Unofficial Openpandora Community Blog

[mali]

[...]The cases will probably arrive with Michael at the weekend if we are lucky. They should be the final ones.

So it looks like units won't ship to customers in large numbers until (probably) after Christmas.

I'm sure Michael will make up more units, but it's going to be small numbers before Christmas, probably for devs.

When you get your Pandora and see just how perfected it is you will understand the delays.

Hopefully several of you will drop by my house to try one out before then.

 

[mali]

CE testing

Yep, it will take place on 28th of December.

Nub as mouse

Yes it is. It's on the to-do list, but hasn't been implemented yet.

Actually it *is* implemented but needs some tweaking.

What about the boards?

[...]
But yes, the boards are waiting for cases, we will just continue with the other 3000 now which while Michael starts review number 2.

 

[mali]

Pandora preview
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/51023-my-pandora-preview/

Edit:

The devs are currently working on implementing PMenu (which worked on a minimal image) into the normal OS image.
As soon as this is done (I think it's about 98% done) and the image is baked, I'm gonna make a video about it.

 

[mali]

Current case revision:

ED on the German forums:

So, aktuell von den Chinesen: Versand der fertigen Cases am 23.12.
Die Boards werden munter produziert, so dass es dann gleich nachher losgehen kann.

Wir sind momentan recht sicher, dass diese Case-Revision die fertige sein wird - denn das jetzige Case ist wirklich schon fast perfekt
Davon konnten wir (und einige User) sich ja auch schon persönlich von überzeugen

Free translation:

The latest info from the Chinese mould company: Shipping of the finished cases on 23rd of December.
The boards are being produced, so that we can start assembly.

We are pretty sure right now, that this case revision will be the final - the current case is already nearly perfect
[...]

Edit:
I suppose that this revision ED talks about is the same revision Craig mentioned a few days ago.

Please no speculation in this thread, open a new thread or use an other open thread, thanks

 

[gruso]

Thanks for all these mali. I'll be playing catchup on the blog tonight.

 

[Esn]

Thanks for all these mali. I'll be playing catchup on the blog tonight.

The Dec. 23 date is also mentioned on the official timetable now.

& of course, don't miss the Mupen64Plus video...

 

[gruso]

Bashing the keyboard as we speak! A triplet of posts incoming.

 

[Esn]

Don't forget to write about "Panorama", folks:
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/51076-panorama/

There are 3 excellent videos in the thread so far:
http://www.vimeo.com/8284733
http://www.vimeo.com/8331408
http://www.vimeo.com/8415450

 

[mali]

Blog post about successful CE test

First of all, since this is what most of would want to know: The Pandora did pass the CE testing! Yeah!

Now, for those interested in some more details on the test... here you go.

The quick test we did last time was just one of seven tests. The one that you can easily fail: The radiation testing.
This was the one we failed last time - but using tons of copper tape (well, not exactly tons... but quite a few stripes ), we shielded it good enough to pass it.

The other tests are more or less brutal: They all do test how sturdy the Pandora is.

Some are harmless, like shooting frequency waves from 80Hz to 1GHz onto the running Pandora to see if it will somehow flicker, crash or fail.
Well, it didn't. Linux doesn't crash, so the Pandora didn't even think of crashing just because of a few frequency waves.

The same thing has been repeated - this time with transmitting those frequencies into the power line, not directly onto the device.
Nothing. Angström was still standing there and smiling at us.

Of course, another similar test which had those frequencies directly from the power mains also didn't disturb our little friend.

The next test was easy: What happens when there's a power failure? Well, nothing of course, as the Pandora will simply run from battery then. Easy. Still, some devices do crash if the power failure is only for a few milliseconds. Well, some do. But not the Pandora.

Nothing to worry about here, now onto the more brutal tests.
(Note: If you are in risk of suffering a heart attack or something like that, you'd better not read on)

Next we have the ESD testing. Yep, electrostatical discharging. We did use a small device to fire statical electricity all over the Pandora. You could hear the LCD suffer, but it did survive without any damage. Of course, the OS was still running fine.

The next test is the most brutal one: What happens to the device, if there is a thunder struck near your house and the Pandora is connected to the mains via the AC Adaptor?
About 20% of the devices fail that test... they go down with a lot of sparkles and are dead. Yep. Dead, Jim.
So... we did try to fry the Pandora with peaks of 500V and 1000V. Nothing. Not even a blink. The OS was still working.

