Pi2 Design Idiot-Proof Ready-To-Go RPi/AES Streamer

Discussion in 'Digital: DACs, USB converters, decrapifiers' started by Michael Kelly, Jan 16, 2021.

  1. Michael Kelly

    Michael Kelly MOT: Pi 2 Design

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    224 wide, 174mm deep and 42mm high.
     
  2. rlow

    rlow A happy woofer

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    42mm high? Is that correct? Thats 1.65 inches, which is only slightly taller than a Schiit Modius, and almost as wide (8.8 inches), but the proportions in the images you posted don’t seem to align with that...or maybe the width is off?

    Edit: maybe the width and depth are reversed?
     
  3. rhythmdevils

    rhythmdevils MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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    Looks f'ing awesome. Nice one.

    either black only or two options: all black or all silver aluminum.
     
  4. Michael Kelly

    Michael Kelly MOT: Pi 2 Design

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    sorry the dimensions I gave you were for the second version which will have an analog DAC with headphone amp. The first one is 124 mm wide. Some days I'm amazed I can walk!
     
  5. Michael Kelly

    Michael Kelly MOT: Pi 2 Design

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    The cases we will buy are black with a silver front. But, we're likely going to have to strip them and re-anodize after we cut them. Not sure yet. If they look good after being cut without being re-anodized then we will offer just silver. If I have to anodize them anyways then I'll have some options and certainly black will be one of them.

    In case some of you haven't noticed, pi 2 design is kind of a fly by the seat of our pants operation. It is mostly me with some help from my son and a prior employee from another company I used to run that helps me out part-time. But even he is no longer going to be available after April. I will be hiring a part-time assembly person and I've started outsourcing a lot of the electronics now that they're pretty stable.

    The bottom line is I have to be very careful of committing to things that cost more labor than I expected. I am pretty confident that you folks would rather see the product in one color then have me get overrun with multiple color options.
     
  6. rhythmdevils

    rhythmdevils MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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    DEFINITELY. forget what I said. Please do one color only. If possible all the same color but whatever you are capable of. I do not want to see you get overwhelmed with orders you can’t fulfill. That is worst case scenario and I’d rather see this product not even happen than that. The Pi2AES is already a great product. Keeping Pi2 Design alive is priority number one!
     
  7. Yethal

    Yethal Facebook Friend

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    Seems the dimensions are almost the same as Schiit's midsize chassis. Should stack nicely
     
  8. Michael Kelly

    Michael Kelly MOT: Pi 2 Design

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    We have decided to market the CM4AES system as the "Pi 2 Design - Mercury Streamer", thus the red anodized face plate. I will have a preliminary HW reference manual and a web page soon.

    mercury_front_3.PNG

    mercury_back_3.PNG

    More captures are located at:

    https://www.pi2design.com/coming-soon.html

    And to answer the inevitable question, red is the only color we will offer to start. Unless there is a tremendous hue and cry from the masses!
     
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  9. fraggler

    fraggler A Happy & Busy Life

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    As long as the screws are anodized red as well! (I have a bag of them if you want them),
     
  10. Michael Kelly

    Michael Kelly MOT: Pi 2 Design

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    I'm not sure about that. The big issue is that the screws are usually already nickel plated or black through some process that I forget but it isn't anodizing. plus the knobs are available relatively inexpensively in black, but anodizing them would require stripping and re anodizing. too many unknowns at this point until I actually hand some stuff over to an anodizing shop and find out how much everything really costs. it's not a process that lends itself to having a price list that you can easily figure out.
     
  11. fraggler

    fraggler A Happy & Busy Life

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    I only know about this stuff to the extent that I built stuff for myself, so I don't know what would apply to you. I got my screws in socket head format from here: https://www.fastener-express.com/search.aspx?find=red Looks like it would have to be aluminum to get all the fun colors, so definitely a softer metal than normal and maybe you don't want to deal with that. I think a black knob would still look great with a red front plate. I just like the screws to match.

    That said, I already have a 502DAC on a Pi3 completely naked, so this is just me pretending I would buy a finished product.
     
  12. Metro

    Metro Friend

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  13. rlow

    rlow A happy woofer

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    I think it’s a good idea to give it a name and market it a bit more uniquely.

    Regarding the USB port on the front - did you intend to support external storage with that port? I just realized actually that some people might prefer to attach a USB thumb drive or a portable hard drive, rather than use internal storage. This is not something that I do, but just wondered if this was considered since the encoder seems to be quite tight above it now.
     
  14. earnmyturns

    earnmyturns Smartest friend

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    What's the big black knob front right?
     
  15. Michael Kelly

    Michael Kelly MOT: Pi 2 Design

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    I can guarantee that it would be a mismatch. other than black and maybe silver to some degree, any color anodized by two different people or processes will look different usually quite noticeably. so we would have to anodize everything together and again, I'm not sure about getting the screws in a form that can be anodized since I've never done it.
     
  16. Michael Kelly

    Michael Kelly MOT: Pi 2 Design

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    It's a rotary control. Moode and volumio both support a rotary, not sure about some of the others. Same thing for the OLED display, not every audio player will support it. this is going to be an open source product in that everyone can put whatever software they want on it, so I expect a lot of experimentation to occur. This is not yet to be considered a foolproof button upped product.
     
  17. Michael Kelly

    Michael Kelly MOT: Pi 2 Design

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    That port supports a storage drive.
     
  18. aamefford

    aamefford Nothing like chamberpot coffee

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    Totally a thumbs up just for this!
     
  19. Michael Kelly

    Michael Kelly MOT: Pi 2 Design

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    Yes well, we've all seen what angry villagers with pitchforks and torches can do! This crowd always seems just on the edge of total chaos.
     
  20. aamefford

    aamefford Nothing like chamberpot coffee

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    Yeah, but it was hue and cry when talking about color...
     

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