GamesCom, Shoulderbuttons and Heating

[Linux-SWAT]

Bigger upper buttons, and smaller lower ones ?

 

[Null]

Yeah not my first choice either. If they were flush with the case like the Pandora's, then they wouldn't get pushed.

Not sure how easy they would be to push though, my PS Vita has buttons that sit flush with the case and they're an absolute pain in the backside to use. Mind you the point is moot really because ED said that there wasn't enough space to place the buttons on the rear of the case.

 

[edgex004]

Yeah not my first choice either. If they were flush with the case like the Pandora's, then they wouldn't get pushed.

Not sure how easy they would be to push though, my PS Vita has buttons that sit flush with the case and they're an absolute pain in the backside to use. Mind you the point is moot really because ED said that there wasn't enough space to place the buttons on the rear of the case.

Yeah I know. Just explaining my thought process.

 

[Null]

Yeah I know. Just explaining my thought process.

B)

 

[rygD]

Experimental method:
Find 10 copper coins - clean with silver polish.  (US pennies pre-1965 excl WWII tin variety work.)

If anyone tries this experiment with US coins you can use those made until 1981.  They stopped using silver in the 60s, and cut back on copper in 82.  

It didn't matter.  It is still more expensive to produce the cent coin than the monetary value.

 

[Xcl4m4t10n]

That problem with the shoulder buttons... :-/

 

[EvilDragon]

So, the real question is:  How much heat does the SoC need to dissipate (not just store in a sink) to prevent it from ever getting hot enough to need to throttle under normal circumstances?

Well, I already made quite extensive experimental testings a while ago.

I cut an SD Card case in half (those small plastic cases), which I put completely over the OMAP5 (without heatsink).

So the OMAP5 was trapped inside the plastic (worse than what we will have with the sandwich PCB) with little air inside.

Even at 110°C, it was a LOT less hot than touching the surface of the OMAP5 directly.

Doesn't seem to dissipate that much heat.

Sorry - I'm trying hard to avoid too much Physical Chemistry here.

Temperature <> Heat

Weight <> Mass.

Heat:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat

All that your experiment did was to find out at what temp the SoC throttles to self regulate by insulating it.  It appears to be somewhere around 110-112*C.

That you could touch the SD card case on the hot OMAP only means that plastic (the SD card case) is a poor thermal conductor (an insulator) - not that the SoC was 'good with that'.

You seem to have your mind set though.  I'm going to back off and let you work it through.

The OMAP5 is not capped by us, it was running at full CPU speed all the time, without any downclocking happening.

I was running it inside of that small plastic case for over half an hour, so that shows that we won't have any issue with heat inside a case that can't get out and will be stuck there.

Which is what we wanted to find out.

And as the plastic case didn't get that hot as well, it's very unlikely that the plastic case of the Pandora will get too hot if we use proper heat distribution.

Looking at the button pics here:  http://boards.openpandora.org/topic/16700-a-small-photo-story//URL]

It looks like the lower button is long - goes to case edge and the top button is short.

What if that were swapped?  I.e. have the upper button go to the case edge with a touch of wrap and the lower button be recessed from the corner?

I could see it working to be able to snag the edge of the top button at the case edge and the lower button down and 'inward' of that.

Or is there something else in the way to prevent that?

The problem is a bit different.

If you put the case comfortably into your hand, your finger tip would push down somewhere around the USB Ports.

So that won't work.

On the Pandora, you usually don't press the shoulder button with your finger tip but rather with the ankle that goes around the edge.

This works with the lower shoulder button on the Pyra as well.

However, since the height is very little, you'd always press two shoulder buttons at once when you press them at the corner.

Therefore, you can't put BOTH at the corner.

If one button isn't around the corner, you can only reliably push it using your finger tip - and as the finger tip usually sits around an USB port, you need to move your finger back until it reaches the button.

 

[infinity]

ED, go to Sleep, you have to Drive on German "Autobahnen" later today


I might have an idea for the shoulder buttons, we'll see.


If not, 2 digital shoulder buttons are not used that often in consoles and i dont use em with 4 fingers, often a tap on the top one is enought then you switch back to the bottom one.


See you later

 

[Steve]

How about leaving the shoulder button design as they are (looks pretty tidy from what I've seen so far), & maybe adding some kind of fitting/screw on locations for potential 3rd party addons that can either be easily removable, or a more permanent fixture once added?

This might not be such a silly idea as we all know this community (as small as it is), is fully capable of doing something as random as this

 

[Saber]

Looking at the button pics here:  http://boards.openpandora.org/topic/16700-a-small-photo-story//URL]

It looks like the lower button is long - goes to case edge and the top button is short.

What if that were swapped?  I.e. have the upper button go to the case edge with a touch of wrap and the lower button be recessed from the corner?

