Truffle-1 hardware thread

Let's chat Truffle-1 hardware rq 🧵

We've been cooking for months, and it's been an insane learning curve getting to where we are.

This summer, we worked on sloppy SLA resin shells and almost paid no heed to thermal constraints until @dylanvsthe started melting a few, and had to head back to the drawing board

A few weeks ago @brion369john converged on SLS printing. This is what gives the Truffle-1 it's ceramic-esque finish. More premium, but needs us to keep replenishing Nitrogen tanks from the local plug

> It also diffuses light really well (for a garage manufacturing startup)

Between each major materials meltdown, we turned to FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) as our trusty “rapid sketch” tool.

It let us iterate on design tweaks quickly. Hardware is really slow and painful, so anything you can do to reduce the iteration cycle pays dividends massively.

And because we’re not afraid to show our scars, here’s the “Hall of Misfit Shells”:

Every cracked enclosure taught us something new, leading us straight to the SLS solution.…

Since it's just a stock Orin SOM - we had to get our own heatsinks. Chinese manufacturers make a few good ones, but tariffs are on the horizon. (!) This was the only way to get the thermal performance in the chart below.

> Expensive, but necessary…

To top it off, your Truffle-1 ships in a literal bubble! These were from Aliexpress we just made them beautiful.

Design & Elegance come from simplicity and authenticity, and we tried to incorporate this into every part of making these units.