Well, well, well.
Are we really getting there?
Yes, it could be the case.
4GB RAM CPU Boards are working!
-------------------------------
Finally, after a long, long search for the reason, Tony Lindgren found
the real issue for 4GB RAM crashes.
It was a hardware and software fix. Even the previously produced boards
work better now - and maybe a lot better with some changed timings :)e.
That does mean... well, the CPU boards should now be 100% finished.
And we might even be able to use the 500 bare PCBs we already have - if
they can still be populated (as they have been sitting around for quite
a while now).
A memory stress test still crashes after 10 minutes, but that is due to
overheating, as it doesn't do this if a heatsink is added to the CPU
board.
10 minutes without a heatsink is quite good though, as a memory stress
test both fully stresses the CPU and memory, and doesn't happen in real
life.
Nikolaus ran a 4GB Board without heatsink and 1,5GHz and did an apt-get
upgrade which installed 400 new packages... without any issues.
After a few hours, he shut it down again. Without any crash or
overheating!
Once the mainboards are finished and the new case has arrived, I'll
assemble a full unit including our cooling solution, and then we'll no
for sure.
This issue together with the rotation issue we had are most probably
due to TI mostly having abandoned the OMAP5.
There are not many devices out there using the OMAP5 and therefore, no
one has run into that issue before.
So yes, we might have some more low-level software work ahead of us
compared to the Pandora, but it surely will be fun seeing the system
evolve :)
The Mainboards
--------------
Well, with the CPU boards and the DIsplay boards final now, the last
thing missing are the mainboards.
What's up with those, you might ask?
Well, the have arrived at Global Components - but there was an issue.
Some of the silk layer (that's the white print on the PCBs) are too
close to some of the BGA pads. And as we don't populate single PCBs but
multiple ones at once, the tolerance is an issue - and some BGAs might
not be populated properly.
Unfortunately, the chinese manufacturer hasn't checked that thoroughly
(last time, they fixed that issue themselves without telling us
upfront). It would be possible to populate them by doing some VERY
accurate measurements - but that would cost over 3000 EUR.
That was pretty annoying - but luckily, producing another set of bare
PCBs WITHOUT this layer is a lot faster now, as all the tools have
already been created and the software for the machines has been
written.
The new PCBs will arrive June 18th (so in around a week) and will be
populated shortly afterwards.
That leaves...
The Case
--------
Well, according to my contact, a (hopefully) final case is already on
the way to me.
It has been shipped a while ago via DHL but has not arrived yet.
He'll try to get a tracking number for me, and hopefully, it'll arrive
this week.
This case should have the logo and everything glued in. But I won't
assure that until we have it here.
... and then?
-------------
When the case is fine, 500 transparent cases will be produced, which
will be used for the prototype preorders.
After that, the moulds will immediately be moved to the new company so
we can produce the remaining cases in proper color. As most companies
close down in August in Greece, we have to be fast here. Hopefully,
that'll work out - then we could have a small release party at the
GamesCom this year and who knows, maybe some users can already pick up
their units there.
But yeah, that would be a miracle, as we also need to get the pre-cut
material for the heat dissipation and I don't know yet how long the
production will take. That said, it's existing material that just needs
to be cut - so it shouldn't take long.
So who knows - one can dream, right? :)
With all the boards and the case finished, it's also time for CE / FCC
testing, which we're planning for early July.
So yay.. we got another few steps closer to release :)
Final round... Fight!
Want to discuss about that?
Check out the thread on the boards here:
https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/threads/is-there-really-a-light-at-the
-end-of-the-journey.83007/
--
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
It's time for some updates!
Just some quick news, but as you know, there's not that much left to
do...
1. The Case
-----------
My contact in Greece finally found the time to pay FormAction a visit
and he checked that all changes we had discussed have been applied to
the mold. They have - and samples will now be produced. He plans to
visit them again on Monday to take some pictures. Hopefully, the
samples will be okay, as we can then produce the limited 500
transparent cases (which will go on sale in the shop). After that, the
molds will be moved for the proper production run.
2. The mainboard
----------------
As planned, Nikolaus was playing around with the capacitors to solve
the sirring noise.
Well, and we can now 100% confirm which capacitors are the issue...
A few solutions exist:
* Instead of using one capacitor, use smaller ones parallel. This works
- and the sirring is more quiet then, but we couldn't completely
eliminate it.
* Use an extra PCB just for these capacitors - but this is not really
feasible (way too expensive)
* Like everyone else does it: Use Tantal capacitors. Nikolaus tried it,
and yes, the Pyra was working 100% fine and without any noise. So
yes, thanks to fact that replacing the few capacitors we with Tantal
ones fixed everything, we are now 100% the capacitors are the issue -
as expected. The question is: How to proceed here. Tantalum is a
conflict material, so I wouldn't really want to use it if possible.
However, it seems like this is the only proper solution. I will try
to contact the Fairphone team to see whether we can get some
conflict-free Tantal capacitors from them.. That would be the best
solution!
On the other hand, it's only a couple of capacitors... probably
0,0000001% of what the smartphone industry uses per day... but still,
if I can get them conflict free, I will! Nikolaus will still think of
some other ideas, but that's the situation today.
3. CPU Boards
-------------
Well, they're in production. Chinese New Year will delay things a bit,
but they should be finished in March - and most probably the final
version.
