The worse is that I have contacted and the question has been simply ignored. It can be problem of omission of the the given support technician or even more severe problem of the management which does not wants to declare clean answers/guidelines for own people replies.
My interpretation would be (under the assumption that the phone is still under warranty at all):
- Disassembly by the customer does not in and of itself void the warranty.
- It’s a no brainer that if you damage your phone while disassembling it and you have not been directed to do so by Purism support then repair would not be covered by warranty.
- So if you have a specific hardware issue then you should contact Purism support first so that they can direct you to disassemble the phone or, alternatively, advise against it (e.g. advise returning to Purism instead or e.g. advise further troubleshooting first). If you want the risk of your breaking your phone while disassembling it to be on Purism then they need a chance to assess that risk first.
For my part, I expect I could disassemble my Librem 5 without breaking it. Putting it back together again would be the risky aspect. 
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Problem is that I have explicitly asked what are consequences of the attempt to repair and received no response regarding the warranty. I have received only single sentence
and PDF file with PCB placement excerpts a suggestions for modifications which require to bought components and solder on the mainboard. Yes, I have offered, that we have knowledge and equipment in the previous e-emai, but even in this case I would expect some confirmation and suggestion what would happen when we have problems. On the technical side, I do not like to poke with four 0.35 x 0.65 components on the expensive board when there is no description what should be archived by each change. Each soldering on such board is a risk. I have consulted my ESA colleague and he expressed doubts if that is the right direction. When there are no report what are expected/experienced/usual change in sensitivity related to this change then again it is unprofessional and considered risky to follow. I would prefer real documentation of the design then proceeding with the analysis with my colleagues and may it be even RF and antenna experts from our university. Consider some measurement, signal injection, spectrum analyzers confirmation of the state, only then changing components and tune design with simple observation with gnss-test as well as with confirmation with professional lab equipment.
By the way, is the note GNSS sensitivity ECO which I have received from the support public, can I attach it to the issue. I have asked for the intended behaior with the material I possibly receive in the initial e-mail. Again, no world in any responses, simply ignored, no response to my ESA colleague at the end… Because I know only @dos and @dcz as the people from Pusism who really responded to my questions, I would ask you if you can confirm that the GNSS sensitivity ECO can be attached to GitLab issue? I have signed no NDA and warned in advance that I will not do so, I have not signed NVIDIA one nor Volkswagen, in the other case I have helped them with security really sensitive project, unlocking of the car by care sharing control unit. But on the other hand I tend not to undermine companies profit and risk the users security and safety when other parties operate within appropriate margins.
The ECO describes how to update older boards to include the fixes we have made that are included in currently shipping phones. It’s the result of analysis of GNSS sensitivity issues that has been made some time ago already (I wasn’t involved personally though, so I have no details to share there).
As far as I understand, the sensitivity of older boards varies. On some, GNSS works pretty well, on others it’s hard to get a fix at all. Sometimes it’s enough to check and fix the grounding clip in order to get satisfactory results, but sometimes you need to do the rework, which is why there are multiple steps of increasing difficulty being suggested by support.
I don’t know how that influences the warranty though, so can’t help there.
Yes.
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Then I would interpret that as: if Purism support has directed you to do this then you are covered under warranty otherwise you are not.
But I don’t work for Purism so take with grain of salt.
Great, attached to the issue with Marek Peca’s comment.
Response to the comment was that changes should be made without more background information and some more can be provided after that. Marek Peca responded that in such case Purism does not follow its claimed openness policy and he loses interest in the problem. I can probably do changes blindly but I do not like such behavior either.
If the issue is know there should be some survey what SatxCN0’s has been achieved on which batch and witch adaptations to provide guideline to check that given device has individual or design problem and what can be expected outcome.
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Can you show which claim you mean here?
