The case

The Mainboard

The CPU Board

Passive cooling

Here's a summary of what's left to do:

Finish the tests of the mainboards and order them (PCB production takes 4 weeks) Check if the CPU boards can be further improved and if not, order prototypes for them (PCB production takes 6 weeks). Check that the cases are fine and if they are, order them (production shouldn't take longer than 2 weeks) Use the current prototypes for CE / FCC testing (planned for January 2018) WHILE the bare PCBs are being produced: Check for a whirring noise fix that does not involve using conflict material WHILE the bare PCBs are being produced: Design the packaging and material Do a test run with the newly produced PCBs and the transparent cases to produce prototypes for the prototype preorders. Recheck that everything works fine - then setup the mass production (I'm planning at least 2 - 3 weeks to recheck all of that). While that final check happens (or directly after the production of the transparent cases), move the molds to the new company to produce the cases for the mass production.

Update time!Seriously, I didn't think I'd find time before christmas to post an update... I'm currently in pre-christmas hell (normal for an online shop, I guess) and had about 3 - 4 hours sleep per day last week.Yesterday, my body felt like it needed to grab some of the sleep back... I was tired the full day and decided to mostly relax.Today, I'm at work again (fully revitalized) and I will now summarize Pyras' statusAccording to FormAction, all fixes and tweaks I reported them last time have been implemented.That means that the moulds should finally be 100% finished.I would NOT vouch for them until I receive some samples, but then again, it wasn't that much that had to be fixed, so this really could be the end of the case odyssey.They're in christmas holidays next week, but have already planned to produce samples as soon as christmas is over, so I should have them early 2018.If they're good... well, then I'll place the order for the 500 cases right away.These will be used for all Pyra Prototype orders (finally, yes, should get something as well!) and I'll sell the sets in my shop as well.Right after the production of the transparent cases has happened, the molds will move to the new company so they can produce the cases used for the normal mass production.Can you believe it...? The case might finally be finishedAs mentioned last time, Nikolaus received new prototype PCBs which he populated himself to test if all fixes are working as they should.One of the PCBs went to the Wifi expert who will use his tools to make exact measurements of the antenna connection to make sure Wifi is working as good as possible.The other PCBs are being used by Nikolaus to check if the reported issues by the developers have now been fixed.So far, it's looking good. Not all of the topic on the issues list have been tested, but the ones tested so far are indeed fixed now.This includes OTG mode, improved power supply for Hispeed-SD Cards, booting when the Lid is closed (yep, that wasn't working), force-boot from the Micro-SD Card works fine as well.What still is a bit annoying is that the whirring noise that a capacitor makes is still there.There would be a very easy solution by replacing it with a Tantalum Capacitor ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tantalum_capacitor ), which is probably while almost any smaertpHowever, Tantalum is considered a conflict material ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_resource ) which is a good reason why we would like to avoid using it.So we'll still play around with different capacitors. As no layout change would help here, we can do that while the Mainboards for the mass production are being manufactured.Another solution would be to try a source for clean tantalum, which might be possible as well.Worst case scenario would be we'd have to use a few tantalum capacitors. It would still be A LOT less than used in any smartphone, but I'd still like to find a conflict free solution.What's your opinion on this?Nikolaus will continue with the remaining tests, but so far it's looking good.So, what happens next?Well, if the tests show that everything known is fixed now, we'll order the PCBs for the mainboard.While they're being produced, we're trying to find a better solution for the Tantalum capacitors, or a conflict free source.Then we're ready here as well.The memory issue should be fixed (according to the simulation Juliano ran), so everything should be 100% working now.And while we didn't have any power issues with the OMAP5, the simulation showed that there is one area that could still be improved, if we can squeeze a couple more capacitors in there.As Nikolaus was busy with testing the mainboard right now, he couldn't take a look at that - but will do that soon.However, if it can't be easily done, we'll keep it as it is, as no one reported issues with the OMAP5 power supply so far.We can't tweak everything forever, we need to get the Pyras out in the wild (I hope you agreeWhile our current passive cooling works okay, I've decided to make a simple improvement:I have designed a custom cutout for the heatpipes so we can use two heatsinks (one below each USB port).That won't increase the costs, doesn't need any preparation time (as laser-cutting the material out of the sheets is nothing special) and should vastly improve the cooling as well.As Juliano did a thermal simulation with the current solution we had (which proved that his simulation has the same results as our real-life FLIR camera image), he can also simulate that upfront.I'll post the pretty pictures once we got them.Aaand that's it.Well, I really had hoped to be able to ship all your Pyras before christmas... (believe me: There's not a single person worldwide that's more eager to finish and deliver the Pyras than myself!)Who'd have thought that modern tech is SO fiddly with memory traces, etc. that so much time was needed to find and fix that issue... the OMAP3 was a lot more relaxed here.Anyways, Nikolaus is still continuing the tests - so I hope I'll have a christmas post ready that tells you that the Pyra should be 100% finished now!Thanks again for your patience, your awesome support... and now I'm back to work.