SMT Production Manager here. Going with 12 boards per panel on that size is crazy. The co-planarity of the panels will be very important . In some special boards we check it with granite table for example. It can cause a lot of headache especially in high count BGA. Also europlacer machines doesn't have very high CPH so they will probably be the bottleneck, not the paste machine. A golden size is around A4. Also there is definitely an issue with solder paste at 9:22. Having paste over soldermask can cause stray solder balls after oven. They can probably tell if so much paste is required for that component and if it does what alternatives you have, like variable thickness stencil. Ps. they look very clean and tidy, nice!
Thank you for the fantastic tour of the factory. I remember when my father was developing all these processes at home and I was learning about it and helping with looking after the UV lighting of the Positive-20 photo sensitive coating covered PCBs and the acid batch afterwards, etc, when I was only 6 years old :)
While I didn't agree with all of your design decisions, this has all the hallmarks of a well engineered piece of equipment. I can't wait to see the final outcome, great work.
Same, x86 would be more flexible for the software... but as you pointed out in a previous video.. this approach is better for performance! Talking of software... what's going on for that side of things?
@@bensanders6017 That was one of the things I was getting at. My biggest grievance was the vanity aluminum case that costs half the BOM, among other things. No ones gonna buy this if it's a Swiss toothpick.
Actual question: Is a 0 Ohm resistor not just a jumper? Also can it be used as some kind of "fuse" if you orient yourself by the maximum power rating of the resistors?
No silkscreen tho - every time you grab a board you have to open full documentation and guess where thing are. Also silkscreen on large BGA is crucial for manual reballing if needed (alignment)
@@2smn2i googled it, Since this is a 10gb router Data integrity is of utmost importance 0 ohm resistors give off less high frequency interference compared to jumpers Yes surface mount jumpers exist but the upgrade to 0 ohm resistors arent that expensive And yes, in the event of an over current, they break
@@xenories You're right but, manual placing and alignment of silk is a nightmare. Why do it for a non-final board? Why re-do it for every change you fabricate? Having made some ridiculously simple boards by comparison, I can say, I don't bother until it's -rc1 at least.
To be honest, we did place a lot of 0 ohms in the board, but for the power supplies we removed the 1 and 5 mOhm current sense resistors. But same difference 😄
Don't get me wrong, I am certainly enjoying following the progress of this project, but it is a little like checking in to the kitchen to follow the progress of dinner prep-it also serves to whet one's appetite for what is being cooked. Every time I watch one of your updates, I just feel more impatient to get my hands on one of these routers!
@@tomazzaman since you're here, may I ask if you have seen my questions in the comments of the previous video? Are you able to address them in a future video? Thank you!
This journey is so fascinating to follow! The jobs that are needed to produce such boards are really interesting. Kinda inspiring to maybe rethink my career plan lol
Bravo Tomaž and entire crew working on this project! Excellent progress. I had no idea there were so many options when it comes to Pick and Place! Wow! Variations of Solder, for example. Again, WOW! Excellent progress! 👍
Tomaž waving the prototype board around gave me real anxiety, lol! Thanks for sharing this awesome deep dive into the process of building the PCB, which is coming along great! Looking forward to seeing even more progress!
I finally dumped my ISP router for OPNsense a few months ago. If videos of this thing keep popping up on my feed like they have been I'm probably going to end up buying one.
Gratz.Another great product you´ve designed. You might think of a competition for 3D stl files for cases (for a product) as a challenge. And provide them as support.
Love how as you explain how you don't want to destroy the board as you wave it around and pass it between your hands constantly. There were a few times where if that thing just slipped a little bit it would've been a shuriken.
One thing bothers me: you mentioned 300K EUR spent on prototypes, and probably that does not include wages etc. You must either assume a huge volume of final products to be sold, or have really impressive profit ratio! Nevertheless, I'm keeping my fingers crossed - the more good products we have on the market, the better! And good thing to see a real European company to create a complete product from the scratch, rather than branding a Chinese OEM ❤ Good luck! 💪😎
I want to share an issue I’ve experienced that may be relevant to this project. I’ve seen failures in the 16GB eMMC flash storage module of Netgate SG-6100 routers. This is a known issue acknowledged by Netgate, affecting units less than a year old. The failures may have been caused by excessive heat or defective NAND flash chips. To bypass the issue, I installed an M.2 SSD with pfSense, which resolved the problem. Given that eMMC is commonly used in embedded devices, I’m concerned about its long-term reliability in this project. In my view, it could be a potential weak point affecting the Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) of the router. Would love to hear others' experiences with eMMC longevity in similar setups.
