Pyra-news December 2015

pyra-news@pyra-handheld.com

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A Final Pyra Newspost!
by Michael Mrozek 30 Dec '15

30 Dec '15

A final newspost! Well, for this year - because there's no time to rest for us in January. The move to the new forums was successful, I am personally really happy I can use my Pandora to browse them again! As far as I've seen most of you like them as well. So it was really worth moving! Finally, I found some time to edit the Pyra Prototype production video! So, here it is - our day at Global Components, producing the first Pyra prototype boards: https://youtu.be/58RDWUecwAQ And as it's the end of the year, here's a quick status summary: I am personally happy how much we moved along. Some things took longer than I had hoped for (especially getting the rotator chip to work used up some time!), but we nearly managed to finish prototypes until the end of the year. What's the status? Here you go: ------------------------------- * Keymat: 99% finished. It's done and working, only thing left to do is test the feeling in a full prototype. I don't expect anymore changes here though. * Hardware PCBs: 95% finished. All PCBs have been produced and are now being tested by Nikolaus. He found one small issue on the CPU boards that has already been fixed (even on the existing prototype boards). If there are no more issues found during testing, they are 100% finished! * Case: 90% finished. The design is finished, molds are being created (most of them are already done) so the only thing left is producing the first cases, testing and tweaking them. Not much left to do! * Production Run Setup: 98% finished. With the prototype run, we found some smaller issues thanks to the analysis (i.e. some vias need to be changed as they can cause air blobs inside the solderings). Analysis will continue together with Nikolaus on January 4th. After all those tweaks, we are ready for the production run. * Production Run Parts: A lot of parts that have a long leadtime have already been ordered and will be ready in April: The LCDs, the batteries (3000 are already lying at Global Components), the Nubs (over 10000 are lying at Global Components). So if all goes well and no issues arise, we could start the mass production in April / May. Don't take that for given though, that's a best-case date! So we're really close with the hardware! The OS itself is already running nicely on the devboard, but it needs to be adapted to the Pyra hardware. Mostly drivers and some design files. This'll take a bit of time, but when the prototypes are in the hands of the devs, it should speed things up. The currently planned timeframe for me to visit Greece for the case production is January 20th - January 28th. Until then, all our prototype PCBs will hopefully work fine! So much for the current status. We've come a long way, and we're really close. Thanks for all your support, I hope you a really happy new and exciting year 2016! Thanks again from the whole team! Want to leave feedback? Visit: https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/forums/pyra-news.250/

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Wishing you a very merry christmas with some short news!
by Michael Mrozek 22 Dec '15

22 Dec '15

And a last, quick update before the boards will go offline... Nikolaus worked hard and tried to get me a fully working prototype set before christmas - he's so close, but time ran out. He had a little fight with random crashes while booting which took a while to figure out, but it seems he found the culprit now. Getting the power circuit to work properly (where hardware and software have to work together) is quite a bit of work :) He also coded the driver for the RGB LEDs and the keyboard backlight and those LEDs are working fine as well. Nikolaus will go into some well-deserved holiday now (he nearly worked 24/7 for the last week... okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but he worked a lot!) and will be back early January. We will have to wait until then before we have more results, but as it looks like, we should have working prototype PCBs in time for the case, so I'm positive that we can build a full unit soon :) Anyways, thanks a LOT to all of you for your support :) Without you, something like the Pyra and Pandora wouldn't have been possible! It's really great knowing to have such an awesome community behind your back! So... have some really relaxing holidays with your family. All the best wishes from me! Don't forget: The boards will go offline in about 12 hours for the migration into the new forum system and website which will hopefully go smoothly. See you on the new boards! Thanks again from the whole team! Want to leave feedback? Visit: https://boards.openpandora.org/topic/5600397-wishing-you-a-very-merry-chris…

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A bug, booting up and a huge forum migration
by Michael Mrozek 20 Dec '15

