Spacerframe - Impressions of Neo900
 

On the way to the inevitable "spacerframe" for our neo900, I sketched some impressions of how the neo900 might look. I also sketched a cross section of neo900 vs n900 to show why a spacerframe is needed.

http://www.rommel.stw.uni-erlangen.d...900_1_2_an.png
http://www.rommel.stw.uni-erlangen.d...900_2_2_an.png

And a sketch of a corss section.
http://www.rommel.stw.uni-erlangen.d...erschnitt2.png
(The text describing the parts is in German, sorry.)
Edit: Note: The actuall added height will be 2.8mm. Especially in the sketch it looks alot thicker for explaining purposes.

I'd like to stress these are only sketches/impressions. Nothing is to scale and my drawing skills might not be appropiate ;-)

Re: Spacerframe - Impressions of Neo900
 

Based solely off the rough sketch, I see that the phone might be pretty thick.

How thick is the spacer gonna be?

Re: Spacerframe - Impressions of Neo900
 

see http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php...75#post1379875

/j

Re: Spacerframe - Impressions of Neo900
 

Thank you, thank you!

That's actually not bad at all. The spacer's much smaller than depicted from the rough sketch.

Re: Spacerframe - Impressions of Neo900
 

I think the sketch is not to scale resp has quite some emphasis on perspective shortening. Actually the N900 is 19mm high and 60mm wide, iow width is >3 times the height. In the sketch it more looks like its width was only twice the hight, so it looks bulkier than it is.
The spacerframe will increase thickness by ~14%, from 19mm to 21.8mm

The sketches are anyway great to explain what is this spacerframe thing. Thanks a lot for posting them here, jake42! Nice and useful work :) Let me add another link to some less beautiful drawing I did: http://neo900.org/stuff/joerg/spacerframe/sketch.pdf. and here are very fine scans Werner did: http://neo900.org/stuff/werner/scans/

/j

Re: Spacerframe - Impressions of Neo900
 

I'm aware. The OP made that quite clear. I just wasn't aware of how thick the spacer actually was until you cleared that up.

That's not too bad. Sure, some might complain about even +1 mm of added thickness, but those people typically aren't looking for smartphones like these anyway.

Re: Spacerframe - Impressions of Neo900
 

Not what I was expecting!

Re: Spacerframe - Impressions of Neo900
 

Next time we wll succeed to ask our crystal ball to meet your expectations. Sorry we failed this time

Re: Spacerframe - Impressions of Neo900
 

Specerframe is not bad. It should be get to good use. Can there be somekind of hole for attachment for this: https://developer.sony.com/devices/c...mera-dsc-qx10/
:)

Or port for developerport serial. Or just pocket for microSD-cards. Or pocket for little notepaper. Or ...

Re: Spacerframe - Impressions of Neo900
 

I am afraid it will be too late now for this kind of design decisions, but adding multiple external µSD slots that can be accessed without opening the back cover would be extremely useful. Connection to the PCB would be ideal if there is room on it, of course, but even just slots with no electronic connection would be nice, so that we can use this empty volume to carry multiple extra µSD cards in our Neo900 and connect these new "hard drives" depending on our needs. The cards could even be used for extra OSes.

But again, connected slots would be best, and I am aware that both ideas are probably not feasible anymore now.

Re: Spacerframe - Impressions of Neo900
 

Guys, guys, hold your horses, please. Don't you think that if there were room in the spacer for all those things, there would be no need for the spacer in the first place? Or was that the point? Am I being obtuse?

Re: Spacerframe - Impressions of Neo900
 

Neo900 won't have an "external" uSD slot, you need to remove the battery lid to access it. Neither any unused free volume inside device nor an unused SD interface exist in Neo900 design.

So here's my suggestion:http://maemo.cloud-7.de/share-service/20160621_002.jpg

[edit] for the mentioned Sony camera: it says it comes with phone attachment

Re: Spacerframe - Impressions of Neo900
 

I believed there was actually a lot of space in there, but apparently I understood something wrong back in the days when the idea of the spacer came up. I thought the spacer was needed only because one component (modem? Don't remember) could not fit on the PCB within N900 thickness, but that the extra thickness provided by the spacerframe was not used over the whole area.

Sorry for the misunderstanding. I jumped in after the post I quoted in my previous message. :o

[Edit] Joerg_rw, don't know if that will be possible on the Neo900, but on my N900 I can manage to store an extra µSD on top of the currently used µSD, just by shifting it a little so the bump does not stack. No noticeable extra pressure on the back cover.

Re: Spacerframe - Impressions of Neo900
 

No, I am sorry. I may have gotten it wrong. Can you clarify, joerg_rw?

Re: Spacerframe - Impressions of Neo900
 

I think you were perfectly right :-) despite the "original rationale for needing the spacerframe" is also correct, it been intorduced by modem module height, but meanwhile we crammed in so much that we used up pretty much all of the additional space

Re: Spacerframe - Impressions of Neo900
 

Can the DIY hacking port be used for these external SD cards and other ideas? How many GPIOs and UARTs are in that?

Re: Spacerframe - Impressions of Neo900
 

May I draw your attention to the Hackerbus white paper ?
http://neo900.org/stuff/papers/hb.pdf

There are enough GPIOs for 1 bit operation, or if you use some of the UART signals as GPIOs, then there are enough signals for regular 4 bit operation.

The regulated supply voltage available on Hackerbus will probably be 2.7 V, which is just at the lower end of the standard SD card voltage range.

Finding a nice place for the card holder would be more of a challenge. I guess there should be sufficient room if you remove the camera. Else, some creativity may be needed :-) When looking for such a place, the scans and photos here may help:
https://neo900.org/stuff/werner/scans/

- Werner