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Project state - assembling ZeroPhones!

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 05/28/2017 at 17:202 Comments

So, I got the Gamma boards, panelized, 22 front&keypad board panels and 24 back&18650 board panels, all from DirtyPCBs:

I also got lots of passives and actives, headphone jacks, all that, it seems I have all the parts necessary for ZeroPhone assembly. BTW, if you want to learn to panelize the boards like this, I got a tutorial for you =)


I also took over a separate room in our hackerspace:

This room has the Pick&Place machine, which is the main reason I'm now working there - I'm trying to make this Pick&Place assemble the boards I want it to assemble. So far, my efforts have been extensive but not very successful - I have both software and hardware problems, and I might as well miss the "ship ZeroPhones to USA this Thursday" deadline if I don't solve them tomorrow =(


For where the normal pick&place won't be able to help, I got some help from my wife:

So far, she's assembled this beautiful stack of keypad boards:

But, unfortunately, we still won't be able to assemble everything without a Pick&Place. Oh well, will be continuing my Pick&Place journey tomorrow. Anybody has some LitePlacer setup experience?

There are a lot of things to be moved to Wiki, they deserve their own separate worklog and I will be writing that the next week. The most important thing - I'll be making a rolling "project state" page on ZeroPhone Wiki, as well as post the project schedule and project plans there.


Of course, there are problems at this stage:

So, next week (starting tomorrow), I'll be solving these problems, while setting up a PnP, assembling ZeroPhones and working with contributions - sounds like lots of fun! =D


This is what a tape of 100 SOT-23 FETs looks like - a 32x28cm flat foil envelope with the cut tape rolling inside among some small silicagel bags. Generous! =) Cheers to TME!

Discussions

Yann Guidon / YGDES wrote 05/31/2017 at 21:10 point

Hey that's a phone I would actually use : because I can build, repair and even modify it, without all the hassles of 'droid and its ilk...

And since it's bulky, no thief would bother wanting it :-)

Keep working ! I'd buy a few DIY kits one day :-D

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Youlian Troyanov wrote 05/31/2017 at 15:05 point

your wife rules :) the coolest thing i saw today.

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