Test Drive

[fusion_power]

Naja, a FM Receiver would mean, whe have to hear the shitty german Radio Musik (Lady Gaga, Helene Fischer) and have to pay  "GEZ"  ..

At the other side: somethimes a Radio can be usefull..

And you can still hear C64 SID Via Rockbox..

Lots of interesting ships i dotnt understand but be happy to have..

Yupp, german (analog) radio is the worst on this planet. Only "flat" and boring songs, always the same chart crap, nothing rocking, nothing heavy. Can't remember if I ever heared Lordi onto german Radio for example.

But we have Internet so we can get every radio broadcast of this Planet, there shoulöd be enough good stations out there for every music taste.

 

[Exophase]

Hm, some stuff I had no idea were on the board. I may have missed posts about this stuff before. Have some questions:

1) Do you really have both discrete accelerometer, gyro, and magnetometer chips and a chip that combines all three on the same module? If so, why?

2) Is CRTOUCH the chip used for converting resistive touch inputs to multitouch somehow?

3) Does Vibra refer to a vibration motor or something else?

 

[Letalis Sonus]

Yupp, german (analog) radio is the worst on this planet. Only "flat" and boring songs, always the same chart crap, nothing rocking, nothing heavy. Can't remember if I ever heared Lordi onto german Radio for example.

Well, at least there's Radio 21 (NDS) and their partner station Rockland Radio (RLP), they've been the first German stations that copied the Canadian Jack FM format - lot's of diversification, only minimal side shows (no "call to win xyz" crap), and lots of music that no other station would ever play. They sometimes even broadcast whole metal concerts during their theme nights.

 

[EvilDragon]

1) Do you really have both discrete accelerometer, gyro, and magnetometer chips and a chip that combines all three on the same module? If so, why?

As far as I know, it's a finished module that combines those and offers them on one i2c (Nikolaus knows for sure).


We don't have them on the PCB twice.

2) Is CRTOUCH the chip used for converting resistive touch inputs to multitouch somehow?

As far as I know, yes.

3) Does Vibra refer to a vibration motor or something else?

Vibration Motor

 

[Exophase]

As far as I know, it's a finished module that combines those and offers them on one i2c (Nikolaus knows for sure).

We don't have them on the PCB twice.

Okay, that's good to know. It was just confusing since they were listed separately. So I guess you could say that the accelerometer part of the BNO055 has been tested, but the gyroscope and magnetometer parts have not been tested.

Didn't know Pyra was going to have a vibration motor, I feel like I probably missed an announcement on this somewhere or maybe forgot it. I could find there was a thread last summer where people argued about whether or not such a thing risked damaging the device.

 

[Neelix]

Didn't know Pyra was going to have a vibration motor, I feel like I probably missed an announcement on this somewhere or maybe forgot it. I could find there was a thread last summer where people argued about whether or not such a thing risked damaging the device.

I'm not sure it was ever announced as such, but it was visible on one of the early PCB prototype photos, and Nikolaus clarified what it is. (it's on the top side of the board to the right of the 'wonky' USB power control chip)

- Neelix

 

[matzesu]

Seems like the Pyra will be the ultimative EDC Device to have everyday whit you..


Whit all these Barometric Sensors, FM Radio, Mobile Internet/Telefon funktions, Gyroskope, and so one...


So many funktions and you can Play Tetris in it too...


Mybe a updatet Spec Sheed on the Pyra Side should be a great PR for the Projekt...


Or something like a FAQ, which Task you can solve whit the Pyra...

 

[ssokolow]

Seems like the Pyra will be the ultimative EDC Device to have everyday whit you..

Not quite ultimate. I still have to carry one of these in my pocket if I want to scan QR codes.

 

[slimeycat]

Everything has a camera these days.  It's almost nice not to have a camera on the Pyra. 

 

[Bosbeetle]

Everything has a camera these days.  It's almost nice not to have a camera on the Pyra. 

Agreed

 

[Majin Wamu]

Amazing. Sounds like you are getting pretty close to competition. It has been interesting watching the production from beginning up to this point over the past year. I sure am excited to soon be able to hold an actual Pyra in my hands.

 

[rSl]

great news!


so the pcm1773 burr-brown dac is back in?


nice!

 

[hns]

great news!

so the pcm1773 burr-brown dac is back in?

nice!

We have currently two alternatives (can be switched by de/resoldering some components): pcm1773 plus expensive external amplifiers (needing the only two tantalum capacitors in the whole design) - or a much cheaper twl6040.According to data sheets and first experiments (twl6040 is running out of the box on the OMAP4 PandaBoard) they are comparable from sound quality. But in detail they might show differences.