I caught myself on an interesting marketing/psychological effect of your videos: I feel like watching them makes me thing I create this product along with you, so it makes me more loyal and more prone to spend whatever money on it. I guess as a marketing/product manager, I’ll equip myself with this technique 🤓
I'm hoping that someone comes out with a desktop 25 gig switch. Kiinda like the MikroTik CSS610-8G-2S+IN but with SFP28 instead of SFP+. Heck, dual QSFP28 would be nice too because then it could be 8x 25gig (or 2x 100gig naturally) and 8x 1000baseT
Hello Tomaz. I've watched a few of your videos on UA-cam regarding your developments of the new router, and in the penultimate video, you asked for suggestions for a name for the new router. My suggestion is to name it "Argus" which in Greek mythology was a many eyed god, in other words, all seeing. This would allow you to also name a light version "Argus Light" What do you think? You could also use an image of one of the Argus butterflies for a logo, also named after the same Greek mythical god because of the pattern on their wings, looking like many eyes.
Great job explaining the SMT process. You should more to your description about SMT so people can find this video. It would be a great resource for engineers wanting to learn about the SMT process.
The video doesn’t answer the question in the title frustrating. Why is this router is better? Great video on circuit board prototyping and production. So why not “How to produce a great router.” If you want to grow a channel, ie get new people watching, you cannot assume the viewer knows any past video. All I learned is that this channel uses misleading titles, so I am more likely to ignore any future video suggested from this channel in my feed. I really did want to know the specs and capabilities of this. ie why is it better than my banana pi 10g router? That why the title hooked me, and the video failed to deliver.
BTW, does it have to be so small? Wouldn't it be cheaper to iterate on or even for mass production, if it would be bigger, more modular, use less PCB layers, cool easier on its own? I for one for example wouldn't expect to haul around such a router, so i wouldn't really care about its size, but I would prefer, if it would be much cheaper, than the alternatives.
There are 12 layers , for High Speed design it’s a necessary, considering 800 pins of CPU. Otherwise it will be impossible to route all signals and power lines.
Excellent explanation at the end why we take the time to do things right. If all is well, it shouldn't matter. But if there's a problem, things can get bad quickly and you can lose your ability to collect useful failure data. We were once evaluating a failed solder joint on a plastic encapsulated device during the design verification test phase. The board was already fried, and we decided to do destructive analysis. But the new guy jumped the gun and removed that portion of the board with a Dremel cutting wheel. He vibrated the entire board and PED so badly, that when it went to the SEM, we couldn't tell if the solder joints cracked because of bad staking, or because of how it was cut. Lots of good info was lost on an expensive component ($75k+ per board) because he didn't ask, or didn't want to wait for the correct type of saw in a different lab down the hall... Oh, and generally we would call it re-work when getting a technician to fix or 'not fix' something on a PCB.
the hw is immaterial at least in this day and age - just build a computer and you can easily build a router that is bigger/better/cheaper plus have room to expand down the line, I think you need to open source it in order to get some sort of dev community - the sw is where it is at not so much the hw
i would disagree most people buy because of hardware and software not just one of the 2, look at apple. yes i can build a router and i did but its not THE router as the main router is still cots one for simple reason reliability
Follow up here, I've been looking, but what chips are you using for SFP and Ethernet? I am assuming at your price point we're still looking at a lot of consumer chips. x550 or similar might still be expensive if not outdated at this point?
The important part- can the router be flashed to be a WiFi Pineapple clone? How many wifi chips does it have? Does it match any of the following hardware or close to it?? SoC: Atheros AR9344 (533 MHz MIPS 74K) RAM: 64 MB (DDR2) FLASH: 2 GB NAND Flash WiFi: Atheros AR9344 + Atheros AR9580 Ethernet: 1 x RJ45 Ethernet, 1x FE over USB (ASIX AX88772A) Ports: 4x RP-SMA Antenna, 1 x USB 2.0 (host) Power: DC Barrel 12V/2A. Accepts power from any combination of sources; DC Barrel Port, USB ETH port, USB UART port. ??
@ I’m a embedded developer. When troubleshooting difficult electrical and techical issues does it make my life a hell of a lot simpler when components are well marked.
It's supposed to be better looking, more customisable & higher quality. But this will be an off the shelf router, you're just getting a bit more insight into what goes into it. I'd check out the first few videos of this series, particularly the investor pitch to see what wil set it apart from the rest.
You are missing the key points of why this router (will) exists in the first place: - Open source software and unlocked bootloader: you can choose any OS you want to run on it, you can build your own if you want, you have full control over every (*1) byte of that runs on it - Somewhat open hardware (*2, see notes at the end) - 2x SFP ports: gives you 10Gbps fiber optic links - Hardware networking stack: the CPU has a dedicated hardware stack for the networking, which allows full bandwidth data transfers while leaving the general purpose CPU cores at 0% load. This means you can run a VM, or say, Home Assistant on the router while still using full network bandwidth. Products from other manufacturers struggle to even present the web UI to configure the router... - USB-C power: use any USB-C compliant power adapter / phone charger, to power this unit. No more bulky bricks - Slim, and I mean, VERY slim design: most other devices out there are bulky, waste space, and try to appeal to a gamer-y design. This product has a clean minimalistic look (similar to Apple's products design) Check out some of the previous videos on the series, especially the first ones, to get a better idea of why this router came to be. *1: there is a binary portion proprietary of NXP (the CPU manufacturer) which is not open source *2: due to the dishonesty of humans, fully open-sourcing the hardware would allow for 3rd parties to make fake clones / replicas of this router. This would be a bad business decision, but most annoyingly, it hurts the heart of those who invested their money, time, and life on it, and that of the community around it. Some parts of the hardware may be open sourced, but Tomaz and his team are still figuring this out...
