Pyra-news July 2018

pyra-news@pyra-handheld.com

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The Final Revision
by Michael Mrozek 22 Jul '18

22 Jul '18

Please note: This newspost has a lot of nice pictures - so I suggest you visit the boards to see them :) Some of you might know that Wally (a moderator here and fellow community member) is currently on a trip through Europe. Yesterday, he was in Munich and therefore not far away from me and Global Components. Well, and as Nikolaus received the new PCBs a couple of days ago and finished doing quick tests with them, I took the opportunity to meet up with Wally and his girlfriend at Global Components so they can get a tour of the factory and also meet up with Nikolaus to pick up the new PCBs - the final revision! So yep, we got a couple of new mainboards (28) including the new 4GB RAM CPU boards now. These little buggers have cost 25,000 EUR just to produce them... yep, developing and producing something like the Pyra is pretty expensive! Are they working? Have all the bugs been fixed? ----------------------------------------------- Well, it's impossible to tell whether all the bugs have been fixed. All KNOWN bugs have been fixed - but there can always be well hidden ones, like with any other device out there, be it smartphone, washing machine or whatever. But yes, there shouldn't be any obvious showstopper now. Nikolaus has already tested whether the issues we found with the last revision have been fixed - and they are. The sad news: The wonky chip is no more there as you know it. The good news: The area is now full of wonky parts :D No more sirring noises, USB is now working as expected, holding a shoulder button while switching on the system no longer stops the unit from booting... well, and all other things we found are now fine as well. While Wifi has not been thoroughly tested (see further down), a quick test showed promising results. So what we have here is most likely (99,9% sure) the final revision of the PCBs! What's left to do? ------------------ Thoroughly test the PCBs in order to prepare for Mass production ---------------------------------------------------------------- Nikolaus did a quick test of the PCBs. All except one or two are booting into the console without any issues, which is a good start. However, we now need to more thoroughly test them. All sensors, connectors, functions, etc. need to be tested and reported back to Global Components, so they can check the issues and make sure to keep the failure rate as low as possible for the mass production. That's what I'll be working on within the next few weeks. I'll also assemble more units and send them to developers to help out as well as the ones who ordered a prototype (once they are tested). Optimize the resistance value for Wifi -------------------------------------- We've improved the antennas and the traces on the PCB have been optimized for our Wifi Antennas as well. This should give us a very good Wifi reception already, but it can be further tweaked and improved with proper measurement devices. We've got a company who will do that. For the exact resistance measurement of the PCB traces, we've added a testing area on the mainboard for them. A new hardware revision will NOT be needed after their measurements. These improvements will be small resistance changes which will be done using resistors on the PCB. So the only things that could change are resistor values of already existing resistors on the PCB. No layout or hardware change. CE-/ FCC-Testing and certification ---------------------------------- As we now have the final unit, it's time to do the CE/FCC-Tests. The lab has been booked for August 8th. On that day, I'll do the final CE Certification of the Colecovision USB Power Plug (you can find details about that here: https://www.dragonbox .de/en/703-colecovision-usb-power-plug-will-be-released-summer-2018-ac- adaptors.html) and also a pre-testing of the Pyra. Why only a pretesting? Well, a full CE test does cost around 2000 EUR (as you need to book the lab for a full day) And once you booked the lab for a day, you need to pay for it. The Pyra is a complex device - so it could be it needs some additional shielding, etc. to pass the CE. In that case, it's enough to book the lab for 2 - 3 hours and check for any issues - that's a lot safer and cheaper. If no issues occur, we can book the full CE test. If issues occur, we know exactly where, can fix them (and check them without needing the lab) and then book the full CE test. So let's hope no CE issues occur on August 8th :) Basically, that's all that's left to do. ---------------------------------------- (well, hardwarewise, of course. Software will constantly being worked on). It's also time to arrange the mass production... order all needed parts (for cooling, packaging, etc.) But yep, it looks we're done now. Finally! Please don't expect that we'll start shipping in a month or so (it will always take two months ;)) Preparation, receiving all the needed parts, etc. always takes some time as well. But there's no turning back now :) So much for todays newspost :) Feel free to post any questions if you have them. However, don't forget I'll have a live video stream soon as well where you can ask questions live :) More on that later today. Got questions or want to see pictures of the PCBs? Check out the newspost on the boards here: https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/threads/the-final-revision.83076/ -- Mit freundlichen Grüßen, Michael Mrozek ----------------------- OpenPandora GmbH Geschäftsführer: Michael Mrozek Schäffbräustr. 11 85049 Ingolstadt Deutschland Tel.: 0841 / 990 5548 http://www.openpandora.de/ HRB 4879, Amtsgericht Ingolstadt ----------------------- eMail: mrozek(a)openpandora.org

