Unofficial Openpandora Community Blog

[Trip]

I'm currently holding a Pandora at a silly angle and ramming the lid open and closed over and over beyond the final click to see how much force and brutality is needed to break the hinge.

and then..

From Craigs Twitter feed:

My disposable Pandora test pilot has just survived 1000 vicious openings and closings. Hinge still works. How many until it breaks I wonder?

and then ..

Oh and yes these chargers have the figure 8 connector.

We might not always use these chargers, we might swap between various manufacturers as sometimes you have to for leadtimes.

 

[gruso]

Heh, an abuse theme for my first post of the new year. How fitting. Thanks Trip.

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.

Cheers, fixed!

 

[Trip]

Heh, an abuse theme for my first post of the new year. How fitting. Thanks Trip.

No probs. Finally got over that xmas/newyear hangover then? Welcome back

 

[mali]

UBIFS will be used as NAND file system

Something for Pandora developers to consider: http://www.plugcompu.../Enabling_UBIFS

Quoting the page:

Why UBIFS instead of JFFS2?
Because it's fast! Also, in theory, the UBI layer should be even smarter than JFFS2 about wear-levelling. But mainly because it's really fast. For reference:

# Mounting a JFFS2 rootfs from /dev/mtdblock2
 root# mount -t jffs2 /dev/mtdblock2 /mnt/nand
     43.396s total

Compared to:

# Mounting an UBIFS rootfs from the same NAND partition
 root# ubiattach /dev/ubi_ctrl -m 2 && mount -t ubifs ubi0:rootfs /mnt/nand
     1.488s total

Yes this is what we are going to use, it is probably the best choice for NAND, even GPH figured it out and put in on Wiz.

 

[mali]

Let's try a new way of showing you the situation, we will just copy and paste the emails from the factory:
----
Dear Mr.Michael,

sorry, after i discussed with our technician and we found all of modifications would be finished on Jan.15,2010.
We compared market products with our products last week and we need more EDM working to make the same quality.
I have to inform you and so sorry for delay.

Best regards,

David
----
This will be what we do from now on.

For once they probably will meet this date, the last cases were almost there, the changes are minimal this time.

Mostly they are just improving the finish.

It's a process used to modify the mould that allows for complex machining. I have a link somewhere....

...here it is - All about EDM machining...

 

[mali]

Thank you very much for your kind words

 

[Peri28]

 

[mali]

Please no "stuff" in this thread. It's for informational data only

 

[kloplop321]

For information use: I am unsure if this is exactly what "David" means by EDM however it seems very relevant to the context of a case mould.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_discharge_machining
“Electric discharge machining (EDM), sometimes colloquially also referred to as spark machining, spark eroding, burning, die sinking or wire erosion,[1] is a manufacturing process whereby a wanted shape of an object, called workpiece, is obtained using electrical discharges (sparks). The material removal from the workpiece occurs by a series of rapidly recurring current discharges between two electrodes, separated by a dielectric liquid and subject to an electric voltage. ”
Additionally on wikipedia it says
“Some of the disadvantages of EDM include: * The slow rate of material removal.
* The additional time and cost used for creating electrodes for ram / Sinker EDM.
* Reproducing sharp corners on the workpiece is difficult due to electrode wear.”
This may bring more context to the delay but I cannot guarantee this is the EDM that "David" is referring to.

 

[Vlynndar]

I've noticed that lately much of the commotion around the board has been about the cases. However, not much has been said about the status of the boards. When will they be produced, or are all of them already produced? Correct me if I'm wrong, but could the OP team use this delay to make the boards, likely speeding up the whole process?

They are sitting waiting in Dallas for the cases.

With many posts thereafter asking how many, and wheter or not they are populated.
It might not be news, but it's good to know.

 

[mali]

New blog post
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/51316-offical-blog-when-in-panic-fear-or-doubt/

Wonderful post:

My only addition to this topic is that I want to share my experiences with these injected molded case samples. Pickle made a very stable version of Quake2 with dual nub support and it is the first time I have truly enjoyed playing a 3D shooter on a handheld. I played all the way though Resistance: Retribution for the PSP and that was a bit awkward with the four buttons to look around. Having the second nub act like a mouse is just so fantastic. Being able to move that cross hair anywhere I want at any speed I want when being attacked from everywhere was wonderful. That's what Pandora is all about and not necessarily trying to show off the fastest clock speed although unofficially, it's doing quite well there too.

Don't forget, I'm the one changing the status page
I only can change what I do know already and as I'm not in permanent contact with everyone, it could take a few days until I do know that.

My guess is that those 4000 EMPTY boards are ready and lying around in Dallas, waiting for the cases as then assembly of the boards AND the final Pandoras will take place at once

Basically, what an assembly company does for assembling a device is one long chain.
At the start of the chain, there are all basic parts (boards, cases, etc.).
The machine assembles the boards, then they come out and will be assembled into the cases by human beings.

An assembly company doesn't usually do half of the work one week and the rest later, they set everything up and the product will be completed at once.

All 4000 boards have not been populated yet. It actually becomes an issue with storage to have so many boards sitting built all at once. They have to be kept somewhere which tends to be awkward because boards must sit in ESD safe trays on grounded carts (remember that picture of the 80/105?). Issues with humidity control are important because parts are no longer sitting in sealed bags, although they are already soldered so it is more of a general storage thing. Craig meant that absolutely everything is ready to go, absolutely every part is sitting at the facility, things are being tested carefully and slowly still, the build process is understood...umm I don't know what else to add so I don't read the next 10 pages about how the sky is falling. There is merit in being vague, but I'll take the chance anyway.

