Stop the sirring noise!

[levi]

Will this require a board revision? This is on the main board with the keyboard contacts, right?

That's my understanding yes. But a board revision isn't a major concern at the moment as anything you order now will likely happen after chinese new year anyway. And the patched up CPU boards aren't being etched and laminated till after cny anyway.

 

[ashcloud]

It can run in PWM mode at 2.5GHz

I guess you mean MHz there - A boost converter with a 2.5GHz pwm would be a little too crazy.

 

[Dark Pulse]

Did we ever figure out what "sirring"sounds like? Is it a searing sound?

Probably a lot like this guy.

...Oh wait, that's Sir Ringo. My bad.

 

[spud42]

I have a working theory that it's been said it's a misspelling of a 'whirring' sound, but I can't remember where I heard that, so I just keep using the quote as is but in quotation marks. In terms of quietening the noise down as long as we know what's causing it, we can resolve that without needing to know what it sounds like. It's only important if we were still considering living with it, which I don't think we are any more.

i think the term they are looking for is SINGING. its what we used to call it back in the 80's when i was still piloting a soldering iron....

 

[matzesu]

The Pyra Prototyphe makes some sound it shouldnt make, and the solution, change the wonky chip to 2 smaler chips, sounds way better than to have tantalum caps,
even when this tantalum maybe is 0,0000004 % of the Pyra, i would rather sacrifice the wonky chip, than to be 0,000004 % guilty on the suffering in the world just for a Poket Emulation Machine....

Could we make the 2 Chips at least a bit Wonky ??

 

[Dark Pulse]

The Pyra Prototyphe makes some sound it shouldnt make, and the solution, change the wonky chip to 2 smaler chips, sounds way better than to have tantalum caps,
even when this tantalum maybe is 0,0000004 % of the Pyra, i would rather sacrifice the wonky chip, than to be 0,000004 % guilty on the suffering in the world just for a Poket Emulation Machine....

Could we make the 2 Chips at least a bit Wonky ??

No, because the fact that it's wonky in the first place is due to harmonics, and the chips can't be just "gotten rid of." If they could, then he'd not be looking for solutions, he'd have chopped them and moved on.

 

[WizardStan]

By "wonky chip" are we talking about one chip that is wonky because it is causing the cap to vibrate? Or are we specifically talking about the one wonky chip that is placed at a slight angle compared to the rest of the board?
Because I think matzesu was talking about the second: that "wonky chip" that is slightly askew is kind of a quaint signature of the board, and he's asking, if it is replaced with two, can they still be "wonky" as well? As in, at a slight angle compared to the rest of the board.
But if it's not that chip, it's a different wonky chip and the wonky chip we've come to love does not need to change, then there's no problem.

 

[pmprog]

Phone is not the primary function of the above envisioned device. eReader is.

I was thinking about this... I still like the idea of a Pyra phone - whose purpose is phone calls and text (but on Linux)... but back to your idea, it reminds me of Noteslate, and I remember when the original site went live I was very keen in an eletronic "notepad", I think that could be usefully tied to your eReader idea

 

[matzesu]

I was revering to the famous "Wonky Chip" which is near the USB Port, if i remember correcly, this Chip was the one who cause the sirring issues, so it will be replace by 2 smaler chips: one for charging, and one thats controlls the current, which is needed for USB Devices..

The "Wonky Chip" is also quite famous in this community, just like "Two Months (tm)" and "Wats your Ordernumber")..

 

[TrashyMG]

I was revering to the famous "Wonky Chip" which is near the USB Port, if i remember correcly, this Chip was the one who cause the sirring issues, so it will be replace by 2 smaler chips: one for charging, and one thats controlls the current, which is needed for USB Devices..

The "Wonky Chip" is also quite famous in this community, just like "Two Months (tm)" and "Wats your Ordernumber")..

To my knowledge the Wonky chip was never suspected of the sirring sound, it's always been capacitors being the root cause.

 

[matzesu]

Ok, so HNS (Nikolaus) wants to change the Chip who cause the Noise, whit the 2 other Chips that fit in the Place of the Wonky Chip..

 

[Grench]

I was thinking about this... I still like the idea of a Pyra phone - whose purpose is phone calls and text (but on Linux)... but back to your idea, it reminds me of Noteslate, and I remember when the original site went live I was very keen in an eletronic "notepad", I think that could be usefully tied to your eReader idea

I did end up buying a dedicated e-ink e-reader. In the end it came down to buying the -one- e-ink e-reader that I could find that had on-device direct access (without having to side-load books) to the Overdrive application that seemingly most of the libraries in the US use for e-book checkout. A, "Kobo Auro One Limited Edition" should be arriving in a week or so. There are reviews out there by people who know more about these types of devices than I do.

 

[error]

even when this tantalum maybe is 0,0000004 % of the Pyra, i would rather sacrifice the wonky chip, than to be 0,000004 % guilty on the suffering in the world just for a Poket Emulation Machine....

You would only be guilty of 0.000004% of the suffering if a 100% tantalum Pyra would account for 100% of the suffering in the world. It would be a tiny fraction of a device (percent tantalum) that is a tiny fraction of the market (of devices containing tantalum).

