Update regarding the cases (and some other things)

[jeeks]

c'mon case guys, surprise us all by sending some nice pics next week!

tbh i was sure that the keymat with all its special stuff would take longer to finish than the case. oh well, when ED shows up at their door, they'll hopefully speed up a bit
otherwise, nice progress :3 i'm not too worried about the 4gb ram issue, since we have people with mad skills around who already got rid of that weird 1.5GHz crash

 

[WizardStan]

I thought the 4GB issue was resolved by flipping a single bit in the boot loader.

 

[Wally]

^

Seems to love to complain 5/7 M@T

 

[EvilDragon]

^

Seems to love to complain 5/7 M@T

Yep. I'd love seeing him doing something like this
He probably is an expert on everything there is, regardless what job.

Or he doesn't understand there isn't any money to hire multiple groups of experienced debuggers which can find really low-level issues within a couple of days.
In that case, I very much welcome any donation from him to hire such a team.
Let's start with 30k EUR, that should speed things up.

 

[Shlee]

Oh, YOU "understood" that from the beginning? So, why do you have a 2 year delay?
You did not understand how to do such a project or you lied with the intended time!
You are really not in the position to to shoot your mouth off!

 

[Blue Shadow]

Oh, YOU "understood" that from the beginning? So, why do you have a 2 year delay?

it seems you are confusing early estimates with due dates.

You did not understand how to do such a project or you lied with the intended time!

Even if the first part of that sentence was true (assuming the second part of the sentence was a joke instead of an insult), the difference is he is doing it, making constantly progress and having endurance, which seems to be a key characteristic here.

Of course he was not aware about every single detail that could go wrong, he stated it multiple times. So what?

 

[EvilDragon]

I guess I have a pretty good understanding how things work, however, I never claimed to be an expert on anything.
I am organizing everything and hiring companies to do the work as I can't do that.
If those companies turn out to be unreliable or there are issues, I can try the my best to fix that and solve anything.

Sure, give me the same budget a huge company has and the Pyra would've been finished long ago.
Because then I would've hired a.team of at least 5 fulltime PCB designers instead of one who has other projects as well.

And I would've simply produced multiple case and keyboard molds.as well all kinds of LCD Cable variations to test which works best.

The funds are not there, and that was known from the very beginning.
Given the complexity of the project, it either takes a long time or is extremely expensive.

This seems to be something you are unable to understand for some reason, you also don't seem to understand that there never has been an official release date, just estimations, so there can't be real delay.

As you think I am unable to handle things, please let me know what you think could've been handled better.

For example, the cases. You hired a company which is working on the cases and they have issues and delays.
You don't have the funds to hire a differrent nor to hire a person who is constantly in Greece to check with then regularly.
How would you handle that?
I'm really interested to see your solution.

 

[Stainy]

Hey door m@t. This isn`t the product for you.. make like a tree, and leaf !

 

[EvilDragon]

(Keymats)

Are they ordered now?

No, I've tested with 3D printed DPads, so the mold will be changed accordingly now.
The keymat itself doesn't need any change now.

(4GB RAM crashes)

What? WTF? You discover than NOW?

zmatt is working on multiple tests with multiple boards and various patches / hacks to debug a lot of stuff.
The freeze could come from anything. Some wrong driver in the kernel, some timing setup in the memory configuration, etc.
It's not as easy figuring that out as you think.

Simply seeing "it freezes" doesn't tell you what exactly and it's far away from telling you "why".
Multiple tests and patches need to be done.

Yes, a team of 5 fulltime debuggers could find that within a couple of days, but zmatt is doing that in his spare time besides his fulltime job.

(Mainboards)

How long to they take to produce?

The bare mainboards usually take 4 weeks (depending on the current amount the work the production facility has), the lead time for the parts should be less, as we already ordered and stocked all parts we need for sure which have a long leadtime.

You have 2 Years delay! Really, now it has to be faster!

As mentioned, there was never a release date, only estimations and best-case scenarios.
These should be read carefully and never be taken as official release date.

(Cases)

Maybe it's better to do other important Pyra-stuff at that time. It's still very much, the cases are not the last thing missing.

It seems you underestimate the value of the cases.
The reason I have 27 finished protoype PCBs lying at home whereas these should be with some more developers who could help figuring out stuff like the 4GB RAM freezes (so zmatt doesn't have to do it all alone) is simply because I don't have cases to assemble the units.

Also, what else should I do?
I've taken care of the keymats, I've taken care of the LCD cable (designing and testing the outline), I've already taken care of the packaging (except for the design yet).
I certainly can't design or debug any PCB hardware, as I'm neither a developer nor hardware designer.

zmatt and Nikolaus are working on these issues and all I can do is help testing that.

