More Pandora 2 crap (MicroSD Split)

[Exophase]

Here's the giant question: Why not have both and piggy back them? Mount the SD card slot feature a touch high and mount the microSD underneath it - in it's shadow so to speak. Do that twice and we'll have four cards - two of each. That should yield the ultimate in flexibility.

Another option is to stack two SD cards on top of each other - offset front to back by 1.5mm or so for the leads. That might get a bit thick though.

How is this possible from a PCB design point of view, without making some kind of custom socket or adding a second PCB on top of the SD cage?


Not to mention, why on earth would they want to have two microSD slots in addition to two SD slots? I think you're under this mistaken notion that people want microSD slots even if they can have SD slots.. And they aren't going to add an external SD controller to be able to handle all these channels, that's just ridiculous (and your idea of everything on the board going through some USB3 hub makes even less sense >_<)

 

[Saber]

In case anyone is confused by what I meant, it's referring to where Craig said this:

This isn't just my decision, it's the decision of the whole team. And yes, I've double checked.


It's not going to have full sized SD. It takes up too much space.


Getting angry won't change this.

It would appear when he said he double checked with the team he meant he sent an e-mail to ED that hadn't gotten a response yet. Apologies if I'm misunderstanding what happened.

Hm, no idea what he meant.


Maybe he meant he double checked and it doesn't fit the size?

Maybe, or maybe he hoped it would quell the petty disagreements?

 

[Exophase]

Yeah, nothing solves arguments better than lying to prove your point, right? I hope you're wrong.

 

[EvilDragon]

Yeah, nothing solves arguments better than lying to prove your point, right? I hope you're wrong.

Whatever it was, however that was caused, I just don't want something like that to repeat.


We got an internal discussion forum here (where Michael, Craig and me can discuss about things), and when something has been discussed and decided there, it's fine to post this officially. Until then, it should only be assumptions and ideas open for discussion.


We're working on it as a team, so anything official should really be a team decision. That's valid for Craig, Mike and me. I don't want anyone of us to just do and post decisions alone.

 

[Exophase]

Yeah, I think we're all behind you on this one ED. :a

 

[Saber]

Yeah, nothing solves arguments better than lying to prove your point, right? I hope you're wrong.

Whatever it was, however that was caused, I just don't want something like that to repeat.


We got an internal discussion forum here (where Michael, Craig and me can discuss about things), and when something has been discussed and decided there, it's fine to post this officially. Until then, it should only be assumptions and ideas open for discussion.


We're working on it as a team, so anything official should really be a team decision. That's valid for Craig, Mike and me. I don't want anyone of us to just do and post decisions alone.

Will you ask Michael Weston directly about this so we can all finally know if there is, or isn't, room for two full size SD slots and, if you do discover it, will you post the elusive answer in an update so some of us can move on from this discussion?

 

[Exophase]

I talked to MWeston about this before and can definitely confirm that he's in favor of microSD. I don't know if this means he's tried to make an SD design work or not. This is assuming Pandora 2 is even far enough along to even be able to put together a PCB layout.


Note that it isn't really a simple manner of it either being possible or not. Having less room to squeeze a design into can mean more man-hours necessary tweaking the design and it could make things like signal integrity become more of a headache. A tighter design can also be more expensive, for instance needing more layers on the board. So if given any kind of choice an electrical designer will probably prefer to avoid making things as tight as physically possible, but that doesn't necessarily set the bar on what can and can't be done.


(but I'm not an EE and my opinion just comes from observing EEs, so I could be totally wrong on this)


I did let MWeston know how a lot of the community feels about lack of full SD, ie that one poll, in case he didn't already know.. of course if his hands are tied his hands are tied. If it can't fit on the current design the question will become one of whether or not all the Pandora people are insisting on making it this small, but I get the feeling MWeston agrees with Craig on this too.. and given the design effort/money they've already put into iCP2 this could be expensive to change regardless of what the team members think now.

 

[Grench]

Here's the giant question: Why not have both and piggy back them? Mount the SD card slot feature a touch high and mount the microSD underneath it - in it's shadow so to speak. Do that twice and we'll have four cards - two of each. That should yield the ultimate in flexibility.

Another option is to stack two SD cards on top of each other - offset front to back by 1.5mm or so for the leads. That might get a bit thick though.

