FreeCalypso funding and direction

[Mychaela Falconia]

Serg wrote regarding 3D-printed plastic spacers for mounting the LCD
in the planned FreeCalypso handset:

> It is 1.5 mm thick, but I'd suggest 0.2 mm margin on to of the connector.

I don't quite understand what you are saying.  The connector height is
1.30 mm according to the datasheet, I asked for 1.5 mm added height,
so we have 0.2 mm of margin indeed.

> Maybe 0.8 mm would be better to start with?

You mean 2.1 mm spacer height?  I would rather not do that if we can
avoid it.

> I will make 10 over weekend and send them back around Monday.

It would really be much safer if you send me just one for test fitting.

To put this matter in context, unless someone other me steps in with
funding on the order of 10 to 20 kUSD, it will be at least another 3 y
before I will be ready to attempt building the first iteration of the
actual handset motherboard (the part where the LCD mounting will be
needed), thus outside of test-fitting to make sure we got it right
(for which a single piece should suffice), the spacers won't be needed
for another few years - again, unless someone else steps in with
significant funding for the project.

Let me explain it another way.  As most people on this list know, I am
a transsexual woman - born with a condition in which a female brain is
mismatched with an otherwise male body.  Those sections of society who
are more progressive and enlightened have come into an agreement with
the wishes of us trans women ourselves in that the most proper
treatment for this condition is to change the body to fit the person's
innate gender identity.  The problem is that the treatments which are
needed to effect this change are *hellishly* expensive.  Some things
like hormones are super-cheap, but the two very expensive parts are
ongoing electrolysis treatments for permanent removal of facial hair
($300 to $500 per session depending on how much gets done and whether
or not local anaesthetic injections are needed, and I really need to
go in for a treatment every week to make some real progress - so do
the math) and then the "finishing touch" surgery to make the person
100% female, if you catch what I mean - that one costs about 10 kUSD
for the surgery itself if done in Thailand (I wouldn't want to get it
done anywhere else, as Thai surgeons are the best and this kind of
surgery absolutely needs to be done right the first time), but adding
the costs of travel, staying in Thailand for a month, and being
prepared to take up to 2 months off from my day job (major surgery,
need to allow for recovery), it works out to somewhere in the
20 to 25 kUSD range in total for that "finishing touch".

Up until now I've been funding FreeCalypso almost entirely on my own.
During the last crowdfunding campaign for FCDEV3B production we got a
total of about $6700 from various sources (thank you to everyone who
donated!), but it is still quite a bit less than what I have invested
on my own.  As of last October, my total FreeCalypso personal funds
investment stood at a little over 12 kUSD, and now it stands closer to
15 kUSD after having made one more batch of defective (thus not
sellable) FCDEV3B boards and getting the CMU200 RF test instrument
calibrated at R&S Maryland.  It also needs to be noted that the reason
why I had to do the crowdfunding campaign for the FCDEV3B in 2016-2017
as opposed to just covering it all entirely on my own was because my
personal funds were committed at that time toward paying for my life
partner's breast reconstruction surgery, which she finally got done
last December and which ended up costing 20 kUSD.

But after all these years of juggling between single-handedly funding
FreeCalypso hardware projects vs. my personal and family needs, I feel
very burnt out.  I have been living full-time as a woman for 3 y now,
way more than enough to be eligible for sex correction surgery per
WPATH rules (they only require 1 y), but I am not even one iota closer
to being able to afford it, as I've been putting everything else and
paying for everyone else first.  But now I have reached the point
where I need to take care of myself.  The older I get, the higher the
risks involved in major surgery, so I really need to stop putting it
off and get it done.

Yet I am not willing to completely drop and give up on FreeCalypso
either.  So what I have decided I am going to do is I'm going to take
a break from single-handedly funding FC hardware projects until I get
my surgery done.  More specifically:

* My current highest priority for personal funds allocation is going
to be toward my facial electrolysis treatments; anything that remains
after those (not much) will be put into a stash for the big surgery.

* That process will continue until I have enough saved for the surgery,
however long it will take.  It will mostly depend on how well my
electrolysis goes, i.e., how long it will be before I reach the point
of not needing such intensive and expensive treatments any more.
Right now I spend so much on electrolysis that there is hardly anything
left to save toward the surgery.

* After I am done with both facial electrolysis and bottom surgery, I
will once again resume personally funding FC hardware projects, if no
one steps in to fund them before then, and if there are any GSM
services still left anywhere in the world by that time.

It should be clear from the above picture is that the only sensible
way for this community to see some progress on the FreeCalypso hardware
front while there are still GSM services left to enjoy is for someone
else to step in with some funding - otherwise it will probably be many
years before I can resume funding the project on my own.

How much funding are we talking about?  To go from where we are now to
the point of having the first FreeCalypso handset prototype (if we
choose to go this route; there are other possible hw directions), I
estimate the total cost to be somewhere in the 10 to 20 kUSD range,
with the former figure being highly optimistic and the latter more
realistic.  However, unlike surgeries, FC hardware work does NOT
require a ginormous amount of money all at once, instead the cost is
spread out into significantly smaller chunks which can be done one
step at a time.

