| danlench1 | hi all, i need to talk to someone about hardware development for an FOSS project | 03:31 |
|---|---|---|
| danlench1 | we will be launching a kickstarter project soon. the software is ready but i would like to offer a hardware solution as well | 03:31 |
| danlench1 | i need 1 or 2 SATA, 4 or 5 ethernet, 2 usb, and a way to provide 802.11* that can be upgraded | 03:35 |
| danlench1 | per unit cost on 1k 5k 10k 50k intervals | 03:36 |
| danlench1 | my emain is daniel@nofolder.com | 03:37 |
| danlench1 | 03:37 | |
| wpwrak | hmm, i don't think anyone here is ready to do such things | 03:39 |
| wpwrak | (here) on this channel | 03:39 |
| danlench1 | wpwrak: any suggestions | 03:40 |
| danlench1 | are you involved with qi | 03:40 |
| wpwrak | the hardware requirements are a bit tricky. maybe there's something out there that already exists. else, you'd need a custom design. or try to adjust the specs. | 03:41 |
| wpwrak | well yes, i'm involved with qi-hw. but i'm not sure what you think that means :) | 03:41 |
| danlench1 | well i am looking for purpose built board | 03:41 |
| danlench1 | well, i'm involved with alot of things as well ;) | 03:42 |
| danlench1 | i'm preparing a kickstarter project | 03:42 |
| danlench1 | think open source cross platform time capsule like device with dropbox like capabilities | 03:43 |
| danlench1 | the software is done, i would like to provide a hardware option | 03:43 |
| danlench1 | so i'm looking for manufacturers | 03:44 |
| wpwrak | maybe post to the qi-hw list. while i haven't seen any discussion about people actually picking up manufacturing tasks (except sharism and tuxbrain, but tuxbrain is dead and sharism doesn't do much anymore), there may be lurkers | 03:44 |
| danlench1 | ok i will | 03:45 |
| danlench1 | would you know who does the pcb for qi? | 03:45 |
| danlench1 | well pcb + components | 03:45 |
| danlench1 | thats what i'm really hunting for | 03:46 |
| wpwrak | you mean the pcb fab ? or the smt fab ? | 03:46 |
| wpwrak | in the milkymist project, i think pcbs were made and smt'ed in taiwan | 03:46 |
| wpwrak | i think sharism sourced the components directly and then brought them to the smt fab | 03:47 |
| danlench1 | right, probably, but who | 03:47 |
| danlench1 | i mean i could do the smt in my garage if i had enough ovens | 03:47 |
| wpwrak | wolfspraul would know | 03:47 |
| danlench1 | lol | 03:47 |
| wpwrak | good luck with the yield :) | 03:47 |
| danlench1 | right!! late nights | 03:48 |
| wpwrak | and i think anything > 100 units would get extremely boring | 03:48 |
| danlench1 | no, i need to price 10k at least | 03:48 |
| wpwrak | you're in the US ? | 03:49 |
| danlench1 | all thoes pick and place makerbots | 03:49 |
| danlench1 | yeah | 03:49 |
| danlench1 | u | 03:49 |
| wpwrak | you may also want to try to get domestic quotes for a first estimate | 03:49 |
| wpwrak | at least for the pcb, that's easy | 03:50 |
| danlench1 | it's on the list ;) | 03:50 |
| danlench1 | i appreciate your time, i would love to throw this to an open source hw org | 03:50 |
| wpwrak | then you can check your components on digi-key, subtract 10% for volume and maybe 10-20% for asia and you'd have a rough idea | 03:50 |
| danlench1 | yep, the case is the other thing ;) | 03:51 |
| wpwrak | unfortunately, in the qi-hw universe we're not quite set up for contract manufacturing. at least not anymore. would have been a possibility maybe a year ago or two. | 03:52 |
| wpwrak | ah yes, cases are fun :) | 03:52 |
| danlench1 | ugg | 03:53 |
| danlench1 | i didnt have a developer then :/ | 03:53 |
| wpwrak | milkymist had a fairly nice solution. all 2D cuts | 03:53 |
| danlench1 | right, KISS | 03:53 |
| wpwrak | (solution) for its case | 03:53 |
| wpwrak | aye :) | 03:54 |