How is this possible from a PCB design point of view, without making some kind of custom socket or adding a second PCB on top of the SD cage?


Not to mention, why on earth would they want to have two microSD slots in addition to two SD slots? I think you're under this mistaken notion that people want microSD slots even if they can have SD slots.. And they aren't going to add an external SD controller to be able to handle all these channels, that's just ridiculous (and your idea of everything on the board going through some USB3 hub makes even less sense >_<)

Sheesh - always so negative.


Notice that the connector portion of an SD card connector/feature is all on the internal end of it.


http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/AVX-Connectors/145738009784859+/?qs=sGAEpiMZZMtaouNQoacPIBEQACugW1fUBUNfHkmFKFQ%3d


The same goes with a microSD card.


I understand that most products like this are available in differing pin/connector lengths to raise/lower them from the motherboard to fit case requirements.


The SD card should be able to bridge over the microSD card - if you can do that once, do it twice and done.


Since only the last 1.5mm or so - where the leads are - actually electrically connects to the motherboard, there is no reason it would be impossible to put two on top of each other if they can be staggered by that 1.5mm.


I'm supplying options to consider. If the issue is electrical footprint on the motherboard then it's possible to alleviate that some.


I said nothing about adding GPIOS - I stated quite clearly that I don't know what SoC we're using and I don't know if the additional connectors were there.


You keep coming back to my USB3 internal hub as being a disaster - I think it's a creative way to make a truly modular and very high speed internal device bus for a portable computer. Unless we're using real old junk, the SoC is going to have a USB3 controller on it. It doesn't have to only pipe to the edge of the case - there are other potential uses for this easily configurable and widely supported peripheral bus.


I'm dreaming up what might be possible if we think just a bit off of the standard page. For whatever reason that really seems to bug you. Sorry for the inconvenience, but I'm not changing.

 

[Askarus]

Yeah, nothing solves arguments better than lying to prove your point, right? I hope you're wrong.

Whatever it was, however that was caused, I just don't want something like that to repeat.


We got an internal discussion forum here (where Michael, Craig and me can discuss about things), and when something has been discussed and decided there, it's fine to post this officially. Until then, it should only be assumptions and ideas open for discussion.


We're working on it as a team, so anything official should really be a team decision. That's valid for Craig, Mike and me. I don't want anyone of us to just do and post decisions alone.

And you should talk to people what they want, first.


If there's a decission between some stuff, ask the community.


Ask if people rather like a bigger unit or only 2 micro SDs or only 2 soulder buttons.


those are decissions for users, not only for developers.


If people say they'd prefere a bigger unit then give them a bigger unit.

 

[Exophase]

Those SD connectors are not what something like Pandora uses. There's just a metal cage on top of the PCB, where the leads are directly on the PCB. Adding a housed socket is obviously going to be more expensive. Furthermore, I don't know how you'd be securing this - if you used such a socket you'd have solder pads beyond the pins to keep it in place on top of the motherboard. You'd need some kind of bracket or something to keep a second one in place, then I guess you'd need to solder wires from it to the motherboard instead of directly (I'm pretty sure they would NOT come in packages that have long pins coming out of them). And you would most likely have to add a controller because the SoC is not going to have 5 SD ports (because yes they do want an internal one), so whether or not you said anything about it your design idea implies it.


Now, instead of being all Grenchity why not just answer my question: for whom would you want to add two microSD on top of two full SD? And when the whole problem is OPT saying that there's no room for full SD why are you proposing a design that already presupposes their footprint?


I'm just going to ignore your weird USB3 fetish from now on, anyone who talks about connecting Pandora's internal keyboard and nubs to USB3 can't be taken very seriously.

 

[Grench]

I talked to MWeston about this before and can definitely confirm that he's in favor of microSD. I don't know if this means he's tried to make an SD design work or not. This is assuming Pandora 2 is even far enough along to even be able to put together a PCB layout.


Note that it isn't really a simple manner of it either being possible or not. Having less room to squeeze a design into can mean more man-hours necessary tweaking the design and it could make things like signal integrity become more of a headache. A tighter design can also be more expensive, for instance needing more layers on the board. So if given any kind of choice an electrical designer will probably prefer to avoid making things as tight as physically possible, but that doesn't necessarily set the bar on what can and can't be done.


