Pyra-news July 2016

pyra-news@pyra-handheld.com

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It's loud.
by Michael Mrozek 28 Jul '16

28 Jul '16

I was working on sealing the speakers into the Pyra. Sealing them? Yes, sealing them! The speakers we're using are special speakers that have some of the best sound you can get when they're assembled properly. For that, they have some special tricks. The back volume (part of the case) has to be sealed, otherwise, the membrane permanently moves to its limit which makes it sound totally overdriven. I've sealed the speakers with self-cut padding. Of course, in the end, this will be cut by a machine and we only have to apply it. First, we need some padding on inside the case so that the membrane has enough space to fully move. The speaker will go onto there and more padding (to seal it) will be added to the support bars of the case. Then the PCB goes on top of it, like a sandwich. The result can be seen here: [MEDIA=youtube]BZcFnunrVGw[/MEDIA] This video shows a comparison between the Pandora, the GPD XD and the padded Pyra. All of these have been recorded with the same microphones. The volume of the recording has NOT been changed, so you can hear the volume differences here. With the reduced back volume, the Pyra is already louder at 75% audio than the Pandora is with full volume... and sounds a lot better as well. However, sometimes it already sounds a bit overdriven - most likely an effect of the reduced back volume or maybe the sealing is not 100% yet. There are also some other tricks I want to use to improve the quality (it sometimes sounds like we have a resonance frequency as well). The GPD XD has more bass right now (ours will improve when I don't cover the back volume with the sealing), but it sounds like it has some weird reverb combined with a resonance frequency. Looking into the GPD XD, it seems to use the full case as back volume... which explains that. Some music tracks sound better with the GPD XD, some sound better with the Pyra... but that's only the first test, I hope I'll be able to improve audio a lot :) Well, that's it for today. Just some short sound-related news, but I guess it makes some of you happy :) BTW: Playing C64 commando at 100% volume plays fine without overdrive... but it was too loud for the microphones, so I couldn't even record it properly. It was REALLY loud! You can discuss about that and see pictures here: https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/threads/parts-boards-and-the-rotator.77687/

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Parts, Boards and the Rotator
by Michael Mrozek 17 Jul '16

17 Jul '16

Well, while we didn't have as many updates as the PGS team had on Kickstarter, I guess our updates make a lot more sense :) So here's what's been happening lately. 1. The case ----------- The team is fully working on finishing the molds. Most of the fixes I discussed with them when I visited them have already been fixed and only a few remain. The first molds are already being hardened (which you do after they are finished, so that they're more robust and the plastics doesn't have these ugly discolorations anymore). A lot of companies in Greece have a one month holiday in August, and FormAction is no exception here. They're doing their best to send us final cases BEFORE August. We can then test those at the Gamescom (that's a hardcore test...) and shortly after that we can prepare the mass production of the cases. We told them I'll have a GPD Win prototype with me at the GamesCom, and that their case is finished already... which certainly boosted their working speed, so I'm positive that it'll work out. 2. Keymat --------- Nothing breathtaking to report here. The new samples are being produced and should be finished early August (so also in time for the GamesCom). 3. New touchscreens ------------------- BOE will have the new touchscreens finished around July 21st. Then they'll be shipped to Germany and my BOE contact here will visit me so we check the new screens together. One will be matte (as this is my preferation) but shouldn't have the rainbow-grain effect. And to be on the safe side, the other one will be non-matte with an anti-glare filter. If the matte works without a quality decrease in the picture, we'll probably use that one. But I will let you know once we got it and will take pictures of it. 4. The PCBs ----------- The layout for the CPU PCBs has been submitted to Global Components, so that production of those can now start. We plan to produce 20 more prototypes, as we were really unlucky quality-wise with the first 18 we produced. It seems that some of the PCBs weren't the best quality, so we'll also tell GC to keep an eye on that and maybe use a different PCB manufacturer. It's not our problem for the mass production (as we have a maximum failure rate in our contract, the rest would be covered by GC), but I guess we all want to prevent production issues, right? That's why you do prototype runs. Having quality issues with a mass production run would be horrible. The production of the CPU boards will take approximately 6 weeks. The other PCBs can be done a lot faster, so we haven't ordered those yet. Especially as we want to test different SD Card slots (as the SD Cards right now are being inserted upside down) and optimized the position of the LEDs for the keyboard backlight using a dummy PCB Nikolaus is designing right now. As mentioned, ALL parts with a long leadtime that we know we need for sure have been ordered already for the mass production already. So these won't delay the mass production :) 5. The rotator chip ------------------- Well, zmatt here from the boards has worked hard with the OMAP5 devboard I sent him to find out while TILER (part of the OMAP5 hardware that can be used to rotate a picture) is so damn slow. And - what should I say? He's very close to have fixed it. It looks like the driver had workarounds for bugs instead of fixes which worked but slowed them down a lot. So yes, as it looks like right now, we can probably get rid of the rotator chip and use the internal OMAP5 hardware to achieve the same! He already made a few patches and benchmarks show that it's fast enough to rotate without any speed loss. The next step is to test that with actual programs and implement that into the kernel, so that our screen is always rotated. What would that mean? Well, the Displayboard would be 2-layer instead of 4-layer, power usage would go down, we wouldn't have to fix the SSD driver and implement VSync, etc. It would be a huge relieve - and you can be sure I'll tell you once it's working! So, thanks a lot to zmatt for that help! 6. Preparing for Gamescom ------------------------- As the Gamescom is approaching fast (only 4 weeks to go!), Nikolaus is working hard to fix as many Prototype PCBs as possible. Quite a few have shortcircuits somewhere, and repairing them is not trivial. Unfortunately, the next prototype run is AFTER the Gamescom, so we don't have any other choice. Everyone is very welcome to visit us at the Gamescom, test the Pyra and have a chat or coffee with me. Thanks a lot to Nikolaus for the hard work here! 7. Investments -------------- Just a pre-information: My biggest investor (with 100K EUR) is bailing out at the end of the year, so in case your interested in investing into the Pyra, you can do that at the end of the year. Just contact me for more information in case you're interested (EvilDragon(a)openpandora.org). That's it for now, back to work! You can discuss about that and watch the pictures here: https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/threads/parts-boards-and-the-rotator.77687/