And here are some things I usually don't tell you, but it shows with
what issues I also have to fight in the background: As the CPU board is
so complex, the price for the bare PCB has doubled (24 EUR instead of
12 EUR). So yay... more expenses for us, but I won't charge you more,
no worries. Oh, and about the old CPU Boards (the ones that would work
with 2GB only): Well, using them for the normal production run doesn't
make sense, as I only have a couple of 2GB RAM orders. Nikolaus was
planning to use them for a Pyra phone (so basically the screen,
processor and CPU without keyboard and nubs but with replaceable
batteries in one nice case), but he doesn't know yet if there would be
enough interest for such a project. And as the population of the CPU
boards are only guaranteed to work fine until end of April (and it
surely won't be done until then), we probably can't use those
anymore... (remember when the CC in Texas populated corrodated Pandora
boards...? Horrible failure rate...) So I guess in the end I will sell
them as keychains or similar to anyone who wants one of them. Then we
could at least cover these expenses a bit (a whopping 8000 EUR). They
will probably go on sale together with the transparent case.
4. Catch the Nikolaus!
----------------------
If you happen to visit the FOSDEM, you can try to catch Nikolaus! He's
there as a visitor as well - and he's got a Pyra prototype with him :)
Want to discuss about that?
Check out the thread on the boards here:
https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/threads/stop-the-sirring-noise.82532/
--
Greetings,
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
Update time!
So, I guess I got mostly good news for you this time.
It took a while until I could post updates, but that was mostly thanks
to the christmas time. Most companies didn't start resuming work before
January 8th - and FormAction didn't even start until January 15th.
Oh well, at least now we're ALMOST back to normal (except for Chinese
New Year coming up).
Speaking of FormAction, let's start with the case!
--------------------------------------------------
According to them, all changes in the molds have been done and they
already produced new samples, including the sealing for the speakers.
Well, that's what they claimed last week.
I'll check back with my contact if he could already check them within
the next few days.
I will not trust them until I receive them... but basically, they
should have time until February, and you can be sure I'll push them!
Let's continue with the CPU Boards...
-------------------------------------
If you followed the other thread on the boards, you probably know that
the new CPU boards have been ordered.
However... and that's the bad news: Chinese New Year is approaching,
and as the bare boards are being produced in China, they won't show up
until after that.
Well, not much we can do here.
Good thing is that the simulation shows the PCBs should now work fine
with the 4GB RAM, so we only need to wait for them to appear now :)
... on to the mainboards...
---------------------------
The mainboard with the fixes has been tested and so far everything
seems to work as it should!
Also, Wifi is now A LOT better. In our testing environment, we had six
different Wifi networks with different distances and various
strengthes.
Whereas the old mainboard could only find two of them, the new
mainboard instantly did find all six at once, and the signal quality
was a lot better as well.
We still have to do more tests regarding download speed and
reliability, but it's really looking like it's fixed now as well.
That's that.
The only thing left now is getting rid of the sirring noise.
That's mostly trial and error... try as many different capacitors as
possible until we find a combination that works.
Sometimes it's even enough simply using a capacitor from a different
manufacturer... some might remember the whirring noise some of the 1st
Edition Pandoras made. That probably was the same :)
This trying-out doesn't need a layout change and therefore can happen
while the new bare PCBs are being produced.
So yes.
All known bugs and issues have been dealt with. We're not aware of any
issue left right now!
The mainboards should now ALL be 100% correct. It's time to wait for
them to arrive... so we can build one more round of prototypes (which
will finally go to the prototype orders!)... and then we can setup the
mass production.
... tweaking the cooling...
---------------------------
In the meantime, we're working to improve the cooling even more. The
current situation lowers the CPU temperature by 20°C (according to the
simulation), but we're trying to improve that even more while we're
waiting for the new boards.
Thanks to the simulation software Juliano uses, we can easily try out
different scenarios (connecting the Al plate to the OMAP as well, using
one or two heatsinks, etc.) and find the best one possible.
It's both interesting and fun! Those simulations are simply awesome.
They take in account the different conductivities of the materials as
well as the thickness and the OMAP temperature!
... a peek into the future...
-----------------------------
Well, next step is definitely the planned prototype production,
hopefully now with fully working 4GB RAM Pyras with all the bugs
squashed.
The next step beyond is the mass production. Global Components is ready
(and have bought a lot more new machines that help improving the
production quality and testing), and the parts are ready as well.
Similar to the first months of Pandoras life, the software needs a lot
of tweaking as well... but the more people receive a Pyra, the faster
any bugs or annyoances are found and improved.
And then?
Well... there's a possible SoC being released which could become the
first CPU Board Upgrade:
The i.MX8 M QuadLite, which is the mobile version of the i.MX8.
You can find more information about it here:
https://www.nxp.com/products/processors-and-microcontrollers/applicatio
ns-processors/i.mx-applications-processors/i.mx-8-processors/i.mx-8m-
family-armcortex-a53-cortex-m4-audio-voice-video:i.MX8M
It's being released 2018, it's freely available to anyone and while the
raw processing power is not THAT much higher compared to the OMAP5, the
power consumption is significantly lower, it's 64bit, and the 3D chip
(GC7000L) has OpenSource drivers available.
It's most probably the SoC the Librem 5 Smartphone will use as well, so
there would be two devices with the same SoC running Linux, which would
be great :)
Anyways, that's still the future. The SoC is not yet out and we'll
concentrate finishing and delivering the Pyra!
But rest assured: We won't stop when delivery has started... we will
continue our journey so the Pyra will receive nice updates in the
future.
That's it for today :)
So, mostly good news - except for the probable delay of the bare PCBs
because of Chinese New Year.
Everything else should be done and we're already thinking about the
future.
Exciting times are up ahead!
As usual, feel free to ask questions and discuss at the boards here:
https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/threads/getting-closer.82436/
--
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
Well, it's christmas today, so I hope you're all enjoying a calm and
peaceful evening with your family or beloved ones!
And those who aren't: Well, don't let that bring yourself down.
You're part of our community at least, you got friends here :)
Anyways, christmas is also a day you give and receive presents - and
while I can't give you your Pyra yet, I've got some quick news for you!
