Notices by minute (mntmn@mastodon.social)

@gkrnours has vesa mount!

(opinions welcome!)

@qwazix could be another option but has bad heatsinking properties, so would require some other heatsink. with the current solution, this large alu plate is a cheap and effective way for cooling

classic reform motherboard 3.0 is around 140 eur BOM (at 100x batch) with all its expensive components. rcore (rk3588 module) is also quite costly at low qty. complete computer BOM would be around 450 EUR for 16GB and 550 EUR for 32GB (remember this is all without labor and package). sale price would end up ~ 710 EUR for 16GB and 870 EUR for 32 GB machine incl vat.

so we can probably get the main case 3d printed from recycled PETG in slovakia (so EU) for around 27 euro per piece at a low batch size of 50, and the aluminum plate would be like 3 euro. with port pcbs and thermal pad we would arrive at maybe 45 eur bom, so with 30% margin and 20% vat we could arrive at something between 70-80 eur sale price (depending on labor and how much else is in the kit, i guess we put in the thread inserts and rest is DIY)

now i need to understand how much material quality/polish people want in the case parts vs how much they're willing to spend. i would love also a full aluminum case with nice anodizing but it'll be spendy. the current approach is to have an economical version with 3d printed main case (need to get quotes for various materials now) and lasercut 2.5d alu top plate with countersinking is pretty affordable now.

state of the mnt desktop reform prototype. it's a box with some electronics integrated into the side panels that turn the laptop motherboard into a standalone computer with upgradeable cpu/ram modules. need to order all the components to have blinkenlights and button etc now, and decide on final material options.

@kaia i wish :D soon we might need to move to a different pcba house even for complex designs with consigned/turnkey part mix

it's me, i'm PCBs

btw my hunch about what's slow here once i drag the points of that cube is actually the text that's overlaid on top once i do that, not the 3d model itself

patch: https://source.mnt.re/-/snippets/14

some notes:
—geometry shaders are afaik not used anymore, at least there was a big effort to replace them in UI
—not sure if multiDrawIndirect is still used (reference: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/commit/84cbf33b38b02f424dcf8b47be82e25626d0f4c7)
—multiViewPort: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/commit/983ff8e616b1abbe2efec98297384f71b8a16b4f
—gl_ClipDistance is used in a few shaders
—dual src blending mostly in eevee, otherwise rare: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/search?q=FRAGMENT_OUT_DUAL&fuzzy=false

cc @kusma

blender 4.5 (git) somewhat working on panvk (mesa git) on mnt pocket reform with rk3588 with some light patching

this port cover/front panel is actually a tiny 8-bit computer as well. it has a 20MHz attiny1616 chip with 2kB of ram and 16kB of program flash memory. it can talk to the main system controller on a MNT Reform series board and tell it to turn on/off and query power stats.

@aud oh right! US robotics or something

the first version of the other port cover for MNT Desktop Reform is done—this one has the actual power button and 10 LEDs for fun (or displaying cpu/network load etc). i also need to make a variant with one smaller cutout for the USB-C powered version of Reform.

i'm a bit confused now

one of my fav german words: Loseblattsammlung

@gfxstrand mesa is super awesome, thank you for your work on it! one of my fav hobbies is to catch up on panfrost/panvk and etnaviv MRs :D

reform-tools 1.69 looking for testers (mnt reform/pocket reform) https://community.mnt.re/t/request-for-help-reform-tools-1-69-release/3154

@theawesomerandomness correction: it's of course not a "full copper plate", but a full copper layer/foil on FR-4