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Purism publishes many articles in the tone of the full openness which can be interpreted as the will and intention to share knowledge and be community player
Excerpt:
Pretending difference to typical consumer product delivered as black box etc…
But only response for valid questions about warranty, technical aspect and offer of ESA expert to review etc is ignoring of that all and insisting on
So my feeling is like to work as illiterate dude at Android phones repair shop who knows only to google some hacks and get solder iron into hands. I agree that such people are valuable and can be really clever with their hands, much more than me is. But I do not like to be treated as somebody who is not be capable to read schematics. That is one side.
Another, which is not so important for me, but which seems to be alpha and omega of Purism advertisement is the security and anti-tamper guarantees. But when it goes to empower user for real comparison of components placed on the board to schematics ten you again hit the wall by your forehead.
So I feel significant difference between articles published to build image, public feeling about company and reality when I have interest in some knowledge about product and I have (too strong) allergy to such behavior. I have to live with it when deal with NXP, Nvidia, Ti, XIlinx datasheets, bugs, problems, repairing broken shadow Linux kernel branches and attempting to replace them with mainline stuff. I see their waste of the time, i.e. dead fork of NuttX when they only attached copyright to each source and blocked their contributions to be usable for mainline and in the fact divided forces into unupdatable support for their old chips and community driven incomplete for the newer. And their management even dos not probably know that their employers waste time to contribute to both because drones developers does not care about their Tizen RT trap and want PX4 on NuttX. Then loud-mounted claims that they developed AI system for MCU and you find that they only taken, screwed and closed another opensource. But I am used for such practices from these big players. Incompetent marketing people who now less than me about their products but you must deal with them… And I am happy to cooperate (at least in my spare/own time) with people from RTEMS, NuttX, Linux mainlines, friends in companies where declare some technology as open even from their own will, people who behave consciously. I was happy to see similar attempts in mobile HW/SW development side but I am not sure if it is not only yet another false catcher of the people on their interest to have them tied and bought stuff.
I understand that you do not like to hear this and I believe still that most of time investment of the enthusiast working for Purism goes into right direction, but this is warn signal for me and my feeling that that company can be steered into direction when it is unacceptable for me. No tragedy I should say “So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish” and be less distracted from my work on materials, open simulators, videos for hundreds of my students, ESA project, open-souce CAN HW and SW… But then I consider as right thing to do to protect my kinds and hope that others would protect me, by warning similar people do not invest time there you can do something more open and self pleasing…
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To backup may claims and competence, there is list of open the projects into which I contribute https://www.openhub.net/accounts/ppisa , many of them I have founded and there is ling list of the others where I do not have commits but I have architected them or negotiated with companies and tutor students our or foreign even over GSoC and others to make them successful, see for reference and knowledge base Wiki I have setup to coordinate studnets and build knowledge base https://gitlab.fel.cvut.cz/otrees/org/-/wikis/home
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Thanks for answering. I asked because I felt that your accusation of not-openness was a little unfair, and you provided nothing to prove that it was fair.
We have explicitly stated that we’re not providing hardware design files until the phones have paid for themselves.
You point out the tampering aspect, and I believe the X-rays we provided were an answer to that. I’m not sure why we haven’t upated them, will ask internally.
We have provided schematics which you yourself have used, and we’re working in the open, providing sources for all the software we produce. That’s head and shoulders above any competition, isn’t it? You can’t honestly claim we’re not open, because we’re meeting the standard we set for ourselves.
You can’t demand that we go out of our way to give you extra support, because we get a lot of randos trying give us their advice how to build the phone. And, no offence, you are just as lacking at credibility at this point, with your only contribution known to us by thispoint being a lot of text on the forum. I hope you understand that the hardware team is reluctant to read an evaluate all that you wrote, especially because we already have improvements in the works. Perhaps if you evaluate them and come back with your measurements, that would help us improve the phone, and you gain some reputation in this area. (BTW, your credentials are impressive, but they show that you’re able to work with information, not that you’re a radio expert.)
If I may advise back at you, I’d make my writing more specific and to the point. It’s difficult to find the relevant parts among the flood of information.