And no, it doesn't have anything to do with case colors... but some
very important color changes in simulation.
Soo... your personal christmas present is:
The redesigned CPU board passes all simulated tests!
Nikolaus found the time to finish his improvements on the CPU board
early this week and Juliano already found the time to run the
simulations - thanks a lot to both of them!
And thanks to Juliano who made a nice video, you can get another view
behind the scenes and see the improvements here:
https://www.openpandora.org/downloads/Pyra_DCIR_20171221.mp4
Just a quick reminder what the issue was and what happened lately:
------------------------------------------------------------------
The current prototypes we are using did fail horribly with the DDR
connections... huge voltage losses, which are most probably the reason
they only work with 2GB.
The first improvements made by Nikolaus end of November did fix all the
DDR traces so they fully pass and don't have any voltage losses, but
the power supply still had some areas left which didn't pass the test.
This doesn't necessarily mean that this is a problem - it just means
that TI doesn't guarantee all OMAPs will run without issues if they're
not being used within the specs.
And while we didn't have any power supply issues with the OMAP with our
currently used CPU boards, it could still be they will cause issues
under some circumstances (for example, when the 3D Chip is heavily used
together with NEON code and a high clock rate, etc).
So we wanted to see if we can fix those as well.
A few weeks after the DDR fixes, Nikolaus tried to optimize these areas
as well - with great results.
All of the tests pass - it's highly unlikely the CPU boards will have
any issues now!
Yes, now the mainboards AND the CPU boards should be done.
Another puzzle fully finished, it seems!
Time to order prototype PCBs!
What have we learned from all of this?
Simulate, simulate, simulate.
Seriously, while this wasn't necessary at all with older SoCs like the
OMAP3, it seems impossible now to get a properly working design with
modern SoCs without simulating it.
This knowledge will greatly help with future CPU board upgrades (but
let's finish the OMAP5 one first :))
For anyone interested, here is the comparison table with the most
important power supply stuff of the OMAP5 of the version before and
after the fixes:
https://www.openpandora.org/downloads/Comparison_200mA.png
As usual, feel free to ask questions and discuss at the boards here:
https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/threads/important-color-changes.82241/
--
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
A few days have passed since I came back from Greece, and quite a lot
has happened.
Sorry for not posting earlier, but I first had to catch up with all the
work that has stacked up while I was in Greece and then there was the
preparation for the Black Friday (and shipping over 100 orders I
received in my shop...)
It's Sunday night in Germany now, and I finally find the time to
summarize everything that has happened.
1. The cases
------------
This is just a summary of the results from my visit in Greece. If you
fully followed the thread about it, there's nothing new in here (yet).
* FormAction will finish the moulds. The stylus holder has already
received a simple fix (to make it work properly). The last thing to
tweak are the shoulder buttons. They are the most complex part - it was
the same with the Pandora. I've shown them and my contact exactly
WHAT's important about the shoulder buttons. He will supervise their
changes and make sure they work as they should.
* They will produce 500 sets of transparent cases (which will be sold
in the shop). They will be sold in the shop, so you can use them to
build a transparent Pyra, put them onto a shelf or whatever. The
production run of 500 cases is included in the contract we have with
them. The transparent cases have no issues with discolorizations or
shrinking marks.
* The moulds will then move to the new company. They are a lot more
experienced with different materials. I've got a fibre-glass
enstrenghtened SNES-cartridge shell from them and it's almost
impossible to break!
So much for the cases, now onto some more very important parts...
2. The mainboard and CPU board
------------------------------
The bare PCBs of the mainboard with all known fixes and the Wifi
improvement have finally arrived at Nikolaus' place!
The prototype PCB production facitily took 1 - 2 weeks longer than
usual, but now it's here:
These pictures are already a few days old - Nikolaus has already
populated the boards and will test the fixes soon.
If all goes well, no more changes are needed and this is the exact same
board that will go into mass production.
The CPU board layout has also been almost fixed!
Nikolaus vastly improved the area for the DDR3 and Juliano already
simulated the new data and confirmed that the memory should now work
properly. No more voltage drops or too much noise, everything is within
specs now.
There's one last area which affects the OMAP5 (not the memory) that
would be great to receive some improvement.
We haven't had any issues with the OMAP5 yet, so it might not be
needed, but it's better to optimize that area as good as possible as
well.
Nikolaus is already working on that - and Juliano is ready for another
simulation.
So we might have a final, fully optimized PCB layout finished by the
end of this week.
Then it's time to produce them and make sure the 4GB RAM is working
fine...
Well, and that's it for the PCBs. I'll certainly make three crosses
when they're done and mass production starts.
That's it!
Short but important news :)
As usual, feel free to ask questions and discuss at the boards here:
https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/threads/finalizing-the-pcbs.82085/
--
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
It's
thttps://pyra-handheld.com/boards/threads/lets-move-the-moulds.81903/ime
for another lengthy newspost, full of fresh and juicy stuff!
1. The cases
------------
Probably the most anticipated topic by everyone here, so let's start
with that one first.
As expected, nothing has happened anymore at the old company, so it's
time to move.
Originally, my contact planned to move the moulds himself, but it's
safer (and insured!) to let a logistics company do that.
The moulds will be picked up on Monday and they'll be delivered the
same day.
My contact will also be there on Monday to plan a test run with
multiple materials (they got 15 different ones in stock for testing).
After that, I'll fly over to Greece to test them out and check the
results.
If everything is fine and we'll have proper material in the selection,
we can finally plan the mass production.
All of that is planned to happen in November.
They also have WAY better contacts for various other materials. We can
basically get ANY material out there within 15 days if need be
(compared to 10 weeks that the previous company needed.)
Additionally, they already produced an SNES shell with their own custom
made material which has already been shipped to me.
