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Nothing to see here (yet)
by Michael Mrozek 18 Nov '19

18 Nov '19

This time, I'm just giving a quick text update again. No video for two reasons: 1. I'm seriously lacking time (which is also why I didn't post an update earlier) 2. I don't have anything new to show right now If you followed my various posts here on the boards, you probably know a bit of the current status but I'll try to summarize it here - so hopefully, all questions shall be answered. If not, let me know and I'll answer :) 1. The Preorder Prototypes -------------------------- I still haven't assembled them for one simple reason: Time! And this: I forgot (yeah, I'm getting old, seriously...) that these PCBs hadn't been checked yet for non-working keys. As I reported previously, most of the prototypes had the issue that some keys have not been working. This was because at some time during the production run, very tiny diodes have been ripped from the boards and were missing. We fixed all European Modem PCBs - but I forgot that we didn't do that with the US Modem PCBs yet! And it turns out that these all have some non-working keys. I have the diodes here and just need to check which ones need to be replaced. However, I didn't have the time to do that yet (more and that further down in the newspost), so that's the sole reason they haven't shipped yet. But I WILL make sure every prototype preorder receives his unit before christmas! 2. The status of the cases -------------------------- The order for 1000 full case sets has been placed, as they work perfectly fine now and look gorgeous. Azouls will now order the plastics needed and take care of the production run. I might visit Greece again to show you more videos of the production run - but I don't know if I find the time. December is always a stressful time for an online shop, and I've got tons or work to do at the moment anyways. We'll see. It should take around 4 - 5 weeks until all sets are finished (depending on how fast the plastic arrives... planning something around christmas time is always messy) and shipping will probably take another 2 weeks, so that means we should have them all here in January, ready to be painted. I will receive more painted samples (with some other colors) soon and will make more videos of them :) 3. The status of the remaining parts ------------------------------------ Basically, everything is there. Speakers, logo plates, batteries, bare PCBs, all parts needed for PCB production, LCD Cables, LCDs, Keymats, etc. So yeah, we're basically ready for production once the cases arrive here. Nothing more to be done here. 4. The status of the current OS ------------------------------- Well, "OS" is probably wrong, as the OS we use is a standard Debian, so that one is working with all programs you have on a normal Linux system. So it's the status of the kernel and general drivers. Toastbucket is helping out a lot! He has almost finished the battery charger / monitor driver, which is not only needed for the end user, but it's also really helpful to when fixing the prototype preorders PCBs because right now, I can only boot the system when a battery is inserted. So I have to assemble / disassemble the unit each time I want to test it. Booting the PCB without any case around it will make things a lot easier here. aTc and Toastbucket have also worked to make the image building and package creation easier to handle and as automatic as possible. We also switched to our own kernel GIT (which is based on the Letux Kernel) as the Letux Kernel GIT is too volatile right now. This makes it very hard to fix the remaining issues and get out a mostly working Pyra when the production starts. It's also a lot easier for developers to help us out, as the Letux kernel git is quite complex due to the large amount of systems it does support. Having one GIT where only the Pyra stuff is a lot more overseeable. We will also keep an eye open for Pyra fixes in the Letux kernel to pull them over and will also try to provide our fixes to the Letux kernel. We're using kernel 4.19 for the first release, as this is the one that worked best on our testing units so far. Our goal is to get this one completely stable with all hardware features first. After that is done and we have a stable working OS, we will switch to a more recent kernel which will be unstable / testing after everything has been approved to be working and then this will become the next stable one. The kernels will all be available as Debian package, so anyone can decide for himself whether he prefers the stable kernel or help out finding bugs in the testing one :) The kernel git can be found here: https://dev.pyra-handheld.com/kernel/pyra-kernel And the U-Boot git can be found here: https://dev.pyra-handheld.com/kernel/pyra-uboot So if you want to help out there, you're more than welcome :) 5. Time issues -------------- As mentioned at the beginning of the post, the biggest issue for me at the moment is: Time! I'm barely managing to keep up with all the work right now, I easily have enough work that would keep two fulltime employees busy! Thankfully, I've got a trainee who helps with the office stuff (shipping packages, etc.) and while this takes a bit of workload off my shoulders, there's still a lot more work to do. Now, I can hear how some are crying "Why are you even working on other things - just get the Pyra out to us, this is most important!". Well, yes, I can understand where you're coming from. However, this is exactly what caused the issues with the Pandora back then: Craig decided to spend all his time to work on the Pandora and closed the shop... and that eventually lead to the issue that he ran out of money. This is NOT what we want to happen! Unfortunately, the Pyra has turned out to cost A LOT more than planned (due to a lot of bad stuff that happened), so money is tight and the only thing to keep things going is by pulling in money. For example, I am producing the 2000 cartridges for the EU/US release of the MegaDrive/Genesis game Ultracore (some of you might even have preordered it). While this eats quite a bit of my time, it actually fully financed the production of the 1000 keymats. And of course, keeping the shop interesting by adding new interesting products also takes some time but pulls in money. So in case you're wondering why sometimes things like finishing up the preorder prototypes or news posts take a while: it's not because I want to delay the Pyra for as long as possible (that would be crazy indeed), it's simply because I can't afford to hire more staff right now OR work fulltime on the Pyra. It's a very delicated balancing between time, money, customer support - and, and, and... (I should run a gofundme ;))) As you surely can see, things are moving along, even it they sometimes take longer than they should, but I hope you now understand the reason for that. Okay, I'm off to bed now... it's 5:52am in the morning again... time runs too fast, seriously! Want to leave feedback? https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/threads/so-whats-the-current-status-of-eve… -- 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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Nothing to see here (yet)
by Michael Mrozek 16 Jul '19

