Some of you have already noticed that the RUN pin has moved on the latest version of the Pi. We just wanted to let you know that we knew about this change in advance and have catered for it in the final design. The final design will have support for the RUN pin location on Pi B+, 2B, 3B and Pi Zero. The pogo pin to tie in with the RUN pin will be lose in the packaging and you will be able to solder it into place to suit your needs.
Currently still waiting on quotes! But will update you as soon as we have them. Sorry for the delay on this but it is out of our hands right now.
Thanks, Aaron and the Pi Supply team
Solar panels, packaging etc.
about 10 years ago
– Wed, Feb 24, 2016 at 04:01:21 PM
Hi all,
We are unfortunately still waiting for quotes for production on the boards despite being told we would get these last week. However one of our UK manufacturers we are looking at using have said they will be getting a quote over to us today so hopefully that will hold true.
Solar Panels
We have now finalised the solar panel embroidery designs and these are shown below:
Standard "PiJuice Solar" Panel Design
12 Watt Panel Design
22 Watt Solar Panel
40 Watt Solar Panel
We are also working on the packaging and guide design for the solar panels which we should have ready in the next couple of days to show you. The solar panel production has started today which is fantastic and is the first step towards getting pledges shipped!
Packaging
The official PiJuice module packaging is shown below:
PiJuice Final Packaging Design - with compliance logos
As you can see it now has a barcode and compliance logos all on it as well as a neat little design from our graphic designer Louis!
Just a quick update to show you some of the graphic stuff. We should have plenty more updates in the next few weeks as we move closer and closer to the finish line so keep an eye out for these also.
Thanks as always, Aaron and the Pi Supply team
Still waiting on quotes, Raspberry Pi Birthday!
about 10 years ago
– Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 04:44:02 PM
Hi all,
We are still waiting on quotes for the production, and will let you know as soon as we have got these and have decided whether production will be done in the UK or China. We also will let you know as soon as we start production.
We are hoping to have some samples of the latest design available for you to play with and look at, as well as battery samples, solar panel samples and a whole host of other stuff. We will also be selling some Pi Supply wares on the stand.
Hopefully we might see some of you there...let us know in the comments if you are coming!
All the best, Aaron and the Pi Supply team
CE Testing Complete, Solar Panels Arrived, 2300mAh batteries in stock
about 10 years ago
– Tue, Feb 09, 2016 at 10:43:51 PM
Hi all,
Quite a lot of information to share with you this week....so let's get right to it!
CE Testing
On Friday we started the CE/FCC/IC/C tick testing process on the new v2.2.2 design. By the end of the day we had finished all of the tests apart from the ESD test. This was finished early this morning (Tuesday) and we have now successfully passed all of the necessary tests. This was the final piece in the puzzle before manufacture could start so we now just need one tiny board revision (adding the CE/FCC/C tick/IC logos) and then we are ready to go.
Here are some pictures from the testing facility:
Large antenna!
PiJuice set up with display, keyboard, mouse, PSU and two USB keys for "real life" testing!
Semi anechoic chamber roof/walls
Test equipment setup
Another picture of the big antenna
Solar Panels
Solar panels have been one of the major items that everyone has been asking about and we have been working hard to find a high quality and reliable source for these panels. After quite a lot of sourcing and testing we have now decided on a supplier. They are based in China, however the solar panels that they use in their products are made by Sunpower USA and as such are high quality, high efficiency panels meaning they deliver a great output for their size and weight. Normally these come at a high price, but because the final assembly and packaging of them into a finished product is done in China the costs are kept low....which means we can deliver you awesome panels at a great price.
Here are some pictures of the products:
Solar panels open (clockwise from bottom left - 12watt, 40watt, 22watt, 6 watt)
Solar panels closed (clockwise from bottom left - 12watt, 40watt, 22watt, 6 watt)
As mentioned in the image captions, the pictures show the 4 solar panels that we are going to offer. The small one is the 6 watt panel - this is what we will be offering as standard with the "PiJuice Solar" pledge level. We are hoping to get this with a PiJuice logo on it if possible.