20 Dec '15

Sorry for the lack of updates - I catched a flu for a few days, was in pre-christmas online-shop hell (where you get at least 30 orders per day) and was working on the move to the new boards. Time for an update, right? 1. A bug! --------- It seems I found a bug in the shop system I am using which triggered an email to everyone who registered at the shop for the US Pyra preorder that the product is NOW available... sorry about that! While we're close, preorder is not yet happening (I stick to my word and wait for the prototype :)) The two who actually managed to order it will get a refund for now. Sorry again - I didn't know of that bug before, but I'll make sure to not trigger it again. So the next mail you'll get from the shop regarding preorders will be the REAL one! 2. Pre-Pre-Order limited PCBs ----------------------------- All Pre-Pre-Order PCBs (numbered and signed) have been shipped and are on the way to you. Not all will arrive before christmas I guess, but maybe some of you might get a nice present :) If you want to show what you do with that board (frame it, eat it or whatever), there's a thread already where you can post about it: https://boards.openpandora.org/topic/5600325-i-miss-a-case-etc/ 3. It's booting up! ------------------- Well, not fully yet, but almost, but more on the software after a little hardware info! Nikolaus spent the last week working with the prototype PCBs. 12 out of 17 he tested (one is currently lying at GC) boot up so far, so 5 need to be checked. Don't worry about that failure rate, that's normal for a preproduction run. A preproduction run is used to find out where you need to tweak the building process to lower the failure rate. The failed ones will be analyzed to find out why they failed. Could be the placement of the parts is not accurate enough, could be there is too much or too little solder paste, could be the soldering temperature and time can be optimized. For example, if random contacts below the OMAP5 are bridged on multiple boards, it could be too much solder paste. If it's always the same contacts that are bridged, it could mean that the OMAP5 itself needs some tweak in the placement. These are only a few examples, the full process is a lot more complex, but I think you know what I'm getting at :) So these five PCBs will be analyzed and reworked afterwards. Okay, that's it for the hardware part, now onto the software part :) Nikolaus has been working on wiring all the hardware parts together in the software (which means: creating a machine file and bootloader). The machine file basically tells the system what hardware is where. The devboard, for example, only had one SD-Card slot where we booted from. The prototype has 3 SD Card slots, so the software needs to know about it. Otherwise, the bootloader can't find the kernel, for example, as it might be looking at the wrong place. Also, the Palmas (power chip) disables all hardware it doesn't need as default (to save power), so if it doesn't know the system needs the SD Card slot, it shuts off the power and the kernel can't find any rootfs. This is all stuff that needs to be implemented - once that's setup, booting in the OS will be a breeze! So far, Nikolaus is almost finished with that low-level stuff. The system boots up the kernel, but the rootfs cannot be loaded yet. Everything else works! Once that last little thing has been implemented, we're ready to boot the OS. Oh, and Nikolaus has also worked a bit on the anti-tearing driver for the rotation. He hasn't tested it yet, but that will also happen soon. 4. The case! ------------ The case is still coming along well. The big moulds have all been done, the small part moulds (shoulder buttons, etc.) are currently being created. Since there's now christmas holidays coming along, not much will happen anymore until mid of January. Therefore, my visit is now planned (pretty much fix this time!) around 21st - 28th of January 2016. The PCBs should all boot up and work fine until then, so it won't only be a mechanical test, we should be able to really boot the fully assembled unit up then as well! 5. A huge forum merge --------------------- Almost everyone at the boards hates the new IPB4 (me as well), as it's very slow and partly inconvenient to use (WYSIWYG-Stuff). So we're moving to a new forum system (XenForo) which is a LOT lighter and faster, has quite a few useful new features I already love and I'm currently working on setting it up. Additionally, the old GP32x.com boards will be fully merged into it (the user profiles will also be merged) as well as the temporary OpenHandhelds boards (which were created when gp32x.com had a few weeks of downtime) and the file archive will be integrated as well. It's a huge merge, but I'm almost finished now (after using tons of different regular expressions during the last few days). Seriously, IPB is a huge mess in my opinion - GP32x.com went from IPB2 to IPB3 as well, and I found at least 8 different ways that quotes worked! It seems IPB has constantly changed the way quotes work but never updated that in the posts, they just let the forum software handle it... it's a mess. But I've got it almost fully done, only a couple of posts should have quote errors and no content has been lost! I will start the merge with the OpenPandora boards on December 23rd. These forums will close down for one or two days and then the fully merged forums will arise anew! That will be a vast ressource for looking up everything regarding OpenSource handhelds. That's it for today! See you soon on the new boards! Want to leave feedback? Visit: https://boards.openpandora.org/topic/5600383-a-bug-booting-up-and-a-huge-fo…