| danlench1 | wolfspraul: do you by anychance know who does the pcb and smt for qi? i'm looing for a manurfacturer for my project and would love a reccomendation | 03:55 |
| danlench1 | hows that | 03:55 |
| wolfspraul | thanks for asking but you don't want to hear my recommendation | 03:56 |
| wolfspraul | :-) | 03:56 |
| danlench1 | lol, at least i put my work machine on the line first | 03:56 |
| danlench1 | uh oh | 03:56 |
| danlench1 | ok, maybe a warning then. i'm ok with that also ;) | 03:56 |
| wpwrak | sounds as if you need a hw designer, too | 03:57 |
| danlench1 | i have a few on the list but always appreciate another | 03:57 |
| danlench1 | arm or atom, needs to run minimal fedora or centos | 03:58 |
| danlench1 | these will all be for the home or "small" users | 03:59 |
| danlench1 | the enterprise can use their own HW | 03:59 |
| danlench1 | still free of charge | 03:59 |
| wpwrak | in your place, i'd first try to find a board/device that already does more or less what you need. it's a lot easier to source an existing device than making a new one. | 03:59 |
| danlench1 | the mobile clients will be $5 to fund development | 03:59 |
| danlench1 | well... | 03:59 |
| wpwrak | the large number of ethers combined with SATA could be a problem. does this thing really have to be a router/switch ? | 04:00 |
| danlench1 | where is that link... | 04:02 |
| danlench1 | this will work: http://news.softpedia.com/newsImage/Leaked-ASUS-Eee-D200-Could-be-a-Home-Media-Server-3.jpg/ | 04:02 |
| danlench1 | the router/switch integration will simplify the dropbox like capabilities | 04:03 |
| danlench1 | for the home user | 04:03 |
| danlench1 | the d200 s basically a heavy duty prototype | 04:03 |
| wpwrak | that box doesn't look so bad | 04:04 |
| danlench1 | released in 2009 for around 700us | 04:04 |
| wpwrak | may even have room for your SATA disks | 04:04 |
| danlench1 | i hve a few now from amazon at 150us | 04:04 |
| danlench1 | no one at asus has ever heard of it | 04:04 |
| wpwrak | ;-) | 04:04 |
| danlench1 | 10 techs later and none of them | 04:05 |
| danlench1 | a quiet failure | 04:05 |
| danlench1 | but what a cool idea | 04:05 |
| wpwrak | people who were working on that in 2009 probably have retired long since :) | 04:05 |
| wpwrak | it seems a bit bulky | 04:05 |
| danlench1 | integrated UPS also, its a lipo battery similar to a laptops | 04:05 |
| danlench1 | about 4in wide 12 tall | 04:06 |
| wpwrak | i'm beginning to see where the price comes from :) | 04:06 |
| danlench1 | dvdrw, 2 3.5hdd, 2 fans, touchscreen all that other stuff | 04:07 |
| wpwrak | batteries aren't such a good idea. they die within a few years. and then people will come to you asking for new ones. | 04:07 |
| danlench1 | its tow boards with a pcb bridging them | 04:07 |
| wpwrak | urgh | 04:07 |
| danlench1 | its a beotch to get apart also ;) | 04:07 |
| danlench1 | yeah, its too much | 04:08 |
| wpwrak | good old crowbar not working ? :) | 04:08 |
| danlench1 | but good for dev, | 04:08 |
| danlench1 | so any HW man suggestions? | 04:09 |
| danlench1 | :D | 04:09 |
| wpwrak | btw, if you have two ether ports, you could already integrate it into an existing home network without using extra ports | 04:10 |
| wpwrak | and two ether + SATA may be findable | 04:10 |
| danlench1 | yes, it is | 04:10 |
| wpwrak | wolfspraul: we still haven't heard your comment ;-) | 04:10 |
| wolfspraul | which you can imagine, it's easy: don't do hardware | 04:12 |
| wolfspraul | work for a manufacturer for a while if you really want to | 04:12 |
| wolfspraul | from what you write, there's just too much missing/imagined | 04:12 |
| wolfspraul | of course that is the very kind of feedback the successful guys blissfully ignore, but that power is entirely up to you | 04:13 |
| wolfspraul | I am still saying: save yourself and the world that bucket of wasted energy :-) | 04:13 |