Right now the highest priority (in my opinion) should be getting
FCDEV3B V2 boards made in order to fix the problem of bogus flash
reset control.  Driving the flash reset line with Calypso's FDP output
as directed by TI's Leonardo schematics is not correct for the
high-capacity Spansion flash chip we are using (copied from Pirelli's
phone where it is used successfully); the most visible manifestation
of this hw design flaw on our current boards is that sleep modes cause
hangs or self-reboots and need to be disabled, but the real truth is
that it is really a lucky accident that our current boards boot at
all: while I don't have definite proof, it is highly likely that the
flash chip's reset timing requirements are violated during boot on our
current hw, and we just got lucky that the flash chip manages to return
the correct bits on those reads after improper reset despite being out
of spec.

I already have a set of new Altium and Gerber files for FCDEV3B V2,
produced by John Childers in Colorado, the same gentleman who did the
original FCDEV3B PCB layout fixes after the Iranians left us with an
unfinished design in early 2016.  I paid him $600 for these V2 changes,
on the top of the $3400 or so I paid him in the first round - my own
money both times.  Now we need to get a new set of boards made from
these updated design files, and that venture would need about $4000:

* Somewhere around $2600 to get the new PCBs made - these relatively
small boards are made in 4-up panels (114x206 mm panel dimensions),
and I would be ordering 5 of these panels - it makes no sense to order
less, as the per-unit cost goes up sharply for very small quantities,
making it about the same in total.

* Just under $800 for the assembly run at Technotronix.  With the
boards being panelized, an assembly run cannot be smaller than one
panel (4 boards), but in practice doing just one panel is a pita for
Technotronix and the per-unit cost goes up once again, so it makes
more sense to do two panels, producing 8 boards.  Another important
advantage of doing two panels rather than just one is that if there
are yield problems, there is a greater chance that at least *some*
boards will be good.  The last time we did a run of just one panel,
all 4 boards came out defective - something wrong in the RF Tx tract.

* Somewhere around $600 to get more parts - a restock is needed before
we can make another assembly run, with either old or new PCBs.

We need to get these FCDEV3B V2 boards made as a stepping stone before
we can proceed to the handset motherboard.  The handset MB will also
need to use the same high-capacity flash chip we are currently using,
and my proposed approach of having its reset line simply pulled up and
not driven by anything needs to be proven on FCDEV3B V2 first.  Also
if anyone is interested in a FreeCalypso modem module packaged in some
form factor that would make it usable as a component in larger designs
such as smartphones, that modem would also need *some* flash and RAM,
and I feel that it would be much safer to go with our known-good
S71PL129NC0HFW4B after getting it working correctly on FCDEV3B V2 than
to strike out blindly with some other flash+RAM or separate flash and
RAM chips.

So we need someone to donate $4000 USD to produce these FCDEV3B V2
boards and check off that intermediate stepping stone as complete.  I
am afraid that I might not be able to cover this cost on my own for
*years* because of my medical/gender needs which have been put off for
too long because of FreeCalypso - so is there anyone else willing to
pitch in?

As far as current board inventory goes, I have only 3 boards which are
fully working (aside from sleep modes) and therefore sellable.  Given
the project's acute need for funding, there is no way I can sell them
for anything less than the list price of $500 per board, but I can
promise this - if anyone does buy one of these boards or all 3 of
them, that money will be reinvested back into FreeCalypso, and will
NOT go toward any of my personal expenses.  If someone buys all 3
boards at their list price, I will use that money to make one final
batch from the initial PCB fab run - I still have 2 panels left,
translating to 8 boards barring yield issues - and if those boards
also sell subsequently, there will be enough money reinvested back
into the project to make FCDEV3B V2 PCBs and the first assembly run
from those PCBs.

Finally, I need to address the elephant in the room.  It is no secret
that our family of projects has an extremely difficult time attracting
the funding it needs because most of the world perceives our work as
being 100% illegal, in terms of both copyright and radio regulations.
Please note my emphasis on our project being *perceived* as illegal: I
refuse to comment on whether it actually is or not, because not only
am I not a lawyer, but much more importantly, I have no desire to ever
become or act in any way like one.  Giving any care at all as to
whether a practically safe activity that harms none is legal or
illegal is a form of "acting like a lawyer" which I expressly
refuse to do.

More practically, however, a number of people have been telling me
over the years that I need to invest some genuine effort into talking
to TI and trying to convince them to release the code base we are
using under some kind of legitimate license.  To all those people, I
make the following offer: I would be willing to engage in such
dialogue with TI *after* I get my sex correction surgery done, but not
before.  What's the connection, you may ask?  Quite simple: I need to
consider my safety in the event if the talks go badly.  Being a woman
in a men's prison is just about the worst fate that can possibly
befall a person - just ask Chelsea Manning, Michelle Norsworthy,
Ashley Diamond or Cece McDonald if you don't believe me.  But if I am
anatomically female, it will be a lot more difficult for them to stick
me into a men's institution, which is why I would be willing to risk
talking to TI once I am post-op.

Therefore, if anyone has a burning desire to see FreeCalypso become
legal free software, you are welcome to cover the cost of my surgery
(25 kUSD budget to be safe), and I would reciprocate by initiating a
dialogue with TI as soon as I am recovered from the operation.

Hasta la Victoria, Siempre,
Mychaela aka The Mother