BPi R16

[tkaiser]

Just FYI: the first interesting Banana board since ages: BPi R16 based on Allwinner's A33 SoC (R16 is just a relabeled A33 with a different Allwinner business unit being responsible for).

 

 

For R16 exists a horribly outdated 'SDK' made by Allwinner's BU5: https://github.com/tinalinux/linux-3.4 (relies on unpatched kernel 3.4.39 which might contain more security flaws than features in the meantime. Their tinalinux approach combines this with an outdated Android 4.4 and somehow also a smelly OpenWRT version for reasons unknown to me. Surprisingly they also rely on their own proprietary LiveSuit image format no one on this planet outside of Allwinner wants to use).

 

But the good news is: There are some mainline kernel branches with patches for A33 around that are in a pretty good shape eg. https://github.com/Icenowy/linux/tree/a33-cedrus-pr (seems Icenowy also managed to get Allwinner video engine working with mainline kernel already). So most probably no need to fiddle around with Allwinner's tinalinux stuff or SinoVoip OS images at all

 

For me personally such an R16 IoT board has one big advantage over el cheapo H2+/H3 boards: PMIC support and therefore the ability to use/charge a connected battery (and also control voltage/useage and act on accordingly).

 

Let's see whether SinoVoip manages to introduce the usual design flaws (eg. not being able to use an external aerial unless you desolder components on the board), when they release (hopefully accurate) schematics, how the battery connector looks like and whether this device will be priced competitively.

 

Edit: According to the above pictures the same DRAM as on NanoPi Air is used (512MiB K4B4G1646Q-BCK0 DDR3) and at least not the ultra-slow eMMC they used on every other board since BPi M2+ (there they use KLM8G1WEMB-B031 -- can't read the exact writing on the picture above)

 

Edit 2: According to linux-sunxi IRC Ampak AP6212 is used on the board (WiFi/BT combo like on nearly all other Banana boards and also NanoPi Air or the upcoming OPi Zero 2 -- so we then have 3 flat and lightweight boards with eMMC, camera connector and the same Wi-Fi/BT combination but from 3 different companies using 3 different Allwinner SoCs. Funny)

[zador.blood.stained]

Just FYI: the first interesting Banana board since ages: BPi R16 based on Allwinner's A33 SoC (R16 is just a relabeled A33 but a different Allwinner business unit is responsible).

Am I reading this right? You just called a board without an Ethernet and with a single USB port interesting? 

 

For me personally such an R16 IoT board has one big advantage over el cheapo H2+/H3 boards: PMIC support and therefore the ability to use/charge a connected battery (and also control voltage/useage and act on accordingly).

That's assuming you can buy the other end of whatever battery connector they put on this board (or a cheap&good enough batteries with this type of connector) from the hardware PoV and presence of a software interface/drivers for the PMIC.

 

Let's see whether SinoVoip manages to introduce the usual design flaws (eg. not being able to use an external aerial unless you desolder components on the board), when they release (hopefully accurate) schematics, how the battery connector looks like and whether this device will be priced competitively.

I don't see anything that would resemble a wireless switch or a splitter on the photo, so unless internal and external antennas are connected to different antenna ports on the wireless module (if it even has 2 antenna ports), the only way to switch between antennas would be soldering.

[tkaiser]

You just called a board without an Ethernet and with single USB port interesting? 

 

Can't believe it myself

 

Well, I'm thinking about the data logger / sensor use case and compare here with el cheapo H2+/H3 boards. Given the used Ampak chip combined with a reasonable aerial provides long range connectivity (most probably then using 802.11b, right?) and battery situation and price are ok it might be worth a look (ok, differs a bit from 'interesting' as before).

 

We'll see. At least this hardware category starts to emerge (cheap Allwinner IoT stuff with battery support). BTW: It's 2 USB ports, 1 x host and 1 OTG

[zador.blood.stained]

We'll see. At least this hardware category starts to emerge (cheap Allwinner IoT stuff with battery support). BTW: It's 2 USB ports, 1 x host and 1 OTG

Well, this type of OTG (if it's not like on Pine64 where you can switch between OTG and HCI controllers behind the USB PHY) in host may work unstable at high data rates (I remember such reports with Lime2 boards and mainline kernel)

[tkaiser]

Well, this type of OTG (if it's not like on Pine64 where you can switch between OTG and HCI controllers behind the USB PHY) in host may work unstable at high data rates (I remember such reports with Lime2 boards and mainline kernel)

 

Has to be confirmed. I thought there would be differences between first gen OTG ports (A10, A20 and A13/R8) and more recent implementation like on H3 (there I tested this extensively and OTG port used as host port is just a little bit slower while being pretty stable). But no idea whether A33 is here comparable to H3 or 1st gen (it seems Icenowy simply took all the Cedrus patches for A13 to get video engine working with A33 so at least in this area A33/R16 seem to be compatible to '1st gen Allwinner SoCs').

 

Ok, let's calm down and wait what we get. To see how OTG behaves a simple storage benchmark should suffice. If it's like H3 then it's a few MB/s less if it's 1st gen behaviour it's a lot slower. Anyway. I don't associate anything with high (performance) in its name with this device.

[tkaiser]

Small update: 'famous' SinoVoip folks decided to confuse their poor customers even more. BPi R16 will be called 'BPi M2M' officially (M is for 'Magic', can't believe it but they really name this small board 'BPi-M2 Magic')

 

https://github.com/BPI-SINOVOIP/BPI-files/commit/ce642ad1b36f2b38e66d1591182e6ae7f3df5a08

 

Congratulations. It's 2017 and they ship with an unpatched kernel 3.4.39 ignoring that 3.4 branch is at 3.4.113 already.

