Grench
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- Oct 3, 2008
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ED recently released a video of a prototype running on it's own self-contained power. This leads me to all sorts of questions that I don't want to bother ED with unless he's got the time to be browsing this little blog-esque message thread.
Did Dr N create a hardware testing program that can be run on each prototype as it gets produced to validate hardware function? I figure the prototypes are gong to be a fairly intensive process with some hand population - they will likely need a testing process applied to make sure they check out. That can then be used to check production units when that starts up.
Is the process to populate/fix the prototype boards on-going then or is there anything getting in the way of that? I.e. now that they have figured out what was needed to take one of the 1st run prototype population boards and make it fully function, what is left to do on the rest of the prototype boards to have equivalent working electronics?
The lid in the video was 3d printed and nub pads are missing (stating obvious). The shoulder buttons are clear plastic - but I don't recall seeing ED use the shoulders. For some reason I had thought those would be the same rubberized material as the nub pads. How do the clear plastic ones work/feel? I.e. are those 'good to go'? Has the plastics company given any indication of when they can prepare examples of the remaining pieces? I know it is a slow process - it is starting to feel glacial on those plastics.
The screen looks great. The two LEDs on the back side of the screen are much smaller and closer together than I had thought they would be. Not a big issue, but if they were separated by 1cm or so, their positional relationship can have meaning as well. For example, right now if there were a green blinking light showing, I would find it hard to tell at a glance if the left, right, both together or both alternating were blinking. I'm not even sure if they're left/right or over/under. This shouldn't drive a change to that board - but if there are going to be other changes to it anyway, maybe consider a bit more separation in those LEDs?
It feels like prototypes are likely less than 4 months and more than 4 weeks out.
Looking forward to the next update.
Did Dr N create a hardware testing program that can be run on each prototype as it gets produced to validate hardware function? I figure the prototypes are gong to be a fairly intensive process with some hand population - they will likely need a testing process applied to make sure they check out. That can then be used to check production units when that starts up.
Is the process to populate/fix the prototype boards on-going then or is there anything getting in the way of that? I.e. now that they have figured out what was needed to take one of the 1st run prototype population boards and make it fully function, what is left to do on the rest of the prototype boards to have equivalent working electronics?
The lid in the video was 3d printed and nub pads are missing (stating obvious). The shoulder buttons are clear plastic - but I don't recall seeing ED use the shoulders. For some reason I had thought those would be the same rubberized material as the nub pads. How do the clear plastic ones work/feel? I.e. are those 'good to go'? Has the plastics company given any indication of when they can prepare examples of the remaining pieces? I know it is a slow process - it is starting to feel glacial on those plastics.
The screen looks great. The two LEDs on the back side of the screen are much smaller and closer together than I had thought they would be. Not a big issue, but if they were separated by 1cm or so, their positional relationship can have meaning as well. For example, right now if there were a green blinking light showing, I would find it hard to tell at a glance if the left, right, both together or both alternating were blinking. I'm not even sure if they're left/right or over/under. This shouldn't drive a change to that board - but if there are going to be other changes to it anyway, maybe consider a bit more separation in those LEDs?
It feels like prototypes are likely less than 4 months and more than 4 weeks out.
Looking forward to the next update.