And apologies to you, as the material is NOT a mixture of carbon with
plastic, but rather glass fibre with plastic. It's a LOT more robust.
But I'll make a video for you where I torture the poor SNES shell :)
Okay, so much for the cases, let's move on to...
2. PCB work
-----------
... as Nikolaus has been very productive this week as well.
He finished modifying a mainboard to test all the remaining issues we
had and tested them.
Here's a list of most of the fixes:
* Removed an unneded connection between OMAP/BT UART and Modem
* TCA6424A replaced by PCAL6524HE (which should provide better
interrupt handling)
* New Wifi antenna has been chosen: Ethertronics M830520.
* EMU switch (NX3L2267) controlled by NRESPOWERON has been added to CPU
schematics. This isolates the shoulder button and LID sensor for the
first 10 ms after powering on the OMAP5. This fixes an issue where
the system would not boot up when either the lid is closed or a
shoulder button is pressed while powering up or rebooting.
* Added fixes for OTG mode
* Found the capacitors that are responsible for the sirring noise.
Doesn't need a new board layout, just different capacitors (various
will be tested soon)
This fixes all known issues the mainboard had. The last thing is tweak
the trace to the Wifi antenna (which will be done with a quick dummy
PCB).
That's good news, I think :)
Next up: The CPU Board (4GB issue)
Some final tests have been made, with 4GB RAM from a different
manufacturer, and they mostly confirm what we already expected:
The noise / groundplane on the CPU board needs to be improved.
How is that confirmed?
Well, regardless of the manufacturer, CPU Boards equipped with 4GB RAM
show the same issue: They are pretty unstable and freeze easily.
However, some of the CPU boards work fine for hours (with memtester),
some work but show errors (with memtester) and some won't even boot.
This shows that this is no software issue, but rather a hardware issue.
And as there are fluctuations (tolerances) between the PCBs and we
KNOW our groundplane is off the allowed tolerances, we can be 99%
that's our problem.
So Nikolaus has already started to improve the layout of the CPU board.
Regarding the already produced bare PCBs which would work fine with 2GB:
We have some plans what to do with them, but nothing is set in stone
here, so I won't tell anything yet :)
But we might also offer to downgrade to 2GB RAM if you like to receive
the Pyra a bit earlier. This depends on how fast we get the cases
done and the final mainboard.
Please don't email me about that now - we'll let you know in time, no
worries :)
As usual, feel free to ask questions and discuss at the boards here:
https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/threads/lets-move-the-moulds.81903/
--
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
I'm pretty sure you've all waited for news from me - especially as I
said I will post pictures as soon as I have them (which should've been
last Monday).
So... what happened?
Oh well... it was all very annoying. And I had some serious déjà vu,
but this time, I'm prepared.
Okay, let's start the story with...
Monday
------
Not much to say here. My contact didn't manage to find the time to
visit the case company.
That's not really their fault ;)
He did make an appointment with them for Tuesday, where the CEO will
have the time to answer all his questions, he can thoroughly check the
new cases, etc.
So, let's move over to...
Tuesday
-------
This is where the annoyance did start.
My contact arrived at the company - but they didn't really have time
for him.
No time for discussion, no real time to look at the cases. He did get a
quick view into the production hall, so he could at least confirm they
ARE producing the Pyra cases.
However, he did notice that some parts share one mould. This is normal,
and nothing special or something to be concerned about
But: They did invoice that as two moulds - so I actually paid more than
I should have.
Both me and my contact don't think they did this intentionally - their
whole bookings and invoicing is quite a bit of chaos... I didn't even
receive all invoices yet (even though I paid them already), so this
probably accidentally did happen.
But that's still something unacceptable... especially in combination
with the slowness they showed so far.
If you followed the news, you might remember that I said back in August
that we will move the moulds and the production to another company if
they will not have any new cases soon.
While we never told that to them so far, we were preparing that in the
background, so we can move everything quickly if need be.
The new company is not unknown to us. I already produced over 5000 NES,
MegaDrive, SNES and N64-shells with them. I never had to wait longer
than 1 week. :)
So... time to share that information with them, right?
Wednesday
---------
My contact did pay them another visit to confront them with the issues.
The deal is simple:
Until Monday, we want to have:
* The final 3D data files
* The produced cases using the new material, properly produced
* Corrected bookings and all invoices
If that doesn't happen, we'll move the moulds to the new company.
We made that pretty clear.
Thursday
--------
I think I mentioned that the new company has a pretty awesome material
mixture (that is about 5x as strong as other plastic materials).
They produced some samples for us on Thursday (as they had a production
running that used that material).
As they don't have the Pyra moulds yet, they used some of ours. So I'll
probably receive the most sturdy SNES / N64 / NES or MegadDrive
cartridge shell of all time!
My contact plans to pick those up on Monday and will then ship them to
me. Hopefully with the new Pyra case samples as well.. but we'll see.
What's the déjà vu?
-------------------
This whole story reminded me of the Pandora a long, long time ago.
Remember the PCB production run in Texas?
Where the CEO always told us how the production is running already, but
we never received any pictures?
Then we sent one community member, who happened to live there, to them.
To check on the production and make some pictures.
We even made an appointment... and guess what:
When he arrived, the CEO didn't really have time. And while he did see
some PCBs, it were only a few and they weren't really producing any
right now...
It's almost the same story!
I also had to move the production away from them to Germany... THAT was
quite an act, moving all the parts over the seas and through customs,
etc.
But: It did work out fine!
We've walked through hell and back to get the Pandora production
running smoothly - and I'm prepared to do the same thing for the Pyra
as well!
Though moving moulds from one company to another one (which is only 5km
away) is definitely a LOT easier than moving the parts back then.