@@jojpero if your ISP only uses credential-based authentication, you're good to go. If they hardware lock you out, check out Tomaz's way to hack it in the video "I hacked my Internet Service Provider's router. So I could get rid of it". He was able to use a replay "attack" to authenticate with the ISP from another router.
I don't follow the project at all, I'm a complete outsider, but I got ques. Why isn't this machine made modular? as in individual parts that the consumer could swap out and upgrade later down the line should they wish to do so? thank
I watched quite a few videos but I'm still a little fuzzy on the details. What kind of device is this meant to be? Is it a pure router or will it also have other capabilities. Like for instance hardware 10 Gb switching with VLANs, what about firewall capabilities (will there even be any?). Any ideas yet on what kind of software this will be running on?
All of the goodies you want! 2x 10Gbps SFP+ connections 3x 2.5Gbps Ethernet (or was it 1Gb?) Hardware network stack, offloads all networking to dedicated part of the CPU, and leaves the other cores free for anything. VyOS installed out of the box, but OpenWRT and other OSs can be installed, fully unlocked bootloader, OS, ROM And much more, check some videos back in the series, there are full details of the expected capabilities
@@efimovv I'm sorry, there really isn't much about the details (from the past videos or comments). I'm asking for here. Thus my question. Even from "cristinelcostachescu9585", that sounds like absolutely everything will go through the central processor, this is really not efficient.
@@efimovv I'm sorry, there really isn't much about the details (from the past videos or comments). I'm asking for here. Thus my question. Even from "cristinelcostachescu9585", that sounds like absolutely everything will go through the central processor, this is really not efficient.
Watching you wave around an untested 1k Euro board at a non-esd safe workstation without so much as a wrist strap was super cringe. If it worked before, it might not now! It is quite the cute router, I might have to buy one for funsies. Just don't send me that one.
While I do ground myself before handling electronics, I've never ever ever destroyed or otherwise damage a board by handling it without a wrist strap. I mean, you're not wrong, it's the right thing to do, but this stuff isn't as problematic as you might think.
My first reaction was to push back and say these videos are about keeping people up to date when they are already at least a little invested in the overall project as well as it's goal (making the best router). For us, the meaning of the title is valid and doesn't need justification. But I thought for a minute, and came down to "UA-cam doesn't work that way". New people are regularly being shown these videos and of course new people would see the title as a statement that needs to be backed up. Tldr: Both demographics are valid, and it's in creators' interest to always consider new viewers even when making videos for the existing audience.
@@tomazzamanrespectfully, I am a potential customer, and whilst I’m only a doctor, I have a slight technological background and the first commenter is more correct on balance, because at such an early stage, it’s essential to be clear with as many as possible to build trust. I hope you take this positively because the opening commenter and I want you to achieve your obviously high potential, and most people won’t bother to take the time to offer you constructive feedback. Whilst I also agree with the second commenter, the fact is, it should take less than 20 seconds to answer the query of the first commenter whilst still talking about everything else you wish to talk about. I think you’re doing amazing work but we are trying to help you, I hope you see this. All the very best. Russ.
@@DrRussell if you are a potential customer, but don't bother checking the creator's channel for related content (which UA-cam has video suggestions under the current video, BTW), and get mad for a title which is not even clickbaity... I don't know, you should revise your priorities...
Video is interesting on manufacturing, but segregating power lines with 0 ohms for testing various sections of circuitry for a high speed design sounds dodgy, very dodgy. High speed designs relies on proper power planes etc. Also, if you circuit connects to another circuit without isolation and that circuit is not powered, a lot of ICs have pullups diodes for esd and voltage spike protection. Thus causing, your powered ICs to push through another pin into a now not powered supply rail via another IC IO or circuit etc. I have never understood the whole throw everything with 0 ohms methodology, design it correctly from the start.
4 hours to design the stencil? That must be some translation error surely. There is almost nothing to design for the stencil, you take the gerber files and cut the stencil as the gerber is, bigger pads might get divided into 4-6-8 smaller pads which is probably automated, you may need to place fiducials or other tooling holes, but that's a simple task, total "design" time I would guess to be no more than 30 minutes for someone who did it few times before, and under 5 minutes for chinese PCB/stencil manufacturers. 4 hours sounds more like manufacture of the stencil. Stencils I order for prototypes are only $15, stencils for mass production are like $30, so quite cheap to be honest.
It's DC powered, in a plastic case, shielding would be nearly useless. (but it's easy enough to swap out the RJ45's as long as the PCB has clearance for the through-holes.)
I'd prefer shielded RJ45 connectors for structural strength. Plastic doesn't look like a reliable solution unless you're going to use the device for less than a year.