Some continuing issues with alignment or fit in the test jig back in December held things up slightly. The Christmas holiday/New Year didn't help past the 24th either. The New Year has things running again and it's obvious now the PCBs are not the bottleneck. Damn plastics company. <grumble grumble>

Before any arm chair engineers pop in, please be aware that building the boards is a well understood process at this point and done very quickly. The pick and place machine can jam them out as quickly as you can keep the reels loaded. The boards are being built in batches according to how fast they can be tested. Currently that is going to stay at about 450-500 at a time. The process is to build 500, get them into testing and build the next 500 while the first ones are being tested. Once cases are available, the third parallel step will be to have a batch of 500 being assembled while a previous set is in testing and another new set is being populated.

All 4000+ antenna boards and LCD cables have been assembled and inspected. Building and testing will continue throughout January and be ready for the cases. As usual, I have to fear the backlash from misunderstanding my words and I have to read over what I type 10 times before posting it but keep in mind that most of you don't and aren't expected to truly understand this process. Things are progressing in the natural fashion a small run (by any big company's standards) like this should be done. When the cases show up, this parallel process will fall right into place and pump out shipments at a steady and predictable rate that has been expected from day one. We can't build and ship all 4000 in a day or even a week but it will be done as quickly as possible.

Some people talk about how we should spare no expense to get these done sooner and we agree. I might bring my wife to Texas to help with the labour in order to get more done sooner and I'll probably spend 12-15 hours a day on the floor building these bad boys (if they will let me) to get them to you all as fast as humanly possible. It's going to be an exhaustive and miserable process, but that's not for any paying customer to care about.

I have created a well documented assembly manual for the Pandora which contains several parallel processes that can be set up as stations. There are six sub stations and two main stations. The main stations (assembly of lid and assembly of base) require the most staff in order to crank them out faster. The sub stations require one person each (could be more if there are people) and are monotonous (ie. trim and solder speaker wires, apply copper tape, etc.). They could also be combined into more tasks and fewer stations. Hopefully this helps people understand that no news on the forum does not mean nothing is happening. It has never stopped being a lot of work behind the scenes.

(storage) Cases:

They are similar to the GP2X ones, there is a hard case too. We *might* include both cases if you ordered the case, depending on certain issues with the hard case.

here the video of the dpad test

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_O2xdS05Lw

Just fulfilling a request for some dpad action showing gaming control to be easy and repeatable.

here another video of Quake 2 with dual nubs going

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bLDbvxRFSM

Fulfulling another request for some Quake 2 action with dual nub support. If there is a better way to play such a game on a handheld, I know not of it!
Clock = 500MHz

There's no such thing as overnight from China unless you have a grand per package. Even then I don't know if that exists. Every package has come express from China and it is three days, minimum. Give it up with the shipping already. That's the least of the problems when there is nothing to ship!

Pandora button:

In pmenu mode, it returns to pmenu

in xfce mode, it pops up a menu with a few options, one of which is a handy searchable app list/launcher, among other things

it is configurable to launch other stuff if you want to muck with conf files

jeff

 

[mali]

Just a little update to say the cases are still on schedule to be completed this week.

Thanks for the update Craig! So the last "test" cases had all the technical problems fixed right? So these new test cases(rev.3), are only to improve on the finish quality right? Which should hopefully be easier to fix/focus on without having to worry about other things! :lol:


Chris

Yes, this one is just a general clean up of a few things and a slightly bigger test run, it will be coming with keymats too so we can build up quite a few units.

 

[gruso]

Thanks as always Mali.

Just dumping this one here too, I'll get back to it in a day or so!

OK, so I am now officially on the first batch pre-order list.

This means I will have ports of Neverball, Neverputt, and my iPhone games MiZoo and iPlutoid in the works for the Pandora

Also: http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/51417-guitarsonfire/page__view__findpost__p__798173

 

[Vlynndar]

I doubt anyone on the team has the time to spare to go though that list, especially when we know we have all the components (how do you think we have now built ~200 units?).

If you are not happy you can have your money back.

 

[mali]

QT is included.

"Suspend" (as you would use in most handheld devices) will be included.
True suspend (as in hibernate and all that sort) is not yet sorted, but we're figuring most people will use regular low power mode anyway.

ie: In a PDA or phone, you generally go to low power mode (Screen off, CPU clock down etc), so that alarms can wake it up, it can receive calls, etc. Likewise here .. close the lid and things turn down, but you can stll play mp3s and such. You can turn off. But theres not currently a working 'hibernate' type operation where it is both truly off, and ready to boot up quick. (There are some drivers that are bitching, so someone needs to look into and fix the drivers. Fixing other peoples code is a lot of work, so personally I imagine that the community at large may jump in on this as I doubt we have time to get it working before release.)

jeff

 

[Trip]

Pinout of A/V connector (plug side) diagram here! This is the pinout shown on the connector that plugs into the back of the Pandora.

From M.Westons photobucket account

 

[mali]

Awesome find, Tripmonkey

 

[Trip]

Awesome find, Tripmonkey

Cheers, I'm surprised you didn't beat me to it Mali.. again :lol:

 

[mali]

Spoke to the factory today, everything is looking good for tomorrow.

 

[bzar]

Yes we have heard from the factory, and yes the cases should arrive this week with Michael, yes they are supposed to be final with all the tweaks complete, but until we see them and check them, we don't want to say anymore.