Archive for the ‘Hardware’ Category
August 4, 2010
Posted by: BackAssward
It seems EvilDragon is back from vacation, rested and giving good news. 100 new units will be in the wild this week. Plus another coding option. I know there are many already, but hey, why not more?
As usual, I’ll let EvilDragon do the talking:
Back with good news
I just came back from my vacation today – now I’m fuelled up again and ready to do more work. And, as promised, more news about what’s happening!
Well, it seems I missed some good stuff – Craig got more than 100 boards and all nubs are working! He already built those units and shipped out most of them, so there will be more Pandoras out there in the wild.
When are the next boards coming? Shouldn’t take too long. The board production company first wanted to ship us a small batch so we can test if we are okay with the nubs now (they don’t want to desolder many more, I suppose).
We are okay with them! So production is finally starting up again 
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Posted in Blog, Hardware, Official, Pandora, Software | Tagged assembly, Blog, evildragon, mass production | 29 Comments »
July 30, 2010
Posted by: gruso
It was hoped that 200 more boards would arrive in the UK this week, but there is nought to report. The problem seems to be between the nub factory tightening up their quality control, and the board factory getting in step with them. Throw in some dud UPS promises and pinch of misc, and you’ve got yourself a regular old Friday in Pandoria. EvilDragon elaborates somewhat in the forum posts linked below.
[1] [2]
Posted in Hardware | Tagged Boards, nubs, production, ups | 39 Comments »
July 22, 2010
Posted by: gruso
A classy new vid from EvilDragon, demonstrating the current state of Pandora software (thanks in no small part to the Pandora community, who are pumping out the releases). Sadly it’s just going to make you want your Pandora more, but never the less it’s worth heading straight to the source to watch it in 720p. Also, a word from Craig on the next lot of boards, which are set to turn up on Monday again.
203 boards arriving on Monday with the nubs tested (if UPS don’t mess up).
There are 203 cases ready for those boards to go straight in to so they will ship next week too.
Then we hope it’s all go go go for Aug/Sept.
Every few hundred we make we improve the build process, this is very important to get right since we plan to use this case and system for a couple of years.
(craigix)
Posted in Emulators, Games, Hardware, Networking, Official, Pandora Homebrew, Releases, Software, UMPC | Tagged Boards, craigix, evildragon, Software, ups | 28 Comments »
July 16, 2010
Posted by: BackAssward
It is unusual to get two ‘official blog’ posts within a day, never-mind within a week. However, now we have a third blog post to report.
It seems the company manufacturing the nubs, is one of integrity. By all reports, they are going above and beyond to fulfill their obligations. Yet again, I will let EvilDragon tell it:
EvilDragon on the official blog:
Nub Update Report
Just some quick update report on the Nub status:
The company is doing electrical testing for bad traces, bad resistance in the joystick and is also setting aside any nubs that feel loose or gritty.
I’m pretty sure that test is way better than any of our “move them around for a while to see if they work fine”-testings.
While we don’t know yet if this is related to the few nubs that kept sticking in one direction (those nubs are still on the way to the manufacturer to be tested), it could well be the reason. If the rubber is a bit too gritty or thick, the resistance is wrong and it could lead to a sticking nub.
500 tested nubs (tested in one day! ) are ready to be shipped today to the board manufacturer. Shipping takes one day, so if we’re lucky, by next week more boards will be ready.
I’ll keep you updated!
source
Posted in Blog, Hardware, Official, Pandora | Tagged Blog, evildragon, Update | 16 Comments »
July 15, 2010
Posted by: BackAssward
Well, there’s not much for me to say. This is an excellent and long update from EvilDragon that many of us have been waiting for. It answers a lot of questions about the hardware status, current build state, and everything in-between.
Enjoy:
EvilDragon on the official blog:
Preparing the big run
It’s been kinda quiet in here lately, hasn’t it?
Well, I hope this will change in the near future and I’ll find more time keeping you up-to-date with what’s happening.
