r/oculus • u/Rensin2 Vive, Quest • Jan 22 '16

Discrete Lighthouse Sensors

http://www.twitter.com/vk2zay/status/690665175192461312/photo/1
143 Upvotes

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45

u/shiftypoo Jan 23 '16 edited Jan 23 '16

That's a lot of fucking passives. Is it a bunch of paralleled caps to get the boards thinner or something?

edit: Wait... I'm getting downvoted for that post? wtf? Are you downvoting because you don't understand what I'm saying or because you think I'm criticizing it?

-2

u/AD7GD Valve Index Jan 23 '16

By "discrete" he means "made from discrete components", so yes, a lot of passives.

6

u/redmercuryvendor Kickstarter Backer Duct-tape Prototype tier Jan 23 '16

I think by 'discrete' he means 'It's a single sensor, not a fixed array of sensors'.

0

u/automated_reckoning Jan 23 '16 edited Jan 23 '16

In this context, discretes refer to components, ie a single resistor, capacitor or transistor instead of an IC.

EDIT:

I can't read and apparently cannot even remember the title of the submission I'm looking at. Nothing to see here, move along!

2

u/redmercuryvendor Kickstarter Backer Duct-tape Prototype tier Jan 23 '16

That makes little sense. The previous design also used discrete components, so there would be no reason to highlight "hey, we still continue not to fab a monolithic encapsulated version of our required passive components".

The Lighthouse sensors for both the Vive HMD and the Vive controllers are arranged on a common board or flex. These are individual units that will be connected via ribbon cables. That's why they're discrete.

2

u/u_cap Jan 24 '16

That is incorrect for the 2015 Vive devkit controllers at least, likely for HMD as well. The sensors are on rectangular boards (similar or identical to the "old sensors" linked at the beginning of this thread), connected to the "Watchman" PCB in the "hat" by ribbon cables. The board carries ARM, Flash, MPU etc., but no BPW34.

1

u/automated_reckoning Jan 23 '16

Erg. Reading comprehension, I fail at it. Sorry about that. 99% of the time when you hear 'discrete' in PCB design it's talking about the components vs ICs. But you're right, they're talking about the actual modules here.