MWeston posted this update showing the work done on the Pandora N64 emulator - its looking great:
Monday, 26 October 2009
Sunday, 18 October 2009
N64 Coming To Pandora
Great new video posted on GP32x forums - N64 emulation progressing exceedingly well ...
Saturday, 17 October 2009
Pandora Now Expected Nov/Dec 2009
Looks like the first fully assembled Mass Production Pandora console will arrive early in November 2009, MWeston just posted this update on the GP32x forums:
'After not completing the molds before the Chinese holiday, when they came back they gave me a 'worst case' completion date of Oct. 20th with the possibility to be done on the 15th if all went well. Then just the day before yesterday, they told Fatih they needed three extra days due to some last stage tweaks involving the smooth operation of tooling parts and ejection pieces so now that puts completion at around Oct. 23rd. With any luck, they will ship some case samples on Monday the 25th and I will get them mid to late that week. They are really dragging it out but let's just hope the delays are because they are trying to get the parts to look good and not have a bunch of terrible seams and warping. I won't complain one bit about the extra 23 day delay if the parts come out perfect.
Looks like the earliest we will see the Pandora's being shipped (at last) will be December 2009/January 2010 .... better late than never
'After not completing the molds before the Chinese holiday, when they came back they gave me a 'worst case' completion date of Oct. 20th with the possibility to be done on the 15th if all went well. Then just the day before yesterday, they told Fatih they needed three extra days due to some last stage tweaks involving the smooth operation of tooling parts and ejection pieces so now that puts completion at around Oct. 23rd. With any luck, they will ship some case samples on Monday the 25th and I will get them mid to late that week. They are really dragging it out but let's just hope the delays are because they are trying to get the parts to look good and not have a bunch of terrible seams and warping. I won't complain one bit about the extra 23 day delay if the parts come out perfect.
Looks like the earliest we will see the Pandora's being shipped (at last) will be December 2009/January 2010 .... better late than never
Wednesday, 30 September 2009
Looks Like It's Late Oct Early Nov For Pandora Release
ED posted this status update on the Open Pandora Homepage ...
'While the moulds are still in production, the 105 boards were pretty sturdy, we didn't encounter a single problem yet which is really cool.
Our initial plan was to wait for the first final cases and then do the CE / FCC with a final unit. After that, we wanted to produce the rest of the 4000 boards (and cases, of course) and ship them.
However, as the cases need a bit longer, we decided to speed up the boards mass production. As soon as Michael gets the final nubs (which should arrive soon), he's gonna ship a complete prototype Pandora to me (in Germany), and we'll do a quick CE testing with that one. If that one passes the testings, the Pandora in the final case will also do so (as a plastic case doesn't add radiation). This does mean that we can immediately start the mass production of the boards after that - which speeds up the whole thing by a few weeks. The only downside is that we have to do a second testing with a final unit to get all the FCC certifications and therefore have a bit more costs - but it's definately worth it.
In the meantime, I'm working on the silk screening for the case (you know, the labels for the LEDs, etc.) and also the instructions manual.
DJWillis is working on the OS image to turn it into a nice looking end-user version (with Pandora logos and theming, etc.)'
'While the moulds are still in production, the 105 boards were pretty sturdy, we didn't encounter a single problem yet which is really cool.
Our initial plan was to wait for the first final cases and then do the CE / FCC with a final unit. After that, we wanted to produce the rest of the 4000 boards (and cases, of course) and ship them.
However, as the cases need a bit longer, we decided to speed up the boards mass production. As soon as Michael gets the final nubs (which should arrive soon), he's gonna ship a complete prototype Pandora to me (in Germany), and we'll do a quick CE testing with that one. If that one passes the testings, the Pandora in the final case will also do so (as a plastic case doesn't add radiation). This does mean that we can immediately start the mass production of the boards after that - which speeds up the whole thing by a few weeks. The only downside is that we have to do a second testing with a final unit to get all the FCC certifications and therefore have a bit more costs - but it's definately worth it.
In the meantime, I'm working on the silk screening for the case (you know, the labels for the LEDs, etc.) and also the instructions manual.