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Back from Greece
by Michael Mrozek 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Good news, everyone! I'm on my way back from Greece to Munich right now and it's time for another new update! And it's not just about the cases... So, what happened in Greece? Three things actually... 1. Discussing the production run with FormAction ------------------------------------------------ As you know, FormAction will produce 500 sets of the transparent cases. As the seem to be finished and okay now, they will start as soon as possible. However, they also have other customers and will close down August 1st for a full month. So we made the deal with them that they will produce as many as they can and afterwards, we'll move the molds over to UniquePlast, the new company. Some of you might have noticed that I said "seem to be finished" - are they or aren't they? Well, I didn't find the time to fully assemble a Pyra yet with the latest set of cases I received. However, as the only fix were the shoulder buttons and the stlylus, I tested these and they were fine. Everything else WAS already okay and hasn't changed, so that should be fine. Still, I will assemble a full Pyra during the weekend to make 100% sure it's okay. You should be able to buy transparent Pyra cases in August - with immediate delivery, if you like :) 2. Discussing the logo plate ---------------------------- If you read my last news, you already know that the logo wasn't made of anodized aluminium but instead was painted black. This looks awful and is certainly not what we want. So what was the problem here? Well, apparently, it's nigh impossible getting anodized aluminium in Greece. There's just no real demand for it there and therefore, it's a material that can't be bought there. They will still try to find a source, but if they can't find any, we'll use brushed Edelstahl. This looks nice and I can also imagine that it looks neat as well on a black shell. The logo itself will be milky white until you switch on the LEDs, so it fits well inside the metal plate. We won't let a metal plate cause us any delays, that's for sure! 3. Upcoming production with UniquePlast --------------------------------------- The last thing I had to do in Greece was discussing the upcoming production run of the Pyra case with UniquePlast. Especially with different plastic materials, etc. They're very experienced with different colors (and have many of them in stock). I think you will be very pleased with the final case the Pyra will have! We could now also mix different colors together, for example, have the keyboard part a different color than the lid, etc. Time to resurrect the old thread with the different color themes to see what we can do to make it look good, eh? Anyways, they're also on holidays from August 1st until August 21st, so nothing will happen during that time. So we're planning to move the molds there end of August / early September so that the cases can be produced in September. BTW: It's not the first time I'm working with them. They are also producing all my MegaDrive, SNES and NES shells, incl. the variations for the Retrode Plugins. So they made at least 5000 shells in various colors for me already. Now we're only mising the... Mainboards ---------- And yes, some good news here as well: Global Components has populated the mainboards. Now it's time for Nikolaus to pick them up and do a quick test run. As you already know, the 4GB RAM CPU boards have been finished a while ago and are working fine. So a bug-free mainboard is the last piece of the puzzle now! Well, these mainboards and CPU boards will be used to assemble Pyras with the transparent cases (I already have a set of ten) and these will go to the Prototype Preorders and some developers. This will hopefully help to improve the software a lot as well. I will also have a final (transparent case) unit with me at the GamesCom, in case you're planning to visit there. Once we confirm the mainboards to be working fine as well... it's time to place the order for the mass production... and then it's only a bit more of waiting until we start assembling and shipping the units! Yay! I hope you enjoyed that little news post. Remember the live video Q&A I mentioned? Well, I'll start a poll with different timeframes soon, so we can find the best time for everone. Hopefully, you'll have some interesting questions for me ready by then! As usual, discuss about that at our boards here: https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/threads/back-from-greece.83048/

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Pyra-news July 2018