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Purism representative contacted you, offered you helping hand (although might be that having less time than you), offered to cooperate with you … looks alike. Isn’t this good sign and acknowledgment of that your points like/might to be discussed without involvement of massive public audience? Purism members aren’t sitting any more within any school bench and if you are about to publish things that are not to be published (probably not at this moment, this time of development) what do you expect?
Please tell your colleague to coordinate above linked/related proposal directly and eventually send his Librem 5 back for in this thread proposed fix:
P.S. This proposal of mine (unofficial one to be asked for) is in order to repeat your testing as soon as it comes back to him, to person that should contact Purism support (instead of yourself) if so intended by him, etc. I do admire, still do, your involvement/contribution, but please understand that you are not direct customer … not at this moment (if I managed to get right the whole picture of what’s going on here).
Probably only waste of time on our both sides… but you and @dos personally probably worth my time still. We probably can only agree on disagree, question is if only in this case or if my doubts spread on whole Purims projects.
I have not claimed myself that Purism is not open in what it declared as open. Marek simplified his frustration in the reply to the support by the statement. It is copied in the issue.
My claim is that Purism did hide problem, did not know how to help people reporting problems in another thread and intentionally or unintentionally does not response to the valid questions sent in the report to the support. To my questions list
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confirm the problem: partially confirmed before my involvement by description to enhance earth contact, no response in the thread where people tried to solve the problem, using all the strange way to test phone in right distance from the plate. Only after I have involved the community knows that it is not only earth signal problem but deeper design one. I have not published what I have received even that I have asked support that I want to share all what I receive until @dos confirmed that the note can be published. Thanks.
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confirm, that warranty is not lost when phone is carefully disassembled (based on the official suggestion on the Purism web to disassemble phone and enhance earth contact): no response to this question from support side or there, only theories from non Purism members
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suggest what can be done on basis of your analysis: OK, provided but the way you have your bone there and do not ask why to do that
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components placement: OK confirmed to be secret, I am very unhappy with that, it makes phone much much less attractive from mine side and I can do only dumb slave repairs on PCB.
OK, but components placement is not the fabrication data. It is repair aid. And even I can locate videos or news and advertisement about your difference to other companies and whole life repair options. I consider them as trap catch now. I have components placement for my (actually broken) Samsung TV, so I would dive in it, Purism misbehave have already cost me more time than my TV repair time already. I have found repair manuals for my laptop, old dumb phone and many other electronics which I use. And I have repaired more of it and my company colleague have even more bright track record. So in the fact, Purism is much worse than many regular consumer grade devices producers in this respect. These companies provide service manuals to repair shops with signals waveform, expected voltages at testpoins etc… They can be bought usually as well and most can be downloaded somehow freely, but the last is usually not from companies themselves… Yes, software is usually another and pain-full story.
I do not care about it myself but it documents attempt to use all possible means to promote themselves as the the world saver, OK, but even use half mouth promises and then abstaining from them.
I agree that you provided schematics and software. The most, which is necessary for main CPU software development. When I start to dig into another my itch, BLE, then thing start to be problematic, but I understand that that firmware is out of your control… and it is not mine actual priority.
Generally, I understand it. But ignoring numbered points by support, you etc. is another side.
I followed “Show me the code (and data)” rule as long as possible. At order time, I have some hope that Librem 5 would be usable for offline navigation even that for phone function I would need to wait.