@@paulsimon1494 They're all plastic. Any metal shielding is basically just tinfoil wrapped around the plastic. It might offer a little bit more of a structural connection to the PCB, but it does nothing to make the actual connector any stronger. In the entire history of 10bT (etc.) I've never had one break. (yank a surface mount single plug off the board, sure, but if it hadn't taken the traces with it, it could be glued back down.)
My one question was actually 'are the power rails working', as I've done this many times. Also, using 10mOhm resistors in place of the 0-ohm ones in the final product can be extremely helpful to the people having to look at the bad boards. (when you manufacture enough of something, you always get some failures. That's why you have to design testability into your product, and spend the hours making a good production test. Since you don't have that for your prototypes, the inspection is even more important.)
On the software side, fully open source. You can use any OS you want on it. I believe that out of the box it will come with VyOS, but I can't remember exactly. Check back some videos :)
please! add support for HSGMII for the sfp cages so that we can use sfp ont with it. and would be cool if it could be rack mounted as well. that would be really nice
Open Source software, OS, so yes, you can use it pretty much with whatever ISP. Some ISPs may lock you out through some hardware keys or other methods, but there are workarounds. See Tomaz's successful attempt at "hacking" his ISPs authentication through SFP adapter.
Why do you always scream in these movies? I always feel like someone is screaming at me the whole time after watching them. Congratulations on the router, great job, lots of hard work, I admire your dedication to this project.
looks good, but don't make bold claims in the titles. in fact, my 10gb router pcb will run circles around your 10gb router pcb. that's right, i said it.
SMT Production Manager here.
Going with 12 boards per panel on that size is crazy. The co-planarity of the panels will be very important . In some special boards we check it with granite table for example.
It can cause a lot of headache especially in high count BGA. Also europlacer machines doesn't have very high CPH so they will probably be the bottleneck, not the paste machine.
A golden size is around A4.
Also there is definitely an issue with solder paste at 9:22. Having paste over soldermask can cause stray solder balls after oven.
They can probably tell if so much paste is required for that component and if it does what alternatives you have, like variable thickness stencil.
Ps. they look very clean and tidy, nice!
Thanks for the clarification! 🙌
Yeah no silk screen... but why?
It is not uncommon for pcbs to be made without silk screen these days.
@@matthelm007 It is incredibly uncommon.
this just sound like Rockwell Retro Encabulator for someone without knowledge.
Thank you for the fantastic tour of the factory. I remember when my father was developing all these processes at home and I was learning about it and helping with looking after the UV lighting of the Positive-20 photo sensitive coating covered PCBs and the acid batch afterwards, etc, when I was only 6 years old :)
Fellow Slovenian electronics engineer here - very concise and thorough explanation of PCBA manufacturing process. Keep up the good work! :)
Title sucks, but the Video itself is very interesting.
Glad to see you're already in the prototyping stage.
I agree. The title should be something like "Sneak peak into factory: How is 10Gbit router manufactured"
While I didn't agree with all of your design decisions, this has all the hallmarks of a well engineered piece of equipment. I can't wait to see the final outcome, great work.
Thank you!
Same, x86 would be more flexible for the software... but as you pointed out in a previous video.. this approach is better for performance! Talking of software... what's going on for that side of things?
@@bensanders6017 That was one of the things I was getting at. My biggest grievance was the vanity aluminum case that costs half the BOM, among other things. No ones gonna buy this if it's a Swiss toothpick.
That 0 ohm resistor and test pads - that's how you recognize engineer from enthusiast :)
Actual question: Is a 0 Ohm resistor not just a jumper? Also can it be used as some kind of "fuse" if you orient yourself by the maximum power rating of the resistors?
No silkscreen tho - every time you grab a board you have to open full documentation and guess where thing are. Also silkscreen on large BGA is crucial for manual reballing if needed (alignment)
@@2smn2i googled it,
Since this is a 10gb router
Data integrity is of utmost importance
0 ohm resistors give off less high frequency interference compared to jumpers
Yes surface mount jumpers exist but the upgrade to 0 ohm resistors arent that expensive
And yes, in the event of an over current, they break
@@xenories You're right but, manual placing and alignment of silk is a nightmare. Why do it for a non-final board? Why re-do it for every change you fabricate? Having made some ridiculously simple boards by comparison, I can say, I don't bother until it's -rc1 at least.
To be honest, we did place a lot of 0 ohms in the board, but for the power supplies we removed the 1 and 5 mOhm current sense resistors. But same difference 😄
Don't get me wrong, I am certainly enjoying following the progress of this project, but it is a little like checking in to the kitchen to follow the progress of dinner prep-it also serves to whet one's appetite for what is being cooked. Every time I watch one of your updates, I just feel more impatient to get my hands on one of these routers!
M2!!
100% - I need one now 😂
I think that it will be more expensive than competitors. So don't wait :D
100%
$1k though...
The renders looked great but... the real thing? Man, that is hot! Love it!
Can't wait for the next update!
Thank you!
@@tomazzaman since you're here, may I ask if you have seen my questions in the comments of the previous video? Are you able to address them in a future video?
