AC/DC (adapters) start the party
March 10, 2010
Posted by: gruso
The UK’s newest assembly line is showing the first signs of life, with the arrival of several boxes of PSUs and one very tired pigeon. (A few Twitterers mistook the boxes for something else from China until Craig cracked one open for a closeup. Arrgh!) Note that a UK mains plug is shown, but you’ll be getting something to suit your region.
I bet that assembly line will be on the roof.
It’s already confirmed to be in the hall. Sorry.
Yeah, I bet this is told last time… before open source of vodka came to play.
PSU in foreground, Whiskey bag, pills, pen and paper (for suicide note) in the background. Wow! The Pandora must have taken some shit out of you man! I’m sorry you had to end up this way. So sorry. I wish Pandora was never conceived. Yeah
Woo!
4 different style boxes….. yeah they are all PSU’s
Different psu’s for different regions equals different boxes?
heh, I didn’t think of that…. good point
Will we receive both version of the plug ?
Or just the one that suit our region ??
It looks like the end with the plug head is interchangeable from the rest of the PSU (not unlike most laptop bricks these days).
My guess is they’ll only send the plug appropriate to your region. If you get the wrong one, you shouldn’t have much trouble replacing the plug end of the PSU.
I wonder about the specs of the PSU itself.
Is it region independent? E.g. 100-240V 50/60 Hz? So I can use it anywhere in the world with the appropriate plugs?
Or do we have different gear for Europe / N-Am. / Japan / …?
Do these thing have to have a ground? If not, then North America and Japan can use the same plug. No 3 prong grounded outlets in Japan.
I don’t know why it would need a ground if it were not compulsory to the region, these are really low power units.
The main reason for the earth wire on devices like these, is in case the cord gets frayed internally, it is likely to short onto the earth wire, which in Australia at least every home has an earth leakage cutoff switch, so if even a tiny current travels down the earth line, the power to the entire house is cut off very quickly.
From the look of the plug (connecting to the PSU unit), it’s a standard IEC 320-C7 plug…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEC_connector
…which means that it’s a standard “works on anything” pack, and they’ll just send us the appropriate IEC 320-C7 to “Your regional plug” adapter cable. Exactly like how the PSP does it (and many other devices these days). Infact I’ll bet these are actually off the shelf 1 amp @ 5v chargers.
I’d say someone with the know how could do the maths and tell us exactly how long it would take to charge the battery, but I’ll have a stab and say it should be about 2-3 hours for a full charge, and from what we’ve seen so far on power specs, whether the pandy is on or not should not affect charge time more than 15 minutes or so, depending on what you’re doing. Although it has been confirmed that the pandy will not charge without being on, at least with the software it will ship with, this will likely change within the first few months as people start hacking on it when they start arriving.
Allow me:
battery at 4000mAh * 3.7V = 14,800mWh
charger at 1000mA * 5V = 5,000mW
now you have to account for loss during voltage conversion and the fact that lithium batteries only charge at “max speed” below about 80%. Assuming the charger specs you gave are correct and the battery can charge at the max rate of the charger, it should hit 80% in a little under 3 hours
Close, but no cigar. The chargers should be 2A, at least that’s what they’ve been telling us for the past Two Years. The exact same as the PSP charger. But I’m not positive if that’s 2A at 5VDC or 3.7VDC, I think it’s 3.7.
The battery is also 4.2Ah.
If my info is correct (who knows), it’d be closer to 2 hours for a full charge.
Hurrah for twitter!
It’s not really to do with the power of the device – you generally only (legally) need a ground/earth when the device has a metal case. If it’s got a plastic case there’s not really anything that can be earthed.
The cable and IEC connector in that photo look to be 2 core/pin. There’s an earth pin on the plug, but I suspect it’s not connected to anything. That’s how this type of PSUs is normally wired up.
Hey, I want to buy the second batch. Have pre-orders started? or are they waiting for the whole first batch to be completed?
No, AFAIK they are waiting til the first batch is completed. However, there may still be some spare Pandoras left for ordering from the first batch. You can drop Craig, ED, or Faith a mail…
It’s “FATİH”.
It’s “Fatih”, not faith.
Indeed it is. But to be a pandora fan we also need faith as well.
Good job Fatih – we fans are keeping the faith!
Sorry, “Faith” sounds better
Whops, sorry for that. That wasn’t even a misspelling but misreading your name for the last year or so.
I’d still consider Faith an awesome nick though
Doesn’t anyone ever think to clear away the crap from the background when taking these pictures?
It really doesn’t give you much confidence when you picture them assembling Pandoras surrounded by junk!
What, looks like a proper home lab to me…
Its the homebrew spirit.
You do not want to know how much hardware is reviewed by men in their underpants.
LOL. You’re right, I don’t.
Wooooooooooooooooooooo!
No seriously, I get crazy hyped over every little detail proving we’re on the last stretch before the finish line!
it have been a long last stretch, haha
Is that a whisky bag bag in the background? Oh now it hasn’t really been that bad has it? or are the units we get going to have wonky screws?… Good job guys, just wish I could come and join the party in person
We need to send community observers – just to observe the assembly process…
An audience to cheer them on.
I just love how Craig’s room is always full of stuff. The lady needs to give him a good spanking so he cleans it up a bit. =P
Craig cracking one off in closeup???
oh – Craig cracking one open in closeup…
Did someone mention CRACK!
wow that plug is huge! :p
Best plug in the world! Never falls out yet easy to remove, fused so it’s easy for every device to have the right rating fuse, and very hard to get an electric shock off.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BS_1363
That’s what she said.
Oh, BS means British Standard… I thought something else… good to know.