During the last days, it has been so incredibly hot in here… 30°C in my room at night… it was really hard to concentrate on what you’re doing.
Good news: The Cases
4000 new cases have been produced and are being painted at the moment. Over 1000 of them will ship using UPS, the rest will probably go by sea (takes a bit longer, but is way cheaper… and we will be busy with the first 1000 cases until they arrive).
And yes, you read correct: It will be 4000 cases. We will need some for replacements ourselves – and I guess quite a few of you will want to be able to buy replacement cases for modding, etc. yourselves.
Thank god, case production seems to work fine now.
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Posted in Hardware, Official, Pandora | Tagged assembly, Boards, cases, evildragon, Hardware, mass production | 34 Comments »
July 14, 2010
Posted by: gruso
Good news for those who’ve been waiting to join the sitting around party. Second batch preorders have been open for several days now, with a number of forum members already paid up and strapped in for the ride. Assembly and delivery of these units is expected to roll on seamlessly from the first batch, which is estimated for completion in October. Full ordering details at openpandora.org.
The delivery of the parts for batch 2 is still October (I got an update last week), so it’s looking pretty good this time.
Just trying to get 4000 (second batch units) built and shipping before Christmas will be a fun challenge, but we hope the changes and tweaks to the assembly line will make 100+ units a day possible.
(craigix)
Now, for all us first batchers, a few clarifications on the whole queue thing.
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Posted in Hardware | Tagged assembly, delivery, Second Batch | 45 Comments »
July 1, 2010
Posted by: gruso
A word of advice to those still waiting for that magic delivery email: settle in with a hot mug of something, there are a few months left on this ride. Craig estimates that it will take until the beginning of October to get 4,000 out the door, at which point he hopes production will roll straight into batch 2 without hiatus. Looking further into the future, there is talk of bringing case production to the UK as well – but that’s a good 12,000 Pandoras away, and a topic for another day. In the meantime, the best we can do is wish the UK assembly line a speedy recovery, and try to stave off the cabin fever.
Full discussion in this thread.
Posted in Hardware | Tagged 2nd batch, assembly, delivery, production | 56 Comments »
June 30, 2010
Posted by: gruso
It’s a quiet week on the assembly front, with Craig now waiting for another lot of boards to arrive from Texas. EvilDragon answers some forum queries below.
Just a short summary so far:
About 650 – 700 should’ve been shipped (alltogether) – or will be shipped these days (as I’m shipping some more today).
There were a couple of things that slowed things down in the beginning:
* Lots of failed LCD Cables in the beginning after we assembled the lid. As we had all 4000 cables here, it didn’t prevent us to build the units… but it took a lot more time. As we now know what the problem was, this will be no slowdown anymore (last 200 lids we built only had one failed LCD cable )
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Posted in Hardware | Tagged assembly, delivery, production | 34 Comments »
June 21, 2010
Posted by: gruso
“Second verse, longer than the first.”
Hi folks!
As promised, here is our current report about things that happened and things that will happen.
First, let’s start with the most important information for most of you:
How is Mass Production going?
Well, I’m honest here: Could be better – but could’ve been A LOT worse.
All in all, we’re pretty content. And a bit proud it all worked out and there are now real units out there! We can either speed up production but have a bad quality – or work a but slower and make sure the units we deliver are properly working (and that’s the path we chose).
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Posted in Hardware, Official, Software | Tagged evildragon, firmware, OS, production | 38 Comments »
June 21, 2010
Posted by: gruso
Playing a bit of catchup here! This is the first of two official blog posts that went out over the weekend.
Phew – just answered over 100 eMails to day and did now catch up with my Inbox.
notaz and me also did work some more on HotFix 3, while DJWillis is currently setting up the official Pandora repro (including sourcecodes).
I’m also trying to catch up with infos about what happened in assembly (news you’re all working for).
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Posted in Hardware, Official | Tagged hacker manual, hardware hacking, mweston, schematics | 15 Comments »