Thank you!
This journey is so fascinating to follow! The jobs that are needed to produce such boards are really interesting. Kinda inspiring to maybe rethink my career plan lol
Congratulations, it's a great milestone!
Bringup is next, very interesting and complex at the same time. Good luck!
As much as I give you crap about the router choices, this video has probably one the best in the series.
thats the spirit.
Bravo Tomaž and entire crew working on this project! Excellent progress. I had no idea there were so many options when it comes to Pick and Place! Wow! Variations of Solder, for example. Again, WOW! Excellent progress! 👍
Tomaž waving the prototype board around gave me real anxiety, lol! Thanks for sharing this awesome deep dive into the process of building the PCB, which is coming along great! Looking forward to seeing even more progress!
I finally dumped my ISP router for OPNsense a few months ago. If videos of this thing keep popping up on my feed like they have been I'm probably going to end up buying one.
a Luis Rossman like style video of the initial continuity tests and power up would not be too bad tbh
Wow, congratulations for your first boards. I really admire your dedication! I very much hope for you that the router will be a success! 😊
0:20 Well, 300k investment and considering that little corners are being cut, you know this product will be expensive.
lol, just checked the CPU alone is 90€ (on orders of 10 units or more)
@@ralmslb Yeah thats insane, that can't be the cheapest/ best value dual 10G ethernet SOC
Love your videos - I'll be one of your first customers!
A nitpick - for area, the units in English are Square Millimetres. English is...special.
I absoultely love how you go out of your way to simplify things as much as possible without removing crucial details. Watching these is so much fun!
Gratz.Another great product you´ve designed.
You might think of a competition for 3D stl files for cases (for a product) as a challenge. And provide them as support.
Love how as you explain how you don't want to destroy the board as you wave it around and pass it between your hands constantly. There were a few times where if that thing just slipped a little bit it would've been a shuriken.
His name is Tomaz, not Linus Sebastian or Leo Laporte.
Awesome progress sir !! Keep going !!
One thing bothers me: you mentioned 300K EUR spent on prototypes, and probably that does not include wages etc. You must either assume a huge volume of final products to be sold, or have really impressive profit ratio! Nevertheless, I'm keeping my fingers crossed - the more good products we have on the market, the better! And good thing to see a real European company to create a complete product from the scratch, rather than branding a Chinese OEM ❤ Good luck! 💪😎
Nice to see a future eu router with some innovations. Awaiting real time performance vs another eu router.
I want to share an issue I’ve experienced that may be relevant to this project. I’ve seen failures in the 16GB eMMC flash storage module of Netgate SG-6100 routers. This is a known issue acknowledged by Netgate, affecting units less than a year old.
The failures may have been caused by excessive heat or defective NAND flash chips. To bypass the issue, I installed an M.2 SSD with pfSense, which resolved the problem.
Given that eMMC is commonly used in embedded devices, I’m concerned about its long-term reliability in this project. In my view, it could be a potential weak point affecting the Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) of the router.
Would love to hear others' experiences with eMMC longevity in similar setups.
I caught myself on an interesting marketing/psychological effect of your videos: I feel like watching them makes me thing I create this product along with you, so it makes me more loyal and more prone to spend whatever money on it.
I guess as a marketing/product manager, I’ll equip myself with this technique 🤓
The master plan is working then! 💪😅
Haha if i were to manufacture something eventually OK ltek is going to be my first consideration, you convinced me :D
What's the targeted price of the device, approx?
2:22 That "QR-code" looks more like a datamatrix-code that's not QR 😉.
My man, this router couldn't release sooner xD I am so sick of my T2 router and I really don't wanna spend for something I won't end up using. x)
Happy New Year 🎊🕛
I'm more interested in how he got into that room. Where is the door?
Btw, PCB is printed circuit board, one with parts place is PCBA or printed circuit board assembly.
I'm hoping that someone comes out with a desktop 25 gig switch. Kiinda like the MikroTik CSS610-8G-2S+IN but with SFP28 instead of SFP+. Heck, dual QSFP28 would be nice too because then it could be 8x 25gig (or 2x 100gig naturally) and 8x 1000baseT
I'm curious, why would you mix 25GbE with 1GbE ports? Wouldn't 10G make more sense than 1G?
@@LtdJorge NAS and desktop have ConnectX-4LX 25 gig cards. Entire rest of house is 1000base-T and has no reason to be anything higher.
Hello Tomaz. I've watched a few of your videos on UA-cam regarding your developments of the new router, and in the penultimate video, you asked for suggestions for a name for the new router.
My suggestion is to name it "Argus" which in Greek mythology was a many eyed god, in other words, all seeing.
This would allow you to also name a light version "Argus Light"
What do you think?
You could also use an image of one of the Argus butterflies for a logo, also named after the same Greek mythical god because of the pattern on their wings, looking like many eyes.
This is fascinating stuff, Tomaž
Used to work in a company that did pick and place all the time.... when do we get our mits on a live product?
Amazing and so cool.. Will follow, and get one when it is ready.