16 Jul '19

I'm currently sitting on the plane on my way to Greece. Once again. :) That gives me a bit of time to write a quick newspost to let you know what has happened and what the status is. Forgive me that I didn't have much time to participate at the boards myself a lot. Besides preparing the Pyra massproduction (yes, you read that correctly), I upgraded my shop to the latest version of PrestaShop, migrating all orders, vouchers, etc. I've started doing that last year in August and made the switch end of June, following a couple of weeks of bug squashing (for example, AmazonPay wasn't working). Well, now the shop is back in a fully working state and has some new features. You can now easily throw out links to the shop or a specific product and get reward discount codes if somebody buys a product coming from that link. So go and spread your affiliate links now - it's good for everyone :D I still need to add some more products and sort some categories, but at least it's now fully functional. That, of course, took some time. And while I still had the time to work on the planned Pyra production run, I didn't have any time left to do an extensive newspost. Hopefully, this one will be enough for you. And: We'll fill the thread at the boards with pictures during the next two days! So, where to start...? 1. The cases ------------ It's the reason I'm sitting on this plane right now: azouls and his team worked hard on the remaining case issues, redesigned the shoulder buttons and now it's time to check it! That's why I have some parts for prototypes in my bag and we'll check out everything in the company, as that means we can also do some last changes / fixes directly there if need be. And of course, I've got a camera with me so you'll be able to see proper pictures and maybe videos of the result as well. This thread will be updated :) 2. The hardware and software ---------------------------- Prototypes have been sent out to some devs, most of them are also working for TI, so Hopefully, they can help a bit with remaining driver issues. Unfortunately, devs these days also don't have a lot of time, so don't expect things to happen within a few days! The main issues we're still having is that the speakers are easily overdriven (probably because the DC Offset isn't set up yet), TILER / 3D needs to be make to work together and the battery monitor doesn't know the size of the battery yet, so the %-age it shows is off. As the charger handles everything itself, this is nothing dangerous though, the battery can't be overcharged (as it was the case with the first older Pandora OS). Then there are some smaller quirks like that a restart hangs the system for some reason (shutting down and restart works though). Nikolaus found a workaround for that, but it's not yet a proper solution. It just points in the right direction. And - of course - there's no proper powersaving there yet and the whole system is still a bit barren (like on the early Pandoras). All the nice little tools that made the Pandora easier to use (like the enable / disable Wifi, USB, etc. directly from the taskbar) are still missing, but the desktop itself works. And there's not nice GUI for doing phonecalls, etc. But stuff like that will surely come from various devs once the device is shipping. My main concerns are the speakers, but I'll plan to check them more extensively next week to make sure it's really just software thing and not hardware. But basically they're directly connected to the audio chip, so there's not really anything that could be broken in hardware here. We (Nikolaus and me) also had another meeting with Global Components to start preparing the mass production. Nikolaus submitted the final hardware details and Global Components are now looking to source the remaining parts and send me a new offer. Hopefully, the price won't be much higher than before. I expect that it'll cost me about 30 - 40 EUR more, which makes up a whopping 40k EUR more expenses than expected for the first batch! I won't force anyone to pay that, but I'll let everyone know and decide for himself if he wants to donate that when the Pyra is ready to ship or not. And no, there won't be "Premium Upgrades" to pull in money... Getting parts these days usually can take up to 10 weeks after placing the order, and that's also the time it takes until we receive the 1000 keymats (which we already ordered). So the Prototype Preorders will still get their units a few months before the final units. But once everyhing is ordered... well, there's no going back for us :) Oh speaking of keymats: As you know, the final keymats have removable caps, they're not glued anymore. And some of you asked whether it will be possible to get the keymat only partly printed (without the letters). And: Yes, that it possible! We will receive 100 of those blank keymats, so you can do your own experiments with them. We'll also sell spare keycaps in case you lose one during disassembly :) Soo... I guess that sums things up a bit. Of course, if you're visiting GamesCom this year, we'll be there (in the retro hall) as usual. But this time, we'll have FINAL Pyra units with us. You're more than welcome to have a cup of coffee with me :) Anyways, that's all for now... pictures should follow tomorrow! Want to leave feedback, comment or see the pictures? Visit: https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/threads/nothing-to-see-here-yet.83733/ -- 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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Back from Greece!
by Michael Mrozek 28 Jan '19

