Pandora; open source handheld console II

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Op maandag 6 februari 2010 09:38 schreef __Saviour__ het volgende:
'Pandora's successor' wordt bij dat dreamcast filmpje genoemd. Zijn ze daar ook alweer echt mee bezig dan?

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The cases have arrived early, wow, some good luck for once!

When I say early I actually mean weeks late I suppose.

Well, not perfect, but I guess we will have to go with them.

Craigix: We might go with some of these cases. They are not perfect, but I've no doubt many people will not care as long as the controls work.

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craigixMichael will make a video and take some photos of a cased Pandora using the latest case.

We will then ask people if they want to go with this or wait for another revision. We know all that some of you care about is that the controls work.

We will probably look at making 500 of these to get some units in to the wild, but we understand that some of you will want to wait until the case is 100%.

Either way is cool.

That's the plan.

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MWeston
These cases are like the ugly girlfriend who does all the dirty stuff you like but someone you don't want your friends to see.

The case fits, is totally functional and sturdy but it looks like the rev2 ones. I don't know what the hell they were doing the past two months. Seriously.

I'm also trying to find out if these were made from recycled plastic or new pellets. Maybe that is why it still has rough edges and a greasy finish and a production run will be done differently.

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craigixIt's lots of little issues, not quite straight edges on the ports, little things here and there, the photos will show it better.

Some people would not care, others would. It's just one of those situations.

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DaveCFrom what I have seen it is mainly things like a few sink marks, flow lines and rough edges. These things should be fixed by better mold fit and finish.

The functionality looked fine from the photos I have seen and the strength should be fine. The issues are cosmetic. If you are planning to use it roughly by throwing it in a bag and letting it get scratched up anyway the current cases should be ok for you.

I have to admit after seeing the cases in the current state, a wave of exitement drowned out the flaws. I can see enjoying this alot and it is truly a cool piece of kit.

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From what I have seen of these new mouldings, your moulding company needs to run a small batch to validate thier parameters, things like mould temperature, injection pressures, cycle times etc.

These coupled with venting added in the correct positions (tiny modifications 1- 2 days max) will sort out your sinkages, short fills etc.

The greasy finish you mention is most probably due to excessive release agent used when running the mould for the first time (reduces the risk of the moulding sticking in the tool).

I have been designing plastic components for over 10 years now, and alot of your issues with Chinese moulding companies are well known, regardless which company you chose over there, they just work diferently to us.

I am very optimistic though, when these parts are run to the correct production processes, perhaps with extra venting, your cosmetic issues will be resolved.

(Madcad77)

I tend to agree with you here since there has to be a reason for the way things are. I’m still up assembling units as I’ve made some promises for the week and I am noticing that several of the parts feel like they are almost dripping with grease (release agent). I even started wiping a few off. These came right out of the mold and into the shipping box.

(MWeston)

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EvilDragon1717: Just made a speed test of pndnotifyd (the system that autodiscovers PND files). Slow SD Card: it needs about 5 - 6 seconds for 100 games!

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Craigix: Spoke to the factory; the final cases won't have these errors or finish, that's good news.

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We spoke to the factory over night, everything is cool. Those errors were because the machine was not warmed up/tweaked/cooled. They would never mass produce something with such errors.

They just assumed we would know that.

So, green lighted.

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Ever thought it could be bad when things arrive EARLIER than expected?
Monday, 08 February 2010 12:52 EvilDragon
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Well, we also didn't. But that was what happened.

The cases did arrive on Friday, not as expected today. While this usually is a good thing, we were shocked by the quality - just look at the pictures which float around at the boards and you'll agree with us. The bad thing about timezones is: When Michael did get those cases, it was too late to call up the chinese factory to find out what went wrong.

So a lot of turbulences did happen at the boards - which was perfectly understandable. As said, we also were shocked.

However, it looks like this is another thing did learn: Injection mould samples will always look that bad if it's just a bunch of them.

After recovering from the shock, we started to investigate and think about what just happened. To be honest I didn't think this could possibly look like the final product. Come on, what kind of company would survive for 12 years if they produce cracked and cheap looking products to their customers. No, there HAD to be something we didn't know.

Then some guys at the board who do work in injection moulding business did tell us a bit more. I also talked to some other guys via ICQ - and got the same replies from all of them: Doing a proper injection moulding run needs a lot of time. The machine has to heaten up completely (which usually needs a few hours) and the mould has to be aligned properly, which also does take some time. As this would mean the machine couldn't be used for mass production at that time (which is a loss of money) they usually don't let it heaten up completely.

