Hardware ok, membrana testata, ultimi ritocchi a case e confezione.
Ora manca solo la tastiera e ci siamo ... :-D
Carlo
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Da: Kickstarter <no-reply@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Data: 2 settembre 2018 13:33:20 CEST
A: carlo.malantrucco@xxxxxxxx
Oggetto: Project Update #36: ZX Spectrum Next by Henrique Olifiers
Rispondi a: No Reply <no-reply@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Hardware complete!
Posted by Henrique Olifiers (Creator)
Last week we had the chance to spend a day at SMS testing the final 2B board
as it came out of the assembly line, putting it through its paces with the
latest firmware, all upgrades (Realtime clock, Wi-Fi, Accelerator and RAM),
daughterboard and the keyboard matrix, ensuring everything worked as planned
and no last-minute adjustments were required.
We’re happy to confirm the 2B board performs admirably, as planned! It just
works, right out of the assembly, greenlit all the way!
I'm smiling now, but terrified a minute prior to turning it on for the first
time...
Since then, the 2B has been burnt-in tested for 4 days non-stop, with no
issues found. It was also the first opportunity to test it with our own SD
cards, just shipped from China thanks to the help of Djordje Mitic, who has
been battling bad cards and supplier traps for the past three months in the
name of the project. We owe Djordje a huge thanks for his efforts.
I've never seen so many cards
You might think that it would be awesome if the SD cards were printed with
the Next stripe colours. At least that’s what we thought ourselves! But it
turns out that keeping all four stripes aligned through four different
silkscreen passes (one for each colour) was a bit of a challenge for such an
small item, thus white it was. We now say it’s because white it’s more
elegant, but the truth is the partner couldn’t get the colours properly
aligned… ;)
An attempt was made
Keyboard progress
The keyboard matrix has been in stress-test for the past two weeks, ensuring
the materials endure long-term usage without performance degradation. This
week we should have its greenlight and move ahead with production. Still, the
keyboard remains our last hurdle to shipping, our expectation is that we’ll
finally have moving into production in the next few days. This has been
progressing much slower than we anticipated, unfortunately.
The Next, now hardware-complete!
Case updates and tweak
The case has been tampo-printed, which is plastics lingo for ‘we added words
and colours to it’, meaning the Spectrum Next is red and the connectors are
labelled (not that anyone needed the help, right?)
Better to know where you're sticking things into
We got a very weird metallic-red applied to the logo, which was promptly
corrected to a solid red, and the logo needs a bit more raising above the
case (by 1-2mm tops). This has now been adjusted, and along with the rest of
the labels, all is well. Speaking of red, we also got the proper colour for
the stripe and buttons fixed after our snafu of choosing the wrong pantone
(see in previous updates).
A bit... A bit... Too much.
Now we're talking!
But… Phil picked up on something new. After a while (and some testing abuse),
the left corner of the bottom part of the case developed a 3mm angle warping,
coming slightly apart from the top case. We discussed this at length with the
plastics partner, and the obvious solution was the addition of an extra
screw.
I don't like the look of that warp factor, captain
Phil didn’t like the idea of an extra screw much, though -- so came up with a
set of reinforcements that made the case sturdier all around, across all
corners. These have been tested by Phil, and now added to the mould.
Let's make it sturdy...
And ensure it all fits...
So the warp is gone!
The little details…
Last week we received from SMS a small additional set of instructions for the
PSU box. The thing is, the Next box is black -- but the PSUs were shipped in
white boxes. Mike Cadwallader thought this unacceptable, thus we made
thousands of new PSU boxes that are now waiting for the assembly and
packaging to start. Yep, we’ll take them out of the white ones, put them into
the black, and only then pack them into the Next box in all its glorious…
Black. Thanks to Mike and Anita for such love for the little details that
matter.
That's how you do it in Nextown.
Up and onwards
Now it’s all focus on the keyboard. Fingers crossed the next update will
finally feature it in all its glory! Stay tuned...
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