Wrapping everything up!


EvilDragon

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I'm still alive, even I didn't even find the time to follow much on the boards here or post stuff...
I had TONS of work during the last few weeks and even had a few days where I was more like a Zombie than anything else, but Nikolaus has cotinued to work on stuff, zmatt has reimplemented his rotation hack (so the Pyra is finally fully usable again!) and aTc has always quickly updated the kernels.

So, here's a quick update of the current status.
Let's start with the good news first...

The PCBs

These seem to work rock solid now with the current kernel. All the hardware features we tested work fine, all bugs seem to have been fixed, so I guess we can really call the PCBs fully finished and ready for mass production!

Nikolaus made one small change / bugfix to the Display board: It was flickering sometimes under high load. It turned out that the PWM wouldn't handle the power the LCD needed which caused the flickering.
And it was also shuttering when the display brightness was dim due to the frequency the PWM used.

The PWM is now replaced (just one chip on the display board) which increases the maximum brightness of the LCD and also provides a smoother, flicker-free backlight.

We also received a production report from Global Components which show potential issues for production (pads too close to each other, etc.)
Luckily, these are just small changes, the layout doesn't change, only some components are being moved around a few 0.2mm, so no new prototypes are needed (no worries :))

Nikolaus is now working on wrapping up all the production files: Cleaning up the part lists (some parts have changed), implementing the results from the production report into the design files, etc.

We plan to have them finished within December (we don't know if it works out before or after christmas), which means I DO plan to greenlight the mass production of the PCBs this year!

So much for the good news, now the ugly part...

The cases

Geez, that topic is pretty annoying and time consuming.
While all stuff HAS been picked up by the carrier, our beloved company has held them back as they first wanted to receive the final payment (last changes and the 500 produced transparend cases).
Of course (you know their speed by now), it took them 2 weeks to let me know the costs and another 2 weeks to confirm my payment.
My contact in Greece is now visiting them twice a week to speed things up and thinks that everything should be resolved next week...

Seriously, I'm making more then three crosses when everything arrived at UniquePlast...

Anyways, it's very annoying, in worst case I'll fly to Greece again (as they always seem to move forward faster when I'm around), but I'm also planning to get these moulds moved to UniquePlast within December!

I'll let you know as soon as I receive more details from my contact (should be tomorrow or on Monday).

I'm sure we can solve that, as we've solved other things as well (remember the huge task moving the parts from CC to Global Components when we moved the production to Germany...?)


Prototypes

Now that the hardware is tested, I'd love to ship out the ordered prototypes, would be a nice christmas present!
However, this mostly depends on the cases, as I need the produced cases to assemble these... so hopefully, I'll receive them in time... but I can't make any promises!


Feel free to post any questions here - I'll try to be online a bit more!
Oh, and I might setup a nice VNC on a Pyra, so you could log in and play around with it a bit! :)
 
A month to confirm a payment? This is 2018! Geez..
Even 20 years ago international payment could be handled within a day and a receipt sent through a fax machine.

And the moulds are still not moved...

So... Sorry, I'm a bit disappointed in the progress that has been made in actually producing the Pyra...

How much longer will everything take in a pessimistic prediction?

And I'm not falling for the two months thing again...
 
I'm beginning to despise this plastic company. These issues should be in the news so no one uses them again.
 
Great news on the CPU

Means Massproduktion on this news the bare wavers or population of the components at g c??

Assuming you meant to write 'bare wafers' there, it's the latter. GC have already produced a dozen or so known prototypes, so they're set up for etching the wafers, laminating them and populating the top and bottom layers and baking them just fine.
 
Maybe it's my 20+ years in the Semiconductor industry talking, but pretty sure no one is directly dealing with bare silicon wafers in making of the Pyra...

Likely means PC Boards..
 
Maybe it's my 20+ years in the Semiconductor industry talking, but pretty sure no one is directly dealing with bare silicon wafers in making of the Pyra...

Likely means PC Boards..

I've only been in semiconductors for a year but I was also very confused by the bare wafer talk. All these chips should be packaged already.
 
As some of you remember, i got my english in about 2 semesters evening shool, in workshool, and by training via this english pandora boards, i had french as my second language in shool, i think i could buy me food in french, but thats it,..
If GC only needs to populate this elektronic parts on the bare boards, (i thought they only populate, the dotnt make the bare boards), than my own 3 PCB (Main CPU Display) shouldnd be that far away, only the Case seems now to be an little issue..

Its nice, that the Display will get a bit brighter and the Display board gets a little improvement, as my Pandora Display have some issue whit Display Brightness Settings..
 
I like what you did there with the title @ED. Does that mean you are now sporting a grey beard? :)

It would be amazing if some prototypes could be sent. :)
 
Thanks for the update ED.

Shame about the lack of progress with the case situation, but hey ho! 2019 will indeed be the year of the Pyra :)

More positively, I think a great festive present for we Pyra supporters would be a nice video of a prototype machine running the latest kernel with a mixture of software.
That would be awesome, and a splendid Xmas gift :D
But only if you get the opportunity over the coming holidays! (I hope you get some time away from work!!)

Merry Xmas :)
 
Is it the moulds or the 500 cases that have been picked up?
The moulds aren't leaving Greece, or even Athens I think, and ED said in the first post he's only hoping the moulds can be moved before the end of the month. It's 500 clear cases (I think) that are currently being held by the courier (who must be pretty annoyed at having to hold on to such a large box for a month already.
 
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