Serg wrote regarding 3D-printed plastic spacers for mounting the LCD in the planned FreeCalypso handset:
> It is 1.5 mm thick, but I'd suggest 0.2 mm margin on to of the connector. I don't quite understand what you are saying. The connector height is 1.30 mm according to the datasheet, I asked for 1.5 mm added height, so we have 0.2 mm of margin indeed. > Maybe 0.8 mm would be better to start with? You mean 2.1 mm spacer height? I would rather not do that if we can avoid it. > I will make 10 over weekend and send them back around Monday. It would really be much safer if you send me just one for test fitting. To put this matter in context, unless someone other me steps in with funding on the order of 10 to 20 kUSD, it will be at least another 3 y before I will be ready to attempt building the first iteration of the actual handset motherboard (the part where the LCD mounting will be needed), thus outside of test-fitting to make sure we got it right (for which a single piece should suffice), the spacers won't be needed for another few years - again, unless someone else steps in with significant funding for the project. Let me explain it another way. As most people on this list know, I am a transsexual woman - born with a condition in which a female brain is mismatched with an otherwise male body. Those sections of society who are more progressive and enlightened have come into an agreement with the wishes of us trans women ourselves in that the most proper treatment for this condition is to change the body to fit the person's innate gender identity. The problem is that the treatments which are needed to effect this change are *hellishly* expensive. Some things like hormones are super-cheap, but the two very expensive parts are ongoing electrolysis treatments for permanent removal of facial hair ($300 to $500 per session depending on how much gets done and whether or not local anaesthetic injections are needed, and I really need to go in for a treatment every week to make some real progress - so do the math) and then the "finishing touch" surgery to make the person 100% female, if you catch what I mean - that one costs about 10 kUSD for the surgery itself if done in Thailand (I wouldn't want to get it done anywhere else, as Thai surgeons are the best and this kind of surgery absolutely needs to be done right the first time), but adding the costs of travel, staying in Thailand for a month, and being prepared to take up to 2 months off from my day job (major surgery, need to allow for recovery), it works out to somewhere in the 20 to 25 kUSD range in total for that "finishing touch". Up until now I've been funding FreeCalypso almost entirely on my own. During the last crowdfunding campaign for FCDEV3B production we got a total of about $6700 from various sources (thank you to everyone who donated!), but it is still quite a bit less than what I have invested on my own. As of last October, my total FreeCalypso personal funds investment stood at a little over 12 kUSD, and now it stands closer to 15 kUSD after having made one more batch of defective (thus not sellable) FCDEV3B boards and getting the CMU200 RF test instrument calibrated at R&S Maryland. It also needs to be noted that the reason why I had to do the crowdfunding campaign for the FCDEV3B in 2016-2017 as opposed to just covering it all entirely on my own was because my personal funds were committed at that time toward paying for my life partner's breast reconstruction surgery, which she finally got done last December and which ended up costing 20 kUSD. But after all these years of juggling between single-handedly funding FreeCalypso hardware projects vs. my personal and family needs, I feel very burnt out. I have been living full-time as a woman for 3 y now, way more than enough to be eligible for sex correction surgery per WPATH rules (they only require 1 y), but I am not even one iota closer to being able to afford it, as I've been putting everything else and paying for everyone else first. But now I have reached the point where I need to take care of myself. The older I get, the higher the risks involved in major surgery, so I really need to stop putting it off and get it done. Yet I am not willing to completely drop and give up on FreeCalypso either. So what I have decided I am going to do is I'm going to take a break from single-handedly funding FC hardware projects until I get my surgery done. More specifically: * My current highest priority for personal funds allocation is going to be toward my facial electrolysis treatments; anything that remains after those (not much) will be put into a stash for the big surgery. * That process will continue until I have enough saved for the surgery, however long it will take. It will mostly depend on how well my electrolysis goes, i.e., how long it will be before I reach the point of not needing such intensive and expensive treatments any more. Right now I spend so much on electrolysis that there is hardly anything left to save toward the surgery. * After I am done with both facial electrolysis and bottom surgery, I will once again resume personally funding FC hardware projects, if no one steps in to fund them before then, and if there are any GSM services still left anywhere in the world by that time. It should be clear from the above picture is that the only sensible way for this community to see some progress on the FreeCalypso hardware front while there are still GSM services left to enjoy is for someone else to step in with some funding - otherwise it will probably be many years before I can resume funding the project on my own. How much funding are we talking about? To go from where we are now to the point of having the first FreeCalypso handset prototype (if we choose to go this route; there are other possible hw directions), I estimate the total cost to be somewhere in the 10 to 20 kUSD range, with the former figure being highly optimistic and the latter more realistic. However, unlike surgeries, FC hardware work does NOT require a ginormous amount of money all at once, instead the cost is spread out into significantly smaller chunks which can be done one step at a time. Right now the highest priority (in my opinion) should be getting FCDEV3B V2 boards made in order to fix the problem of bogus flash reset