As the plastic tends to keep sticking inside of the mould if not fully heated, they add a bit more grease. Otherwise, they'd have to manually remove the plastic which could damage the mould - and that's definately not good.

Another thing was that they might've used recycled plastic for the samples. Why use the expensive plastic when it's just samples that won't be used at all anyways? That's why there were discolorations and the case was looking greasy. As the finishing usually also isn't applied, it looks scratched.

So as that did calm us down a bit, we had to wait until Fatihs friend could call up the factory today.

And guess what: I looks like this was EXACTLY the case. The samples were just meant to check if everything fits. The final mass production cases will be properly heated and cooled down and will get a nice finishing. This is what they did tell us.

As chinese holidays are nearing, you can surely think that a lot of their customers are currently trying to rush things, so they didn't have much time at all to properly align the case.

So what should we say? We decided to GO for it! Let them do those cases - until we really do the mass production, we will never see a final case with proper finishing anyways!

Let's hope they can produce as many cases as possible before their new year start!

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Op maandag 8 februari 2010 16:32 schreef jimjim1983 het volgende:
wow vat een vet apparaat
als ie C&C draait dan wil ik m ook

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Op maandag 8 februari 2010 16:38 schreef jimjim1983 het volgende:
wat vet
maar C&C draait in dos, heb t op die manier ook op mn macbook.

hoeveel kostte die eerste batches trouwens?

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Well I got my pre-release Pandora recently I am not a coder but for those who don't know the story, I designed the case, pad, buttons etc (basically all plastic stuff). So as a member of OP it is logical for me to have one to test things with. I didn't do pictures as others already have so it would just be repetition.

After seeing those close-up pictures of the flaws I was expecting the worst. I was suprised at how cool it looks in person though! Very slick! While it is not up to Apple and Sony perfection yet it is pretty damn nice. It is especially good considering it wasn't produced by a huge multi billion dollar mega corporation like Sony or Nintendo. It has this kind of badass industrial look to it. It is hard to explain but it doesn't look like a toy. The LEDs look awesome, kind of looks like a spaceship cockpit or something.

I think this thing is going to be HUGE when it hits the stores. I don't want to sound like a commercial but if you were on the fence I would try to get on the pre-order list soon (if you can, I don't know the status, that is not my area). I just have a feeling these will be in demand and be very hard to get until production is at full power.

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The feel of the unit is very professional and it looks good; the keyb will take a little getting used to (key placement, such as the spacebar in the bottom right, and the location of shift and so on), but it is a very solid keyb. The d-pad and buttons and nubs are great!

My hands are normal size I'd say -- coder hands; not construction worker thick hands, but not little kid hands either I'm actually really surprised the controls feel as good as they do -- I had always assumed that either one set would feel better than the other, or both be awkward.. assumed nubs woudl be too far in, and d-pad too far out or something. But the reality, both sets of controls feel natural. I guess they looked awkward in folks videos since they're holding cameras in their mouthsm, you know?

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Op maandag 11 februari 2010 11:11 schreef seventhseagulll het volgende:
Dat van die controls daar maakte ik me ook nog wel zorgen over, want ik zag het niet echt lekker werken. Toch nog maar even afwachten totdat onafhankelijke mensen hun mening erover geven.

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L/R are 'okay'; handhelds never have good shoulder buttons, so these are about as good as everyone elses, maybe better -- when holding the nubs and d-pad, your hand is a certain way, so curling your fingers onto the shoulders seems right. Its just the whole idea of shoudler buttons on a small device isn't right imho

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Op maandag 12 februari 2010 09:37 schreef seventhseagulll het volgende:
Kan je die appstore dan een beetje vergelijken met Synaptic of add/remove in ubuntu? Dat is wel heel handig namelijk.

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Op maandag 15 februari 2010 12:24 schreef jimjim1983 het volgende:
lijkt nu net op iets van fisher price

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We have been sorting the orders again, weirdly even now people still cancel, and a few orders are always never paid (we are cancelling every single one of these now).

So while you might get an email at the moment saying 'Please wait' or even no reply for a few days, if there is a Pandora available you will get an email, we just need to do the final 'sort'.

After that we will email out information on batch 2.

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The main thing to remember is you got the Pandora for less than cost price. We lose money on every one.

Batch2 will be more expensive.

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We don't have the final bill yet for the board population, but it will probably put the Pandora just a little over ($20-$30) the price charged.

Fingers crossed we can lower all that on batch 2, but due to high lead times some parts are actually now MORE expensive! FFFuuuu...