So, what did we learn here?
CE testing is brutal. And Linux is stable.

Nuff said. I will get the PDFs with the detailed testing reports tomorrow

 

[mali]

Nothing for the blog, but nice to know:

We know we will lose sales because we won't be able to meet the instant supply some people want. But we will start taking orders for Batch2 as soon as batch1 is done and shipping.

We are working on making the wait as low as possible though.

Edit:

Exactly, we got 105 boards, 5 are already built and shipped (one of those is the one I did CE testing with and make videos for you).
So with 100 more cases, we can build 100 more Pandoras.

Usually, shipping companies need 3 - 5 WORKDAYS from China to Canada (unless you pay them five times the normal amount for express...)
If it shipped 23rd or 24th (don't know the exact date), we have 25th and 26th as holidays in Canada, 27th was Sunday those these three days don't count as workdays.
This is why the cases are not here yet. They should arrive between 30th and January 5th (depending on how fast customs are, etc.). Friday, Saturday and Sunday are no workdays... once again.

We hope we will receive them until Thursday, but it all depends on customs and the delivery service.

The company which does the assembly and mass production of the boards was closed during Xmas and new year, so production can start as soon as their holidays are over (which is during the first week of January).

All we need now is the final case. CE testing was passed, so mass production is the last step we're missing

Edit2:

Yeah if we are happy they can just spit out the 10,000 pretty quick, 10k is their MINIMUM order, they will probably be more used to orders in the hundreds of thousands. Maybe our small order is why it's taken so long. I don't know.

Anyway, yes, essentially as soon as they are done we can start casing them up in Dallas.

Well, not RIGHT AWAY as Michael needs to fly down to Dallas first, but we can maybe time that for a day or three after the cases arrive in Texas.

 

[JerryG20]

Can somebody put up a link to Mweston's photobucket account link on the links page of the unofficial blog website? I always forget what it is and want to reference it a lot or look if there is a new picture there all the time. Thanks!

 

[WolfSpider]

Can somebody put up a link to Mweston's photobucket account link on the links page of the unofficial blog website? I always forget what it is and want to reference it a lot or look if there is a new picture there all the time. Thanks!

You can try emailing EvilDragon. EvilDragon@openpandora.org

 

[BackAssward]

Can somebody put up a link to Mweston's photobucket account link on the links page of the unofficial blog website? I always forget what it is and want to reference it a lot or look if there is a new picture there all the time. Thanks!

You can try emailing EvilDragon.

EvilDragon is not involved with the unofficial blog. You'd want to talk to Gruso. My suggestion though (since there are tons of places to link to, more than be accommodated on the unofficial blog) is to get the Pandora tool bar. It works in IE and Firefox, and Safari. It comes in German and in English. You can thank Screeny is you like it. It has links to everywhere you want to go (though I believe it is missing openxile, I'll have to mention that if I see Screeny around).

 

[mali]

[...]
The other delay is just these cases. Michael does have the new ones now.

Edit:

Those cases are already out of date, more are being sent tomorrow.

Edit2:
New pics from MWeston(silkscreening included)
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/51255-new-pics-from-mweston/

 

[mali]

Just checking the Pandora PSUs are good quality. They are.

[...]

 

[quartercast]

No blog updates for almost 1 week! Party time's over guys *whack whack*

 

[Butterman]

RAWWWWWRRR.

Good call on the mass production thing commenters, that has been up for a while after I thought about it. Also, you guys are like the flash!

 

[absolofdoom]

RAWWWWWRRR.

Good call on the mass production thing commenters, that has been up for a while after I thought about it. Also, you guys are like the flash!

Yay me! I had just F5'ed after reading the last blog post and that popped up, I had a seizure, then I realized it was just the boards and like cried.

You got it down pretty fast, too. When it disappeared I wondered if I had just been going crazy and started seeing things. :lol:

 

[Trip]

RAWWWWWRRR.

Good call on the mass production thing commenters, that has been up for a while after I thought about it. Also, you guys are like the flash!

Yay me! I had just F5'ed after reading the last blog post and that popped up, I had a seizure, then I realized it was just the boards and like cried.

You got it down pretty fast, too. When it disappeared I wondered if I had just been going crazy and started seeing things. :lol:

Same here, I even re-checked it on the RSS reader to make sure :lol:

 

[fischju2000]

The first image is a direct link to his photobucket rather than a mirror on imageshack or something, it's going to kill his monthly bandwidth limit.