| danlench1 | there is a jetway board that is looking promising | 04:13 |
| danlench1 | http://www.jetwaycomputer.com/spec/ADE4INLANG.pdf | 04:13 |
| danlench1 | http://www.jetwaycomputer.com/NF9B.html | 04:14 |
| wpwrak | that;s just the ether | 04:14 |
| wpwrak | ah, and that would be a 2x ether solution | 04:15 |
| wpwrak | and with plenty of SATA interfaces | 04:15 |
| danlench1 | its too much | 04:16 |
| danlench1 | wolfspraul: i appreciate your words | 04:17 |
| wpwrak | and i concur with wolfgang: since you're aiming for a relatively high-performance design, which also has a fair number of peripherals, you're likely to face a very long and costly development process | 04:17 |
| wpwrak | so a much better approach would be to find something you can just OEM | 04:18 |
| danlench1 | well i plan to run the kickstarter in 2 projects, one for the software only one for hardware only | 04:18 |
| danlench1 | oem would be great | 04:18 |
| danlench1 | been looking for a month | 04:18 |
| danlench1 | new stuff every day | 04:18 |
| danlench1 | time for me to retire for the nite | 04:19 |
| wpwrak | maybe have some vacations in taipei and shanghai (or shenzen ?), and visit the local markets :) | 04:19 |
| danlench1 | thanks so much for your input | 04:19 |
| wpwrak | np. good luck ! | 04:19 |
| danlench1 | :D | 04:19 |
| danlench1 | i'll be back ;) | 04:19 |
| wpwrak | sigh. why doesn't just once someone pop up who wants to make hardware who a) already has the bag of money necessary and b) wants to make, say, a new nanonote ? it would be such a pleasure to help with such a thing ... | 04:21 |
| whitequark | wpwrak: I wonder, how much money would be required for a new NN? | 07:44 |
| whitequark | lower bound :D | 07:44 |
| whitequark | the upper one is obviously + | 07:44 |
| wpwrak | whitequark: hmm, production-ready design in the order of 100-150 kUSD | 09:55 |
| wpwrak | perhaps more 150 than 100, considering that the case may be a bit of work | 09:57 |
| whitequark | hm | 10:06 |
| whitequark | where did you get the money for first Ben, then? | 10:07 |
| wpwrak | as far as i know, that came from wolfgang's savings | 10:07 |
| wpwrak | also, the first ben wasn't an original design. it was licensed from a company that sold it as a dictionary | 10:08 |
| whitequark | I see | 10:10 |
| paul_boddie | Having read the logs, I wonder if danlench1 should be talking to the arm-netbook people. Although I'm not sure whether 4 or 5 Ethernet ports is on their roadmap. | 14:30 |
| paul_boddie | Maybe a router/switch manufacturer, then. | 14:30 |
| whitequark | I'm fairly sure that a dumb switch chip is trivial to obtain | 14:31 |
| whitequark | and is not very demanding | 14:31 |
| wpwrak | not sure if many of them are interested in making custom designs | 14:31 |
| paul_boddie | It sounds like a super-sized FreedomBox. :-) | 14:31 |
| wpwrak | the problem is that the whole system is fairly high-end. you need a very well-equipped shop to make such a thing work. | 14:32 |
| paul_boddie | By the way, wpwrak, looking at the documentation for the Arduino shield I was talking about, it appears that feeding 5V to the shield's VIN pin is necessary. The circuit then ensures that the controller gets 3.3V. And there was I thinking I could skip over those pages in the datasheet. :-) | 14:33 |
| wpwrak | there's your problem :) | 14:34 |
| wpwrak | could you feed the 3.3 V directly into the 3.3 V rail, ignoring the 5 V side ? | 14:34 |
| paul_boddie | No, that didn't seem to work. | 14:34 |
| wpwrak | :( | 14:36 |
| paul_boddie | USB would need 5V anyway, as I understand it, so some external power source is probably required. I was using USB as that power source (through the Arduino), but that's cheating. :-) | 14:38 |
| wpwrak | well yes, external power is always a solution ... | 14:39 |
