Re: [Pre-Pre-Pre Announce]Black Aluminium replacement body & backcover for N900
 

Quick questions...
So, when will we hear the warning bells: Donate now, pre-orders closing soon? A deadline would be helpful. [off-topic rant; seriously, it's a local-transport bureaucracy-related matter]"Soon" which stretches for a month or more, without any deadline, is nerve-wracking.[/off-topic rant]

2D is good. SVG is good. It will take a lot of time to design it, though. It's not like I should be doing this at my workplace. And it's not like I have any free time at homeplace... So, I should be starting now, already. Better early than late...
Putting all the relevant information into it, without violating any copyrights... That's complicated. And I am happy to hear that the kickstand is planned to be around-the-body (like N800?), so that it does not interrupt the logo-surface of backcover [yes, I am planning on logo that covers the whole back-cover of device. No words whatsoever, 'just picture'].

And it obviously should be in black-and-white. No colour, no grey. Right? Having a sample photograph of engraving-capability would be ... enlightening. Having a standard for logo-image, with ability to 'preview' logo 'overlayed' onto the surfaces would be good.

Off-topic. Sanity is relative... Subjective... Shortly, sanity has no strict mathematical definition or standard physical unit of measurement.

Thank you.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Per aspera ad astra...

Re: [Pre-Pre-Pre Announce]Black Aluminium replacement body & backcover for N900
 

I assume you are just aiming for one-off design anyway, just for yourself?
Then copyrights do not enter the equation, you are allowed to do just anything you like in this case, nobody is preventinf you even to engrave a copy of mona lisa there :D

Re: [Pre-Pre-Pre Announce]Black Aluminium replacement body & backcover for N900
 

+1. While I can imagine that *some* (really rare case) countries may have over-jeaolous custom checks, that could try to make problems even with personal packagings of one-piece unit, if someone decide to put Apple's logo there :p, it is nothing we shouldn't be able to solve.

As for deadline - soorry, no deadline for whole body replacement, as it's completely unpredictable and missing it anyway just annoys people. I can promise a warning at least month before closing pre-order donations, and by that time, BTW, project will have proper annoucement threads (which is going to happen as soon as first variant of backcovers goes off to early supporters, and become available for regular purchase).

/Estel

// Edit

Don't take the N800's leg for granted, too. I will +try+ hard to have it that way, but I can't promise that it will end up beaing feasible. Considering that we're going to have additional port for external antenna + other features added, while still requiring to fit all vanilla N900's ports where they are, and keep sane size of the unit (so it won't, suddenly, become a tablet-sized device with 3,5'' screen ;) )... Many things may require solid rethink during the actual prototype's manufacturing.

Re: [Pre-Pre-Pre Announce]Black Aluminium replacement body & backcover for N900
 

Status update after a little longer, busy period - run into some serious problem during manufacturing batches of backcover parts. Some part of CNC mill got faulty in unusual way - while everything keep sizes, it loses correct angles (so milled rectangular wouldn't be as much rectangular as it should be). While it's not visible easily by naked eye, it makes things don't fit where/as they should (most notable on leg not being able to go into it's place, and clamps not hitting N900 cover, correctly).

Still trying to pinpoint the exact component that is causing "jitter" on angles - which basically mean disassembling CNC's machine mechanical parts, and, as nothing is visually damaged, checking for the faulty one with precise tools. On moment's like this, I miss not having x-ray fault detectors... :(

/Estel

Re: [Pre-Pre-Pre Announce]Black Aluminium replacement body & backcover for N900
 

Just out out curiosity, how much does an XRay fault detector of the kind you'd need to make these, kinds of problems go faster go for nowadays?

Besides that, how's the actual error-hunting going? Find the defective part?, What's the cost of replacement if so?

Re: [Pre-Pre-Pre Announce]Black Aluminium replacement body & backcover for N900
 

Nah, it was a black humor (thanks for asking, nevertheless). You can't even bomb things with industry-grade amount of X-Ray radiation without proper allowances here. Besides, sets for detecting faults fall into 2 categories:
"generic" industry-scale ones, that scan one part at the time (suitable for checking for faults after production, on the "tape", rather - to scan parts of working machine, you would need to disassemble it, anyway) which are costing more than couple of new CNC machines build from scratch.

2. Custom-made ones designed to scan whole machinery without disassembling (some of them, suited for always-running machines, can even scan during worktime), which are obscenely expensive, obviously.

The latter were the ones I was referring to, but as said, it was a black humor joke.


I think I've found it - a part in the mill itself (that I don't even know English word for*) which is part of apparatus responsible for keeping rotating razor of the mill fixed, diagonally, at correct angle. Due to fatigue (and Chinese parts quality, to some extent) it started giving mill an angle bias, reverse-proportional to the direction of movement.

I hope that the above was written understandably enough to not fall (completely, at least) into techno-babble category :p Anyway, I'm waiting for the replacement part from China (was able to order it using my savings funds), and will be 100% sure after mounting it in place. Will also need to check on that part every few months or so.(quite likely, without disassembling - just running the "mill the rectangle" test on something, and measuring resulting angles).

/Estel

*How I purchases replacement without knowing the English name for a part, you might ask? By using the digital age equivalent of ancient "gesture talk" technique - I send a photo of the faulty part to my CNC parts supplier of choice, which, more often than not, is most reliable way of buying less-common replacement things from china ;) Even IF you know the English name of a part, ordering it via name only may - and will, at some point - end up with you getting something totally different than meant to be...

Re: [Pre-Pre-Pre Announce]Black Aluminium replacement body & backcover for N900
 

Estel,

any news on the project? Stuff ready to be shipped and still on track?

X-mas is coming, so I'd be delighted to have a new body 4 my beloved N900 ...

kindest regards

peb
(p.s.. but again: thanks for your diligent work and the project ...)

Re: [Pre-Pre-Pre Announce]Black Aluminium replacement body & backcover for N900
 

Oh, and btw: with the Neo900 around the corner (sort of ...):

Any idea if the internals of the Neo900 and the body-work of you will be compatible

<dreaming on>
so to have up2date Internals AND
up2date + customized enclosure .
<dreaming off>


regards
peb

Re: [Pre-Pre-Pre Announce]Black Aluminium replacement body & backcover for N900
 

It will be compatible, as the Neo900 does not differ that much from N900 in terms of size, except that you will need the spacer for the Neo900 as the motherboard is a bit tall.

EDIT: Unless the body is built completely different than how the N900 is right now. I'm currently assuming that the body does not differ that much from what it is now, except probably a few modifications here and there.

Re: [Pre-Pre-Pre Announce]Black Aluminium replacement body & backcover for N900
 

Great Akkumaru,

at least I made then an investment into the Future!.

So I just/still have to donate to the Neo900, which i'll do latest on the 15th Dec (CashFlow 2 be considered ...it's on the list for next week).

and then I hope to have all components pretty soon ... Q1/2015 would be good, my birthday is then just around the corner :-)

thanks again!
peter