I wish you could feel things through the internet!

[klapse]

here you go

Senk yew velly matsch!

 

[Blue Shadow]

Unfortunately that's an old video with the old LCD cable design which still has the redundancy, but when you get to the installation part, it was still designed to be rolled three times (and you can see he makes a bit of a mess of it there too!).

Well, ED said in the "Quite a bit.." newspost it was originally designed to be rolled four times.
So it might be that the cable was designed to be rolled 4 times, but he did it 3 times anyway because it was easier and maybe already planned the change.

 

[kabaiakh]

These LCD Cables have a design I've not yet seen anywhere else

Was it your original idea ?
Do you plan to patent it to make money out of it in a near future ?
Or do you prefer 'not to sell your soul' ?

 

[ible]

Unfortunately that's an old video with the old LCD cable design which still has the redundancy, but when you get to the installation part, it was still designed to be rolled three times (and you can see he makes a bit of a mess of it there too!).

i think ED is still rolling the lcd cable, but the traces are now going parallel with the roll rather than perpendicular to it. from ye old news post (quite a bit for you to read):

What's great is that the traces will roll in PARALLEL to the roll axis (the red one in the picture).
That means that no real force is applied to them which will lower the risk of a damage A LOT.
Additionally, as ALL traces are redundant in the full roll-area, it's VERY unlikely that the cable will break.

unless there was a change from then...

 

[levi]

Yes, the feeling I get from the pictures and the explanation is that the central bit of the cable will be rolled like a cigarette paper. Quite different from the one shown in that video, and indeed the proposed shape is quite different to the one seen there.

It just shows how much work is being done on the prototypes before anyone paying gets one. I think the last LCD cable I got for my Pandora was only rev 5.

 

[rygD]

My guess for why other companies didn't go with display cables rolled along a longer portion is that there is more area or length that comes under stress (potentially increasing the chances of failure based on the amount of trace length/area), and without redundant traces and other stuff ED added in they may not have wanted to risk it. I wonder if anyone published results of testing things like this, as I expect it would be exciting, or at least extremely informative, to see some really odd ideas for display cables and how they performed. We saw some of the ideas that were tried for the Pyra, and I am site some people have come up with some really crazy "solutions".

 

[Grench]

My guess for why other companies didn't go with display cables rolled along a longer portion is that there is more area or length that comes under stress (potentially increasing the chances of failure based on the amount of trace length/area), and without redundant traces and other stuff ED added in they may not have wanted to risk it. I wonder if anyone published results of testing things like this, as I expect it would be exciting, or at least extremely informative, to see some really odd ideas for display cables and how they performed. We saw some of the ideas that were tried for the Pyra, and I am site some people have come up with some really crazy "solutions".

If you want to get a bit further into rotating electrical connections... It is possible to eliminate the flexible cables completely.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slip_ring

I have never seen one small enough to fit inside a mobile device hinge though.

 

[rygD]

Wasn't something like that suggested for the Pyra? I think this was years ago, and there were a few issues that were obvious with the proposed design, not to mention cost of making it (although making it work is far more important). There were probably some technical things that made it less viable. For the Pyra these cables are probably a good solution, if not the best.

For personal projects I would prefer something that has some mechanical side to it, especially if it works well. I wouldn't be good at heading up a project to make handhelds computers that would sell commercially to consumers. I would probably need ED's development budget for each individual unit.

 

[blazing_grey]

Something I've been curious about for a bit: why not just do the LCD cable the way old-school (e.g. back when they were actually durable) Thinkpads did?

You can see it coming out of the bottom edge of the lid assembly in this image: http://thumbs3.ebaystatic.com/d/l225/m/mdtEoembYMbNlqEN9wTZEKw.jpg

It just goes straight into the lower case, the max bend is a single half turn when the lid is shut, and it's protected by a combination of rubber coating, the design of the case halves routing it out of harm's way, and a separate plastic 'armor' piece in between the case halves that rotates independently.

 

[Silent-Hunter]

I can't see anything in that picture.

 

[NutNut]

I can't see anything in that picture.

Slightly bigger photo; still can't see anything. Derp.

 

[Grench]

I can't see anything in that picture.

