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Shenzhen: The Silicon Valley of Hardware [video] (2016)

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Re: Shenzhen: The Silicon Valley of Hardware [video] (2016)

#51

Post by cr0sh »

Isamu wrote: post #42
elastic_church wrote: post #34

Nobody is going to call out the title? The fact that silicon valley is called SILICON VALLEY literally because of the hardware that was manufactured there, made of silicon? Oy vey

I came here to say exactly that. There is still plenty of hardware work being done in sv, but maybe the manufacture is in China.

The "bad" part is that the raw materials for innovation aren't as easily source-able here in the States.

While it can still be found to an extent, the abundance of surplus electronics is nowhere near what it used to be; things started to go downhill fast after about the mid-1990s - but it really started much earlier.

Today, you can get cheap new electronics (and other parts) from China and other sources, and there is still some surplus available - but no one can deny that it is anything like it was (and for Chinese sourced components, you may have to wait a while to get them - heck, I just recently received some parts I ordered on AliExpress back in December - and it wasn't the vendor's fault - it was stuck in customs in China for some reason).

It's frustrating from the standpoint of innovation and experimentation (not to mention learning on a budget), but there isn't anything that can be done about it (and maybe we shouldn't do anything about it, either)...

Re: Shenzhen: The Silicon Valley of Hardware [video] (2016)

#52

Post by cr0sh »

esm5 wrote: post #46
ohstopitu wrote: post #45

How would a hobbyist based in Canada get access to that market to buy stuff from? (without getting scammed?)

You can try Aliexpress.com. They have buyer protection.

I second this, greatly. Just be aware that some things might be slower to arrive. I recently received the last of an order that I made in December - it was stuck in port on China's end (not the vendor's fault). If you can live with that, then it can be great.

Otherwise, if you need it faster, look on Amazon or Ebay (use vendors that have their product "fulfilled by Amazon" for fastest shipping, for Ebay, look for sellers that have the cheap stuff shipped from the US - that usually means they have stuff stocked in the States). It won't be as cheap as AliExpress, but it will be close enough (the extra premium may or may not be worth it for you).

Also - be aware that there are also surplus outlets out there for electronics and such, if you're just experimenting and not manufacturing (where you need a dependable supply of new components). I personally like (and purchase from often) these places:

http://www.allelectronics.com/

http://www.goldmine-elec-products.com/

http://www.alltronics.com/

Re: Shenzhen: The Silicon Valley of Hardware [video] (2016)

#53

Post by antoinealb »

ohstopitu wrote: post #45

How would a hobbyist based in Canada get access to that market to buy stuff from? (without getting scammed?)

Aliexpress & eBay provide a bit of that experience, but I think the point is that being in Shenzen and being able to talk to an actual person is a huge advantage when compared to going on the internet.

Re: Shenzhen: The Silicon Valley of Hardware [video] (2016)

#54

Post by jpindar »

kitschshrine wrote: post #50
Nokinside wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>profoundly illiberal government that has no goals other than its own survival and that's supported by a lot of human misery, This is common misconception. China is authoritarian country but it's not a totalitarian dictatorship. Chinese government actually has problems of controlling it's population and people are not afraid to show their displeasure with protest and riots when things are wrong. Politically modern Ch…

The Chinese communist party (CCP) tortured its own citizens for 40 years. Then it stopped beating them and then rented them out to foreign corporations for pennies on the dollar, for hard, back-breaking labor. Then the CCP members left China with billions and escaped. You seem to have a warped sense of morality

Backbreaking labor making electronics? Seriously?

Re: Shenzhen: The Silicon Valley of Hardware [video] (2016)

#55

Post by T-A »

Nokinside wrote: post #17
aaron-lebo wrote: post #2

I find this fascinating and troubling. From a hacker perspective it is incredible. On the other hand, this is all driven by a profoundly illiberal government that has no goals other than its own survival and that's supported by a lot of human misery, some might say slavery. I love using Apple products but it's hard to forget the conditions at places like Foxconn. Both sides think they are outflanking the other - the…

>profoundly illiberal government that has no goals other than its own survival and that's supported by a lot of human misery, This is common misconception. China is authoritarian country but it's not a totalitarian dictatorship. Chinese government actually has problems of controlling it's population and people are not afraid to show their displeasure with protest and riots when things are wrong. Politically modern Ch…

Recommended reading: "The Perfect Dictatorship: China in the 21st Century" by Stein Ringen [1], who is not some alt-right nutwing hack but somebody who made a career out of dissecting societies and took on China fresh off South Korea. I hope I won't excessively spoil the experience by saying that he would not agree with your assessment.