Great job explaining the SMT process. You should more to your description about SMT so people can find this video. It would be a great resource for engineers wanting to learn about the SMT process.
Thanks for the tip!
The video doesn’t answer the question in the title frustrating. Why is this router is better?
Great video on circuit board prototyping and production. So why not “How to produce a great router.”
If you want to grow a channel, ie get new people watching, you cannot assume the viewer knows any past video. All I learned is that this channel uses misleading titles, so I am more likely to ignore any future video suggested from this channel in my feed.
I really did want to know the specs and capabilities of this. ie why is it better than my banana pi 10g router? That why the title hooked me, and the video failed to deliver.
Can this board beat Banana Pi BPI-R4?
super informative. thanks for the insights. I am really looking forward to buy one of them
BTW, does it have to be so small?
Wouldn't it be cheaper to iterate on or even for mass production, if it would be bigger, more modular, use less PCB layers, cool easier on its own?
I for one for example wouldn't expect to haul around such a router, so i wouldn't really care about its size, but I would prefer, if it would be much cheaper, than the alternatives.
There are 12 layers , for High Speed design it’s a necessary, considering 800 pins of CPU. Otherwise it will be impossible to route all signals and power lines.
wonderful work. I love it. The board looks very well designed. Congratulations on the consistency.
Thank you!
Keep your marketing claims true, please: it's a router with two 10Gbe ports.
Or a 40% 10Gb router.
I need a router! I just bought a m720q because i couldnt wait 😢
It would be nice to know your or your teams educational background and how you obtain the skills to do the sort of production!
UA-cam University
@paranoidzkitszo yeah I don't think so.. you can learn quite a lot on UA-cam but not ground up design for a computer/router PCB + software
Is it me or are the stitching VIA's missing on the EMI guard ring? Are they just buried vias or what?
Like Allways a pleasure to watch THX
What software stack are you planning on using - VPP?
Excellent explanation at the end why we take the time to do things right. If all is well, it shouldn't matter. But if there's a problem, things can get bad quickly and you can lose your ability to collect useful failure data.
We were once evaluating a failed solder joint on a plastic encapsulated device during the design verification test phase. The board was already fried, and we decided to do destructive analysis. But the new guy jumped the gun and removed that portion of the board with a Dremel cutting wheel. He vibrated the entire board and PED so badly, that when it went to the SEM, we couldn't tell if the solder joints cracked because of bad staking, or because of how it was cut. Lots of good info was lost on an expensive component ($75k+ per board) because he didn't ask, or didn't want to wait for the correct type of saw in a different lab down the hall...
Oh, and generally we would call it re-work when getting a technician to fix or 'not fix' something on a PCB.
the hw is immaterial at least in this day and age - just build a computer and you can easily build a router that is bigger/better/cheaper plus have room to expand down the line, I think you need to open source it in order to get some sort of dev community - the sw is where it is at not so much the hw
i would disagree most people buy because of hardware and software not just one of the 2, look at apple. yes i can build a router and i did but its not THE router as the main router is still cots one for simple reason reliability
I hope it has a usb otg port so it can do networking over usb with no nics
Follow up here, I've been looking, but what chips are you using for SFP and Ethernet? I am assuming at your price point we're still looking at a lot of consumer chips. x550 or similar might still be expensive if not outdated at this point?
1:39 - that's one board? Damn, I need to get my eyes checked...
The important part- can the router be flashed to be a WiFi Pineapple clone? How many wifi chips does it have? Does it match any of the following hardware or close to it??
SoC: Atheros AR9344 (533 MHz MIPS 74K)
RAM: 64 MB (DDR2)
FLASH: 2 GB NAND Flash
WiFi: Atheros AR9344 + Atheros AR9580
Ethernet: 1 x RJ45 Ethernet, 1x FE over USB (ASIX AX88772A)
Ports: 4x RP-SMA Antenna, 1 x USB 2.0 (host)
Power: DC Barrel 12V/2A. Accepts power from any combination of sources; DC Barrel Port, USB ETH port, USB UART port.
??
I hope the final version comes with a "fully mapped/labeled" silkscreen. The prototype boards look a bit bare.
Silkscreen are usually for humans on manufacturing, other than that they're useless.
@ I’m a embedded developer. When troubleshooting difficult electrical and techical issues does it make my life a hell of a lot simpler when components are well marked.
Is there a rough idea of the retail price?
Maybe a stupid question. What is the benefit using this router instead of just buying a of the shelf router?
It's supposed to be better looking, more customisable & higher quality.
But this will be an off the shelf router, you're just getting a bit more insight into what goes into it. I'd check out the first few videos of this series, particularly the investor pitch to see what wil set it apart from the rest.
You are missing the key points of why this router (will) exists in the first place:
- Open source software and unlocked bootloader: you can choose any OS you want to run on it, you can build your own if you want, you have full control over every (*1) byte of that runs on it
- Somewhat open hardware (*2, see notes at the end)
- 2x SFP ports: gives you 10Gbps fiber optic links
- Hardware networking stack: the CPU has a dedicated hardware stack for the networking, which allows full bandwidth data transfers while leaving the general purpose CPU cores at 0% load. This means you can run a VM, or say, Home Assistant on the router while still using full network bandwidth. Products from other manufacturers struggle to even present the web UI to configure the router...