control. Driving the flash reset line with Calypso's FDP output as directed by TI's Leonardo schematics is not correct for the high-capacity Spansion flash chip we are using (copied from Pirelli's phone where it is used successfully); the most visible manifestation of this hw design flaw on our current boards is that sleep modes cause hangs or self-reboots and need to be disabled, but the real truth is that it is really a lucky accident that our current boards boot at all: while I don't have definite proof, it is highly likely that the flash chip's reset timing requirements are violated during boot on our current hw, and we just got lucky that the flash chip manages to return the correct bits on those reads after improper reset despite being out of spec. I already have a set of new Altium and Gerber files for FCDEV3B V2, produced by John Childers in Colorado, the same gentleman who did the original FCDEV3B PCB layout fixes after the Iranians left us with an unfinished design in early 2016. I paid him $600 for these V2 changes, on the top of the $3400 or so I paid him in the first round - my own money both times. Now we need to get a new set of boards made from these updated design files, and that venture would need about $4000: * Somewhere around $2600 to get the new PCBs made - these relatively small boards are made in 4-up panels (114x206 mm panel dimensions), and I would be ordering 5 of these panels - it makes no sense to order less, as the per-unit cost goes up sharply for very small quantities, making it about the same in total. * Just under $800 for the assembly run at Technotronix. With the boards being panelized, an assembly run cannot be smaller than one panel (4 boards), but in practice doing just one panel is a pita for Technotronix and the per-unit cost goes up once again, so it makes more sense to do two panels, producing 8 boards. Another important advantage of doing two panels rather than just one is that if there are yield problems, there is a greater chance that at least *some* boards will be good. The last time we did a run of just one panel, all 4 boards came out defective - something wrong in the RF Tx tract. * Somewhere around $600 to get more parts - a restock is needed before we can make another assembly run, with either old or new PCBs. We need to get these FCDEV3B V2 boards made as a stepping stone before we can proceed to the handset motherboard. The handset MB will also need to use the same high-capacity flash chip we are currently using, and my proposed approach of having its reset line simply pulled up and not driven by anything needs to be proven on FCDEV3B V2 first. Also if anyone is interested in a FreeCalypso modem module packaged in some form factor that would make it usable as a component in larger designs such as smartphones, that modem would also need *some* flash and RAM, and I feel that it would be much safer to go with our known-good S71PL129NC0HFW4B after getting it working correctly on FCDEV3B V2 than to strike out blindly with some other flash+RAM or separate flash and RAM chips. So we need someone to donate $4000 USD to produce these FCDEV3B V2 boards and check off that intermediate stepping stone as complete. I am afraid that I might not be able to cover this cost on my own for *years* because of my medical/gender needs which have been put off for too long because of FreeCalypso - so is there anyone else willing to pitch in? As far as current board inventory goes, I have only 3 boards which are fully working (aside from sleep modes) and therefore sellable. Given the project's acute need for funding, there is no way I can sell them for anything less than the list price of $500 per board, but I can promise this - if anyone does buy one of these boards or all 3 of them, that money will be reinvested back into FreeCalypso, and will NOT go toward any of my personal expenses. If someone buys all 3 boards at their list price, I will use that money to make one final batch from the initial PCB fab run - I still have 2 panels left, translating to 8 boards barring yield issues - and if those boards also sell subsequently, there will be enough money reinvested back into the project to make FCDEV3B V2 PCBs and the first assembly run from those PCBs. Finally, I need to address the elephant in the room. It is no secret that our family of projects has an extremely difficult time attracting the funding it needs because most of the world perceives our work as being 100% illegal, in terms of both copyright and radio regulations. Please note my emphasis on our project being *perceived* as illegal: I refuse to comment on whether it actually is or not, because not only am I not a lawyer, but much more importantly, I have no desire to ever become or act in any way like one. Giving any care at all as to whether a practically safe activity that harms none is legal or illegal is a form of "acting like a lawyer" which I expressly refuse to do. More practically, however, a number of people have been telling me over the years that I need to invest some genuine effort into talking to TI and trying to convince them to release the code base we are using under some kind of legitimate license. To all those people, I make the following offer: I would be willing to engage in such dialogue with TI *after* I get my sex correction surgery done, but not before. What's the connection, you may ask? Quite simple: I need to consider my safety in the event if the talks go badly. Being a woman in a men's prison is just about the worst fate that can possibly befall a person - just ask Chelsea Manning, Michelle Norsworthy, Ashley Diamond or Cece McDonald if you don't believe me. But if I am anatomically female, it will be a lot more difficult for them to stick me into a men's institution, which is why I would be willing to risk talking to TI once I am post-op. Therefore, if anyone has a burning desire to see FreeCalypso become legal free software, you are welcome to cover the cost of my surgery (25 kUSD budget to be safe), and I would reciprocate by initiating a dialogue with TI as soon as I am recovered from the operation. Hasta la Victoria, Siempre, Mychaela aka The Mother _______________________________________________ Community mailing list Community@freecalypso.org https://www.freecalypso.org/mailman/listinfo/community