DJWillis is working on the OS image to turn it into a nice looking end-user version (with Pandora logos and theming, etc.)'
I'm Back
Apologies for not updating for a while - been busy with work ... lets roll with some updates ..
Tuesday, 30 June 2009
It's Coming Together
Hmmm New juicy blog update from ED - Initial batch of Pandoras on their way with more to follow!! ...
"Hi, it’s time again for the weekly report on what has happened.
Craig finally resolved the customs issue, so the parts (parts for 2000 Pandoras) finally are moving towards their destination.The other 2000 parts did pass the customs without any problems a few days earlier, btw.So, first test mass production is still due to be finished on July 20th (you know, the ones we ordered a while ago) and all the parts are also on their way – which means: COMPLETE mass production of the boards could be happening soon!
The final puzzle piece for the final unit is the case. What’s the status with that, you might ask?Well, as said a while ago, Dave doesn’t have too much time at the moment, as he is very busy with his normal job. However, he continues to work on the case, day by day. And I’m really happy that the To-Do-List has really grown short.So short, that he might even finish it within the next few days! There’s a light at the end of the tunnel! Finally, I can see it!
On to some other questions and stuff I’ve seen on the boards: A lot of guys are asking what happened to the video craig promised to you.Well, as you all know, he planned shooting a long one.
That does take time, though. And during that, the custom problems happened. Craig spent all days trying to resolve those issues… so he couldn’t spend any time on the video.- And I guess you wouldn’t want more delay because of the video, right?Also, there’s not too we could show you:
You’ve seen the working prototype… and that is the last status before the FINAL unit is ready. I know you love videos… and the time between the protoype and the final unit seems endless – but there’s not much we can do except wait for it.
Those things do take time and we also have to wait for the boards and cases to be finished.Heh – you know what’s funny? I read somewhere on the boards that for some time moves so slowly while waiting for the Pandora… it’s the complete opposite for us.
Time seems to fly by. Whoops, another week gone.
Let’s wait together, shall we? I know there are some OMAP3 devices coming – but none will be as open and supported for homebrew and Linux as the Pandora is."
"Hi, it’s time again for the weekly report on what has happened.
Craig finally resolved the customs issue, so the parts (parts for 2000 Pandoras) finally are moving towards their destination.The other 2000 parts did pass the customs without any problems a few days earlier, btw.So, first test mass production is still due to be finished on July 20th (you know, the ones we ordered a while ago) and all the parts are also on their way – which means: COMPLETE mass production of the boards could be happening soon!
The final puzzle piece for the final unit is the case. What’s the status with that, you might ask?Well, as said a while ago, Dave doesn’t have too much time at the moment, as he is very busy with his normal job. However, he continues to work on the case, day by day. And I’m really happy that the To-Do-List has really grown short.So short, that he might even finish it within the next few days! There’s a light at the end of the tunnel! Finally, I can see it!
On to some other questions and stuff I’ve seen on the boards: A lot of guys are asking what happened to the video craig promised to you.Well, as you all know, he planned shooting a long one.
That does take time, though. And during that, the custom problems happened. Craig spent all days trying to resolve those issues… so he couldn’t spend any time on the video.- And I guess you wouldn’t want more delay because of the video, right?Also, there’s not too we could show you:
You’ve seen the working prototype… and that is the last status before the FINAL unit is ready. I know you love videos… and the time between the protoype and the final unit seems endless – but there’s not much we can do except wait for it.
Those things do take time and we also have to wait for the boards and cases to be finished.Heh – you know what’s funny? I read somewhere on the boards that for some time moves so slowly while waiting for the Pandora… it’s the complete opposite for us.
Time seems to fly by. Whoops, another week gone.
Let’s wait together, shall we? I know there are some OMAP3 devices coming – but none will be as open and supported for homebrew and Linux as the Pandora is."