I could see it working to be able to snag the edge of the top button at the case edge and the lower button down and 'inward' of that.

Or is there something else in the way to prevent that?

The problem is a bit different.

If you put the case comfortably into your hand, your finger tip would push down somewhere around the USB Ports.

So that won't work.

On the Pandora, you usually don't press the shoulder button with your finger tip but rather with the ankle that goes around the edge.

This works with the lower shoulder button on the Pyra as well.

However, since the height is very little, you'd always press two shoulder buttons at once when you press them at the corner.

Therefore, you can't put BOTH at the corner.

If one button isn't around the corner, you can only reliably push it using your finger tip - and as the finger tip usually sits around an USB port, you need to move your finger back until it reaches the button.

Do all shoulder buttons extend outward from the backside the same distance? If so, you could make L2 and R2 a little more prominent in relation to L1 and R1. Many Game controllers with four shoulder triggers like the Amazon Fire and the iCade Mobile do something similar where one button of the stacked pair juts out more than the other to give the fingers more room. Of course you can't do exactly like those ones given how cramped the Pyra is, but you could make the smaller shoulder buttons more conspicuous more raised for gaming.

 

[Cralex]

Hmm, shame about those shoulder buttons... Still, it's more than the Pandora had, so I'll deal with it.


The only thing I can think of that hasn't been mentioned yet is some kind of setup where the second set of buttons is normally flush and unusable inside the case, but then folds or slides into position while in use. Still, I'm guessing something like that would be too fragile and gimmicky to actually use. Just thinking out loud.

 

[Jumpman]

The shoulder button layout looks decent enough. As long as one set is optimal, I don't really care much for the second group. I only seeing using one set most of the time anyways. Due to shape, size, and form factor, our options seem to be pretty limited. I'll wait and see others opinions from Gamescon, before making a final opinion/call.

Chris

 

[ekianjo]

   - Purchase DMM Thermocouple Adapter.     - A whole lot of other things..    - Write Pandoralive article.

Yeah, the PandoraLive article is long overdue  

 

[comradekingu]

Really nice that the real temperature isnt what the board reports, that had me worried. Never trust the onboard stuff.

What a passive heatsink does is magasinate (store) heat in the heatsink in periods of high use, to offset it on a higher surface area when you arent using as much power.

On a stable heavyclock it may not be that noticable, but it is still beneficial if you otherwise end up with throttling. Also, it is a measure to deal with using a pyras in ambient temperatures of 40 celcius and above, as can happen in some countries.

If you never run into that, you can safely use the overhead for a little overclock.

From what ive seen the omap5 temperature rating is from -40 to +85 degrees. But ive seen 135 degrees too, could be thats another variant of the chip, in any event its managable.

I dont know about you guys, but my long fingers are under the front part of the SD-cards when i play games. There is some space under there, a flush button here is something to look into for mods if nothing more.

Is it uncomfortable to play with 4 fingers on the shoulders that is uncomfortable, or is 1 on each side for 2 buttons ok?

How about a button you press in towards the ports on the side bit? As in inwards rather than towards you. On what is now the outer edge of the L and R on the pandora.

→ ----------------------- ←
     |-|---| (ports)  |---|-|

            keyboard

 

[TrashyMG]

omap5 temperature rating is from -40 to +85 degrees

That is recommended temperature that the processor is okay to run in,  as in the temperature outside. like -40C in a cold environment or 85C in a very hot environment. Not what the processor gives off as heat under load.

 

[_wb_]

Is it possible to press both L1 and L2 at the same time? (or R1 and R2)

It would be nice if L1+L2 can be done easily with one finger (side at corner of L1 and tip at L2 or something).

 

[EvilDragon]

Yes, we already have the upper shoulderbutton more prominent, otherwise they would probably not work at all.


And yes, both can be easily pressed at the same time.

 

[Bosbeetle]

Looking forward to the pictures of the green case

 

[_wb_]

And yes, both can be easily pressed at the same time.

Good to hear.

In my keyboard layout proposal, I use L1+L2 to get dead key diacritics, so you can efficiently input text in all of these languages:

Afrikaans, Albanian, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Esperanto, Estonian, Faeroese, Finnish, French, Galician, German, Greenlandic, Hungarian, Icelandic, Irish, Italian, Lappish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish

So while looking like an innocent English QWERTY keyboard, it's actually a nice international keyboard. E.g. L1+L2+ ~ N gives ñ, L1+L2+" U gives ü, L1+L2+, C gives ç, L1+L2+` A gives À, and so on. It's like the compose key, but with only two thumb presses instead of three.

 

[mcobit]

Did you do those measurements with full CPU AND GPU load? My Android phone gets hotter when playing GPU intensive games.