28 Jan '19

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? --------------------------------------------------------------------- --- 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 ----------------------- 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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Wrapping everything up!
by Michael Mrozek 07 Dec '18

07 Dec '18

I'm still alive, even I didn't even find the time to follow much on the boards here or post stuff... I had TONS of work during the last few weeks and even had a few days where I was more like a Zombie than anything else, but Nikolaus has cotinued to work on stuff, zmatt has reimplemented his rotation hack (so the Pyra is finally fully usable again!) and aTc has always quickly updated the kernels. So, here's a quick update of the current status. Let's start with the good news first... The PCBs -------- These seem to work rock solid now with the current kernel. All the hardware features we tested work fine, all bugs seem to have been fixed, so I guess we can really call the PCBs fully finished and ready for mass production! Nikolaus made one small change / bugfix to the Display board: It was flickering sometimes under high load. It turned out that the PWM wouldn't handle the power the LCD needed which caused the flickering. And it was also shuttering when the display brightness was dim due to the frequency the PWM used. The PWM is now replaced (just one chip on the display board) which increases the maximum brightness of the LCD and also provides a smoother, flicker-free backlight. We also received a production report from Global Components which show potential issues for production (pads too close to each other, etc.) Luckily, these are just small changes, the layout doesn't change, only some components are being moved around a few 0.2mm, so no new prototypes are needed (no worries :)) Nikolaus is now working on wrapping up all the production files: Cleaning up the part lists (some parts have changed), implementing the results from the production report into the design files, etc. We plan to have them finished within December (we don't know if it works out before or after christmas), which means I DO plan to greenlight the mass production of the PCBs this year! So much for the good news, now the ugly part... The cases --------- Geez, that topic is pretty annoying and time consuming. While all stuff HAS been picked up by the carrier, our beloved company has held them back as they first wanted to receive the final payment (last changes and the 500 produced transparend cases). Of course (you know their speed by now), it took them 2 weeks to let me know the costs and another 2 weeks to confirm my payment. My contact in Greece is now visiting them twice a week to speed things up and thinks that everything should be resolved next week... Seriously, I'm making more then three crosses when everything arrived at UniquePlast... Anyways, it's very annoying, in worst case I'll fly to Greece again (as they always seem to move forward faster when I'm around), but I'm also planning to get these moulds moved to UniquePlast within December! I'll let you know as soon as I receive more details from my contact (should be tomorrow or on Monday). I'm sure we can solve that, as we've solved other things as well (remember the huge task moving the parts from CC to Global Components when we moved the production to Germany...?) Prototypes ---------- Now that the hardware is tested, I'd love to ship out the ordered prototypes, would be a nice christmas present! However, this mostly depends on the cases, as I need the produced cases to assemble these... so hopefully, I'll receive them in time... but I can't make any promises! Feel free to post any questions here - I'll try to be online a bit more! Oh, and I might setup a nice VNC on a Pyra, so you could log in and play around with it a bit! :) Want to leave feedback? Visit: https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/threads/wrapping-everything-up.83465/ -- 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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WIP Report: No known hardware issues, 30 days of uptime
by Michael Mrozek 07 Dec '18