- USB-C power: use any USB-C compliant power adapter / phone charger, to power this unit. No more bulky bricks
- Slim, and I mean, VERY slim design: most other devices out there are bulky, waste space, and try to appeal to a gamer-y design. This product has a clean minimalistic look (similar to Apple's products design)
Check out some of the previous videos on the series, especially the first ones, to get a better idea of why this router came to be.
*1: there is a binary portion proprietary of NXP (the CPU manufacturer) which is not open source
*2: due to the dishonesty of humans, fully open-sourcing the hardware would allow for 3rd parties to make fake clones / replicas of this router. This would be a bad business decision, but most annoyingly, it hurts the heart of those who invested their money, time, and life on it, and that of the community around it. Some parts of the hardware may be open sourced, but Tomaz and his team are still figuring this out...
@@cristinelcostachescu9585 Thanks for the detailed explanation!
Now find a way for me to bypass the idiot ISP router they force us all to use that doesn't involve me hacking the sfp adapter
@@jojpero if your ISP only uses credential-based authentication, you're good to go. If they hardware lock you out, check out Tomaz's way to hack it in the video "I hacked my Internet Service Provider's router. So I could get rid of it". He was able to use a replay "attack" to authenticate with the ISP from another router.
This is better than my 10GB router pcb.
Are RJ45 sockets in plastic case?
What about EMC emmsions test? Have you done it?
Man, they don't power those board yet.
Will the router support QoS/SQM for bufferbloat like Cake or Codel if it doesn't run kernel space things? Thanks!
one important question nobody asked: can it run crysis?
*checks notes
- Not tested yet.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Well I cannot wait. Open Source , solid hardware. Want.
I don't follow the project at all, I'm a complete outsider, but I got ques. Why isn't this machine made modular? as in individual parts that the consumer could swap out and upgrade later down the line should they wish to do so? thank
Looks awesome!
I watched quite a few videos but I'm still a little fuzzy on the details. What kind of device is this meant to be? Is it a pure router or will it also have other capabilities. Like for instance hardware 10 Gb switching with VLANs, what about firewall capabilities (will there even be any?). Any ideas yet on what kind of software this will be running on?
All of the goodies you want!
2x 10Gbps SFP+ connections
3x 2.5Gbps Ethernet (or was it 1Gb?)
Hardware network stack, offloads all networking to dedicated part of the CPU, and leaves the other cores free for anything.
VyOS installed out of the box, but OpenWRT and other OSs can be installed, fully unlocked bootloader, OS, ROM
And much more, check some videos back in the series, there are full details of the expected capabilities
There are few videos about this exact topic.
@@efimovv I'm sorry, there really isn't much about the details (from the past videos or comments). I'm asking for here. Thus my question. Even from "cristinelcostachescu9585", that sounds like absolutely everything will go through the central processor, this is really not efficient.
@@efimovv I'm sorry, there really isn't much about the details (from the past videos or comments). I'm asking for here. Thus my question. Even from "cristinelcostachescu9585", that sounds like absolutely everything will go through the central processor, this is really not efficient.
Freescale chip i used to work there.🎉
10:04 SMT - surface mount technology,
SMD - surface mount device.
awesome playstation tattoo. So much colour :)
Why are you so awesome ? ;) i can't get enough of your awesome content, explanaitions and ... your awesomeness ;)
Mister, you are a very talented communicator, your videos are insightful, clear and educational, very well prepared and presented...
What does this router do? Why does it has 3 USBs?
💪 Finis coronat opus - the end crowns the work
I _must_ remember this quote. Where is it from, it sounds like Marcus Aurelius, but I'm not sure...
@@christophersmith108 Publius Ovidius Naso (20 March 43 BC - AD 17/18), known in English as Ovid
Watching you wave around an untested 1k Euro board at a non-esd safe workstation without so much as a wrist strap was super cringe. If it worked before, it might not now!
It is quite the cute router, I might have to buy one for funsies. Just don't send me that one.
While I do ground myself before handling electronics, I've never ever ever destroyed or otherwise damage a board by handling it without a wrist strap.
I mean, you're not wrong, it's the right thing to do, but this stuff isn't as problematic as you might think.
Danke!
Wow, thank you very much! 🙌
@tomazzaman you are welcome, u do great things 😊😉
I take sample too rig up and test for UK nerds
I've watched 10 minutes and still don't know why your router is better than my router. Downvoted. Don't write titles like this.
You probably have a room temperature IQ
My first reaction was to push back and say these videos are about keeping people up to date when they are already at least a little invested in the overall project as well as it's goal (making the best router). For us, the meaning of the title is valid and doesn't need justification.
But I thought for a minute, and came down to "UA-cam doesn't work that way". New people are regularly being shown these videos and of course new people would see the title as a statement that needs to be backed up.