We can't test that yet with the existing prototypes since there is no connection to the OMAP5432EVM and we need a working CPU board first.

So the pcm1773 might go away if it is not significantly better. The twl6040 will remain there anyways since it is the only chip which has an ADC for the microphone.

Something else you might want to know: the twl6040 is supported by Linux 4.0 out of the box while there is no driver for the pcm1773.

 

[hns]

1) Do you really have both discrete accelerometer, gyro, and magnetometer chips and a chip that combines all three on the same module? If so, why?

As far as I know, it's a finished module that combines those and offers them on one i2c (Nikolaus knows for sure).

We don't have them on the PCB twice.

For testing purposes we have them all. But in the end we will either have a 9-axis single chip sensor or 3 separate. Factors to decide that are availability of kernel drivers, sensitivity, cost.

 

[levi]

Out of interest, why is the lack of CPU PCB holding up the testing of some things?  I thought you'd built a sort of passthrough so you could plug in the devboard via the dummy CPU board.  Wouldn't that let you test game buttons?

Hmm, or is it because the GPIOs are not mapped to the devboard the same way they would be on a real local CPU?  I suppose that would make sense.

 

[hns]

Out of interest, why is the lack of CPU PCB holding up the testing of some things?  I thought you'd built a sort of passthrough so you could plug in the devboard via the dummy CPU board.  Wouldn't that let you test game buttons?

Yes, this is exactly the way those parts have been tested that are listed in the beginning of this thread.In the meantime almost everything that is reachable through this dummy CPU board has been tested (and three areas have been fixed). E.g. it was possible to make a landline phone ring by dialing its number and there was a GPS position fix after waiting a while. Charging a battery also works. And the USB host ports and OTG can provide 5V.

Hmm, or is it because the GPIOs are not mapped to the devboard the same way they would be on a real local CPU?  I suppose that would make sense.

The issue with audio is that the control signals are not at all connected to a PCM (McBSP) port of the OMAP5. These signals (and others) are not available on the expansion connector of the OMAP5432EVM (because it has its own twl6040 on board).So we can only test as soon as we have finalized and built our CPU boards.

Remapping of GPIOs is not an issue (can easily be done by modifying the Device Tree file for the board).

 

[fusion_power]

And if even possible, try to build in quality components please, not all these cheap china electronic parts with built in obsolescence. ^^"  It seems to get even worse in the last years where the quality of electronics seems to get lower and lower. There were even cases where the capaciators and sensitive parts were built to fail on purpose shortly after the varranty was gone. I'm sure the Pyra is meant to survive but many parts come from china and who knows how good these are in practise.  h34r:

 

[Grench]

So the pcm1773 might go away if it is not significantly better. The twl6040 will remain there anyways since it is the only chip which has an ADC for the microphone.

Something else you might want to know: the twl6040 is supported by Linux 4.0 out of the box while there is no driver for the pcm1773.

Please don't underestimate the importance of having rock solid audio and amplification on the Pyra. The Pandora blows away every cell phone and portable media player I've ever tried. It would be disappointing if the audio quality (and quantity) in the Pyra were to be in any way a step backwards from the Pandora.

 

[TrashyMG]

So the pcm1773 might go away if it is not significantly better. The twl6040 will remain there anyways since it is the only chip which has an ADC for the microphone.


Something else you might want to know: the twl6040 is supported by Linux 4.0 out of the box while there is no driver for the pcm1773.

Please don't underestimate the importance of having rock solid audio and amplification on the Pyra. The Pandora blows away every cell phone and portable media player I've ever tried. It would be disappointing if the audio quality (and quantity) in the Pyra were to be in any way a step backwards from the Pandora.

Well much of how the Pandora sounds is how the audio circuitry is designed... the expensive tantalum capacitors hns mentioned most likely has more of an impact than the DAC did to the Pandora sound.

 

[Grench]

So the pcm1773 might go away if it is not significantly better. The twl6040 will remain there anyways since it is the only chip which has an ADC for the microphone.

Something else you might want to know: the twl6040 is supported by Linux 4.0 out of the box while there is no driver for the pcm1773.

Please don't underestimate the importance of having rock solid audio and amplification on the Pyra. The Pandora blows away every cell phone and portable media player I've ever tried. It would be disappointing if the audio quality (and quantity) in the Pyra were to be in any way a step backwards from the Pandora.

Well much of how the Pandora sounds is how the audio circuitry is designed... the expensive tantalum capacitors hns mentioned most likely has more of an impact than the DAC did to the Pandora sound.

And those capacitors would be eliminated in the simple/cheaper/easier solution...?