One week has passed since I returned from Greece, so it's time to let
you know about the status of the cases!
As you might've read already (if you followed my updated on the last
news thread), the movement was a success!
The moulds are already being worked on at the new company and the
produced plastic shells are also in my hands.
You can see pictures of them in the thread linked at the end of this
mail.
We have about 100 transparent sets - that's all they did produced until
now.
These will be used by me to assemble the prototypes (hopefully this
week, when I find the time) and I'll put these sets on sale as well.
So, what's wrong with them?
They're mostly fine but have the following two main issues:
1. The lower part (with the battery compartment) is a tiny bit warped
and not 100% flat
2. The keyboard part is missing some pegs which make sure the PCB stays
in the proper position and can't wiggle around.
The first one isn't that bad and doesn't affect the usabilty at all
(you won't even notice it unless you take a closer look) and the second
one is actually the reason the shoulder buttons don't work properly on
all units:
These missing pegs make sure that the PCB sits perfectly inside the
case. Even without a keymat, it stays fixed and can't move around. The
Pandora case has these as well.
As these are MISSING, the PCB isn't fixed. It's squeezed in between the
keymat and the battery compartment - and the position changed depending
on how much you tighten the screws.
The effect is clear: Depending on the position, the shoulder buttons
hit the buttons on the PCB - or miss them.
That's the reason the shoulder buttons worked fine with some units but
not with others.
This CAN be manually fixed on the existing cases - but that's not
suitable for mass production (of course!).
So yes, these can be used for prototypes (and if you want to play
around with them a bit).
What about the moulds themselves? Are they fine? What needs to be
fixed?
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Well, I already took the time to take a look at the moulds together
with the new company:
* The quality itself is fine. FormAction did a good job here, so
nothing to worry about here.
* The missing plastic pegs mentioned above need to bee added in order
to keep the PCB in the proper position. The interesting thing is that
these pegs are actually existing in the 3D data - so my 3D printed
cases didn't have these issues! They are simply missing in the mould!
A mould is negative (as plastic is injected in there), therefore,
adding pegs means removing metal inside the mould. This is way easier
than removing something, so not a big challenge.
The shoulder buttons will be checked and improved once the PCB is
sitting in proper position. They might already be perfectly fine, we'll
see once that first fix has been applied.
The injection points of some of the moulds will be adjusted and
improved. What does that mean? Well, during production, hot liquid
plastic is being injected with some pressure into the mould, completely
filling it out. Once it cools down, the plastic part is done. However,
if there's an area where the plastic flow is a bit slower or faster
than in other areas or it cools off too fast, you will have some
effects like discolorization, brittle plastic or shrinking marks or (in
worst case), some parts aren't even filled with plastic so you will
have an incomplete part.
This is the reason we painted the Pandora cases (discolorizations) and
it's tricky to get this right.
The expert from the new company looked at the moulds and already
described exactly what problems our colored cases most likely had
(without having even seen them!) and that this can be fixed with a
proper fix to the injection points. He also pointed out that one or two
moulds probably won't even work properly with the currently set
injection points and that most of the cases produced with these would
would not be usable... that would totally explain why FA only produced
100 set so far and why they wanted to increase the price per set A LOT
for the actual mass production run.
So, that's mostly it!
Luckily, it's nothing too serious and they're already working on
applying fixes.
Some information about colors:
------------------------------
In theory, the cases can be produced in ANY color we can think of.
However, any custom color needs to be mixed, which means that it can
take a few weeks AND we'd have to buy at least a ton of the plastic
material.
So while that's a possibility, it does make more sense getting a color
that's currently on stock, as this one doesn't need to be produced and
is available with any quantity right away.
The good thing is: The company where they buy their color materials is
pretty big - and has a LOT of customers. So they have quite a lot of
different colors readily available!
They will send me a list of those (RAL colors) and then we can produce
samples.
So the steps for the cases:
---------------------------
1. The plastic pegs will be added, some mould injection points which
will certainly lead to issues will be fixed (this is already being
worked on)
2. Each plastic part will be produced with some cheap material. The
reason for that? Well, if the CHEAP material works fine already, then a
good one won't have any issues. And if the cheap one shows some
problems, you know exactly where and what to fix. So basically, this is
being done to make the optimize the injection points as good as
possible.
3. The shoulder buttons will be checked with the fixed cases and be
tweaked if need be (it could be they work out of the box).
4. Samples will be produced in the colors I choose.
That's it - time for mass production!
It's too early to give out even approximate dates for that. They don't
know the moulds that well yet (they haven't designed them), so they
have no clue how much the injection points need to be tweaked (and on
how many moulds).
Once that's done, it's a lot easier to make assumptions.
But they want to work as fast as possible on that, so it should be a
LOT faster than what we've seen the last 2 years...
Now, I also took some pictures of the moulds, in case you're
interested. Sorry for some being blurry - I only had a smartphone
available and it didn't want to focus properly.
One mould always consists of two parts: An upper and a lower one. So
I'll show you both.
You can see these pictures as well on the thread on the boards :)
That's it for today. I'll try to find some time to post another thread
to let you know the status of EVERTHING regarding the Pyra (not only
the cases) soon, but it's 5am here and I'm tired, so it won't be now :D
Want to leave feedback and see all the pretty pictures?
Visit:
https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/threads/back-from-greece.83532/
--
Greetings,
Michael Mrozek
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OpenPandora GmbH
CEO: Michael Mrozek
Schäffbräustr. 11
85049 Ingolstadt
Germany
Tel.: +49 841 990 5548
http://www.openpandora.de/
HRB 4879, Amtsgericht Ingolstadt
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eMail: mrozek(a)openpandora.org
