The magnificent seven

[EvilDragon]

About the aluminum pieces...
The above seems to be missing the LCD lid logo (clear) piece and the LCD lid logo surround (aluminum?) piece. Is the plan to have Form Action apply these to the case lids prior to shipping?

Yes, we get the upper side fully finished.

I understand that these are combined with adhesive - assuming that is pre-applied to the back of the aluminum surround? What is the thickness of the aluminum used for the surround? There was some chatter a while back about some of the more artistically inclined (@FaeMinx?) maybe making some custom decorated logo surrounds. Would you be able/willing to sell/provide a few dozen non-applied aluminum surrounds to that kind of effort?

Well, the aluminium surrounds have the logos already cut out, so they won't help for a custom design, would they?

I don't think that any of us have ever seen this heat sink/spreader. It wasn't in the assembly video. I'm curious about it - others likely are as well. When or if you have time, a brief blurb and a picture of this solution would be appreciated.

Well, as mentioned multiple times: Before I had the final case I couldn't measure the exact space between the PCB and the backside of the case and therefore couldn't design that plate, as I need to know the thickness.
So no one couldn't have seen it, as it doesn't exist.
It's a simple aluminium plate though that will just be cut in shape so no parts are in the way. That's it. Nothing special

 

[Xcl4m4t10n]

Thank you for the clarifications @EvilDragon, Did you had time to assemble and send the prototypes to devs??

 

[Grench]

Yes, we get the upper side fully finished.

Cool - one or two less steps during assembly then - and no having to deal with the adhesive directly.

Well, the aluminium surrounds have the logos already cut out, so they won't help for a custom design, would they?

I think that the idea was to decorate the surrounds themselves. Different colors, etc. And - maybe - if the aluminum is thick enough to hold up... Using powdered glazing glass and a kiln on a sanded/unfinished aluminum plate, the aluminum piece could be given a glossy swirling multi-color jewelry type finish.

Well, as mentioned multiple times: Before I had the final case I couldn't measure the exact space between the PCB and the backside of the case and therefore couldn't design that plate, as I need to know the thickness.
So no one couldn't have seen it, as it doesn't exist.
It's a simple aluminium plate though that will just be cut in shape so no parts are in the way. That's it. Nothing special

I suspect that you're underestimating how special every component is. If you supplied the exact dimensions and thickness of this, there would be a half dozen people trying to calculate it's thermal capacity at different SoC and starting temperatures and what the rate of dissipation should be.

Now, whether that is from the pieces being special (good) or members of the community, with just enough knowledge of thermodynamics to be helpful/annoying/dangerous, being special (good/bad/other) - that could be subject to debate.

It is great to see the pieces coming together though. Looking forward to operational units 'in the wild'!

 

[sm0kew0n]

@Xcl4m4t10n you talk about those things later, I'm gonna paint a bit of plastic, meh.

 

[Xcl4m4t10n]

Obviously I was talking about "user" level plastic paints, not professional as you show. Anyway you still have the keyboard issue . If 0,1mm of coating affected the correct functionality, guess what could happen if you apply a layer of paint (and as you know, because you seems to know a lo of plastic paint, 1 layer is not enough for a good paint).

The only way is to see if we can dye the clear/white case, if not, plastic paint is not a realistic solution (only if you want to have a dirty and unuseful pyra).

 

[Neelix]

I tend to think painting the inside will work less well than people seem to be thinking. As I understand it even the clear plastic will end up more translucent than transparent, and paint on the inside will be blocked by any support structures inside the case.

-Neelix

 

[levi]

I don't think that any of us have ever seen this heat sink/spreader. It wasn't in the assembly video. I'm curious about it - others likely are as well. When or if you have time, a brief blurb and a picture of this solution would be appreciated.

I don't think we've had anything other than a few off-the-cuff words describing this. To my memory, having recently held and considered this question, I think it runs between the underside of the CPU board (the connectors of which I could see through the bottom of the battery compartment, to the underside of the SD card cage(s) which are themselves on the underside of the main board. There's a golden patch on the main board which I think is an interface between the top of the SoC and the ground plane, which is the alternative plan for sinking heat.

I'm personally not convinced that heating the SD cages will provide any significant airflow unless you pop the unit up so they are at the top and the hinge is at the bottom, and they probably provide a smaller sink than the ground plane.

 

[comradekingu]

I think that is about thermal capacity. You flatten the peaks.
Keys can be masked off individually or as a whole, no problem there.

What are your top choices for case colour, for whatever reason?

Black - best contrast against screen.
White - reflects the most sunlight, apart from mirror, which is bound to be metallic (?) and runs into problems with wireless.
Transparent - has the most ability for artistic choice, and makes the whole unit look a little bit smaller.