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Not everything is as fast as planned
by Michael Mrozek 11 Dec '15

11 Dec '15

Well, I just had a phone call from Greece - and according to them, it will be late January when the moulds are finished for prototyping. That's some sad news, but I'm trying to get them to speed things up a bit. This means I won't go to Greece in December to finish the prototypes with the case... What has happened? ------------------ Well, according to their quotation, it'll take 12 weeks to create the mould, and they started early October. So with christmas and new year, the date would be middle of January, so they're producing the moulds according to their timeframe. I remembered it takes 2 months though (2 months...TM?) so I thought they should be ready in December. Well, and I let them know my timeframe in October and asked a few times whether that can be kept - but I never really received an answer (until this morning), so I assumed the timeframe would be kept. I really had hoped for no communication issues this time (and it all worked fine with the keymat), but it seems it's always the case that takes a bit longer. Will that delay anything? ------------------------- Yes and no. It will delay the prototypes within the case, but I'll offer everyone who will get one to send the PCBs once they're tested and the cases later when they're finished. Once the moulds are finished, there's no real leadtime in the production of the cases, they can be produced anytime. So they'll still be ready before all the parts for the mass production arrive. The only problem is that I don't know how many units we'll produce in the first run without doing the preordering first... so I have to think about that. Maybe I'll do a non-paid preorder so I know how many parts we need to order and then the first payment will be done once the prototype including the case is finished and then the next, final one once the units are ready to be shipped. I'll think about it, and will let you know. Sorry about the sad news after all the good ones we had during the last few days, but things like that also happen in real life, especially when you got a tight timeframe. The good thing is that this most likely doesn't change the planned mass production start - only the prototypes. Want to leave feedback? Visit: https://boards.openpandora.org/topic/5600351-not-everything-is-as-fast-as-p…

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They multiply!
by Michael Mrozek 10 Dec '15

10 Dec '15

Pyras can magically multiply, did you know that? Well, I got some pictures for proof... on the boards, as usual. We now got 18 CPU-PCBs, Mainboards and Display-Boards, which need some testing but are ready to be assembled into prototypes. We also received 18 of the new keymats (which are working perfect now, with nice tactile feedback!), so the only missing thing is the case. I'll let you know as soon as I got some more news about that. So, what's the testing status? Well, Nikolaus needs to change various components to make the board boot and work. He already is pretty far, he can see the OMAP5 loading the bootloader via the UART-Connector on the mainboard (so the system lives!) which also tells him that the memory is working fine. It does load a kernel but does not boot the OS yet, as the MMC card slot initialization is not yet included in the bootloader, so we get a nice kernel panic because it can't find the OS. Nikolaus is working on them, once the OS itself is running, we can do more testing of all components. It means that the basic system is working now though, which is awesome! Want to leave feedback or see the pretty pictures? Visit: https://boards.openpandora.org/topic/5600349-they-multiply

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Heavy Metal
by Michael Mrozek 04 Dec '15

04 Dec '15

The injection moulds for the Pyra are also coming along nicely. I plan to visit FormAction in Greece between December 14th and December 19th for the pre-production run. There are a few pictures posted at the boards! Want to leave feedback or see the pretty pictures? Visit: https://boards.openpandora.org/topic/5600327-heavy-metal