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Tweaking and Finalizing
by Michael Mrozek 02 Jul '16

02 Jul '16

Weekend, time for a newspost about the Pyra, isn't it? As you know, I was in Greece on Monday and Tuesday last week, discussing the final changes and tweaks with FormAction about the case production. But apart from that, I got some other news for you, but let's start with The Case -------- I sat together two days with the designer and plastic expert of FormAction to discuss the final tweaks needed for the case. The reason the case didn't close properly on the pictures you've seen was a rib that was colliding with one part on the PCB as well as a too thick wall between the battery compartment and the inner life of the Pyra. Removing the rib and milling the case a bit down makes the PCB fit perfectly and the case closed just fine. This also was the reason, why the holes for the ports had so much spacing. You can't make the final tweaks to those as long as the PCB is not sitting properly in the case (makes sense, eh?) So, these things will now be fixed so we should get a completely finished and tweaked case for the GamesCom in August. The hinge will also be modified a bit to add fraction to it. The rest was already fine, so these really are the final tweaks that need to be done. I took 25 of those sets with me, so we can use them to build the prototypes once the PCBs are ready :) Let's move on to... The Colors ---------- Getting proper colors is actually harder than I thought. Well, not harder: more expensive. Black, Transparent and various vibrant colors you often see used in kids toys are easy to get: These are standard colors which you can buy in any quantities from the market. However, if you want to get a REALLY good looking color (like dark metallic or non-metallic red, blue, or whatever), you need to get the color custom made from the manufacturer. All RAL-Colors (http://www.ral-farben.de/en/PRODUCTS-SHOP/) are available, not only plastic ones but also effect ones. There are some that really look gorgeous - however, the minimum order quantity is 1t. And that's quite a lot. I still want to do an awesome looking color version at some time, but maybe that'll have to wait until the first batch is out - or we could do some Kickstarter / Indiegogo for that. Nevertheless, you can see some pictures at the thread at the boards. The red, grey and blue one looks okayish... but still not what I imagine as awesome looking color :) But black is always a proper solution, eh? :) The PCBs -------- Nikolaus will be finished with the new layout files this week, so new PCBs can be ordered - and if all goes well, that's the final revision, so those will also be the ones used for mass production. And I've got some other nice news for your: The parts with long lead-times have been ordered! Yep, that DOES mean that the mass production has started a bit, at least we'll soon have the parts to start it anytime, once we're ready. So no waiting time once we're done. Yay! The 3D Driver ------------- Thanks to a community developer effort in IRC, we also have a first working 3D driver! Thanks a lot to everyone involved! It still needs improvements (i.e. it only uses one core right now) and packaged up for Debian, but they're working on that. But still, it does run and runs glxgears and other 3D programs already, so it's a very good start! Hopefully at GamesCom, we can show some nice 3D games running! Some sad news ------------- Unfortunately, I also have some sad news for you. My main contact for the Pandora production at Global Components died this Sunday after a long struggle with a disease. He didn't have to suffer long, which is good, and usually with the illness he had, you often only live for two years or less... he lived six years with it. He was the one who managed moving the Pandora production over to Global Components, who had trust in me even after the whole Pandora fiasco, who helped me get everything going smoothly. He personally brought thousands of Pandoras to my company, mad sure everything worked out, organized solving every issue that occured. He was always available, even at night times, he loved his work and lived for it. And even though he stopped working at Global Components a few years ago because he couldn't do it anymore, he still was there as their advisor and always followed the Pyra development and asked how I was doing. I am both relieved that he didn't have to suffer too hard, but it's also sad seeing someone like him go. Especially as I already knew shortly after the Pandora production was moved here that he will be gone at some time during the next few years. I want to honor him with this newspost, wish him all the best whereever he will be and thank him for everything he's done. Best wishes of also to his family. He has a special place in the Pandora history as well. You can discuss about that and watch the pictures here: https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/threads/tweaking-and-finalizing.77624/

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Pyra-news July 2016