So taking care of the cases, which are important to send more units to developers is really the most important thing I can take are of.

Whats the status of the LCD-cables?

Submitted 1,5 weeks ago and already in production (I think I mentioned that in some post a while ago already).

 

[Caine]

A 2 year delay? I haven't seen any release dates yet, how can there be a delay.
Yes, ED is notoriously optimistic with his estimates and tries to twist each setback to sound as a positive.
So what? He is making this happen and that is what matters.

Let's be honest. There is no way that we will see a Pyra this year. Don't get any false hopes, otherwise you will be disappointed.
Though I prefer otherwise, I'll happily wait another two years if I have to.

 

[Jumpman]

It's all good ED, everyone here who knows you, and the other team members involved, knows what has gone in to this project(and the sacrifices you have all made, and continue to make), as well as what can and will go wrong. I didn't preorder when given the chance, only because I didn't have the funds, and I have a rather big credit from Link, due to the ICP2 debacle. LOL So I'm waiting patiently on the sidelines until units begin to ship, and then I'll still have to wait, but hopefully not to long.

But I would have have had no issues giving funds, and waiting it out, as I know all the sacrifices made by those involved who have other jobs and responsibilities to friends and family. As far as Kickstarters go, most of those are 10x worse, and they have 10x the funds and manpower. But they all have poor time and money management.

For an example: I supported Shantae Half Genie Hero awhile back, and while the game was delivered back in December, they just gave an update a few days ago, and they are just finishing some of the physical rewards, which could mean delivery next week, or 6 more months from now. Wayforward is a decent size game company, that has many popular titles to it's credit, and while they could have made a game on their own, they took funds, and are beyond slow in delivering 100% of the pledges paid years ago.

What has been done here with the Pyra, and how it was funded is beyond a miracle, and everyone involved has nothing but my deepest respect and sympathies in regards to those who "know it all". I see those types on every forum, and all over the web every single day. They come with success, and they come with failure, and they come with everything in between. Just take it in stride, and move forward, as that's all you can do, as any replies will always be met with an "answer" again and again explaining your "wrong", and their "right".

Chris

 

[tarator]

Are they ordered now?



What? WTF? You discover than NOW?



How long to they take to produce?



You have 2 Years delay! Really, now it has to be faster!



Maybe it's better to do other important Pyra-stuff at that time. It's still very much, the cases are not the last thing missing.


Whats the status of the LCD-cables?

All I see:

 

[Swordfish II]

Hmm... seems to me you're missing a substantial number of steps!

I'm very happy with progress so far but there's a ways to go still, I feel. Here's a partial list from my tally:

1. Current batch of test cases yet to be completed.
2. Current batch of test cases need to be tested.
3. [Possible final iteration of test cases.]
4. Final cases must be mass produced.
5. [Form Action has proven themselves unreliable and possibly dishonest; in the worst case there will need to be a change of supplier. If that happens there will be a delay, especially is Form Action are difficult about giving up the moulds.]
6. Multiplexer bypass solution still to be tested; if not effective, an alternative solution might need to be found.
7. 4 MB issue needs to be identified and resolved.
8. Testing of current prototype hardware which is ongoing must be completed.
9. New prototype hardware including fixes (some already identified) needs to be made. And tested.
10. [Possible final iteration of prototype hardware.]
11. Final hardware must be mass produced.
    
12. Prototype of thermal solution needs to be made and tested.
13. [Possible iterations of thermal solution.]
14. Thermal solution components must be mass produced.
15. Video cables must be mass produced.
16. Final tweaks to keymat need to be made and tested.
17. Keymats need to be mass produced.
    
18. Mass produced components must be assembled into Pyras.
19. The installed GNU/Linux needs to be polished for a satisfactory user experience, possibly including bug fixes in drivers.
20. Final OS image needs to be produced and tested.
21. OS image needs to be flashed into assembled Pyras.
    
22. The product boxes must be designed, ordered, manufactured, and delivered.
23. Printed material to be included in the box (getting started booklet or at least a safety information pamphlet) must be written, typeset, printed.
24. Those working on the above need to do their day jobs, and have summer holidays etc.

This feels to me like quite a long list still. Certainly more than two things, more than two months. Excellent progress has been made and continues to be made and we'll have a great machine in due course.

6, 12, 13, 14, 16 are all done/not necessary
[doublepost=1494163667,1494163528][/doublepost]

Are they ordered now?

What? WTF? You discover than NOW?

How long to they take to produce?

You have 2 Years delay! Really, now it has to be faster!

Maybe it's better to do other important Pyra-stuff at that time. It's still very much, the cases are not the last thing missing.


Whats the status of the LCD-cables?