(but I'm not an EE and my opinion just comes from observing EEs, so I could be totally wrong on this)


I did let MWeston know how a lot of the community feels about lack of full SD, ie that one poll, in case he didn't already know.. of course if his hands are tied his hands are tied. If it can't fit on the current design the question will become one of whether or not all the Pandora people are insisting on making it this small, but I get the feeling MWeston agrees with Craig on this too.. and given the design effort/money they've already put into iCP2 this could be expensive to change regardless of what the team members think now.

Thank you for giving it a shot. I wish MWeston were more involved directly with the community. Hopefully he knows that the little game console he helped design (Pandora) has been used widely for so many other things - to the point where gaming is a secondary function to a large portion of the audience.


I can understand wanting to leverage the ICP in design. It's key layout, keyboard mat - those are all re-usable. Restricting the Pandora II X and Y dimensions to the ICP 2 X and Y dimensions though - I think that's a potential mistake that might bite back.

 

[Binky]

I'm sure there is some way of fitting the P2 with two full SD slots.


It may be mad, impractical, expensive, hard to manufacture etc


But I'm sure its there.


A rundown of possibilities by an experienced hardware guy (MW?) would be great

 

[EvilDragon]

There's one thing we need to be careful here: Nobody is AGAINST MicroSD - not me, not Craig, not MWeston. It's about an additional slot (full sized or not).


The last quote I had from MWeston about that was:

I think it all comes down to size constraints. I believe we all want the P2 to be a bit smaller than the first one and hopefully thinner! If one full sized SXHC and one microSDXC slot were possible, I like it.

So taking that quote, he sure seems to have the same favourite solution I have: One full sized SDXC and one microSDXD slot.


We never wanted that NO MicroSD Card slot will be here.


That quote is three weeks old, and I don't know what happened since then, whether he worked on it or not.


If it doesn't fit the board, then I'm fine with MicroSD (that's what I also mentioned to Craig). Nothing else we can do in this case.


That's not really the issue, but I think what we really need to change is that EVERYONE (Craig, MWeston and me) need to know everything that has happened and what the status of our work on something is.


If MWeston really found out it doesn't fit and I would've known it, then I wouldn't have had any issues and would have confirmed here with "Well, we'd love to have Full SD, but it just doesn't fit".


The problem was that I have no idea whether MWeston checked that or not, it's a missing communication here. Something that also caused drama with the Pandora 1 a few times, and those could've been prevented upfront sometimes if I just knew exactly what was going on.


If someone simply tells me "We'll use MicroSD. Period." without any further explanation, it won't help much


That's what we really need to work on, I don't want the Pandora 1 chaos repeated.

 

[Grench]

Now, instead of being all Grenchity why not just answer my question: for whom would you want to add two microSD on top of two full SD? And when the whole problem is OPT saying that there's no room for full SD why are you proposing a design that already presupposes their footprint?

More storage is better. With my idea of putting a microSD slot in the footprint/shadow of an SD slot, the microSD fairly well comes along for free (footprint wise).


If there is room for two SDXC, then there is room for two SDXC and two microSD using this stacking system.


Personally, I think it's a pretty cool concept.

 

[Exophase]

OPT is saying two microSD and currently are even saying that one SD plus one microSD is a problem. It's just not really the place where you want to come down and propose two SD AND two microSD, even if the microSD doesn't add anything to the footprint (but does add to the design complexity). You have to know what battles to pick. The part of the community that strongly wants SD should focus on trying to get OPT to include one SD slot; they'll never listen to you if you insist on two full SD.


If they can really do one microSD on top of one SD then the design could save space vs side by side microSD and SD. I'm not shunning you for suggesting this or asking you to change, I'm just pointing it what I see to be obstacles to this before half the forum goes on about how they should be doing this. When you bring up "what-if" ideas I'm going to explore the actual practical implications of them and in that way I will not change. But I'm not sure what your problem is with this exactly.


If they can find a way to do it then great, but from my POV it seems like it would probably call for a totally custom connector which is going to cost a fair amount of money to design let alone have made.

 

[Grench]

There's one thing we need to be careful here: Nobody is AGAINST MicroSD - not me, not Craig, not MWeston. It's about an additional slot (full sized or not).