[1] http://www.hkupress.org/Common/Reader/Products/ShowProduct.j...

Re: Shenzhen: The Silicon Valley of Hardware [video] (2016)

#56

Post by deepnotderp »

elastic_church wrote: post #34

Nobody is going to call out the title? The fact that silicon valley is called SILICON VALLEY literally because of the hardware that was manufactured there, made of silicon? Oy vey

Well, shenzhen doesn't make silicon either... that title now belongs to taiwan and intel's fabs

Re: Shenzhen: The Silicon Valley of Hardware [video] (2016)

#57

Post by rubber_duck »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #27
rubber_duck wrote: post #24

I don't know much about HW development but recently I wanted to play around with making a smart quadcopter to play with ML - so I'm looking in to what would be required on the hardware side. Devboards I see online with a high powered ARM board are in 150-200$ range for the devboard without camera/sensors and with stuff I don't need (network ports, display ports, etc). Then I look at my 150$ Chinese smartphone (Xaomi…

150-200$ sounds like an official manufacturer's devboard, but for the maker market you shouldn't have to shell out more than 30$. What are these boards you've been looking at?

Stuff like this seems in the same performance range https://www.seeedstudio.com/MediaTek-X20-Development-Board-p...

Even tough it doesn't have OpenCL 2 capable GPU it has 10 cores - but something on the higher end seems very expensive and cheap boards are generation old chips with Mali450 GPUs or PI level HW.

It seems cheaper to get a cheap chinese phone with top level chipset and all the sensors and dissasemble it - maybe get one with a broken screen - although it's a gamble that the rest works.

Re: Shenzhen: The Silicon Valley of Hardware [video] (2016)

#58

Post by rubber_duck »

pjc50 wrote: post #32
rubber_duck wrote: post #24

I don't know much about HW development but recently I wanted to play around with making a smart quadcopter to play with ML - so I'm looking in to what would be required on the hardware side. Devboards I see online with a high powered ARM board are in 150-200$ range for the devboard without camera/sensors and with stuff I don't need (network ports, display ports, etc). Then I look at my 150$ Chinese smartphone (Xaomi…

Pi 3 or Zero, perhaps? The parts aren't really available on the open market, but your best bet might be to get a secondhand phone with a broken screen. There are also people designing dedicated "arduinocopter" boards and suchlike, which have a microcontroller, motor controllers, and IMU all on board.

>The parts aren't really available on the open market, but your best bet might be to get a secondhand phone with a broken screen.

Yeah I thought about this, will fish around but I'm afraid that if the screen is broken the rest might be damaged too. But even disassembling my phone doesn't seem too expensive if everything works out as expected.

Re: Shenzhen: The Silicon Valley of Hardware [video] (2016)

#59

Post by rubber_duck »

shakna wrote: post #30
rubber_duck wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The usual way to solve this, is a simplified onboard system. Crash prevention and the like. Probably an Arduino or ESP8266. My idea was have something like that hooked in to the bigger board via USB - the Android is creating flight plans and the micro controller is just managing the motors and following the plans it receives. snapdragon 410 seems like it doesn't have OpenCL 2 (shared memory access ?)

The microcontroller may need more than naively doing as told, to reduce crash & burn. For the other board, I probably wouldn't use USB, but a serial or pin connection could be faster. Broadcom recently released the spec sheet for the Raspberry Pi's GPU, and people have been doing good work with that. Edit: Snapdragon 410 has official support only for OpenCL 1.1

>For the other board, I probably wouldn't use USB, but a serial or pin connection could be faster.

I was just thinking USB since it's guaranteed to be there and should be simple to program on android if I chose to go down the "disassemble a phone for parts" route.

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