Do you even have a preorder? If not shut up. If you do, just cancel it so we don't have to deal with your complaining.

 

[TeDaDeS]

I know that very well, but why did you test that NOW, not 1 year or something ago?
Other companies again?

Wasn't the 4GB RAM only available like since 2 Months™ ago?

Do you even have a preorder? If not shut up. If you do, just cancel it so we don't have to deal with your complaining.

Allowing people to discusses makes the board great. You can surely disagree with other views but we shouldn't sends critical people away. Maybe someones has a good suggestion or more people wonder and nows it gets an answer. (surely complaining for sake of complaining doesn't always help though )

 

[tarator]

Allowing people to discusses makes the board great. You can surely disagree with other views but we shouldn't sends critical people away. Maybe someones has a good suggestion or more people wonder and nows it gets an answer. (surely complaining for sake of complaining doesn't always help though )

Critical opinions are great, but the way m@t is bringing them is m@d. This guy really annoys me. I really don't understand, why he wants this device if he's so unhappy with the way the project is handled. Nobody forces him to buy one. If I'm not happy with the way a company operates I simply don't buy their stuff.

So, m@t: Please go!

 

[EvilDragon]

Sure, its only the other companies, sure!

So, who else is doing the case?
Care to let me know, as I don't know that.

!!!

Not sure what you mean with that, but costs and estimations were publically posted a few years ago and it showed that the budget for the whole project was about 150k - 200k, which is way less than any huge company has for such a product.

Case molds are 60k EUR, just doing a second set to test various designs at the same time doubles that amount.
That's normal for huge companies but not possible for such a small project as ours.

Same for PCB designs: A prototype production run costs 20k EUR at minimum. You can either do regular runs with various fixes and test every new revision until it works (speeds things up tremendously) or you can try to implement as many fixes as possible and do fewer runs.
That takes longer as you never know if one fix helps with a differrent issue as well (the 4GB RAM issue might've already been fixed with the ground plane CPU board optimizations, that's also a possibility).


@EvilDragon, Twitter, 25. Apr. 2014: "Irgendwann nächstes Jahr" = Next year
@EvilDragon, Twitter, 10. Okt. 2015: "And yes, Pyra is planned for early next year unless something bad happens."
What bad things happened after that, that caused 1,5 years delay till now?
[/quote]

Trying to find a working fix for the rotation cost us 6 - 7 months.
Additionaly, the crashy CPU (with higher frequencies) took 4 - 5 months to properly figure out as well.

The first production run also had a high failure rate so we couldn't get a lot of units to developers.

And tons of other hard-to-find smaller issues and testing of the hardware, which simply needs a lot of time.

I know that very well, but why did you test that NOW, not 1 year or something ago?
Other companies again?

The first CPU boards with 4GB RAM have been made with the second prototype run which was early this year.
When the first prototype run had been made, 4GB weren't even planned.
The request from the community came after that, which is why I've always said they'll happen if we can get them to work.

The 4GB RAM are pin compatible, so in theory they should work without any hardware change, so it still seems most likely that the timings setup in the software are still wrong.

Wanted an inbetween run with 4GB RAM chips? Great, you could've helped us with a 10k EUR donation.
You still can, as we could then produce the latest available revision to see if that fixed the 4GB as well.
That would speed things up. So, happy to help here?

 

[EvilDragon]

Final mass-production? Or Tests again?

Hopefully final samples.
No sane company will do a mass production without any sample.

 

[PowerGod]

I have more if you want...

Spoiler

 

[Blue Shadow]

Now you are getting really childish, don't you?
Not that being being like a child is bad. But so far, I only saw the complaining, iff, grumpy side of it in your commentary. What about the excited, enthusiatic, cheerful side of childishness?

 

[Askarus]

Trying to find a working fix for the rotation cost us 6 - 7 months.
Additionaly, the crashy CPU (with higher frequencies) took 4 - 5 months to properly figure out as well.

The first production run also had a high failure rate so we couldn't get a lot of units to developers.

And tons of other hard-to-find smaller issues and testing of the hardware, which simply needs a lot of time.

@m@t you see, all those delays were were because if things we (Nikolause, ED, etc) could fix.
And they did. It took long, but they fixed it.

We don't have any control about the case company ant they took longer than all delays together with the case and are not even finished.

And I would not worry about the 4GB RAM issue.
It's pretty likely that it'll get fixed before the case will ever be produced.

And believe me, I was pretty angry about all the delays and also disappointed, but as I was working close with ED I know exactly what happened.
We worked a lot more than what we got payed for, especially ED.
And there is so much we simply relied on others.
The things we did on our own are all working now. It's other companies that take too long.
(And I don't mean Nikolaus by that!)