Some 4GB RAM news
-----------------
We're now 99% sure that the issue with the RAM is a too high voltage
drop on our PCB, which means it needs some improved vias and ground
plane.
This is what tests have shown.
While it WAS possible to modify the software to make the 4GB RAM PCBs I
have here boot and run properly, it's unknown whether that setup will
work reliable in all working conditions and with all PCBs produced.
But that means that even a little bit of improvement will make things
work properly.
We'll work on that - and it shouldn't take too long (depending on
Nikolaus' free time though).
Some really sad news - and our condolences
------------------------------------------
While the news about the cases are very annoying, this is something we
can (and will fix), so nothing too bad.
However, the news I have now are very sad ones - they are linked with
aboves déjà vu as well.
Part of the halt in the Pandora production back then was because the
nubs broke very easily and needed to be redesigned a bit, which took 4
or 5 months alltogether.
During the wait, to keep you all entertained, one of our trainees back
then created the Nub song:
https://youtu.be/rvHJbmO9I04
Mardt has really improved since then and became a really good musician
(just check some of his songs in the channel... nice instrumental
ones).
However, due to an accident, Mardt has died on September 30th, at the
young age of 28.
He was really an astounding guy! Quite a bit crazy, always motivated.
This part of the newspost is dedicated to him, to keep him in good
memories.
And with that, I want to end the post for today.
Thanks (as always) for your support.
As usual, feel free to ask questions and discuss at the boards here:
https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/threads/the-tale-of-the-cases.81813/
--
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
Did you miss me?
I have to admit - I had some annoying issues happen in my "normal" life
(bike stolen, smartphone broken, etc.), so I was pretty much absent
from the boards and also twitter.
That should now change again!
I'll try to resurrect my Twitter with even more Micro-Pyra-News than
before, and of course, have more information for you more often here on
the boards as well.
Okay, time to start with the news...
1. Remaining work for the Mainboard
-----------------------------------
After Nikolaus came back from holidays, he resumed working on the last
fixes for the mainboard.
He will modify an existing one with all the proposed fixes and will
test them right away.
Most of them have already been implemented and quick tests assume these
work fine.
He'll continue to work on those during this week and I'll let you know
about the results (quick news via Twitter this time).
The mainboard dummy for measuring and testing the Wifi antenna is
already in the hands of the RF expert.
He didn't give us a date yet when he'll find the time to do that, but
he tries to work on it as soon as possible.
So the mainboard is almost ready now.
2. The 4GB RAM issue
--------------------
Well, I had hoped to tell you that's all fixed now.
That's on top of my personal wishlist, as this is the issue that really
pulls me down...
It's really demotivating, but don't worry: The last thing I'll do is
give up!
We managed to resurrect the Pandora, so we'll manage to fix this as
well!
And we have some good ideas what the issue is.
We've tried quite a few things in the last week, and here is what we
know:
Tony's Pyra works with 4GB RAM, if he powers it with at least 1.39V or
if he disables DLL (then it also works with 1.35V)
Usually, it should work worse with DLL disabled - so this is a bit
weird.
He provided patches - but those didn't work for others (it's still
unstable for them).
However, he uses his own compiled U-Boot and bootloader - so it could
very well be he's got some other different settings we didn't think of.
To confirm whether that's the case or not, I'll try his compiled
binaries on multiple Pyra 4GB RAM boards later tonight. I'll make sure
to update you here on the boards and on Twitter about the result!
But why does the 2GB RAM board work whereas the 4GB might not?
There's an easy answer:
Juliano simulated the noise and voltage drops of the VDDR3L ground
plane (which is the power supply of the RAM chips).
The noise is too high compared to the allowed value in the datasheet
and the voltage drops too much on some balls.
This is not necessarily a problem, as all chips have tolerances and the
values provided in datasheets ENSURE that everything will work fine, so
they have even higher tolerances here.
The 2GB RAM chips are so-called single-rank chips, which means they
consist of four 512MB chips.
The 4GB RAM chips are dual-rank chips: each chip has one 512MB chip
stacked on top of a 512MB chip - so these are basically eight 512MB
chips.
These, of course, need more power than the 2GB RAM version.
All 2GB RAM boards work reliable.
As mentioned, Tony's Pyra works with 4GB RAM, which means: we're not
THAT far off!
This means that the CPU boards probably just need a BIT of enhancement
(by using capacitors, some more vias for the VDDR3L ground plane and
other changes).
This is something Nikolaus needs to check: What is possible in our
already pretty much cramped setup?
Or maybe we CAN get the 4GB RAM to work without a hardware fix - that's
something we'll know tonight when I tested the boards!
There's also nother possible solution:
Nikolaus has reworked two CPU boards. One with different 2GB RAM chips
(for comparison), one with different 4GB RAM chips.
If these 4GB RAM chips have a higher tolerance, they simply work. More
information about that when this has been properly tested.
Well, let's assume for now the 4GB RAM needs a hardware change on the
CPU board:
a) Ask all preorderers whether they would be okay switching to 2GB
versions. If at least 400 want to do that, we can produce those with
the boards we already have lying at GC while we can work on improving
the design and produce 4GB later on. As a little compensation, I'd
offer the new 4GB boards to everyone who agreed to get the 2GB version
for production cost price. We still plan to produce a stationary
motherboard - so you could use the old CPU board to power this one.
b) Sell the existing bare CPU boards as keychains (17 EUR each) and
improve the design. This would cover the costs for the already produced
CPU boards and we could deliver 4GB RAM boards to everyone.
Of course, Option a) is preferred (even though it means a lot more work
for me) and production will start earlier, but if not enough people are
willing to switch to 2GB, Option b) would be the better one.