My stylistic choice would be dark gray.

 

[PCXT]

I am afraid a bit about these gray-coated and silver-coated plastics. My 200LX is not coated at all and is made of quite friction-resistant plastic. However, after long time of putting it in and out of pouch every day its edges became visibly smoother and polished, loosing its brittle texture. Coated Pyra's casing may end similar way and unfortunately the solution there is to make plastic of the color as close to coating as possible to minimize wear visibility.
The friction wear is always the same: Increases with pressure and distance of slide, decreases with material hardness.

 

[levi]

I think that is about thermal capacity. You flatten the peaks.

Yes, that is how a non-radiating heatsink works, and is a good fit for sporadic tasks maybe up to things like video transcoding (providing you don't batch convert a lot of long files), but games where you can tweak the settings to use as many resources as possible, and then play for extended periods - that's when throttling kicks in eventually.

Now this an efficient ARM core rather than an x86 chip which has needed a heatsink since it hit 16MHz or so, and significantly more efficient than the one in my Pandora (which could develop a detectable hot spot if stressed for long periods), but at the same time massively more powerful than that.

Whether we get any appreciable radiation and convection of heat away by heating the SD card cages remains to be shown, and likewise whether we get any appreciable extra boost time by using them as extra sinks. But that's the best we can get with the revision 1 PBCs and case, so to that extent we'll get what we get.

So exciting times await while we find out how far we can push this chip and for how long.

 

[Black Sliver]

Whether we get any appreciable radiation and convection of heat away by heating the SD card cages remains to be shown

Plastic-enclosed SBCs always rely on connectors as heat sinks, because they allow radiation as well as natural convection of heat to the outside without heating the well-insulated case.
The most important thing for that to work is the thermal bond between the SoC and the connectors, which is normally done with the solder joints and (thermal) ground planes inside the PCB, but is not so easy with a separate CPU Board.

Besides that, almost all SoCs that support NEON or have a good GPU are able to overheat without a fan.

 

[comradekingu]

Guess there is a point to that silver solder anyhow…

Edit: Or maybe a copper dummy SD-card.

 

[Djoga'Ro]

Have IV bags of oil in the fridge and whenever you expect lots of heat, you set up a drip for your Pyra.

Ok, paint it from inside. We will talk about stuck keys later.

The oil drip would help with that, too.

 

[levi]

Guess there is a point to that silver solder anyhow…

The main point to tin/silver/copper solder is that old lead/tin alloy solder is outlawed by ROHS requirements in new builds of electronics since the mid 90s I think. It will get slightly hotter than old leaded copper without distorting or melting, but the addition of silver and copper is specified to melt at a lower point than more pure tin solders.

I guess what you wrote was more of a joke judging by the ellipsis, but it may be worth considering that actually the pure copper ground plane is going to be a better conductor of heat (as well as electricity) because it its valence electrons.

 

[spud42]

Obviously I was talking about "user" level plastic paints, not professional as you show. Anyway you still have the keyboard issue . If 0,1mm of coating affected the correct functionality, guess what could happen if you apply a layer of paint (and as you know, because you seems to know a lo of plastic paint, 1 layer is not enough for a good paint).

The only way is to see if we can dye the clear/white case, if not, plastic paint is not a realistic solution (only if you want to have a dirty and unuseful pyra).

at 2:45 into this video Bill shows how to tint a clear visor using synthetic fabric dye.

this is the video on tint visors he referenced.

 

[Xcl4m4t10n]

@spud42, I don't get the point of your videos. I mean, that's what I said on the answer you quoted and what I referenced loooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time ago here on the boards (I think it was the first time we had a color discussion thread). So maybe you missunderstood my answer and you thought I was undirectly asking if dye is possible, but I already know that it is teorically possible (another thing we have to study if the pyra's material can be dyed, that's why I also asked long time ago to @EvilDragon for a scrap of material).

 

[spud42]

quoting you was to put it in context and to let others know that there are alternatives to "painting"

 

[Xcl4m4t10n]

Thank you for the clarification, sometime I'm a little retard .

 

[mclien]

Well, the aluminium surrounds have the logos already cut out, so they won't help for a custom design, would they?

Yeah, well I'm still waiting for some lid parts from you, so i can run some tests to make custom aluminuim and Resin parts. The idea is to exchange the whole thing. so the really intresting part would be to have the Logoplate not glued into the lid.
I have now access to a makerspace with a CNC mill, which is able to mill aluminium, so some test parts of the lid (could be fails from the mold, as long as the logo part is in the correct measurement)

 

[DrHAX]

You know production is chugging along merrily when everybody is bike shedding.