Pyra dock connections.


Here's a quick blender doodle of the principle. I suck at blender but it should convey the idea.

The red thing is pyra

The black things are ports

pyradock1.png

pyradock2.png

pyradock3.png
 
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Yeah, that seems like a nice and foolproof way of making sure everything gets inserted evenly.
 
What about top loading vertically a la the SNES?
what if you want to use the LCD screen or press one of the utility buttons on the keyboard? This option would be less flexible for those types of functions. have it horizontal like a laptop dock makes more sense to me.
 
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Since the issue is of ports lining up.. why don't you have a piece that slides onto the back of the Pyra then using some sort of oconnector connects to the dock. You'd just need to map out the pin layouts so they correlate with each other. This way too the adapter can safely be put onto the pyra without much force. Yes it's one more complication, but I'd rather risk f-ing up the adapter then the pyra if j apply way too much force.
 
Why not just have rails on either side of where the pyra sits? Then you could only slide it straight backwards into the dock, and the dock would have no moving parts.
 
You have to spring-load them or something because if its tight enough to perfectly align the ports it'd scratch or abrade the Pyra's edges
 
Since the issue is of ports lining up.. why don't you have a piece that slides onto the back of the Pyra then using some sort of oconnector connects to the dock. You'd just need to map out the pin layouts so they correlate with each other. This way too the adapter can safely be put onto the pyra without much force. Yes it's one more complication, but I'd rather risk f-ing up the adapter then the pyra if j apply way too much force.
It's quite easy to apply uneven force to such multi-pronged adapter. This could lead to exerting torque on the deepest ports on two axes. As the required force varies along the connector strip, I can imagine it's easy to slip if you push from the wrong point at the wrong phase of the insertion. It's also a somewhat slow solution compared to one that does the aligning for you. Removing such a connector strip without exerting torque is also an exercise in itself.

Another simpler solution is to have short cable ends "inside" the dock the user connects to the pyra one by one. It's not pretty or anything, but it would be the surest way of not destroying your ports since you align the connectors one by one and apply only enough force to insert the particular connector along its axis.

I also noticed it would be possible to modify my suggestion so that the pyra remains completely usable even in dock, with shoulder buttons and (depending on details) full display turn radius. This would make the dock double as a protective shell or an adapter for larger hands :)
 
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Here's a quick blender doodle of the principle. I suck at blender but it should convey the idea.

The red thing is pyra

The black things are ports
Still can't see a big difference, it is still possible that the "(male)port cage" isn't inserted with the same speed/"path gain" on both ends. At least your solutions does not need any changes to the case (which already may not be possible anymore) but comes with a moving part that is a potentional point of failure

Another simpler solution is to have short cable ends "inside" the dock the user connects to the pyra one by one. It's not pretty or anything, but it would be the surest way of not destroying your ports since you align the connectors one by one and apply only enough force to insert the particular connector along its axis.
This would defeat the purpose of a dock.
 
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After reading through (more or less in detail), ere are my thought I got on the way:

align the connectors:

I'm not sure if it could be done using the case of the pyra as refference. Perhaps the tolerances in production won't be that perfect. So I'd guess it must be somehow related to the PCB/connectors more directly (lacking an idea to that so far.)

horizontal vs. vertical insertion:

I like the vertical for it has the opportunity to just "throw" the pyra behind the monitor (where the dock is mounted), BUT all vertical insertion will have a dust issue, when not udes for a while

I like the horizontal version for the mentioned reasons and for the idea that the "second" Monitor can be used for monitoring (either the Pyra itself or even as a monitoring server for the network). And it will be far less vulnarable for failure through dust.

ethernet:

I surely want to have a wired ethernet connection at the dock. (If it's throught USB 3.0 or a dedicated connection via pci bus, I don't really care as long as ist works). If there is a god reason for a "directly" wired connection to the OMAP, perhaps the "misuse" of another USB/SATA connector could be an idea, by using the SATA part as the ethernet connector for the dock.

