just because the hardware is open and that's something they like. Also, more people might be inclined to put voluntary time into improving the software.

B. Zero or more people who otherwise would buy a Pandora wouldn't, opting to buy a knock-off instead.

(And, irrelevantly, C. People who wouldn't buy a Pandora (even if it weren't open hardware) buy a knock-off, enjoying great d-pad diagonals and possibly contributing to the platform somehow.)

I have no idea at all whether the number A is bigger than the number B, or, even if it is, whether it's bigger enough to justify the bother of releasing some or all of the models and boards. The future paths diverge from here, maybe a tachyon flow... My (completely unqualified) guess is that it is bigger.

From the consumer and from the third-party developer perspective the open hardware is all upside.

Kramy, you can't convince me to prefer a non-open hardware. I do realize that non-open has advantages to OP themselves but not to consumers.

Craig once simply told some flaming troll something like "I'm sorry the Pandora wasn't for you, bye" and I was impressed and happy by that. It prevented an unproductive argument. I wish I were as eloquent and I'm trying to be. I'm going to go to decide whether or not I'm in category A. If I'm not, I'm going to let my pre-order stand. After all, the competitors I was looking at wasn't open hardware, either, and I was considering them. On the other hand, the (perceived, wrongly) open hardware was one of the things that made me decide Pandora.

Thanks, everyone, for the quick responses.

(PS. I realize that in the case of both IBM and the old Mac clones, the number B was huge. The number A is of course unknown, but probably smaller in those two cases, especially since they didn't get the good will that someone who deliberately goes open gets—the IBM PC was reverse-engineered, after all, and the Mac, though clones were allowed for a while, ran proprietary (licensed) software.)

 

[MWeston]

I didn't even think of the idea of knock-offs when I wrote the OP, but now that you bring it up, decent quality knock-offs could be totally sweet. More people to play multiplayer games against, more people developing against the same target.

And this is the exact reason why the hardware will never be opened up. Gee thanks. You want some other company to take our work and make something cheaper and take away any chance for profits that would make all of this worth it. Thanks so much.

The hardware on a design like this isn't mod-able. You can't strap on some new resistors and make a part of the circuit do something different. Most of the connections are buried inside the board and most of the components can fit a half dozen on the tip of your finger. The only people who really need the design are those who want to copy it and use it for themselves. The rest will look at it and go: "ooh, pretty" and that's it. There will be enough documentation on how to connect to all of the actual mod pads inside the case (placed as the only way you could get at the unused signals anyway) and also enough documentation that anyone could create a board support package for any distro we don't get to first.

Many thanks to those of you who 'get it'.

 

[fireball87]

From the consumer and from the third-party developer perspective the open hardware is all upside.

I respectfully disagree, if you can't see a single downside to open hardware or even open source software (which is a far more proven system, and makes more since to me, as I have the resources to build and test changes in software, something most open hardware users don't have the option to do... therefore the community aspect is a tad more limited) then you aren't looking fairly. I use OSX as my main OS and have developed several things for it. There are many benefits to it being a closed system as a developer, a tighter community, and a much smaller support base... and as a consumer, I have the benefits of stronger hardware support due to a closed line, something I wouldn't get so much if I was using a mac clone. Also I get the joy of not having to tech support people who are using wanky third party systems... that's all up for me as a consumer. Open generally is an up to the consumer, but saying it's in every way a benefit for the consumer is pure and utter insanity.

But I'm not trying to convince you to prefer closed, just state my point of view of why I would personally prefer it to stay closed. Open hardware is a fairly new experiment though, so it's likely It'll grow on me over time... for now I don't trust it with my pandy.

 

[trats20050]

I didn't even think of the idea of knock-offs when I wrote the OP, but now that you bring it up, decent quality knock-offs could be totally sweet. More people to play multiplayer games against, more people developing against the same target.

And this is the exact reason why the hardware will never be opened up. Gee thanks. You want some other company to take our work and make something cheaper and take away any chance for profits that would make all of this worth it. Thanks so much.

The hardware on a design like this isn't mod-able. You can't strap on some new resistors and make a part of the circuit do something different. Most of the connections are buried inside the board and most of the components can fit a half dozen on the tip of your finger. The only people who really need the design are those who want to copy it and use it for themselves. The rest will look at it and go: "ooh, pretty" and that's it. There will be enough documentation on how to connect to all of the actual mod pads inside the case (placed as the only way you could get at the unused signals anyway) and also enough documentation that anyone could create a board support package for any distro we don't get to first.

Many thanks to those of you who 'get it'.


(the hardware will never be opened up)
does this include the case dimensions ?

 

[fireball87]

does this include the case dimensions ?

It honestly doesn't matter, that will be known to scientific accuracy by like the first day of release. Within a month we'll probably have a 3d render that is 99 percent accurate and 100 percent compatible. It's not like they can hide the design of a piece of plastic from people. Unless they've invented some new kind of plastic... from the moon...

Though from your question I'm not sure if you're asking about the generic dimensions or a specific enough diagram to instantly mold identical cases. The first from my understanding is known (as is what pretty much every component on the pandora is and what it does). The latter probably won't be released by OP... though that's all opinion... so whichever.