Schematics
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As mentioned in another thread where you repeatedly asked the same thing:
We're working on high priority features revolving around the cloud and app store. Please have patience, we will be open sourcing the designs when we have the time.
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@Lazar-Demin as said elsewhere, I do understand that opensourcing the complete design as promised in the kickstarter campaign does not have top priority, but marketing/cloud does.
Still, I don't entirely buy the given excuses for not just posting the schematics. If you have produced the onion, which you obviously have, there's also an error free schematic drawing already existing, which you could post as-is. No need to "generate" or "have hardware guys check it". It would be a matter of a few minute's work to create a github repo for the onion hardware and push the schematics as a first step - and then update it over the next few months to finally make it a complete hardware documentation.
Why is this so important? Because I'm looking at the Omega as a building block to replace RPis in an existing product of mine, needing a few hundreds, maybe thousands of units p.a.. Why do I need the hardware being OS for that? It's a matter of risk management - what if Onion decides to discontinue the Omega for some reason, maybe 3 or 5 years from now? When the design is completely open, that's a risk I can take - because OS would offer a way out.
The point is that your once prominent (in the Kickstarte campaign) commitment to complete Opensource has a bit faded. I need a clear sign (such as publised schematics!) in order to not becoming afraid that more traditionally oriented forces within Onion try to steer away from open source. Sorry for the lack of confidence, but I've seen that happen too many times to "just believe and wait"...
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@Lukas-Zeller you make valid points and I understand your concerns, I just want to reassure you that we are committed to being an open source company.
As such, we've created a GitHub repo to document all of the Onion hardware: https://github.com/OnionIoT/Onion-Hardware
For now, it only contains the schematics for the Expansion Dock, but we will be adding to it in the coming weeks.Our hardware team in China is currently on vacation due to the Lunar New year so the going has been slow lately. Additionally, they all use a variety of tools, some being pretty ancient, so there was work required in generating the schematics.
Thank you for your patience from all of us here at Onion
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@Lazar-Demin thx a lot - looks promising! I'll now patiently wait for the end of chinese lunar new year and hopefully the schematics of the omega itself will be added to the git repo soon...
In the meantime I had a look at the expansion dock schematics - I thoroughly hope the reset button on the actual expansion dock is not wired like that
(if VDD25 is what the name suggest, a power supply, then this wiring would not only keep the omega reset forever, but also short-circuit the power supply)
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https://community.onion.io/topic/379/when-will-onion-open-source/7#
@Lazar-Demin said:
... we will be open sourcing the designs when we have the time....
Thanks,
The Onion Team
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@Lukas-Zeller lol no, it's just a wonky diagram. What's actually happening is that the RESET_BTN net is usually connected to ground, but when the button is depressed, it will be connected to VDD25 (which is 2.5 V).
Also, we've added two more schematics to the repo, hoping to add more later this week, stay tuned, we will deliver!
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@Lazar-Demin thx for the additional schematics (the reset button is much more convincing on the mini dock schematic...).
Still, all three are only little more than pinout descriptions - I'm really waiting for the actual Omega schematic! Or at least for the Ethernet expansion dock, for starters.
@Yejin-Chen I don't believe they want to fool customers on purpose, it's just a way too low prio for them - which I regret.
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Two more schematics are up on the GitHub repo: the Ethernet and Servo Expansions this time.
Thank you everyone for your continued patience, I hope that with the work we've been putting out recently, you guys can see that we're focused and committed to delivering on all of our promises. We are not in the business of fooling our customers.
Happy hacking!
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While still waiting for the omega schematics, I was hinted at a project called VoCore. The hardware is similar - MIPS 24k SoC made for routers, same amount of RAM and flash, radio, ethernet etc.
And they HAVE published full schematics and layout (as PDF and Mentor Graphics PADS files)!
To be fair, in many other aspects the VoCore project does not come even near the Omega's level, for example the software (just has a thin wiki with a few hints how to build stock OpenWRT), the shop, extensions etc. Onion is certainly providing much more.
But still - for those who want to get at least an idea of the circuitry needed around such a router SoC, http://vocore.io/wiki/index/id:11 might be worth a visit.
And for @onion - I still don't really understand why this is taking so long. You do have the CAD/CAM files - so what's so awfully time consuming? Just print the schematics to PDF from your CAD, and throw them into the HW git repo. I simply can't imagine circumstances that would make this more than a 5 min task - other than reluctance to publish at all.
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After trying to get more information about the AR9331 (the Qualcomm Atheros SoC), I now can imagine at least one reason for not pusblishing the Omega schematics.
It seems that there is no official datasheet and no official pinout available for the AR9331
There are only reverse-engineered pinouts and a probably leaked preliminary datasheet from 2010 on the net.So I suspect the reluctance to publish the hardware could be coming from the legal department. Maybe Onion had to enter a NDA for the AR9331 documentation, and the pinout (which would necessarily be revealed with the schematics) falls under that NDA.
@Lazar-Demin I truly hope I'm not right with this!
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@Lukas-Zeller said:
And for @onion - I still don't really understand why this is taking so long. You do have the CAD/CAM files - so what's so awfully time consuming? Just print the schematics to PDF from your CAD, and throw them into the HW git repo.
@Lukas-Zeller , when you already now everything better, why the heck you do not start your own IoT project ala "swiss made" and make it better? It is really cheep to sit on a others neck and even accuse them to fooling the customers.
And about the agreement you mentioned in your next request, i think it is also not the right way to find it out this way, posting in the forum your doubt. You better enter in contact with the onioners direct and ask them what they need, resp. how you could help them to resolve the question to publish the "Schematics" as you believe it should be!
This way you just make "bad mood", instead to help to bring the project ahead.
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@Luciano-S I am sorry you took offense. I don't really understand why, though.
The Onion Omega is a fantastic project as-is, and I am constantly saying that, showing my Omega around and recommending people to buy and use it!
However, it was also announced as an an open hardware project on kickstarter. Of course Kickstarter always bears a risk that promises can't be fulfilled, so I would not blame Onion if going open with the hardware would finally prove too difficult for some reason (I would regret it, very much so).
All I expect is an honest answer. Like a one-liner in this thread saying "look, we underestimated XYZ, and that's why we can't publish the schematics". But it can't be just the time to make that PDF.I definitely do not agree with you that potential IP problems with the AR9331's docs should not be discussed openly. On the contrary, my intention was to raise understanding that there might be external reasons holding the schematics back. I posted it because that information (no published footprint) helps to realize that the situation for Onion might be more difficult than it seemed. IMHO that's the opposite of making "bad mood".
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@Boken-Lin wow, cooooool! Schematics are in the repo! Thank you very much!
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@Lukas-Zeller the latest schematics are still the same as pictured here. Is that a careless mistake by Onion team ? Are these schematics reliable ?
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@Boken-Lin , Could you please also upload the PCB file as the other open source project do ?
