[Arm-netbook] Crowsupply update

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

---
crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68


On Mon, Jan 8, 2018 at 3:32 PM, Neil Jansen <njansen1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 8, 2018 at 9:57 AM, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton <lkcl at lkcl.net>
> wrote:
>
>>  the whole point of doing the computer cards is that the base units -
>> the Housings - *can* be done with 0603 and 0805 components, on 2 layer
>> PCBs.
>>
>
> Does the current housing design break EVERYTHING out?

 the microdesktop 1.7 brings everything out.  as it's only 68 pins, 24
of which are RGB/TTL, 4 are power, 8 are unused USB3, 7 are for
micro-sd and 4 are for USB2, there's actually not a lot left.

> Running a business is subjective,

 this isn't a business.  even the EOMA68 Certification process i will
put under a CIC (which is... _sort-of_ a "business" except not
really).

 under the rules of Certification Marks i'm *not allowed* to quotes
profit quotes or do anything that could be considered to be quotes
competing quotes with quotes businesses quotes.  several people have
actually already asked me, "um if i make a housing what's to stop you
from putting me out of business by making it yourself" and it's real
simple: Certification *inherently* prohibits that.



> and you can't make everyone happy.  As
> long as the discussion is civil and open, it's all good.
>
>
>
>>  yehyeh. i'll have to go over to shenzhen to get one set up, and work
>> with his engineers to make it really, _really_ easy to fit the Cards -
>> and Micro-Desktops - into the rig.  fixed (locked-down) cables, rails
>> / slides to put the PCBs in so that the connectors go straight in,
>> that sort of thing.
>>
>
> If you're in Shenzhen, there are a few of the markets that have booths
> where they'll make you an entire mechanical test rig, with pogo pins,
> DESTACO clamps, LCD screens, buttons, locks, slides, ports, you name it...
> Just give them a drawing (CAD or otherwise) and come back in a few days.
> The prices are unbelievably cheap.  Compared to my hourly rate, they're
> basically free.

 :)

 that's the sort of thing that mike's in-house engineer does.

>
>
>>  nobody's offered!
>>
>
> Why not ask the community directly, via the mailing list, and/or the next
> update?

 i have!!  about six times!

>  If you say that it's really important and that your time is better
> spent doing other important facets of the project, that might be what it
> takes for someone to step forward.
>
> I do feel sympathy because back when I ran an open-source hardware company
> with a mailing list, and I never got the community support that I needed,
> unless I begged and pleaded.  Everyone was happy to sit around and fire off
> emails and replies about how I was doing everything wrong, but nobody
> wanted to do any actual work.

 well, that can begin to change when there's hardware in peoples' hands.


>> well, the guy who mike employs, he's extremely good at making
>> mechanical rigs and stamps and so on.  he can easily put together
>> something that ensures that the workers don't damage the boards during
>> testing as the PCB will go into the rig "in only one physical way and
>> with one physical move".
>>
>>  software-wise i need something that does nothing more complex than
>> mount stuff on a micro-sd card, show boot messages on both screens,
>> and maybe has 2 keyboards plugged in (one into each USB socket) so
>> that they can bash some keys and see that crud comes up on-screen for
>> each.
>>
>>  going beyond that... testing I2C, UART and the GPIO.... *sigh*...
>> that involves writing some software.
>
>
> Sounds like you need a test plan document, in the form of a wiki page or
> HTML page on your website that documents exactly what you need to test, and
> how you plan to test it.  While I'm way too busy with back-taxes and
> overtime at work to actually write the code at the moment, I could
> certainly help put together a test plan document.

 that would be awesome.
http://rhombus-tech.net/allwinner_a10/testing/ would be a good start.

> That's well within my
> skill set for sure.  If you'd like we could start a new thread to discuss.
> If I did find some time to write a bit of code, it would be Python because
> that's what I know best, and that might actually work well for a top-level
> testing interface, because it supports Unicode, and the Qt GUI bindings
> (PyQt5) would allow switchable translations.  As long as the low-level
> testing code could be called from commandline using existing tools, then
> the Python environment is really just a test executive that calls the
> actual test code.  Using the built-in Python unittesting framework would a
> good way to go here.  It doesn't produce a test report document at the end,
> but it will tell you whether everything passed or failed. As far as testing
> I2C, UART, GPIO, that's all very very doable!  Wraparound tests and
> fixtures and a bit of code is all you need there.  But first let's get a
> plan together!  Shall I start a new thread?

 sure.  great idea.

l.