Pyra-news July 2017

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Keep cool!
by Michael Mrozek 24 Jul '17

24 Jul '17

Just some quick newspost, as it's late and I'm dead tired already... But I hope you'll like it :) Cooling, part 1 --------------- I'm still waiting for some small copper heatsinks that have been shipped to me. These will be placed below the USB Port and the heat from the CPU will be moved there with a special heat-distribution material (self-adhesive tape). However, I finally had the time to measure out and finish the first part of the cooling: A 0.4mm thick aluminium plate which will go between the CPU-Board and the case and battery. This will be self-adhesive as well and will be glued to the case backside, so you can open the unit and still access everything without any problem. Check out the thread at the boards to find out how that aluminium plate looks! I will test how well the cooling works once I have part 2 finished as well. In normal operation, the Pyra still is cooler than my GPD Win, so we should be fine. The Sealing ----------- The design for the sealing (which will be done with an adhesive tape) is now also finished. You can find a picture of the sealing on the boards as well. I haven't tested it yet, as the speakers aren't properly setup in our OS version right now (Pulseaudio configuration) - and therefore, playing sound right now drives the vibra motor :D This is cool.... but not really useful ;) I'll let you know once I can test it :D The keymat ---------- Everything is good here :) DPad now also works fine. There's a small tolerance issue where some of the produced DPads are too close to the PCB and aren't as nice to use. That's already fixed (only 0.2mm needed to be cut from the mould) and we don't really need another sample here. So: Keymat is now also ready for mass production! The case -------- Will these be produced before August or not? Well, I don't know myself yet. They should be, the slot is planned, but I haven't heard exactly when (as I certainly need to inspect them before mass production!) Of course, I'll keep you informed! Most important thing for me right now is getting final, properly looking cases with shoulder buttons, even if it's just a few samples. Because if everything is fine, we can do the production run right after the holiday. We won't have the PCBs before that anyways! Deadline for hardware bugs -------------------------- Quite a few devs have units already, and except for the few bugs zmatt found months ago (and which have been fixed), nothing new has been found yet. So it's time to move to the next step: Setting a deadline for finding remaining bugs - and if none are found, start the PCB production. So far, the units themselves are working, so any remaining hidden bugs shouldn't be anything major. And at some time, we need to make a closure. I'll set that for the start of the GamesCom middle of August. This should also give Nikolaus enough time to thoroughly test the 4GB RAM. So much for today. Quite a few things have now been finished and are final as well. We're moving slowly, but still towards the mass production, so that you'll all receive units soon :) Discuss about it and view the pictures? Check out the thread here: https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/threads/keep-cool.81021/ -- Greetings, Michael Mrozek ----------------------- OpenPandora GmbH CEO: Michael Mrozek Schäffbräustr. 11 85049 Ingolstadt Germany Tel.: +49 841 990 5548 http://www.openpandora.de/ HRB 4879, Amtsgericht Ingolstadt ----------------------- eMail: mrozek(a)openpandora.org

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It's all white!
by Michael Mrozek 13 Jul '17

