Sell Replacement Parts Please!

[quadomatic]

Only if someone's not careful with their things. I've *never* had an LCD break. Ever.

Ditto

Be more careful y'all

 

[chad78]

From the way I read it, let's say the Archos 605 broke in such a way that neither the hard drive nor the screen were harmed, but it no longer functioned as a PMP, (which, what else is there to break? The software, surely it's unbrickable. The buttons? Power supply? Battery? Aren't those replaceable? But anyway...)

I think what was being suggested is that you could take the screen and use it for the Pandora - and use the "headless" Archos as a USB hard drive.

But I could easily be wrong.

 

[TaG]

No need to worry! The Archos 605 uses the same screen. Now there used to be a place that sold them, but not anymore. However... This is one of the few situations where the Pandora benefits from a stupid copy protections scheme! Every Archos 605 hard drive is locked to the player it came in, so it is impossible to replace or fix. What does that mean? It means we can buy broken ones for under $150! And while you cannot replace the hard drive in the Archos, you are able to make it into a general purpose 1.8" usb hard drive! So when you buy a broken archos, you get a new screen, and/or a 160gb mini hard drive! Pretty good deal, if you ask me.
The key, I believe is in those two little words - depending on what gets broken of screen, hdd or something else - you either get a hdd, or a screen or possibly both, respectively.

But I could easily be wrong too.

 

[God Ginrai]

From the way I read it, let's say the Archos 605 broke in such a way that neither the hard drive nor the screen were harmed, but it no longer functioned as a PMP, (which, what else is there to break? The software, surely it's unbrickable. The buttons? Power supply? Battery? Aren't those replaceable? But anyway...)

I think what was being suggested is that you could take the screen and use it for the Pandora - and use the "headless" Archos as a USB hard drive.

But I could easily be wrong.

That is a possibility of what you could do. But I think he was saying that if one essential part fails (either hard drive or screen) it will be up on ebay for a good price, so you can get the other part for cheap by purchasing it.

-God Ginrai

 

[WizardStan]

Only if someone's not careful with their things. I've *never* had an LCD break. Ever.

Ditto

Be more careful y'all


In 20 years of gadgets, I've only ever had one LCD break, on my palm pilot. <random-anecdote>This was about 6 years ago, probably about -40 or so out. It was only a 10 minute walk to the office so I bundle up warm and trudge out. Get there, and no one has opened the door yet. So I pull out my Palm to find the number for the building super, only to find the screen cracked. It had taken far more abuse over the years than I put to it that morning, so I can only assume it was the cold that did it.
Turns out it was one of the coldest days in recorded history and no one in their right mind was coming in.
</random-anecdote>

 

[palmertech]

Looks like I caused a lot of confusion! What I meant was that the archos is locked to the hard drive. The lock is determined in firmware somehow, nobody has bothered cracking it because of its small market share.

So... If an archos hard drive breaks, you cannot replace it with a new one. This means it goes on ebay, where it will be cheap, and we can salvage a working screen from it. Or, the screen is bad, so we salvage the hard drive and put it in a USB HDD enclosure for the pandora.

Or, if some other thing goes wrong (like a blown power fuse) then we get both!

Keep in mind that a lot of hard drive corruption problems can be fixed with a simple format, rendering a drive useless for the Archos, but usable for other stuff.

Hope this clarifies a bit!

 

[javaJake]

I've had plenty of Palm screens break myself, but the situation is usually rather extreme. Sat on one when I forgot I had set it next to me on a couch. Washed another one, and then somehow it made it into the dryer.

My electronics are surviving fine now, though, ever since I learned that a handheld just isn't indestructible.

 

[impreziv]

Also from the pictures I have seen, it uses a ZIF Cable, so I can't see how it would be physically locked.

what is this ZIF cable? i dont think ive ever seen one..

if youre referring to a ribbon cable like an IDE, that isnt a ZIF connector.

 

[Squidge]

ZIF (Zero Insertion Force) cables are typically used because they are smaller (so the case can be smaller) and reduces the amount of stress created when plugging and unplugging cables. No more must you push a huge connector block onto the hard drive.

A typical ZIF to IDE converter can be found here: http://www.span.com/catalog/images/products/i/ia18x.jpg

 

[peca]

I just get an idea. I don't need LCD (as I not break one yet), but I like to buy empty Pandora case and keyboard + buttons, so I can make some mods without worrying.

 

[peca]

I rather want to buy keyboard without any labels or with only letters and numbers, without punctuation, meta and other symbols.