07 Dec '18

I'm still alive, even I didn't even find the time to follow much on the boards here or post stuff... I had TONS of work during the last few weeks and even had a few days where I was more like a Zombie than anything else, but Nikolaus has cotinued to work on stuff, zmatt has reimplemented his rotation hack (so the Pyra is finally fully usable again!) and aTc has always quickly updated the kernels. So, here's a quick update of the current status. Let's start with the good news first... The PCBs -------- These seem to work rock solid now with the current kernel. All the hardware features we tested work fine, all bugs seem to have been fixed, so I guess we can really call the PCBs fully finished and ready for mass production! Nikolaus made one small change / bugfix to the Display board: It was flickering sometimes under high load. It turned out that the PWM wouldn't handle the power the LCD needed which caused the flickering. And it was also shuttering when the display brightness was dim due to the frequency the PWM used. The PWM is now replaced (just one chip on the display board) which increases the maximum brightness of the LCD and also provides a smoother, flicker-free backlight. We also received a production report from Global Components which show potential issues for production (pads too close to each other, etc.) Luckily, these are just small changes, the layout doesn't change, only some components are being moved around a few 0.2mm, so no new prototypes are needed (no worries :)) Nikolaus is now working on wrapping up all the production files: Cleaning up the part lists (some parts have changed), implementing the results from the production report into the design files, etc. We plan to have them finished within December (we don't know if it works out before or after christmas), which means I DO plan to greenlight the mass production of the PCBs this year! So much for the good news, now the ugly part... The cases --------- Geez, that topic is pretty annoying and time consuming. While all stuff HAS been picked up by the carrier, our beloved company has held them back as they first wanted to receive the final payment (last changes and the 500 produced transparend cases). Of course (you know their speed by now), it took them 2 weeks to let me know the costs and another 2 weeks to confirm my payment. My contact in Greece is now visiting them twice a week to speed things up and thinks that everything should be resolved next week... Seriously, I'm making more then three crosses when everything arrived at UniquePlast... Anyways, it's very annoying, in worst case I'll fly to Greece again (as they always seem to move forward faster when I'm around), but I'm also planning to get these moulds moved to UniquePlast within December! I'll let you know as soon as I receive more details from my contact (should be tomorrow or on Monday). I'm sure we can solve that, as we've solved other things as well (remember the huge task moving the parts from CC to Global Components when we moved the production to Germany...?) Prototypes ---------- Now that the hardware is tested, I'd love to ship out the ordered prototypes, would be a nice christmas present! However, this mostly depends on the cases, as I need the produced cases to assemble these... so hopefully, I'll receive them in time... but I can't make any promises! Feel free to post any questions here - I'll try to be online a bit more! Oh, and I might setup a nice VNC on a Pyra, so you could log in and play around with it a bit! :) Want to leave feedback? Visit: https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/threads/wrapping-everything-up.83465/ -- 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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WIP Report: No known hardware issues, 30 days of uptime
by Michael Mrozek 19 Nov '18