(I personally even would like to have a ethernet port direktly at the pyra, but that won't fit as I see.  )
 
Still can't see a big difference, it is still possible that the "(male)port cage" isn't inserted with the same speed/"path gain" on both ends. At least your solutions does not need any changes to the case (which already may not be possible anymore) but comes with a moving part that is a potentional point of failure
The main thing to consider is port/plug alignment on all six degrees of freedom on the entire movement range. Securing pyra to the dock and having the ports connected by four points to it (further enforced by the port block of the back plate going into the dock itself) restricts all degrees of freedom except for the Y axis (movement axis of the back plate). If you press one side of the back plate and not the other, it may not go as easily (because of lever), but you can't make the other side go faster, because that would imply torque coming from the back plate rotating around Z axis (up/down), which is restricted by the bars. The bars are long enough inside the base part that they shouldn't be able to turn at all (maybe 0.01° at most).
As an analogue, consider four 4m long iron pipes with 15cm inner radius going into the earth in a 4m x 1m rectangular formation, much like the guide rod holes in the pyra dock. Then consider four 5m long iron rods with 14.990cm radius put into the pipes. Now weld a 25cm thick 4.2m x 1.2m iron sheet on top of the rods. Next put a 80cm long iron rod with 1cm diameter inside a soda bottle at least 20cm tall, place both under the iron sheet and weld the iron rod under the sheet. Position the bottle so the hanging iron rod does not touch it. Now try to make the hanging iron rod touch the bottle by lifting one side of the iron sheet faster than the other. With a crane, since it weighs a lot. :p

The rods and the iron pipes will take all the lever force you exert before you can turn the small rod almost at all.

Of course I may overestimate the rigidness of the materials and finesse in tolerances available, but that's a separate issue from the concept itself :)
 
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Wrote up my idea of how the dock could be done. Since people will travel around with a Pyra in a case anyways I thought it made some sense to meld the dock and it together, that way they wouldn't always have to keep taking the device out from it's protection when they get home. Note that although there seems to be two storage compartments in the drawing, in actuality it's the same one folded over to form the bottom of the carry case when closed up. 

xmHEtmf.png
 
As an analogue, consider four 4m long iron pipes with 15cm inner radius going into the earth in a 4m x 1m rectangular formation, much like the guide rod holes in the pyra dock. Then consider four 5m long iron rods with 14.990cm radius put into the pipes. Now weld a 25cm thick 4.2m x 1.2m iron sheet on top of the rods. Next put a 80cm long iron rod with 1cm diameter inside a soda bottle at least 20cm tall, place both under the iron sheet and weld the iron rod under the sheet. Position the bottle so the hanging iron rod does not touch it. Now try to make the hanging iron rod touch the bottle by lifting one side of the iron sheet faster than the other. With a crane, since it weighs a lot. :p

The rods and the iron pipes will take all the lever force you exert before you can turn the small rod almost at all.
The problem is, in your (funny) analogy I'm actually the crane, not a person - so don't see where this would help alot.
Wrote up my idea of how the dock could be done. Since people will travel around with a Pyra in a case anyways I thought it made some sense to meld the dock and it together, that way they wouldn't always have to keep taking the device out from it's protection when they get home. Note that although there seems to be two storage compartments in the drawing, in actuality it's the same one folded over to form the bottom of the carry case when closed up.
While the idea to make this a "two in one" kind of thing is generally appealing, I personally would not want such a solution.
 
The problem is, in your (funny) analogy I'm actually the crane, not a person - so don't see where this would help alot.
The point is that the guide rods absorb any torque before any relevant twisting (resulting in uneven force) can occur. The structure just needs to be rigid enough with small tolerances for the guide rod holes. I exaggerated the materials and dimensions for the analogue on purpose so it would be evident the structure can't twist any relevant amounts, so the connectors are always inserted straight and with the combined resistance of all of them. They can't go faster in the connectors that have less resistance, because the structure won't let them.
EDIT: if it helps, connect the crane to one corner of the metal sheet. It will still go straight up without touching the soda bottle.
 