 

[iRRVi]

now please excuse me if this is already said somewhere, as i am too lazy to read the entire thread...

but the ONLY screen I've (EVER) had broken was that of my GP2x. I had it in my pocket, and something happened...I don't know what, but it broke...and I've been abusive to that thing, I dropped it atleast 20 times before that happened...

(please note, there was one other time when I had a broken screen...that was my laptop...but that was on purpose, I was smashing it.)

(the gp2x still works fine though, the LCD didn't break. Just the plastic thing that was over the screen to keep the LCD from getting mutilated broke...when I find it I will fix it. WITH PLEXIGLASS! ...maybe...)

 

[nubie]

I would actually like a bare PCB so that I can put it inside an old DVD player with a big hard drive and let it be my media center/video game console. OR use it as my media PC in a car .

Is there any chance of this? What kind of cost savings could I get if I was to do this?

No Li-Ion (assuming that it can run off of a wall supply with no ill effects)

No screen or Touch Screen (assuming that it will boot to TV mode without issue, possibly with an SD card script, and a mouse will function in lieu of a touchscreen )

No Keys/keypad or case (assuming USB support for keyboards will work perfectly in all apps and the GUI).

No Wifi/BT module is really needed, I can use wireless USB devices and a wired USB LAN for connectivity, or likely just a USB HDD/DVD Drive, but I assume that this is onboard from the factory, so no biggie, could use it anyway.

So, is it similar in price to a BeagleBoard? Or is it more expensive and you have a deal on all the other stuff?

I really would like a console version of the Pandora, as in a whole lot (besides the fact I cannot in any way afford the full one, and wouldn't really use it portably.)

 

[TaG]

I would actually like a bare PCB....
I understand what you are saying, and the economic reasons that make you ask. I am curious as to why you would want the pcb rather than going the BeagleBoard route, especially as the kernel/firmware etc would be optimised for the Pandora hardware which would not be present. If you don't use that kernel/firmware etc, the Pandora compatibility goes. At which point the BeagleBoard with HDMI/DVI out etc becomes a better option. Curious as to the logic as I was thinking of a BeagleBoard early next year.

 

[nubie]

I would actually like a bare PCB....
I understand what you are saying, and the economic reasons that make you ask. I am curious as to why you would want the pcb rather than going the BeagleBoard route, especially as the kernel/firmware etc would be optimised for the Pandora hardware which would not be present. If you don't use that kernel/firmware etc, the Pandora compatibility goes. At which point the BeagleBoard with HDMI/DVI out etc becomes a better option. Curious as to the logic as I was thinking of a BeagleBoard early next year.

Well, I figured that it would still have the dual SD, TV-Out and the single USB 1.1 host (not that it is worth much).

I would use the Kernel/firmware as though it was a TV connected Pandora with USB interface devices.

If I had to I would use the onboard buttons, perhaps wired to the face of the old A/V equipment.

It might be cheaper, the Beagleboard seems to have a few extra chips (although the Pandora has Wifi and dual analogs).

On a hardware level I think I could use the Pandora firmware as-is (maybe with just a patch for S-Video output all the time), because of all the stuff it would be a lot more compatible with the homebrew here.

I think that we will see a lot of people setting up their beagleboard to use Pandora applications/OS, as the base hardware is so similar, consisting in the main of an OMAP. If that is the case then a BeagleBoard may work fine too.

I started a thread on it already: http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?showtopic=43597&hl=

 

[peca]

NUBIE: So make a deal: PCB for You, LCD for Viking and rest is mine

 

[nubie]

NUBIE: So make a deal: PCB for You, LCD for Viking and rest is mine

LOL

I actually might be up for it (assuming I had the dosh, which I currently don't)

lets see, $40-50 for the LCD, $40-50 for the case, that is $110-130 for me to spend (+shipping of course). I like it!

If I am going to scrape up the money I can wait for one with a cracked LCD to come up on ebay, although I probably wouldn't win that auction. And I may be SOL if it is too sturdy to crack the LCD easily .

 

[TaG]

lets see, $40-50 for the LCD, $40-50 for the case, that is $110-130 for me to spend (+shipping of course). I like it!
Shouldn't that add up to $330? You are between $100-$140 out.

I was going to discuss your board idea but I'll do that in the other thread.

 

[nubie]

lets see, $40-50 for the LCD, $40-50 for the case, that is $110-130 for me to spend (+shipping of course). I like it!
Shouldn't that add up to $330? You are between $100-$140 out.

I was going to discuss your board idea but I'll do that in the other thread.

Exactly, we should be able to purchase the spares from Craig to avoid all this confusing math