Are you old enough to remember the flat floppy & IDE cables? Think of one about 1/3 the width and half the thickness simply running through a slot in the keyboard unit going into a slot in the display unit with enough surrounding 'slop' in the slots to allow the cable to not get bound up in either direction. No wrapping/sliding. It does take repeated but relatively gentle bends/unbends - which can have it's own faults.

A fourth hypothetical option would be to have a set of contacts on the base unit and a set of spring loaded contacts on the screen (or vice versa). Then we could all spend our time with micro sized sponges trying to clean the contact surfaces to fix video aberrations and arguing about what solvent (contact cleaner) works best.

The current solution that ED has come up with is an innovative twist on the wrapped flat through-hinge cable. Lets give that a chance. He has a lot more trial and error on these than the rest of us do. At least the cable itself is simplified when compared to the Pandora's (no speaker traces, no antenna, easier to swap out).

 

[ingoreis]

I own "normal" Pandora Keypads but one is more softly and i love that softly Pandora Keymat

It was the Keymat from the "golden Pandora" and i did build that Keymat inside my GHZ Pandora.

Nice Newspost and i do prefer a more soft Keymat too.

Hope i can test that new Keymat/the complete overworked Pyra @ the next Gamescom

 

[Xcl4m4t10n]

Monday 17th. April.

After some sunny days, we still have no idea where the cases are at. We will inform you if there is any news.

Greetings,
Volcano.

 

[EvilDragon]

Monday 17th. April.

After some sunny days, we still have no idea where the cases are at. We will inform you if there is any news.

Your post doesn't make any sense. It's easter today, nothing will happen that day here.
Besides, I know where they are (it's currently being transported by a forwarder) and we didn't have any sunny but rainy days

 

[TeDaDeS]

Yup. You can't work today. Even shops that are always open are closed.
Over here it was a sunny rainy day, cold but sunny.

(he might have been joking btw)

 

[rygD]

You can see it coming out of the bottom edge of the lid
...It just goes straight into the lower case...

Because of the risk of pocket (?) or bag contents damaging it, maybe. Some people might think that is a sign of it being cheap quality and poorly designed (but I would be done with that option). Probably plenty of other reasons not to do it that way.

A fourth hypothetical option would be to have a set of contacts on the base unit and a set of spring loaded contacts on the screen (or vice versa). Then we could all spend our time with micro sized sponges trying to clean the contact surfaces to fix video aberrations and arguing about what solvent (contact cleaner) works best.

How close is this to the thing you linked me to before? I am pretty sure it was proposed before.



Regarding the softer keymat material, I have come across some devices that were not nice to use (super cheap calculators, other equally cheap things that I probably bought because they made noise or played games). I doubt the Pyra keymats are that floppy, but please avoid letting it be so soft that you can accidentally press keys just by moving thumbs/fingers across key tops.

 

[Xcl4m4t10n]

Your post doesn't make any sense. It's easter today, nothing will happen that day here.
Besides, I know where they are (it's currently being transported by a forwarder) and we didn't have any sunny but rainy days

Don't make blood, It just was a joke...

Yup. You can't work today. Even shops that are always open are closed.
Over here it was a sunny rainy day, cold but sunny.

(he might have been joking btw)

At least someone understand it XD. BTW, here is an "almost" laboral day (AFAIK only schools are closed today).

 

[Zink]

@EvilDragon, why are you still sticking to the faulty flex cables instead of something a lot better? All recent laptops I happened to look into had a thick (~4mm diameter) cable made of tens of tiny wires. I have never experienced any of them failing. They usually have not-so-small connectors, but recently I found that my company uses this:


http://www.maxxvision.com/fileadmin...rabloecke/Downloads/FCB_Accessory_KEL_usl.pdf

It's a micro-coax 30-wire cable (20 and 40-wire versions available) and when the wire group is formed into a mostly round shape, it has ~2mm in diameter. Easily fit through the hinge. The connectors are also very small. I don't think it would cost more than a custom flex cable with all the hassle and time it requires.

When my Pandora cable fails again for good (starts failing now, after 3 years since last time I replaced it) I'm going to make the connection of tiny wires myself, and see how long that lasts.

 

[Letalis Sonus]

Easily fit through the hinge.

The case is not being injected around the cable, the whole plug has to fit through that upon assembly as well.