[hojnikb]

Hardware now, software never. That seems to be the motto of these small SBC makers. Which means community either steps up and cleans their mess (ie does software like armbian) or boycotts them by not buying their products.

[LeopoldVonBuschLight]

I'm looking for a development board to use as a prototype/template for a potential commercial product. Our basic requirements are support for a decent camera,  battery/charge controller,  and wifi.  This setup looks promising, especially since the A33/R18 is pretty cheap.  I've been playing around with one of these and so far it works pretty well. A little more RAM would be nice. The board comes with 512MB but I think the chip can handle 1GB. 

 

Using one of sinvoip's ubuntu images, the the ov5640 camera seems to work. The battery connector is terrible, but once connected, the AXP223 also works as expected.

 

This weekend I got an ubuntu server image with a mainline kernel working using the armbian build system.  So far the wifi works, but I haven't figured out how to read a connected battery.  The /sys/class/power_supply directory exists, but the   /sys/class/power_supply/battery directory is missing. 

 

Has anyone else gotten a chance to play around with this board? I'm going to try and get the camera and battery working in the next week or so. If anyone else is interested I can create a fork on github.

[@lex]

28 minutes ago, LeopoldVonBuschLight said:

This weekend I got an ubuntu server image with a mainline kernel working using the armbian build system. 

Can you please tell which mainline kernel version you are using? Wifi has some issues with 4.15.y, it works but ping is around 60 ms while 4.14.y is very smooth, around 1.5 ms.

If you can get ov5640 with mainline I am in.

[LeopoldVonBuschLight]

I can't remember which kernel version but I'll check when I get home.

 

As far as the camera, the docs reference the M64 for some reason, and link to your(?) modified driver/code: https://github.com/avafinger/ov5640/tree/A64. I have no idea what it will take to get it working with mainline, but I'll play around with it. Do you know if there are any other boards that can run mainline and use the ov5640?

 

 

 

[@lex]

1 hour ago, LeopoldVonBuschLight said:

Do you know if there are any other boards that can run mainline and use the ov5640?

Not that i know.  (AW chip).

But there are other boards with MIPI interface (higher FPS) but with two or three times this price tag.

 

Forgot to mention:

You can check the CSI progress for the v3s here: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/linux-sunxi/Cu5ldv_SzSc[26-50]

I have read (somewhere and i can't remember where)  this was tested on H3. Maybe you get inspired and try to build one image and push it to github and i try to help somehow.

 

Edited March 26, 2018 by @lex
v3s

[LeopoldVonBuschLight]

I'm using 4.14.29 and getting around 25 ms when pinging google.com. I'm getting about 21 ms with my laptop, so not too bad.  Thanks for the info on the v3s CSI stuff, I'll try to check it out this week.

[LeopoldVonBuschLight]

Well getting the battery to work was easy enough; battery_power_supply was just missing from the device tree.  This simple overlay did the trick:

/dts-v1/;
/plugin/;

 / {
  compatible = "sinovoip,bananapi-m2m", "allwinner,sun8i-a33";
  fragment@0 {
    target = <&battery_power_supply>;
    __overlay__ {
      status = "okay";
    };
  };
};

As for the camera...

On 3/26/2018 at 2:00 PM, @lex said:

Not that i know.  (AW chip).

But there are other boards with MIPI interface (higher FPS) but with two or three times this price tag.

 

Forgot to mention:

You can check the CSI progress for the v3s here: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/linux-sunxi/Cu5ldv_SzSc[26-50]

I have read (somewhere and i can't remember where)  this was tested on H3. Maybe you get inspired and try to build one image and push it to github and i try to help somehow.

It looks like they got the CSI controller working on the H3/H5 and an ov5640 working on the Nano Pi M1+: https://www.spinics.net/lists/devicetree/msg218207.html

It also looks like someone was messing with CSI drivers for the A33 at one point: https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/9866283/

This stuff with the camera is way over my head, but I'll keep playing with it.

[@lex]

On 3/26/2018 at 11:05 AM, LeopoldVonBuschLight said:

. The battery connector is terrible, but once connected,

Can you please show a picture of the connector you used and also the battery? If you have some specification for the connector and battery would be nice.

[LeopoldVonBuschLight]

I'm not sure about the specs for the battery, I just used a 4400mAh lipo I found on ebay or aliexpress a while back. I didn't configure anything on the m2m for this specific battery, so it might blow up eventually...

 

I bought some 6 pin 1.25mm JST connectors that were mentioned here: http://forum.banana-pi.org/t/battery-cable-circuit/3737 (even though this is for a different board). 

 

This is from the m2magic schematic located here: https://bananapi.gitbooks.io/banana-pi-bpi-m2-magic-iot-development-board/content/chapter1/bpi-m2-magic-schematic-diagram.html

 

 

 

Here are the pins on the board:

 

The battery I'm using at the moment only has two wires (no temp sensor). I put pins 1-3 to bat +, pins 4 and 5 to bat - and a 10k resistor between pin 6 and gnd. It looks like that was wrong though, and pin 6 should go straight to gnd with no resistor?

 

Here is one of the 6 pin 1.25mm JST connectors:

 

Sorry for the bad pictures! 

[LeopoldVonBuschLight]

3 hours ago, @lex said:

If you have some specification for the connector

Oh and here is a connector that should work: https://www.ebay.com/i/162705482126?chn=ps&dispItem=1