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The problem is, in your (funny) analogy I'm actually the crane, not a person - so don't see where this would help alot.
The point is that the guide rods absorb any torque before any relevant twisting (resulting in uneven force) can occur. The structure just needs to be rigid enough with small tolerances for the guide rod holes. I exaggerated the materials and dimensions for the analogue on purpose so it would be evident the structure can't twist any relevant amounts, so the connectors are always inserted straight and with the combined resistance of all of them. They can't go faster in the connectors that have less resistance, because the structure won't let them.

EDIT: if it helps, connect the crane to one corner of the metal sheet. It will still go straight up without touching the soda bottle.
And my point is that those guiding rods have to connect to a much weaker material (the "port frame"), which will give you "wiggle room"
 
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That's possible. As I said earlier

Of course I may overestimate the rigidness of the materials and finesse in tolerances available, but that's a separate issue from the concept itself
I have no idea on the engineering side of how to make the rod attachment to the back plate as sturdy as possible. I don't think the dock base part is an issue since the rods have so much more contact area there, spreading the load on a larger area. I made the back plate in the renders quite a hunk of plastic to both have room to house electronics and give a good anchoring depth for the rods.

Assuming perfect materials and perfect alignment of pyra ports and dock connectors, do you think the concept would work perfectly? If yes, I agree with you that material issues, wear, and construction tolerances may make it worse. Even a lot worse. But I have no competence or even an educated guess to provide regarding the actual implementation. If you have concerns regarding the design I'm glad to talk about it, but going from design to implementation will yield no wisdom on my part :)

It's just an idea, one I think accounts for many concerns voiced here. As disclaimer I should mention that I don't think it's perfect, the only one worth considering or anything. I'd be glad to see a better solution :p
 
Wrote up my idea of how the dock could be done. Since people will travel around with a Pyra in a case anyways I thought it made some sense to meld the dock and it together, that way they wouldn't always have to keep taking the device out from it's protection when they get home. Note that although there seems to be two storage compartments in the drawing, in actuality it's the same one folded over to form the bottom of the carry case when closed up.
While the idea to make this a "two in one" kind of thing is generally appealing, I personally would not want such a solution.
Agreed. A no frills, minimalistic cradle is what I would want if I needed a dock. Like this 3DS charging cradle without the inclining:

chargingcradle3ds.jpg


Side view here.
 
I would vote fore something not too tight, my pandora has a bulge underneath because of a slightly expanded battery, in the very tight fit cases this would bork the usage of the docks presented here. I would opt for a very flexible solution (maybe even short cables)
 
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I'm going to go off on a limb here and state why this needs to be said in this thread, the primary reasons a dock is needed is to make the device easier to use for advanced users, the purpose of the dock, in my opinion is to allow users to plug the device into a central hub that will be used to display the screen on a tv/projector/ect. The power plug for the dock should not be detatchable at all it should be also at least 5 feet long. The Pyra will be replacing my landline and cell phone so It would be nice to have usb connectivity to hack up a handset and a dtmf board. I've seen people in this thread talk about data speeds of the internet on their pandora and how they need ethernet for games I see the point of ethernet. the problem with wifi is that your QOS is dependant on a box  that could be flooded with traffic on all the channels (especially where I  work where wifi is open access only) setting up another wifi box  is a good Idea but who wants to trouble shoot when you can just  plug it in? Why worry about a ESATA port?  Current top of the line kensington cards have a read speed of 30 mb/s and a write speed of 10 mb/s if you are really requesting a esata port you need to rethink that (just get a enclosure with usb connectivity they are cheap and portable). The real purpose of a dock is to have all the connections  neatly tucked away so that the motherboard of the Pyra is not torquing so that you can just grab the pyra and go about your buisness. An important note to add about the dock it has to be portable  in the sense that I could pick it up and move it accross the room I'd personally like one of those heavy duty power cables, the kind you see on a power supply.

keep the riduculousness to a minimum

thanks,
 
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