19 Nov '18

It's more than time for a small update. There's not much to see - even though a lot is happening! Why is that? Well, right now, the main goals is to get all the hardware working so I can create an automatic testing card - which will not only test the units but also flash the OS onto the internal storage, etc. This tester is needed for the production run so GC can quickly and easily test all produced boards and make them ready for development. Also, with this tester, I can quickly find out whether the hardware still has issues or not. Some (good) news about the results about that can be found further down. Nikolaus did a great job getting all the hardware to work in the kernel and also code a large part of the testing routines. I'm using his routines to create the automated tester. Most of this is finished now! So while it's not much to see, it's VERY very important. Here are the tests already fully implemented in the tester: ----------------------------------------------------------- * All sensors (Barometer, Gyroscope, Accelerator, Compass, Temperature) * Both SD-Card Slots * The USB Port * Temperatures (Battery, CPU) * Battery Gauge * 4G / LTE Modem and GPS * Wifi (incl. Speed test) * Vibration * LCD * All LEDs * eMMC These are the tests that are implemented but need a bit more work: ------------------------------------------------------------------ * Input tester (TILER rotation needs to be fixed) for all inputs (incl. touchscreen, nubs and lid-sensor) * Audio (this has just been fixed one or two days ago in the kernel) * USB OTG (need to figure out how to switch the SD-Card to mass-storage mode) * Bluetooth * Flashing the OS onto the eMMC (already manually tested, but need to implement it autoamtically) I hope I haven't forgotten anything, but that should be it! So yes, most of the tests are already working and testing the Pyra almost fully automatic - and the rest should be implemented pretty soon! I'm trying the best I can - but as I'm no coder, writing the scrits is a bit slower than it could be. I will do a video showing the test run incl. flashing the OS, as soon as it's finished. While it's anything but spectacular, it's a VERY important process :) What about hardware defects on the current revision? ---------------------------------------------------- So far, none are known. Everything seems to work now, which we could now test thanks to the existing test scripts. notaz even did a burn-in test of a 4GB RAM unit with the DLL-Off patch: So far, it has been running over 30 days. Without reboot or being switched off. No crash, nothing. So it seems we're doing fine with that patch :) Each day working with it, it seems less likely that we need anymore hardware fixes. That's good, right? ... the cases? -------------- I'll have more news about that soon, but give me a bit more time sorting everything out here. EvilDragon in a live stream! ---------------------------- Naaah, not another "Ask-ED"-Stream - not yet. I will do another one when I can finally show off stuff running nicely on the Pyra. And while this stream is more dedicated to new games on retro systems than the Pyra, some of you might be interested in it. I'm guest of the upcoming show #32 of RetroBlah: https://the.nag.zone/video/sendungen-formate/retroblah/ It's a german internet-only retro-gaming show. It'll surely be fun, so be sure to tune in if you're interested (and understand German). That's it for today. See you soon! Want to leave feedback? Visit: https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/threads/wip-report-no-known-hardware-issue… -- 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 the speed that counts
by Michael Mrozek 23 Oct '18