| wpwrak | just make sure you don't connect the ben to any 5 V net. it may resent that. | 14:39 |
| paul_boddie | Indeed. | 14:42 |
| paul_boddie | Here, I assume that the shield's designer followed the advice on those other datasheet pages I wasn't interested in reading. ;-) | 14:43 |
| wpwrak | heh :) | 14:45 |
| wpwrak | isn't arduino switching to 3.3 V, too, for their next generation ? i thought i read something like that. or was that some arduino-like board ? | 14:46 |
| wpwrak | 5 V is so 1980es ... | 14:46 |
| C-Keen | there are several 3.3V variants | 14:46 |
| C-Keen | arduino pro or something for example | 14:47 |
| wpwrak | ah yes. has a 3 V and a 5 V variant. | 15:04 |
| paul_boddie | Arduino Due is 3.3V (see the warning on http://arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardDue), as are some of the older models. | 15:10 |
| wpwrak | aah, DUE is that next generation thing i meant ! yes, even has a decent core | 15:11 |
| C-Keen | is the DUE the one with the arm core? | 15:13 |
| wpwrak | yeah, AT91SAM3X8E | 15:13 |
| wpwrak | (Cortex-M3) | 15:13 |
| C-Keen | nice | 15:13 |
| paul_boddie | Competition is getting pretty stiff in the low-end ARM space, though: http://www.st.com/internet/evalboard/product/252419.jsp (for example) | 15:17 |
| wpwrak | it's not exactly hard anymore to make a little ARM board :) i guess the brand name may help arduino, though | 15:17 |
| C-Keen | plus their grown ready to use sensor gadgets | 15:21 |
| danlench | paul_boddie: i am on the arm-network channel as well | 16:05 |
| danlench | wpwrak: i'm impressed with the nanonote for sure, just my phone and laptop and tablet and... | 16:06 |
| danlench | i appreciate everyones comments totally | 16:07 |
| wpwrak | danlench: you have a nanonote ? | 16:13 |
| danlench | no i do not, but i may after our conversations ;) | 16:21 |
| wpwrak | whee ! :) | 16:22 |
| danlench | where is the order form | 16:22 |
| danlench | or do you want to sell me yours | 16:22 |
| wpwrak | for the US, right from the source should be best: https://sharism.cc/ | 16:23 |
| wpwrak | naw, i keep mine :) | 16:23 |
| danlench | but if its autographed... | 16:24 |
| paul_boddie | I got mine from Pulster but that's because it was in the EU and thus less complicated. | 16:25 |
| wpwrak | that would be a large detour ;-) | 16:25 |
| danlench | does it have wifi | 16:25 |
| wpwrak | (autographing) | 16:25 |
| wpwrak | nope, no wireless. there's a IEEE 802.15.4 module you can get separately, though. | 16:25 |
| paul_boddie | No, there are various strategies for using WiFi with it, but it isn't built in. | 16:26 |
| wpwrak | http://downloads.qi-hardware.com/people/werner/wpan/web/ | 16:26 |
| danlench | i have a meeting in 30 min that i have to prepare for, i'll be back ;) | 16:26 |
| wpwrak | and yes, there's also a hard to find uSD wifi module. not sure if there are any other portable wifi solutions for the ben. | 16:26 |
| paul_boddie | By the way, wpwrak, on that microSD Sniffer product page there was someone wanting to use that board to break out to a normal SD card socket which they then intended to use with an Eye-Fi card. | 16:27 |
| wpwrak | hmm, at some point those appendages will become a mechanical problem ... | 16:29 |
| paul_boddie | I'm not advocating EyeFi usage - I'm not sure how easy it is to make it a general WiFi solution or that it costs much less than that Spectec card once you add on the price of all the bits needed to connect it - but I wonder whether anyone looked into using one as a quick hack before now. | 16:35 |
| whitequark | there isn't even a linux driver for eyefi | 16:47 |
| lekernel | wolfspraul, you may find this interesting: http://www.altera.com/literature/wp/wp-01139-timing-model.pdf | 17:07 |
| crunch | hey | 20:39 |
| kristianpaul | hi | 21:50 |
| --- Thu Feb 7 2013 | 00:00 | |
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