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Project roadmap, alpha boards published (DO NOT ORDER)

A project log for ZeroPhone - a Raspberry Pi smartphone

Pi Zero-based open-source mobile phone (that you can assemble for 50$ in parts)

aryaArya 01/17/2017 at 21:090 Comments

So, I've been learning KiCad as I've been making these boards - literally my first board in KiCad, coming from Eagle CAD. Furthermore, there were component sourcing problems, unknown variables, untested footprints, too many questions and no answers. Thus, the boards published have bugs, mishaps and poor design choices. The boards are for reference only, as well as for those who want to get familiar with the project's design choices, and for at least a little bit decreasing the "bus factor" variables.

Here they are. Here's the TODO on those just so you know how much is to be fixed/improved. DO NOT ORDER these boards if you'll be saying I didn't warn you afterwards. It was necessary to order them because there are people interested in contributing and I hate to delay other people, especially when they want to help with my project.

Roadmap

The current roadmap as I imagine it is:

  1. Check the current version (actually, all that's left to check is the vibromotor circuit)
  2. Fix the front&keypad PCBs and send them to fab
    1. (*In parallel) assemble and send out alpha prototypes to testers/contributors
    2. Make the back PCB and send it to fab
  3. Start developing v1.0 of software to accompany boards that'll arrive
    1. Coordinate the contributors
  4. Once the boards arrive, assemble a prototype for testing
    1. Possibly, wait for some components from eBay/wherever stuff has to be ordered from
  5. Send out boards to people/maker outlets for reviews
    1. Publish board files
    2. While the shipping goes, make assembly instructions and publish them

(* Things in lower-level lists are done more or less in parallel with the high-level task)

That's what I need to get the first revision ready and start building the community of users. Is that enough to start the ball rolling? Of course not, there'll be lots of additions, changes of plans and sudden discoveries - and a lot of reading about similar projects, ways they solved problems, tradeoffs and any tricks that could be handy. Moreover, I'll re-read the roadmap over this week to see if I've missed anything - and update it here.


That's all for today. For this week, I will also do a writeup on a part of this project - for now, on hardware design decisions.

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