The others are 12 watt, 22 watt and a massive 40 watt panel. We are going to get smaller stock levels of these panels and they will be sold in our store as optional extras. We feel that this gives a good coverage of panel sizes. Additionally, you can connect multiples of any panels in parallel in order to up the wattage - a potential use case for this would be putting one panel on each side of your roof so that you can get maximum sunlight coverage even as the sun moves throughout the day.
The solar panels are also capable of charging mobile phones, so you will be able to use them for other things when you are not using them for PiJuice!
2300mAh batteries in stock
As mentioned in the previous updates, we have sourced a 2300mAh drop-in replacement battery for the PiJuice as an optional uprgade. We ordered 100 of these and have now received them into stock. We will get these loaded onto our website around the same time we ship the PiJuices in case you want to purchase one.
Manufacture and timelines etc.
As mentioned above we have now finished all of the required testing and are pretty much ready to start manufacture of the PCBs. We are currently investigating the possibility of manufacturing these in the UK and will aim to do that if it is feasible to do so - we should be hearing back from one of the UK manufacturers we have spoken to tomorrow with a quote and lead times (we have spoken to two manufacturers - the other one will come a bit later). The great thing about going with a UK manufacturer, other than that it is easy for us to go and visit, is that they can send us units pretty much as soon as they come off the production line - which means we can start to ship out before the whole batch is done!
If we can't do the manufacture in the UK, for whatever reason, we also have a great relationship with our Chinese manufacturer that we have used for every project prior to PiJuice. They are unfortunately currently on Chinese New Year holiday, but they will be back on Monday 15th February and at that point we will begin quoting with them as well.
In any case, it is currently looking like we should be able to get production under way by the end of Feb and should be able to start shipping by the middle to end of March. It has been a long time coming, but we are excited to be so close to starting manufacture. These dates are not yet set in stone until we have full quotes and start manufacture but they should be pretty good estimates now.
Thanks, Aaron and the Pi Supply team
Solar panel final samples ordered, 2300mAh batteries ordered, more CE testing delays
about 10 years ago
– Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 11:26:45 PM
Hi all,
Just another quick update as we have some relevant info to share.
Solar panels
A lot of you have been asking about these. We have just placed the order for the final samples of a variety of solar panel sizes ranging from 5v / 7W all the way up to an enormous 40w panel. We are anticipating that the standard solar offering will be the 7W.
As soon as we have them in, we will take some pictures - they are lovely panels though and are wateproof as well. Most of the panels are from Sunpower USA, so are of a very high quality and are very efficient panels. Some of them are high quality Chinese versions, however they still boast a pretty good efficiency and wattage for their size.
The ones we are using also fold away for neat storage and have options for mounting on various surfaces. So hopefully you will be pleased with what we have sourced!
As with the batteries, the large panels will be offered as additional extras and sold via our website.
2300mAh batteries
In the last update we mentioned we had made some headway with these. Well we just ordered 100! We can definitely hit the retail price of £15 for these which is fantastic news.
CE Testing Delays
Unfortunately we have hit another road bump with the CE testing of the v2.2.1 sample. We ordered some boards from our previously-faultless quick turn PCB manufacturer as final "golden" samples for the testing. We assembled these up, and began doing functional and electrical testing to ensure they were assembled correctly and unfortunately we then realised that we have received 6 boards with various different faults mainly in the form of short circuits from the 3.3V line to ground (the silkscreen is misaligned too but this is only a minor issue).
The error is definitely on the manufacturing side as we have spent many hours gazing over the designs to ensure these were not problems we introduced into the design ourselves.
The PCB house are remaking the boards, but unfortunately this has meant that CE testing has had to be pushed back. The CE testing house are being extremely helpful and are going to just try and squeeze us in as soon as we can get the sample to them.
As soon as we have the CE testing samples ready we will confirm a date and let you all know!