The last quote I had from MWeston about that was:

I think it all comes down to size constraints. I believe we all want the P2 to be a bit smaller than the first one and hopefully thinner! If one full sized SXHC and one microSDXC slot were possible, I like it.

So taking that quote, he sure seems to have the same favourite solution I have: One full sized SDXC and one microSDXD slot.


We never wanted that NO MicroSD Card slot will be here.

I think there is an assumption built into MWeston's quote that merits discussion though.


"I believe we all want the P2 to be a bit smaller than the first one and hopefully thinner!"


That, I believe, is backwards. Opinions will vary, but I don't want the P2 to be smaller left/right or front to back - but I feel it absolutely needs to be thinner.


Thinner is the emphasis - the Z dimension. We're FINE on the X and Y dimension with the existing Pandora - those aren't a problem. It's the 28mm thickness that makes it look and feel like a construction brick.


If the footprint stayed the same and we knocked even 5mm off of the overall closed thickness - that would be awesome.


But, for all that is cool on this project, please don't sacrifice function in order to make the motherboard and keyboard smaller.

 

[Saber]

If it can't fit on the current design the question will become one of whether or not all the Pandora people are insisting on making it this small, but I get the feeling MWeston agrees with Craig on this too.

I measured out some cardboard I had to the ICP2's dimensions(61 x 117 x 11.5 mm) and couldn't believe how tiny this thing. :blink:

The problem was that I have no idea whether MWeston checked that or not, it's a missing communication here. Something that also caused drama with the Pandora 1 a few times, and those could've been prevented upfront sometimes if I just knew exactly what was going on.


If someone simply tells me "We'll use MicroSD. Period." without any further explanation, it won't help much


That's what we really need to work on, I don't want the Pandora 1 chaos repeated.

Okay, thanks for letting us know ED, but since you are part of Openpandora, wouldn't it be beneficial to talk to Michael Weston yourself and let us know what he tells you about the subject? It just sounds so odd that you and Michael Weston seemingly don't have much one on one communication together about the P2. :mellow:

 

[McLovin]

I don't really mind a switch to microSD. Full functional wifi would be a much more important point for pandora 2. you really have to test this thoroughly next time upfront.


And I can only agree, x- and y-dimension of the pandora are plain perfect. It might be a little thinner, but only if that doesn't affect battery-size and a bigger screen to fill the lid would add even more bazinga

 

[EvilDragon]

Okay, thanks for letting us know ED, but since you are part of Openpandora, wouldn't it be beneficial to talk to Michael Weston yourself and let us know what he tells you about the subject? It just sounds so odd that you and Michael Weston seemingly don't have much one on one communication together about the P2. :mellow:

I am currently doing this, no worries, I'm in contact with MWeston as well, but we both don't have much time


I was expecting any news to pop up in our internal discussion boards, he probably thought Craig will post it there and Craig thought I know it somehow already... no idea.


But this is something we need to make sure won't happen in the future

 

[Grench]

OPT is saying two microSD and currently are even saying that one SD plus one microSD is a problem. It's just not really the place where you want to come down and propose two SD AND two microSD, even if the microSD doesn't add anything to the footprint (but does add to the design complexity). You have to know what battles to pick. The part of the community that strongly wants SD should focus on trying to get OPT to include one SD slot; they'll never listen to you if you insist on two full SD.


If they can really do one microSD on top of one SD then the design could save space vs side by side microSD and SD. I'm not shunning you for suggesting this or asking you to change, I'm just pointing it what I see to be obstacles to this before half the forum goes on about how they should be doing this. When you bring up "what-if" ideas I'm going to explore the actual practical implications of them and in that way I will not change. But I'm not sure what your problem is with this exactly.


If they can find a way to do it then great, but from my POV it seems like it would probably call for a totally custom connector which is going to cost a fair amount of money to design let alone have made.

It really feels like they made the ICP2 as tight as they could over the controls/keypad then said, "OK, so that's it - design a Pandora to fit the ICP2's minimized footprint." It feels like they're trying to shove 10lbs of stuff into a 5lb bag - and having to leave some stuff out or compromised as a result. My answer is to get a bigger bag - make the Pandora 2 have a broader footprint than the ICP by whatever is needed to fit the functionality that needs to be there.


Please consider this option - make the P2 on a wider or deeper (or a bit of both) footprint than the ICP2 so that there is board space available to do it with the right components.