13 Jul '17

As there were recent news about the PGS and the SmachZ, I thought it's time to finally tell you that I've scammed you all as well :D Naaah, just kidding. There are two reasons it took so long from the last one to this newspost: 1. Like you, we were mostly playing the waiting game: Waiting for parts I ordered (to test cooling solutions) or waiting for new samples (like the keymat). 2. I've been busy with a lot small tasks and setups that I didn't find the time to summarize everything up and post it. Well, now's the time to do it :) Regarding the keymat: --------------------- The new samples have arrived in Austria two days ago and are already on the way to me, together with the new DPads. This will probably the final one! And yes, it's all white (as you can see on the picture if you check it out at the boards!) Why? Here's the answer: You probably remember that we need multiple colors for the keymat: White, orange and black. The lowest layer was the white one (to diffuse the backlight), then we had black on top and the orange only on the keys. These two paint layers made the keymat thick and very stiff. So it was modified to only have one full layer of paint (the black one) and the white and orange one just on the keys. That made the keymat work perfect (it's the one that's currently making the rounds in the community) - but with the white layer missing, the backlight wasn't as nice as before (some keys received more light than others). The simple solution was to put the white paint onto the full keymat and black and orange only on the keys where needed. Easy change, huge improvement. I'll let you know about the DPad as soon as I receive the keymat for testing :) All the small things I did... ----------------------------- I'll try to remember all the small things I did... First some good news: I didn't plan to include an AC Adaptor, but I found a good one with 2,5A and world-wide plugs for a good price. So you will most probably receive an AC Adaptor with your Pyra! Shoulder buttons ---------------- Then I was working on the shoulder buttons. You know, they mostly worked on the latest case revision, but still not as good as I want them (which mostly has to do with tolerance issues). I wanted to make sure they get it right this time, so I grabbed the 3D data files to explain exactly how needs to be taken care of. It's simple and logical, but it still took some time to measure all of this and write it down. I think nothing can go wrong with these instructions now. Sealing ------- Next, I was working on the sealing. The idea with the silicon pads was good in theory - but not working that well in reality. It looks the only way to properly seal the speakers is with some pre- cut adhesive tape which seals everything except the contacts. Even though it looks simple, it also took a while to measure everything properly, to make sure it sits perfect. I will hand-cut this within the next few days to test it! Next up: Cooling solutions! --------------------------- Well, some good news first: ptitSeb has played around with his prototype a bit. The unit doesn't have ANY cooling solution installed. Doing processor-intensive stuff (like compiling) does heat up the unit quite a bit. That was to be expected, since it doesn't even throttle yet (unlike all smartphones or other devices with modern processors). It mostly heats up between the nubs though, the DPad and button area stays cool. And while doing normal stuff or playing games, the unit normally stays cool (unless the game needs 100% CPU...) Still, we want to throttle as little as possible, ideally never (which is unlikely though). So, a simple solution to cool things down a bit would be ideal, so I started sourcing existing parts. I've planned two things: 1. Move the heat away from the CPU to some heatsink. 2. Spread the heat and shield it from the battery. Regarding 1.: We've got 19x12x5mm space below the USB Port. There are existing 12x13x5mm heatsinks (for DDR RAMs) available. I also found a 12x18x5mm heatsink for power transistors, which would work as well. I also found self-adhesive material stripes. These can go directly between the CPU and mainboard and move the heat away onto the heatsink (which is not far away). A larger pad like these (also with copper material) can be used between the CPU board and the battery. We will also add a few venting holes below the USB port. No worries, the mold doesn't need to be changed for that - an inlay for the mold will be created for that. I even found a small fan that fits there. While I'm not really planning right now adding one there, the case will be prepared for that in case future CPU boards might need one - or in case someone wants to mod a fan into his unit :) For normal operation, the heatsink solution should work fine. I've got all parts except for the heatsink yet. As soon as that one arrives, I'll assemble one unit with all these changes and see how well it works. As these are ALL existing parts and nothing custom made, we can get them without any problems within a few days :) And finally: Software development --------------------------------- Since a few devs have now units, it was time to organize the software development and set up a proper platform for that. Therefore, I've installed GitLab on our dev site: https://dev.pyra-handheld.com/ You'll find the gits for all our custom debian packages there as well as the kernel, the source code to the repo and more stuff. It also has an issue-tracker built-in, so once the Pyra has been released, you can use it to post any issues you find or post feature requests. You can also join projects and provide patches as well. Everyone is welcome to help - check #dragonbox-dev and #dragonbox-pyra on Freenode IRC if you're a dev and want to help! Not all tasks require a unit. Kernel-Hackers welcome! ----------------------- While help with the OS is important, it's also important that drivers are being written for all the hardware. For example, the battery monitor chip needs to be programmed so that it knows everything about our battery, the ABE drivers would need to be ported from an older kernel the the current one and so on. Anyone here who has experience with that? Please do contact me if you have experience and do have time! So, that's for todays post. I probably have forgotten half of what I did - but simply ask questions in case something is unclear or you want to know something else. Check the webboards to ask any questions: https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/threads/its-all-white.80935 -- Greetings, Michael Mrozek ----------------------- OpenPandora GmbH CEO: Michael Mrozek Schäffbräustr. 11 85049 Ingolstadt Germany Tel.: +49 841 990 5548 http://www.openpandora.de/ HRB 4879, Amtsgericht Ingolstadt ----------------------- eMail: mrozek(a)openpandora.org

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Pyra-news July 2017