Pictures for the weekend

[ImmaculateChimp]

Hey, I've got a stupid question... Where's the headphone port?

 

[TrashyMG]

Hey, I've got a stupid question... Where's the headphone port?

In the back this time.

 

[ImmaculateChimp]

oh, so I guess the Pyra will strictly be charging over usb this time(I figured that thing in the back was the charging port..)? that being the case, will the Pyra be able to charge from any of the usb ports? ...can we charge from all of them at the same time and get super-duper fast charging? =P yeah, I realise that would be horribly bad for the battery...just thought I'd throw out another stupid question. =)

also, thanks TrashyMG.

 

[benoitb]

Small microusb 2 is for charging and debug.

You can charge a Pyra from another Pyra I guess

 

[sepulep]

Maybe I missed something here (well, make that probably, cause I find the usb port situation quite confusing!!) - but what is the advantage of havig a micro usb 3.0 vs a full size USB 3.0 host port? I think

I would prefer just a full size USB 3.0 host (to connect high speed devices to the pyra, like I do with my laptop)...what's the use case of the micro usb?

(I think btw, eSATA failed to gather much traction,  you may consider dropping it all together. Its certainly much less important than getting the USB support right...)  

 

[WizardStan]

USB3 is designed to be bidirectional but I can't say if the Pyra will actually take advantage of that and let you plug in two at the same time. The Pandora didn't let you charge from both ports at the same time, it's not a standard thing that most devices would allow. We'll probably be limitted to 2A charging.

what's the use case of the micro usb?

Connecting the Pyra to a PC. Making it a micro OTG port lets you use it as either host or slave. It also takes less space.

(I think btw, eSATA failed to gather much traction,  you may consider dropping it all together. Its certainly much less important than getting the USB support right...)

What's not right? As far as I'm concerned it is right and the eSATA is all bonus.

 

[Slacker]

Maybe I missed something here (well, make that probably, cause I find the usb port situation quite confusing!!) - but what is the advantage of havig a micro usb 3.0 vs a full size USB 3.0 host port?

The µUSB port will be an OTG port, i.e. capable of working both as a USB host and as a USB slave device when connected to another USB host. That requires a type AB receptacle which can accept both type A (host side) and type B (device side) plugs. There are no full-size type AB receptacles, only mini and micro.

 

[rohezal]

USB 3.0 can deliver twice as much power as USB 2.0. I think this comes handy if you want charge your Pyra via USB.

 

[fusion_power]

No, but there's probably no demand for a USB2 / eSATA port anymore, therefore no one wants to produce it.

Sounds pretty sane to me, why produce something you can't sell?

Of course it makes sense then. If nobody has a demand for that thing, why producing it anymore. I guess the demand of some Pyra units is not really high enough. ^^"

Are you talking about the size or the thickness?

The size is exactly the same as the display, as then you can easily put it into a frame of the lid and they're fixed without any glue, etc. needed.

Thickness can be changed a bit, but would make things more expensive.

So you would gain 0,5mm for a higher cost.

Thickness mostly, size seems to be the same. I thought the additional full size PCB behind the LCD makes the lid thicker or demand less curved edges. But this could be also be done by a only slightly smaller PCB. Well, if it's only around 0.5mm then who cares. I thought the PCB's are like ~2mm thick. Not sure if it can save costs if the LCD PCB is smaller, less material for the PCB or so. On the pics it seems there is not much onto that PCB, alot of free space.

 

[TeDaDeS]

Nice photos, begins to look like a sellable product already (we have to wait though).


Good job!

 

[Slacker]

USB 3.0 can deliver twice as much power as USB 2.0. I think this comes handy if you want charge your Pyra via USB.

There is no limit on how much a USB port can provide. The spec says how much it is required to provide. There's nothing stopping you from making a USB2 port that can provide several times the current required by spec. In fact, such "charging ports" are pretty common these days.

A device can pull more than the spec allows it, as long as it pares down the pulled current to within spec if the source doesn't keep up and drops voltage. Many phones do that.

So you can charge fast over an USB2 port, too. It's just the guaranteed minimum charging speed that's faster.

 

[FBnil]

Especially with the EUR falling down currently, this can be quite a change.

Yeah, I noticed it. I was finally buying things from Ali Baba, now that they have my method of payment and stuff is dramatically more expensive now.

Look at this plunge: https://www.ecb.europa.eu/stats/exchange/eurofxref/html/eurofxref-graph-cny.en.html

I can not see it fixing itself in the short term.

tl;dr: Chinese products are 15% more expensive in march 2015, than in december 2014.

In other words, this would mean that if a Pyra would cost 700 euro in December, it now costs 805 euro.

 

[rohezal]

There is no limit on how much a USB port can provide. The spec says how much it is required to provide. There's nothing stopping you from making a USB2 port that can provide several times the current required by spec. In fact, such "charging ports" are pretty common these days.

Oh yes, and I read about several cases where the "USB" power adapter fried the gadget which was connected to it. If you use such a "fast charging" adapter as general purpose adapter you can get bad surprises.

 

[the_marshal]

Nice. Thanks for the update / pictures. The decision about the esata port seems perfectly rattional. I thought esata/usb combo port are still used in laptop so I am slightly surprised about the availability issue.