Tldr: Both demographics are valid, and it's in creators' interest to always consider new viewers even when making videos for the existing audience.
This.
@@tomazzamanrespectfully, I am a potential customer, and whilst I’m only a doctor, I have a slight technological background and the first commenter is more correct on balance, because at such an early stage, it’s essential to be clear with as many as possible to build trust. I hope you take this positively because the opening commenter and I want you to achieve your obviously high potential, and most people won’t bother to take the time to offer you constructive feedback. Whilst I also agree with the second commenter, the fact is, it should take less than 20 seconds to answer the query of the first commenter whilst still talking about everything else you wish to talk about. I think you’re doing amazing work but we are trying to help you, I hope you see this. All the very best. Russ.
@@DrRussell if you are a potential customer, but don't bother checking the creator's channel for related content (which UA-cam has video suggestions under the current video, BTW), and get mad for a title which is not even clickbaity... I don't know, you should revise your priorities...
from hacking isp provided router to this i think this product will be out soon. is it pure 10gbps router?
Video is interesting on manufacturing, but segregating power lines with 0 ohms for testing various sections of circuitry for a high speed design sounds dodgy, very dodgy. High speed designs relies on proper power planes etc. Also, if you circuit connects to another circuit without isolation and that circuit is not powered, a lot of ICs have pullups diodes for esd and voltage spike protection. Thus causing, your powered ICs to push through another pin into a now not powered supply rail via another IC IO or circuit etc. I have never understood the whole throw everything with 0 ohms methodology, design it correctly from the start.
how much?
i like the title i wouldnt have clicked otherwise/.
4 hours to design the stencil?
That must be some translation error surely.
There is almost nothing to design for the stencil, you take the gerber files and cut the stencil as the gerber is, bigger pads might get divided into 4-6-8 smaller pads which is probably automated, you may need to place fiducials or other tooling holes, but that's a simple task, total "design" time I would guess to be no more than 30 minutes for someone who did it few times before, and under 5 minutes for chinese PCB/stencil manufacturers.
4 hours sounds more like manufacture of the stencil.
Stencils I order for prototypes are only $15, stencils for mass production are like $30, so quite cheap to be honest.
Oh ok you literally mentioned the paste pad splitting lol
Anyone know about the PPPOE overheads?
I felt offended, at least my PCB has shielded RJ45. :D
It's DC powered, in a plastic case, shielding would be nearly useless. (but it's easy enough to swap out the RJ45's as long as the PCB has clearance for the through-holes.)
I'd prefer shielded RJ45 connectors for structural strength. Plastic doesn't look like a reliable solution unless you're going to use the device for less than a year.
@@paulsimon1494 They're all plastic. Any metal shielding is basically just tinfoil wrapped around the plastic. It might offer a little bit more of a structural connection to the PCB, but it does nothing to make the actual connector any stronger. In the entire history of 10bT (etc.) I've never had one break. (yank a surface mount single plug off the board, sure, but if it hadn't taken the traces with it, it could be glued back down.)
My one question was actually 'are the power rails working', as I've done this many times. Also, using 10mOhm resistors in place of the 0-ohm ones in the final product can be extremely helpful to the people having to look at the bad boards. (when you manufacture enough of something, you always get some failures. That's why you have to design testability into your product, and spend the hours making a good production test. Since you don't have that for your prototypes, the inspection is even more important.)
Proc tak rves?
A board with 12 layers isn't going to be cheap, that's for sure. But that wasn't the idea either.
Is it redundant?
That board looks so nice feels bad to hide it in an enclosure!
Very interesting regarding the hardware side, what are your plans regarding the software side? Looking forward.
On the software side, fully open source. You can use any OS you want on it. I believe that out of the box it will come with VyOS, but I can't remember exactly. Check back some videos :)
please! add support for HSGMII for the sfp cages so that we can use sfp ont with it. and would be cool if it could be rack mounted as well. that would be really nice
@@freakyweirdo92 Tomaz said previously that he's considering rack mounting options. Stay tuned :)
Is it programmable for new isp providers new technologies. Ect
Open Source software, OS, so yes, you can use it pretty much with whatever ISP.
Some ISPs may lock you out through some hardware keys or other methods, but there are workarounds. See Tomaz's successful attempt at "hacking" his ISPs authentication through SFP adapter.
It speaks ethernet.
Thanking you most kindly from English England
What exactly is English England and what distinguishes it from non-English England? Inability to understand Cornish, perhaps?
quite interesting video
Why do you always scream in these movies?
I always feel like someone is screaming at me the whole time after watching them.
Congratulations on the router, great job, lots of hard work, I admire your dedication to this project.
Loud Dave from Dilbert
I really have to draw my attention to my breath to not be caught up in his energy, this is not relaxing at all to watch, but the project is cool!
video title should be: "l tek factory tour" instead.
Did you know ESD? I'd not touch a 1k Board like this
looks good, but don't make bold claims in the titles. in fact, my 10gb router pcb will run circles around your 10gb router pcb. that's right, i said it.