When I received phone I have found on the forum that many owners even doubt if there is remote chance that GPS/GNSS would work. There was some report that somebody captured some data. I have gone through information and patiently started by tests on serial device side. Found that after hours on the roof of my office I can get fix. Found that there is broken geoclue2 configuration when the gnss-share has been updated, reported finding and experiments to the forum. Then I have tried to make some offline maps software running. I have tested GPXsee to reuse Garmin maps I have had generated from OSM for my GPS MAP 60CSx. I have find problem with zoom and implemented zoom-by-pinch to GPXsee (unfortunately, not mainlined by author) then I have debugged that incorrect class of the position information is chosen from geoclue2 and I have implemented the patch for GPXsee. It has not been included but author used it as base to introduce own changes. This is fundamental to make GPXsee usable on any Linux system (laptops…) which use actual geoclue2 direction. I have documented all my findings, software changes to Purism and GPXsee community, described assignment of access rights mechanism to nonstadard applications, setup, achieved sensitivity etc…
I asked support by set of 5 questions which I, as Librem 5 owner consider legitimate… still no clean answers for some of them…
My goal was mutual help and help to others in the thread where (as I can guess) nobody from Purism send any notice over months of the attempts.
As for the RF expertise, I do not consider myself as capable, but I offered and indented to cooperate with people who has some expertise. But when we must to go to some nits counting there then I report for reference
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with mine colleague at my company, we have designed pen size BLE device years ago, the antenna circuit has been real problem because there has been optic, battery and the rest of the device has been hold by user. We have managed to design antenna on the PCB. It was not perfect but worked. Marek Peca helped us with toy grade spectrum analyzer to tune reflections etc. We have got to 10 meters acceptable reliability with Androids, iPhones and Linux. Then I have contracted people from respective department from our university and they prepared FEM model and done professional Characteristics measurements. They confirmed that we are near theoretical limit in given space and we done osnly minor tuning then. As I reported we have teams at university which could use GPS signal in 80-ties as well as people designing own antennas and tools for general RF analysis, mobile to human brain volume models etc… Evidence of the pen device existence, because you ignore my previous information.
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we have provided even own BLE to USB dongle for our device, easier, bought antenna component in this case. Same for my actual BLE project with student
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my company colleague who assisted me with earth contact repair, designed (for another company) the device to track pets, GPS module, GSM module for the low price connected over cheap 8-bit micro, if I remember well, with software reporting position into cloud and locally activated ring and shock feedback when pet moves out of predefined area. I do not remember that he would reported such horrors as on Librem 5 but not mine company project, so I am not sure, and probably both antennas are bought in this case. So easier. But setup of all stuff on micro with a few bytes of RAM is some masterpiece as well.
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my friend, Marek Peca, worked on precise two way satellite time synchronization long time ago on contract for the company which was prominent and may it be only provider of that technique to academic and ESA users. The concept uses similar correlation techniques as GPS but with much more precise time resolution. Marek knows all the algorithms and implemented them in FPGA. In his spare time, he has prepared setup to capture and decode all available time modem channels. In this case even on his own antenna setup
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when he build camera system for satellite in his company (more than for the money for a fun and representation) he has dived even into DVB-S like transfer of the signal from satellite to Earth. He designed more models of own antenna design, he then paid to our university RF people and they done simulations and then complete characterization with very promising results. He managed to encode video signal and send it through his FPGA transmission chain to DVB-S TV set. Due some other issues in the project, his antenna design is not part of the final payload of the VZLUSAT-2. The result is that he has to dig data from his camera at something like 200 bytes per second over main satellite provided link (because you seems to not believe me in the past there is an evidence)
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again, when claim that he is ESA and future of Galileo expert was silly ignored by support, you etc, there is excerpt from his presentation about atomic clock (which he uses and some has built) where is a photo taken by him from the ESA Gallileo payload testbed room which they have for experiments. And, yes they have appropriate instruments for all spectrum and other stuff at highest possible rank. Probably much above needs for such simple thing as Librem 5 in the fact is. He has old but capable professional spectral analyzers etc. at home for his own tinkering
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which leads to his firm which has project to deliver new generation of time modems to ESA now, yes in this case antenna is parabolic and big one… but it is game in different rank, picoseconds
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his and our company delivered last week to ESA digital synthesizer (FPGA and DAC) which is in the long time precursor for space grade transmitter of this kind of the signals. No RF part for now.