The only real bummer would be if we can't find the space to fit more
capacitors onto the CPU board... in this case we'd have to try to sell
the 4GB Memory chips we already have on stock (worth a whopping 23,000
EUR), but we hope that won't happen.
I guess you can imagine how much that issue is weighing on my mind. But
there are multiple options for us, it's not a dead-end for the Pyra.
We can also get help from a company that the memory distributor
suggested to us. They have the possibility to do live-measurements with
the memory while the system is running. That company isn't located too
far from us, so in worst case, we can find out more details what's
going on with their help.
That would cost quite a bit though, so let's first see if Nikolaus can
improve the design enough. We can easily test that thanks to Julianos
simulations!
Speaking of costs...
3. What's the financial situation?
----------------------------------
If you followed the newsposts, you probably can imagine that these
issues have added quite a lot to the development costs. And yes, these
have cost more than I ever had planned.
However, we don't have any financial problems - because my shop is
growing more and more popular and the profit has increased quite a lot
- which is great!
I'm still keeping my wage as low as possible (I'm earning 690 EUR per
month, in case you're interested) to make sure as much money as
possible is available for the Pyra.
The production of the first 550 Pyras (first production run) has
already been fully paid. This includes the full PCB production
including all needed parts.
We already own 3000 batteries and 1500 LCDs as well as 10,000 nubs.
We still have more 100k EUR on our bank account (which is more than
enough to start the production of the next 550 Pyras) and the shop is
making a profit of about 8000 - 10,000 EUR per month.
So yes, unless there's a sudden mass cancellation (which I certainly
don't hope!), the development and production is safe.
We won't give up as long as you don't give up on us! Promise!
4. What's the status on the cases?
----------------------------------
I'm getting more information on those tomorrow.
My contact will be visiting the companies in Greece and checks on the
status.
So yeah, expect another newspost within the next two days :)
Well, I hope todays newspost didn't disappoint you too much.
I know you had hoped the 4GB RAM are working now - I had hoped the
same.
But the most important thing is that we've not hit a wall but have
different options to proceed.
We can do it! And yes, if ANYONE wants the Pyra to be finished as soon
as possible, it's me (because it's all really stressful).
Thanks as usual for your support.
Now off to test the 4GB RAM boards I've got here. I'll report back
later!
As usual, feel free to ask questions and discuss at the boards here:
https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/threads/analyzing-4gb-ram.81687/
--
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
I know you've been waiting for news - and finally, you shall receive
them!
GamesCom was a LOT more work than I thought - I didn't have a single
free day for five weeks now, and still haven't been able to catch up
with everything.
But - as usual: That doesn't mean there hasn't been any progress!
So here you go!
1. The cases
------------
Ah well, the cases.
Work in Greece has just resumed (as mentioned, there were holidays in
August) and I just had a phonecall with my contact today.
FormAction is currently in the process of updating the 3D data to
represent the current mould.
Which means I can check everything upfront, without having to wait for
samples.
Also, the special material for mobile devices is on the way and should
arrive end of this week (let's hope they're right).
But you might remember that I considered a second company as another
option, one with which I have already worked together and produced
SNES, MegaDrive, NES and N64-shells:
Yes, we are keeping this open as an option. They've got a very
interesting material as well: A mixture of plastic and carbon, which
increases the durability of the plastic a lot (on their own tests, the
normal plastic broke with 400kg force whereas the plastic/carbon-mix
hold up to 1,5t!)
And someone from the community has contacted me: He's working for a
plastic production company in Germany. I'll send them a Pyra case as
well and will ask for a quotation.
So we have multiple options left.
Of course, I'll let you know which path we'll choose.
This mainly depends on the material arriving and the case quality of
the next (and hopefully final) sample we'll receive from FormAction.
2. The cooling
--------------
While I was at the GamesCom, I found the time to modify ptitSeb's unit
with the planned cooling (fully passive).
And I've got good news here: It actually worked out as I had planned!
With the cooling, the Pyra doesn't get warm at all with normal usage
and stays a lot colder than the GPD Win even when running with full
power for about 30 minutes at 1GHz.
It works as intended.
You can see some heat-pictures of that on the boards.
The cooling consists of an off-the-shelf heatsink hidden below the USB
port and some special 0.2mm thin heatpipe-material from 3M to transport
the heat from the CPU to the heatsink.
The only thing we can improve here is to use two heatsinks (another one
hidden below the second USB port) to keep it cool for an even longer
period of time.
So all good?
Ah well - almost. But there's not much about that:
When running the unit at full load with 1.5GHz, it heats up A LOT more.
The CPU reaches over 90°C within a few seconds - and then immediately
throttles.
As expected (like with any mobile processor out there): Fullspeed is
not meant to be used for a longer period of time, just for a few
seconds.
For normal usage, the device feels more fluid and snappier with 1.5GHz
enabled, and won't heat up, as you usually only have short peaks of
high CPU time.
The maximum speed you can run it with full CPU load for longer periods
of time is therefore something between 1 and 1.5GHz.
Note: All the tests are for BOTH cores running with full CPU load, not
just one.
And don't forget the A15 is two generations newer than the A8 being
used in the Pandora, so you can't compare the raw GHz values.
The Pyra with 500MHz Single Core should be approximately as fast as a
1GHz Pandora. So with 1GHz Dual-Core, that's about four times the speed
already.
So while it won't be as fast as current smartphones (surprise ;)), it
will still be quite a huge upgrade compared to the Pandora.
And I'll work on a CPU Upgrade board as soon as we are finished here.
3. The keymat
-------------
'What? I thought it's finished!' - I hear some of you say.
Yes, indeed it is, and there is nothing to report here.
However, as we had many many users at the GamesCom try out the final
keymat, I wanted to let you know that everyone liked how it feels.
Many praised the tactile feedback - especially when comparing them to
the GPD Win (which we also had with us).