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Prototype Production Run
by Michael Mrozek 02 Dec '15

02 Dec '15

Yesterday I was at Global Components doing the Pyra prototype production run. I already posted some things at Twitter and did post updates at the forums, but in case you missed it, here is the summary. First up, what are we expecting from this pre-production run? ------------------------------------------------------------- If all goes well, we will have working Mainboards, working Display Boards and working CPU board. A lot has been tested before with manually populated prototypes, so in theory they should be functional, but we also do this to find issues upfront that could cause problems with the mass production. Though we can test the basic functions of all the boards here with the equipment Nikolaus has with him, we cannot assemble a unit and test it right away here. It will need some kernel changes and recompilation, but you can be sure Nikolaus will do that within the next few days so that we should have a fully working setup this week. Where and how will it be produced? ---------------------------------- Well, this is where I post a lot of photos from the production site, so I advise you to check the link at the bottom of this mailing to actually see them. The production line where everything will be produced. The first machine with the dark cover puts the solder paste onto the PCBs. Then the boards move on to two Siemens Siplace machines which automatically populate the boards. They will then be put into a steam solder machine and that's it. You can only populate and produce one side at once, so the mainboards will need to go through the machines two times. The pick- and place machine picks up parts and puts them on the PCB. Most parts come on rolls where as some come on trays like the Cinterion 4G modules. First, we populated the mainboard: ---------------------------------- The first side of the mainboard was populated without any major issues. The frame where the PCBs are in need to be strenghtened a bit, but that's not a big deal. Good thing we found that out here, as it would've caused delays (and costs) for the mass production run Populating the second side of the PCB caused a bit of trouble. The PCBs are too heavy and hang down in the middle. This is the same issue as mentioned above: The frame needs to be better to support the PCBs. No big change though. The PCBs has some parts which are VERY close to each other. Combine those two things and the danger exists that they make a short circuit. That's why a lot on this side of the PCB has actually been populated by hand. Of course, that's not feasible for mass production. Nikolaus will move some parts a bit so that aren't that close to each other and with the improved frame around the PCBs, everything will be fine. That is actually not an issue we got here, that's the reason you do a pre-production run: To find out such things and be able to fix and tweak them before the real mass production will start. Using a microscope, we checked that all parts were sitting fine and no accidental short-circuits happened. So far, it looks pretty good. Nikolaus also connected a USB power source to the Micro-USB port which caused all the Power LED to blink (which means that the battery controller didn't find a battery but is working). One PCB didn't blink, but the cause was a simple fix: A resistor hasn't been placed properly. After that, we did some more thorough tests of the mainboard, connecting Nikolaus' modified CPU PCB on top of it. Some i2cdetect-tests show that a lot of things are working, but we haven't tested all of them yet, that's a job for Nikolaus for the next few days. BTW: The keymat in the dark looks beautiful, and that's still with the old keymat (and therefore it will be even better with the updated keymat): Let's head on to the CPU boards... ---------------------------------- Unfortunately, we weren't that lucky with the CPU board. After they had been soldered, the parts had moved around. So yep, none of those first six produced boards is going to work, sadly. One day has passed and Global Components found the issue with the swimming parts (it was a fault in one of the datasheets). Nikolaus already grabbed one of the CPU boards which should work fine (they have xrayed it) and is now trying to get it to work (it needs a slightly modified bootloader). I'll let you know once he got it booting. And we are lucky: The PCB manufacturer produced more bare PCBs than we needed (in case some were broken) and they all passed the electrical test, so we get some more CPU PCBs. No need to manually rework all of the old one! The display PCBs will also be produced this week, but these are the simplest ones, so nothing to worry about here. By the way, the new keymats were finished 12 days earlier than planned and are already on the way to me. The last missing piece now is the case, and I'm currently finding out when that will be finished so I can book a flight to Greece. I'll keep you posted! Want to leave feedback or see the pretty pictures? Visit: https://boards.openpandora.org/topic/5600322-prototype-production-run

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Pyra-news December 2015