It seems that you received old stock for the plate, I believe you can request a replacement through support (edit: see reply below). Alternatively you can remove the top layers of the black portion manually, by sanding or grinding. It has a hidden copper layer underneath that reduces the signal.
I think your only way to find out is to write them and ask.
Ahh, there it is. I suspect Iāll take the existing one out to the shop and hold it to the wire wheel on my grinder for a couple seconds. Sounds like that might fix it right up.
I suspect it just didnāt get thought of when my machine was there. A couple people were out sick.
Yeah, ā¬6.50 for the part, 40 for shipping, so Iāll pass on that, unless itās possible to get one tacked onto my RK3588 upgrade from CrowdSupply which is due soon.
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Please post how that worked out for you. We were talking about the option of fixing up one of the old backplates by sanding/grinding away the copper layer today in IRC. Not because shipping is so expensive (it is) but also because it would involved some weeks of waiting time until the new backplate arrives across the ocean.
I will respond back once Iāve either got it working or not. But Iām not sure when it will bubble back to the top of the queue.
I have not had great luck with this Pocket Reform: it arrived DOA, and with the old backplate. A trip to Germany and back got it so it will boot, but it wonāt stay on my WiFi long enough to update software reliably. I would have asked for a new backplate, but was unaware of the difference between the two versions, so didnāt know to ask.
I also have the RockChip upgrade ordered (or rather, backed) from CrowdSupply, but Iām seriously wondering about the wisdom of āgood money after bad,ā at this point.
Iāll leave it at that for now. Thanks for listening.
Your frustration is understandable, @DavePolaschek It is very unfortunately that your backplate was forgotten and I do not think it was your responsibility to be aware of this. Once you find the time and motivation to get your Pocket back in action please let us know about any other issue you are having. I have a Pocket Reform with RK3588 myself and am very happy with it. It certainly outperforms my classic Reform in all ways except that its screen and keyboard are much smaller (duh!).
You could try contacting the MNT support about your case. In the past they have been very forthcoming and I think itās worth a shot to ask them what to do about this, given that they couldāve fixed your backplate the last time that your unit was with them.
Good luck!
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Thanks for your help, @josch - Iāve contacted support, and hopefully theyāll have an idea. The only new idea I have come up with this morning is an external WiFi dongle.
Iām very sorry, that was a blunder on my part. I must have overlooked this when repairing the device. Weāll ship the correct replacement back plate.
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Thank you! Hoping to see it soon.
Any idea on the shipping time for that? I may have time to try and grind the old backplate this weekend, but Iād rather not do that if the new one will be here soon.
Thanks!
As far as I know it is packed and waiting for label creation on Monday.
Thanks for the update! I do still want to try to grind off the edges of the old backplate to see if that will work or not, but Iāll wait until after I get the replacement, so Iām not stuck with no backplate if something goes awry.
$38 for tariffs and brokerage fees from UPS on this.
I shoulda just figured out how much of a heat sink I really needed and made a new one from some 3mm bubinga and brass.
Well, with the new backplate, the WiFi is definitely better. But halfway through an apt full-upgrade, it dropped. It recovered, so at least Iām updated, but I need to figure out more about how to diagnose whatās going wrong. Maybe I didnāt get the thermal pads back in the right places and somethingās overheating, or maybe I got the WiFi antenna wrong. ĀÆ\_(ć)_/ĀÆ
Iāve got the RK3588 upgrade on order from CrowdSupply, and that needs yet another WiFi card, so I may just leave it sit for another month before I start messing with it again. Iām currently sick with the flu, so deep debugging is probably beyond me at the moment, anyhow.
āāā
I had a couple drops after changing out the backplate. I would post the photo of that, but the photo button isnāt working for me at the moment. Anyway, the antenna cable is now routed slightly less parallel to the translucent ribbon cable.
I also had a couple of the ubsan warnings appear in the log, but Lucie said theyāre known, and seemingly harmless.
There are two ārfkillā lines near the end of the log that seem suspicious to me, though. Thatās at the link below, as is the photo.