I was pretty happy about that - as you all know how many versions of
the keymat we had :)
So yes, it seems I'm not the only one who likes the keymat :)
4. The whirring noise issue
---------------------------
And once again: Community to the rescue!
I'm not sure who suggested it, but the Q-Tip solution to find out the
exact component seems to have worked for Nikolaus!
He has now identified the culprits: Three capacitors are the reason for
the noise.
And he's already working on a way to fix that.
There are multiple ways: We could replace those with Tantalum
capacitors - but we're not really fans of that (because of ethical
reasons).
Another solution would be to use multiple smaller ones instead of one
bigger one.
I'll let you know how we proceed here. The important thing was that we
finally were able to find out the culprits.
The fix should only take a couple of days.
5. The 4GB RAM issue
--------------------
Ah, well, yes... basically the only real remaining issue for the
moment.
As soon as we fix this one, I guess we're ready for production!
So, what's the status?
Well, we're heavily working on that!
Tony got it to work stable on his unit by running it with 1.42V or
higher or with 1.35V and improper timing settings.
Whether his patches work well with ther CPU boards is something we're
testing right now.
Surely we won't use improper timing settings, as it would most likely
NOT work with all CPU boards (chips aren't always the same).
Juliano also has done more simulations and the signal integrity is
almost perfect. So that should be fine.
So with all the tests, the following scenarios are possible:
1. There's too much noise on the power traces or the power traces
aren't wide enough which would cause a power loss.
2. The EMIF (Memory timing) settings aren't setup properly yet. We're
still working on those (it's pretty complex!)
3. The memory chip itself is bad (which is unlikely, as it is being
used in other devices as well).
What's our plan to figure that out?
We already ordered samples of a different RAM Chip (also 4GB in total
size) by a different manufacturer.
We'll populate one PCB with those. If that chip works, we can pretty
much rule out 1.
If the new RAM also doesn't work, the next step would be to populate
some of the new optimized CPU boards with the 4GB RAM chips.
While the power supply for the RAM hasn't changed here, the noise of
the OMAP5/PALMAS is reduced - and it could be that noise is too much
for the RAM Chips right now.
So it might simply work with the optimized CPU boards.
We're also still working on the EMIF settings for the current RAM chip.
There are not that many parameters left to try, but it could simply be
ONE that causes the freezes.
Remember how long 1.5GHz didn't work? Now they work stable on the
unoptimized boards as well - that also was just one parameter wrongly
setup.
For mass production, I have already various solutions in mind...
1. If it turns out the CPU board layout needs to be fixed to get the
4GB running, we would have the problem that we already have 500 CPU
boards lying at GC. Throwing them away would be a waste of 8000 EUR, so
I would ask all everyone who preordered if he would be fine with a 2GB
unit. If we get enough who would be fine with that, we could order the
2GB RAM chips and populate right away.
2. If the new RAM Chips work (but the old won't), we'd need to check
the price difference and whether we could sell or give back the already
delivered 4GB RAM chips. This could cause quite a loss (10k - 20k EUR),
but thanks to my shop running well, we would be able to afford that (it
would still hurt a lot).
It could also be a mixture of both.
But let's first try to get the RAM to work before we're doing more
speculations!
After all, it runs stable on ONE existing CPU board, so whatever is
keeping it to run stable on all of them can't be much.
Maybe it's really just the higher amount of noise coming from the older
CPU Board revision...
We keep working on that - and you can be sure I'll shout it out loud
once the RAM is working!
This is currently my main concern - as everything else is working
already.
As usual, feel free to ask questions and discuss at the boards here:
https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/threads/im-out-of-ideas-for-news-title
s.81391/
--
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
Finally, I found a few hours for a news update!
Sorry (once again) for the delay. I haven't had a free day for the last
two weeks... and it won't happen until after GamesCom as well.
You might've also noticed I wasn't visiting the boards or IRC a lot -
I'm not hiding, I'm just overwhelmed with things to do.
I even tried to do a newspost multiple times last week but literally
fell asleep on top of the keyboard.
Anyways, you all deserve an update!
I'll also try to answer some questions I've seen here at the boards,
but if I missed some or you have some more, let me know at the thread
on the boards and I'll try to answer them ASAP.
Okay, let's get started with some annoying news...
The cases
---------
You probably guessed it: I didn't receive any final cases yet. If I
did, I would've posted pics right away, you could be sure of that.
That would've been awesome!
According to FormAction, the material from the company in France hasn't
arrived. Which sounds a bit like an excuse - they could've at least
received enough for samples in that case.
Sadly, there's not much i can do right now (as August is the hottest
month in Greece and no one is working there right now), but at least
I'm planning the next steps with my contact.
We're currently evaluating to move the molds to a different production
company. It's just round the corner, so the molds could be transported
there within a day or two.
The company is Uniqueplast (http://uniqueplast.com/en/), and we've
worked with them already (they're producing my SNES, N64, MegaDrive and
NES shells).
They would've been the first choice of my contact as well, but they're
more production based, they don't really do designs (except for simple
ones, but the Pyra is anything but simple!)
Productionwise, they're a lot more advanced though, they've got 14
modern mold-injection machines (which means they could produce all
cases easily within one day!).
Whenever I ordered 1000 of the above mentioned shells, I received them
within 1 - 2 weeks.
So, we've already given them a Pyra case and are waiting for a
quotation. If nothing really happens at FormAction within the first 1 -
2 weeks in September, then it's very probable we move.
This is REALLY annoying (why is it always the case? It was the same
issue with the Pandora... and here we thought moving to a European
company would make things easier...)
I'll keep you informed, but nothing will happen here until September.
So let's continue with better news, shall we?
