It's time for some updates!
Just some quick news, but as you know, there's not that much left to do...
1. The Case
My contact in Greece finally found the time to pay FormAction a visit and he checked that all changes we had discussed have been applied to the mold.
They have - and samples will now be produced.
He plans to visit them again on Monday to take some pictures.
Hopefully, the samples will be okay, as we can then produce the limited 500 transparent cases (which will go on sale in the shop).
After that, the molds will be moved for the proper production run.
2. The mainboard
As planned, Nikolaus was playing around with the capacitors to solve the sirring noise.
Well, and we can now 100% confirm which capacitors are the issue...
A few solutions exist:
The question is: How to proceed here.
Tantalum is a conflict material, so I wouldn't really want to use it if possible.
However, it seems like this is the only proper solution. I will try to contact the Fairphone team to see whether we can get some conflict-free Tantal capacitors from them..
That would be the best solution!
On the other hand, it's only a couple of capacitors... probably 0,0000001% of what the smartphone industry uses per day... but still, if I can get them conflict free, I will!
Nikolaus will still think of some other ideas, but that's the situation today.
3. CPU Boards
Well, they're in production. Chinese New Year will delay things a bit, but they should be finished in March - and most probably the final version.
And here are some things I usually don't tell you, but it shows with what issues I also have to fight in the background:
As the CPU board is so complex, the price for the bare PCB has doubled (24 EUR instead of 12 EUR).
So yay... more expenses for us, but I won't charge you more, no worries.
Oh, and about the old CPU Boards (the ones that would work with 2GB only): Well, using them for the normal production run doesn't make sense, as I only have a couple of 2GB RAM orders.
Nikolaus was planning to use them for a Pyra phone (so basically the screen, processor and CPU without keyboard and nubs but with replaceable batteries in one nice case), but he doesn't know yet if there would be enough interest for such a project.
And as the population of the CPU boards are only guaranteed to work fine until end of April (and it surely won't be done until then), we probably can't use those anymore... (remember when the CC in Texas populated corrodated Pandora boards...? Horrible failure rate...)
So I guess in the end I will sell them as keychains or similar to anyone who wants one of them. Then we could at least cover these expenses a bit (a whopping 8000 EUR). They will probably go on sale together with the transparent case.
4. Catch the Nikolaus!
If you happen to visit the FOSDEM, you can try to catch Nikolaus! He's there as a visitor as well - and he's got a Pyra prototype with him
Just some quick news, but as you know, there's not that much left to do...
1. The Case
My contact in Greece finally found the time to pay FormAction a visit and he checked that all changes we had discussed have been applied to the mold.
They have - and samples will now be produced.
He plans to visit them again on Monday to take some pictures.
Hopefully, the samples will be okay, as we can then produce the limited 500 transparent cases (which will go on sale in the shop).
After that, the molds will be moved for the proper production run.
2. The mainboard
As planned, Nikolaus was playing around with the capacitors to solve the sirring noise.
Well, and we can now 100% confirm which capacitors are the issue...
A few solutions exist:
- Instead of using one capacitor, use smaller ones parallel. This works - and the sirring is more quiet then, but we couldn't completely eliminate it.
- Use an extra PCB just for these capacitors - but this is not really feasible (way too expensive)
- Like everyone else does it: Use Tantal capacitors. Nikolaus tried it, and yes, the Pyra was working 100% fine and without any noise.
The question is: How to proceed here.
Tantalum is a conflict material, so I wouldn't really want to use it if possible.
However, it seems like this is the only proper solution. I will try to contact the Fairphone team to see whether we can get some conflict-free Tantal capacitors from them..
That would be the best solution!
On the other hand, it's only a couple of capacitors... probably 0,0000001% of what the smartphone industry uses per day... but still, if I can get them conflict free, I will!
Nikolaus will still think of some other ideas, but that's the situation today.
3. CPU Boards
Well, they're in production. Chinese New Year will delay things a bit, but they should be finished in March - and most probably the final version.
And here are some things I usually don't tell you, but it shows with what issues I also have to fight in the background:
As the CPU board is so complex, the price for the bare PCB has doubled (24 EUR instead of 12 EUR).
So yay... more expenses for us, but I won't charge you more, no worries.
Oh, and about the old CPU Boards (the ones that would work with 2GB only): Well, using them for the normal production run doesn't make sense, as I only have a couple of 2GB RAM orders.
Nikolaus was planning to use them for a Pyra phone (so basically the screen, processor and CPU without keyboard and nubs but with replaceable batteries in one nice case), but he doesn't know yet if there would be enough interest for such a project.
And as the population of the CPU boards are only guaranteed to work fine until end of April (and it surely won't be done until then), we probably can't use those anymore... (remember when the CC in Texas populated corrodated Pandora boards...? Horrible failure rate...)
So I guess in the end I will sell them as keychains or similar to anyone who wants one of them. Then we could at least cover these expenses a bit (a whopping 8000 EUR). They will probably go on sale together with the transparent case.
4. Catch the Nikolaus!
If you happen to visit the FOSDEM, you can try to catch Nikolaus! He's there as a visitor as well - and he's got a Pyra prototype with him