(I was going to add further that most causes of suffering in the world have nothing to do with tantalum, but I realized that was a terrible rationalization.)

 

[Dark Pulse]

Put bluntly... if we're talking about world suffering as a reason to not do something, think of the starving kids that the $700 or so you're paying for your Pyra could feed. There's also a limit to how much suffering you can actually control - because you can't buy every starving kid in the world a meal.

There's many causes of world suffering. The fact that it might be conflict material is no reason not to use something, especially if you can try to get it from a conflictless source, and especially if the other options are inferior for some reason or another. You just can't guarantee it, but few things in life are 100% guarantees anyway, other than death and taxes.

Especially when, according to Wikipedia, "The United States Geological Survey reports in its yearbook that this region (The Congo) produced a little less than 1% of the world's tantalum output in 2002–2006, peaking at 10% in 2000 and 2008."

 

[hns]

Answers to some questions:
1. yes, it is 2.5 MHz not 2.5 GHz
2. of course, the "Wonky chip" isn't emitting audible waves, but it is the source of voltage fluctuations which make the ceramic capacitors convert them into audible noise.
3. "sirring" is probably a Germanism: https://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/sirren "to make a soft, high-pitched sound through movement". Proper translation would be "high pitch buzz". The official technical term for the effect is "singing MLCC".
4. Tantalum: yes, it would be a small percentage, but they also have other potential problems and we prefer to chose the best solution (even if it means doing a small change to the PCB layout)

 

[Grench]

4. Tantalum: yes, it would be a small percentage, but they also have other potential problems and we prefer to chose the best solution (even if it means doing a small change to the PCB layout)

Not buying Tantalum because a certain amount of producers are evil sounds good. But - if scrupulous people don't buy Tantalum at all, then the evil producers will continue to dump their product at prices lower than fair producers can, resulting in the evil producers having greater market share of the 'don't care' purchasers market. The worst case scenario would be if the evil producers gained a monopoly due to well intended people's actions.

A potentially better solution is to buy conflict free Tantalum capacitors from a reputable source - likely at a higher price. This ensures that legitimate producers remain in business. Are there claimed or better yet certified sources for conflict free Tantalum capacitors? If so, then it may be better to buy the conflict free versions than to seek a work around.

 

[Djoga'Ro]

Are there claimed or better yet certified sources for conflict free Tantalum capacitors? If so, then it may be better to buy the conflict free versions than to seek a work around.

As to my understanding, by the chip replacement the ceramic caps don't get fed anything to resonate to due to staying at a high frequency. If there are no drawbacks to this solution, I wouldn't call that a workaround, but an improvement or a correction. Though I cannot say, if there are drawbacks. Are there?
Let's assume, there are none. Then tantalum caps would be a workaround coming with a drawback due to delivering quite a show in case of failure, if I got that right.

 

[Binky]

Perhaps "hissing" would be a better word? Or "whining"?

Either way, it would be a pity to get rid of the oddly-angled chip. I've grown rather fond of it!

 

[Grench]

Perhaps "hissing" would be a better word? Or "whining"?

Either way, it would be a pity to get rid of the oddly-angled chip. I've grown rather fond of it!

Electronics make noise. So many things make the 60Hz hum (North America) or 50Hz hum (EU) that we're all either deaf to it or it has become effectively invisible.

Some people can hear all the way up to the 21000Hz range. A lot of converting power supplies make noises up in that range that I can best describe as an electronic dog whistle. Light ballasts can often be heard. Many AC-DC chargers make noise when plugged into the AC mains but -not- into a device. I.e. they scream at 18-21KHz when plugged in but not being used. I've heard some electronic devices 'scream' with a whistle that climbs in pitch until I can't hear it anymore than the device pops in a puff of smoke. The last one was an overloaded cheap AC-DC 12VDC 3W power supply that was being tasked with powering a monitor pulling 9W. It was good to catch the warning scream - likely prevented a fire.

Sit in a quiet room with a quiet computer. Change the resolution or scan rate on the monitor. Can you hear the difference? This is very easy to do with an old CRT. Some people can still do it on some flatscreens.

So, please make the Pyra as quiet as possible from 20Hz to 22KHz.

 

[Djhg2000]

As to my understanding, by the chip replacement the ceramic caps don't get fed anything to resonate to due to staying at a high frequency. If there are no drawbacks to this solution, I wouldn't call that a workaround, but an improvement or a correction. Though I cannot say, if there are drawbacks. Are there?
Let's assume, there are none. Then tantalum caps would be a workaround coming with a drawback due to delivering quite a show in case of failure, if I got that right.

Well according to the waveforms in the TPS630250 datasheet we've moved the ripple to 2.5MHz which should work fine with ceramic caps. The only drawback I can see right now is having to redesign the board area and probably a slightly higher price. The TPS2561A has a common current limit configuration resistor instead of one per output, but we were configuring both outputs to the same limit on the TPS2505 anyway.

That said, if I'm reading the documentation correctly the new regulator is actually a lot faster and slightly more accurate when catching transients (quick changes in load). So the new setup should be a performance upgrade in terms of 5V delivery, but I think very few people would have noticed any difference even in a blind A/B test.