23 Oct '18

Yay, some news again :) And I guess it's mostly good news this time. Let's just jump straight in! The hardware ------------ After all the drama we had with the 4GB RAM issue, it seems that this has now found a working solution. Disabling DLL (delay-locked-loop) made the units run perfectly stable and I could start to work on the tests. Which means we finally will be able to give feedback about potential production issues to Global Components. While we're still figuring out what exactly the issue is (we've got a few ideas), it seems this "fix" works without any drawbacks. DLL is basically needed for high frequencies and longer traces (for example, DDR modules in a normal PC), as it synchronizes the timings of the RAM chips. But it could very well be we don't need it, as our RAM chips sit close to the CPU. And after all, we didn't have any more freezes disabling it - and that's what would happen if the timings are not properly synced. So yes, that should be it! I've done a few Wifi tests and am pretty happy with the final revision of the motherboard. My Wifi Router is in the room above me, so the signal has to pass a floor. And with both 5GHz a 2.4GHz Wifi, I get download speeds of about 4.5 - 4.9MB/s. My laptop manages to get 5.3MB/s for the same download. So that's pretty good! Pings to google take around 30ms, which is also neat for a mobile device. So Wifi seems to be fine! The list of things we need to thoroughly test gets smaller every day. Now... onto the biggest annoyance right now... The case -------- While I receive the latest news on the status of the cases and production from FormAction tomorrow (and lets hope it's not just another set of excuses here), I've visited the Fukuma exhibition in Germany, one of the biggest plastic production fairs out there. I've met up with Ilias and Dimitri (the two junior bosses of the new company) and we checked for new materials and ideas for plastic production. There are some interesting things out there! 3M has some silicon glass bubbles which you can add to the material. It makes the material more scratch resistant and also around 25% lighter. We have no idea yet whether this can be used for the Pyra or not, but it would be interesting. Also, we've checked out various coatings, as that's basically the only way to make it an AWESOME looking color (like some smooth matte glossy red). It's probably too expensive, but we're checking it out anyways and will get some quotations. It would be a nice addition or we could even make special edition cases for a higher price. But even without coating, there are quite a few ways to make it properly scratch resistant and nice-looking (just not AWESOME looking). We'll receive some samples to we can test out various new materials and evaluate them. Another thing is way more important for me though: These guys want to help me. They're both gamers, Ilias is especially annoyed if shoulder buttons are bad, so he wants to make them as good as possible. Also, they want to improve the design and already have a lot of ideas for that. Of course, creating completely new moulds is not possible in a short time (exept maybe for the shoulder buttons, as these are small parts), and as you all know we want to start delivery asap. But as the case is not glued or anything, It can easily be replaced by anybody, especially if it's just the backside with the shoulder buttons and battery (that one can easily be replaced without having to touch the PCB). So our current plan is this: As soon as the moulds are at the new company, we'll check what needs to be fixed with the cases to make them perfectly usable (mostly the shoulder buttons, probably). Depending on the amount of work and time needed, the shoulder buttons will be FULLY remade (only the small parts, not the big mould), as that might be possible within a very short timeframe. Or the current ones will be fixed so they will work. After the first case production run, we'll start on improving things. Like the shoulder buttons (if that hasn't happened yet), making the backside of the case thinner (using a sliding battery door) etc. These cases will be available to everyone who already has a Pyra for production cost price, so you can easily upgrade your unit if you like. That's the current plan, and I'll let you know as soon as I have more news! Want to leave feedback, comment or see the pictures? Visit: https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/threads/its-the-speed-that-counts.83415/ -- 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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Passed the certification!
by Michael Mrozek 29 Aug '18

29 Aug '18

Well, this post is bit late, since CE / FCC-Testing and certification happened early August, but as we were attending the GamesCom again this year, I had my hands full with preparation and - of course - working at the show myself. I'm happy to report that the Pyra passed both CE and FCC with flying colors :) If you're interested in the results, you can see the document attached to the thread on the webboards. So yep, no more shielding needed, one more important step towards mass production. Speaking of mass production: Even though I was at the Gamescom, testing of the new PCBs has progressed (albeit slowly). Thanks to the help of Nikolaus and aTc, I was able to boot a first version of our OS on the new units (the old version wasn't compatible with it). While I didn't find the time to do a longer test-run on them yet, the PCBs seem to be working fine now (so not as many failures as last time), which means the production has really improved - good enough for mass production! I'm working on a burn-in test now (they need to be able to run without any crashes for 5 hours at least)... well, and that should be it. It would mean we could place the order... and wait for everything to arrive so that the mass production can finally happen. BTW: I had a lot of different devices with me at the Gamescom (Gemini, GPD Win 2, GPD Pocket, Pyra). While most visitors were impressed that the GPD Win 2 can run Gamecube games, the keyboard most of them preferred was Pyras'. So yes, it has certainly turned out very well. The keymats have been ordered, the lead time is 12 weeks though (but hopefully they will arrive a bit faster). The burn-in-test will be the final thing... after that, everything has been ordered and then it's just a matter of time until mass production starts. Check out the newspost on the boards here: https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/threads/passed-the-certification.83339 / -- 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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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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