Monday, 15 June 2009
New Blog Update From Ed
Here is a recent June 12th, update from ED - my money is kind of on a Mid July/August launch date:
1. The boards - We had to fix one minor fault a few weeks ago and already received and tested five new ones – and the good news is: They’re ALL working fine (no soldering problems, all our hardware tests were sucessful). So we got a 100% rate from those.We’ll do more testing, but the planned first mass production run (100 boards which will actually be used for final Pandoras) is on July 13th, though it might be a few days earlier or later. Of course we’ll try to get some pictures of the first 100 boards for you.
2. The analogue nubs - You might’ve read that there were some problems with the analogue nubs. Well, they had serious firmware problems and the company went bankrupt… so we had two problems: We need to pay TWICE (the new company we got has to be paid again) and the firmware had to be fixed. Both has happened already. The new firmware is already there (Pickle showed the new nubs in a video) and it is working without an problems. Another issue solved
3. The Keymat - It was pretty perfect already, however, the pressure and gaming controls could be enhanced. So we did that – and the new version is already at the moulding company, so the new mats shall also be finished very soon. As there were some keys misaligned, we used the time to fix that up, too. If you want to know what exactly happened: wider holes around screw pegs, made game button cups wider to make them softer, slightly more travel to 1mm, keypad buttons raised 0.5mm, a couple of other little guide holes moved.
4. CE and FCC - CE tests will happen as soon as I get a finished board and prototype case, which should happen while the case moulds are being done, so there’s no time problem. I’ve got a few CE testing companies around the corner where I can just drop-by and test everything. We shouldn’t have a problem with FCC either – as we only need FCC if we sell WITHIN the US. We don’t do that yet, we sell from UK and Germany, so FCC is not necessary. It WILL have to be done once there’s a US based reseller, but that’s nothing to worry about for the first batch.
5. The case - That’s our only issue for now, we’re still working on fixing minor issues. It really does take a long time making something near perfect – and that’s what we plan to do. Another problem is that neither CNC nor SLA cases are good enough to check if everything fits perfectly. Don’t worry, there’s already a solution for that. The only thing we had to fix is the height of the DPad (so it works better) and the hinge. The rest was already pretty good. So we most probably won’t need another CNC case, just another DPad which can be done within a few days. We hope Dave will be ready will all that fixes until next week.
Yeah, we know that’s a long time… but because of the financial crisis (once agin…) a lot of guys at Daves work lost their job and he now basically has to do twice the work at his daytime job, leaving him less time to work on the Pandora case. We’re really really grateful he does work on it making it perfect.
Now, onto the solution I mentioned above: The moulding company offered their help. Together with the final model data, they will receive basically a complete Pandora (all parts, LCD, hinge, board, keymat, etc.) and will check before moulding that everything will fit. They are very experienced with stuff like that, so that does help a lot. The downside is that this adds a few more days (moulding now takes approx. 45 days instead of 35) but it will ensure that everything fits and we don’t have to start all over again.That time frame also does allow us to do CE testing and change some stuff if need be without losing any time.
6. Software - Software and drivers are already VERY advanced. Mostly everything works fine, only WiFi is giving some issues. The hardware is fine, lowlevel tests with WiFi do work, but it doesn’t work yet within the Angström image. If we can’t fix it until the Pandora is ready, it will be fixed with an (automatic) firmware update, don’t worry.
So, I hope I could show you what did happen. Of course, there were a lot more boring things going on (organizing between all the companies, signing NDAs, talking about licenses, etc.) but I think I did post the most interesting parts here.
Basically, to put it in a nutshell:
- Board: Finished and workingKeymat: Finished and in productionAnalogue Nubs: Issue solved, nubs tested and working fine
- CE Testing: Pending (will be done during case moulding)
- Case: Last fixes being applied, should go to case mass production company by next week
Saturday, 6 June 2009
Pandora Coming Out In July 2009?
CraigX posted a comment on the GP32x Forums suggesting a possible July 2009 release date for the Pandora.
Monday, 1 June 2009
June 2009 - Pandora Black Images
CraigX has just posted these lovely images of the Pandora - all the bits inside look like the mass production bits, the case is still a CNC machined one not one from the final mould.Hey it shows the Pandora is getting there, fingers crossed and we could see them shipping inside two months.
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