The PCBs
--------
I know it always seems nothing is happening here - mainly because
there's nothing here that can be shown or seen.
But the prototypes we had had still a few issues and quirks left
(nothing major though, thank god).
And all known majoe issues except for three have already been
eliminated.
And one of those is not really an issue but needs some measurement with
professional tools.
Those three are:
1. 4GB RAM units freezing
2. Really bad Wifi reception (which is what needs the measurements)
3. Whirring noises when you connect something to USB or switch off the
screen
Let's start with 1.:
Nikolaus tried a few things, but he can mostly do hardware design
checks and these seem to be fine.
So it's time for an expert to step in - and luckily, there's someone
who really knows everything OMAP: Tony Lindgren (the maintainer of the
OMAP kernel).
He mentioned he already helped out with memory issues with other
projects (and they even had a faulty memory chip design on one project
- let's hope that's not our issue) and he just received a prototype
last week.
Besides the memory issue, he'll also work on some other patches (like
the OMAP5 hanging when we're doing a warm reboot).
So let's all hope that issue will be solved as well!
Once the 4GB works... we can already produce the CPU boards (they're
waiting to be populated at GC!)
And Nr. 2.:
It's not an issue, but we're lacking the tools to professionally
measure the trace from the Wifi chip to the antenna.
HF is a very complex and delicate issue - if it's not 100% correct, you
lose reception quite a lot.
Luckily, Nikolaus knows an expert in that area who also has the tools
needed available.
He didn't have the time until now, but will have a timeslot ready end
of August.
Nikolaus prepared a special PCB for the measurements. Once they've been
done, another PCB will be made with the suggested changes and to
confirm them.
Production time for those is only about a week, as these are simple
PCBs with only the stuff needed for testing the reception onto them.
Nr. 3:
This is a bit tricky. Whenever you connect something to the USB Host
port, you can hear the Pyra make sirring noises.
Everything works fine, but this is a bit annoying.
This often can be a coil, but we've replaced the one responsible for
the USB port with different ones (all with the same value though), but
that didn't help.
It's pretty hard locating the part that sirrs... once we managed to do
that, a fix would probably be easy. But locating is isn't.
If there's any hardware expert here (or if you know one) who has some
additional ideas how to locate the part: Please let me know :)
When that has been done... well, I guess there's nothing left to do
here, so we can produce the mainboards as well!
Let's move to...
The Prototypes - who received them and why?
-------------------------------------------
I've seen that question somewhere on the boards, here's an answer for
you.
First of, unlike planned, I have NOT contacted any of the Protoype
orderers yet. Sorry for that.
There are two reasons for that: I first wanted to make sure that enough
prototypes are there for devs and second: I simply didn't have the time
to write the needed informations for the preorderers.
I hope to find some time for that during GamesCom. But right now, only
mainboards with bad wifi reception are available - so that's something
you'd need to cope with.
But, as promised when you ordered, I will send you a fixed mainboard
once they're available in case you still want one of those prototypes.
Now on to the devs.
The following members have a prototype:
* aTc: Working on the OS. He packages everything together and provides
us the Debian packages as well as the rootfs. He also adds some fixes
himself.
* notaz: He doesn't have as much time as with the Pandora, but he still
tries to help out with some low-level fixes as well.
* zmatt: You probably know him best for getting the rotation on the
Pyra to work without the rotator chip. He knows quite a bit about the
OMAP and has also discovered most of the hardware issues with ideas how
to fix them.
* ptitSeb: Who doesn't know him here? :) He's working on various ports
for the Pyra.
* sebt3: Also a well-known member here. He is working on things like a
proper touchscreen calibrator, the volume wheel daemon and similar
helpers.
* Tony Lindgren: Introduced above, an expert with OMAP-things.
Currently working on analyzing the 4GB RAM issue, but he's also helping
fixing other small quirks we still have with our setup.
* Askarus: He's working on a proper default setup for the desktop
environment suited for Pyras screen as well as on scripts that are
being binded to keyboard shortcuts (to increase or decrease brightness,
etc.)
* SneHebNor: He has only been lent a prototype for a short period of
time, as he was visiting the DebConf in Montreal. So yes, we had a Pyra
prototype over at the DebConf (Debian Conference) this year :)
Quite a nice setup of developers here :)
That state will the OS be when we deliver it?
---------------------------------------------
I've seen this or a similar question at the boards somewhere.
Well, the answer is simple: Whatever state it will be in!
That's similar to how it worked with the Pandora.
We won't wait for some OS state when the hardware is finished and can
be delivered.
Sure, it might not be polished, but since we're using an almost vanilla
Debian, you'll have all the software you need.
Optimizing and improving the OS will still happen when we delivered the
units - the same as it was with the Pandora.
Open and close... open and close... open... and...
--------------------------------------------------
While the LCD cables are finished and waiting for production, I haven't
placed the order yet.
Why? Well, production time is 15 days whereas the mainboards will take
5 weeks.
So we're not that much in a hurry to order the LCD cables right away.
Instead, I'm using the additional time to stress the LCD Cable.
That means: Whenever I'm at home, watching a movie with my wife or
similar, I'm opening... and closing... and opening... the lid. Over and
over again.
Right now, I've opened and closed it about 8000 - 10000 times and it
still is working fine.
I will continue doing this - until the time has come to order the
cables!
GamesCom 2017
-------------
In about 1,5 weeks, GamesCom will start in Germany!
Of course we'll be there with a Pyra - and ptitSeb will be there as
well (I think from Thursday on).
So if you're there, come over to hall 10.2 to our booth, play around
with the nigh-finished Pyra, have some coffee, chat with me.
And as mentioned: If you have any additional questions, feel free to
ask them at the thread here:
https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/threads/open-and-close-and-open.81191/
#post-1420206
--
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