So yes, we both do not consider ourselves RF experts, but there is list of our achievements and when I deal with RF, I consult with my colleague and Marek and when his equipment or knowledge is not enough we are happy to speak with experts from our Alma matter Czech Technical University and his surrounding colleagues at ESA.
So you see, I am trying to be open. If you want I can name even world wide know professors from our university who we can try to motivate by enthusiasm or by some mutual barter exchange to help even not only to mine Librem 5 piece. (I add to smash your accusations that my offers are not backed the pointer to the article about ground up open-source design of the whole receiver GPS chain by referenced people - The Witch Navigator - A Low Cost GNSS Software Receiver for Advanced Processing Techniques)
What about your turn, what are names, curricula and achievements of your RF experts?
Yes, this all is waste of time because basic rule to reply to numbered questions and not hide and step away from beam seems to be broken from Purism side. If you have analysis, why not to report conclusions. Expected $GPGSV numbers before and after changes and what can people expect and when it is broken individual piece etc…
I probably do blind soldering like slave dude some day but mine and Marek’s motivation has decreased a lot…
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Yes, my thought (Librem 5 pre-order related) was the very same one. Thank you a lot for this thread!
I’m not going to address each point, because I don’t have the patience to traverse through all of them (I’m just an engineer, and not engineering support, not even tracking this topic, and I’m answering here just out of goodwill).
I accept that Purism is not living up to your standard of openness. I’m glad that you changed your mind from
because that might have been construed as a dirty discreditation tactic.
That aside, you got clear instructions from me and Angus about the path of further cooperation: please apply the fix and report whether you’re seeing an improvement. I’m not going to read through all you wrote on the forums, but as far as I can tell, you never reported back with your findings.
Regarding component placement, I’ve asked about that internally. Thank you for pointing our shortcomings, but please arm yourself in patience, because undoing shortcomings depends on humans who re fallible and have limited time and abilities.
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I have reported all I have did. I have not get to soldering so I cannot report the results. One side is that I am not confident about location of components and I will probably ask more skilled colleague. In the fact, the best would be to go and pay to our university prototype laboratory and do the repair on the professional equipment. As I have already stated, information is quite sparse, exact type only for one of the components and it is sub mm stuff. So I know what it means and what damage can be done. So I need to estimate risk to do it at our (PiKRON) or Elektroline.cz office or invest time to negotiate CVUT FEE LVR time (ideally Rework station). And even if I accept to be blind on the board without documentation, I think that I have right to hear authoritative either answer to the warranty question. So again all this communication length is caused by Purism misbehave.
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To document timing, unanswered question sent in the e-mail on January 11. Long time before I have taken the support issue to public. And you miss-quote me probably which I can take as action to build false image again.
The whole sentence is “Marek Peca responded that in such case Purism does not follow its claimed openness policy and he loses interest in the problem. I can probably do changes blindly but I do not like such behavior either.” see the issue. Excuse him, he does not studied all the edges of Purims web to know that actual Librem 5 HW has been declared as company secret. That only schematics to aid software development would be provided.
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Sorry for the misquote. I attributed the unfounded accusation to the wrong person.
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One thing that would help would be the release of boardview images for the L5’s circuit boards, so that normal people like me can figure out where the components are located on the boards. This would help people who are willing to try soldering on the boards. Watching Louis Rossmann’s videos on MacBook circuit board repairs, I hope that there will one day be people trying to repair L5 boards, since they are valuable enough that they are worth repairing.
I get the need for Purism to recover its development costs before it can release the CAD or Gerber files, but I don’t think that releasing boardview images will help any company that is trying to clone the L5, since they can figure out the component placement on their own from x-rays and the schematics, but it will help normal people who want to tinker or try repairing the L5.
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The board layout is available in the schematics repo: https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/l5-schematic/-/commit/ae63426d57f378c1bb77aa13ccd8d1c90514bf1a
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@dcz, thanks for posting the boardview files today. Glad to see Purism listening to feedback. I’ll add links to those files in the community wiki.
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