Evildragon, you might want to update the spec on the http://www.pyra-handheld.comat some point (or maybe when all spec are definite)

It seems all the following will needed:

- Micro HDMI to HDMI

- esata adapter / cable

- Micro USB3 OTG adapter

... and of course some USB cable and USB charger. Maybe it would be good to bw able to purshase those 3 "special" cable / adapter along with the Pyra.

 

[Binky]

There is no limit on how much a USB port can provide. The spec says how much it is required to provide. There's nothing stopping you from making a USB2 port that can provide several times the current required by spec. In fact, such "charging ports" are pretty common these days.

 
Oh yes, and I read about several cases where the "USB" power adapter fried the gadget which was connected to it. If you use such a "fast charging" adapter as general purpose adapter you can get bad surprises.

Surely thats a case of bad device design?


No USB power supply should ever provide more (or really, less) than 5V (including USB1, USB2, fast-charge, otg, whatever)

The USB device will change its 'resistance' so that as much current flows as the device needs

If the power supply can't supply that much current, it will cut the output voltage, which in turn reduces the current.

 

[Slacker]

There is no limit on how much a USB port can provide. The spec says how much it is required to provide. There's nothing stopping you from making a USB2 port that can provide several times the current required by spec. In fact, such "charging ports" are pretty common these days.

Oh yes, and I read about several cases where the "USB" power adapter fried the gadget which was connected to it. If you use such a "fast charging" adapter as general purpose adapter you can get bad surprises.

The only way this can happen is if some harebrained moron decided to provide higher voltage over a standard USB connector. Yes, there were devices using adapters like that and fried electronics as a result. Blame the morons.

We're not talking about blatantly breaking the specification like that, but about extending the host's tolerance for power draw. Unless the slave device is specifically designed to draw more power, it won't even notice the difference.

 

[DAP]

No USB device is allowed to draw more than 100 mA without first negotiating with the host for more power. USB 2.0 allowed up to 500 mA after negotiation.

USB Chargers are a bit different, they advertise how much power they can supply using resistors on the USB data lines.

USB 3.0 upped the maximum current to 500 mA, but it still requires negotiation with the host.

USB type C connectors allow both the voltage and the current to be adjusted through negotiation for up to 100 Watts power delivery in either direction.

Any device that draws more than 100 mA without using the negotiation process is broken, and in violation of the spec.

I believe that USB 3.0 using the type C connector will not even deliver power without negotiation. This is necessary because of the many USB devices that violate the spec.

There is no limit on how much a USB port can provide. The spec says how much it is required to provide. There's nothing stopping you from making a USB2 port that can provide several times the current required by spec. In fact, such "charging ports" are pretty common these days.

Oh yes, and I read about several cases where the "USB" power adapter fried the gadget which was connected to it. If you use such a "fast charging" adapter as general purpose adapter you can get bad surprises.

The only way this can happen is if some harebrained moron decided to provide higher voltage over a standard USB connector. Yes, there were devices using adapters like that and fried electronics as a result. Blame the morons.

We're not talking about blatantly breaking the specification like that, but about extending the host's tolerance for power draw. Unless the slave device is specifically designed to draw more power, it won't even notice the difference.

Power is voltage times current. You can get infinite power from 5V if you can draw infinite current. There is no need to increase the voltage to draw more power than the USB spec allows.

 

[levi]

Yes, but for the same reason you can't inject current into a device of fixed resistance except by increasing the voltage.  Devices which can be broken by high-current capable 5V USB must be dropping the resistance to be close to a short circuit, and thus relying on the current limiting properties of standard chargers which sounds so much like bad design as to be extremely unlikely.

More likely, it seems to me that some of these dodgy chargers are putting more than 5V across the power lines, which will pump more current through anything it's connected to than a 5V charger would, which is generally a bad thing for anything expecting 5V - it'll have to dissipate that extra voltage across a resistance at best, which means the power regulation part gets hot, at worst devices will assume that USB provides a smooth reliable 5V and have things wired up to it directly, which will get hot, fail to work, and eventually go pop.

 

[Letalis Sonus]

Higher current means more heat generated by resistance, you can't rise it indefinitely or the connector will simply catch fire at some point. Common USB 2.0 cables are so thin, you might as well end up with molten isolation instead. USB really wasn't designed with high currents in mind (at least before USB 3.1 - 100W, seriously?), one shouldn't push it too hard.

It's bad enough that some video card manufacturers include 6-pin power supply adapters that only connect to a single Molex plug, I've been using one for about a month and it already showed signs of serious overheating.

 

[Antartica]

Now the only thing missing that would send me to connector nirvana is a type-C OTG port...

As DAP says, using a Type-C is not trivial. But it seems that converting an OTG port to Type-C is VERY difficult. This page has a run down of the problems with that:

http://www.synopsys.com/Company/Publications/DWTB/Pages/dwtb-convert-usb-design-type-c-2015q1.aspx

It seems to me that the biggest problem is that OTG uses Host Negotiation Protocol to change roles while Type-C uses Power Delivery Communication, so they are world apart.

OTOH, converting a host port to Type-C is more manageable...