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Posted

I've set up my new OPi Zero as a wireless AP running the latest Armbian build for the OPi0. It's working mostly great. My one problem I'm having is that my speeds seem to be throttled to 5-6Mbps. I connect wirelessly from my phone and run a speed test and get 5-6Mbps. If I connect directly to my router, I get 30Mbps.

 

I have a Rpi3 set up about the same as the OPi0, and when I connect it up I get the full 30. Each time I've tested with the OPi and RPi, my phone is the only device connected.

 

So, I've poked around online and I can't seem to figure out if it's a hardware limitation or if it's a software/driver/setting limitation. Also, if it's the latter, how/where to find the problem in my configuration.

 

Has anyone else gotten better speeds out of their OPi0, if so, what were they? Does anyone have any recommendations for where to look to configuration changes?

 

This is my current HostAPD configuration:

 

# This is the name of the WiFi interface we configured above

interface=wlan0

 

# Use the nl80211 driver with the brcmfmac driver

driver=nl80211

 

# This is the name of the network

ssid=babyRoadTrip

 

# Use the 2.4GHz band

hw_mode=g

 

# Use channel 6

channel=6

 

# Enable 802.11n

ieee80211n=1

 

# Enable WMM

wmm_enabled=1

 

# Enable 40MHz channels with 20ns guard interval

ht_capab=[HT40]

# Not sure if OPi supports these:

# [sHORT-GI-20][DSSS_CCK-40]

 

# Accept all MAC addresses

macaddr_acl=0

 

# Use WPA authentication

auth_algs=3

 

# Require clients to know the network name

ignore_broadcast_ssid=0

 

# Use WPA2

wpa=2

 

# Use a pre-shared key

wpa_key_mgmt=WPA-PSK

 

# The network passphrase

wpa_passphrase=roadtrip

 

# Use AES, instead of TKIP

rsn_pairwise=CCMP

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Posted
  On 1/31/2017 at 6:26 AM, Sdpetersen said:

I've set up my new OPi Zero as a wireless AP running the latest Armbian build for the OPi0. It's working mostly great. My one problem I'm having is that my speeds seem to be throttled to 5-6Mbps. I connect wirelessly from my phone and run a speed test and get 5-6Mbps. If I connect directly to my router, I get 30Mbps.

 

Yes, the XRADIO driver is crap. This has been known for quite some time. If you want good WiFi performance, don't use an Orange Pi Zero.

 

See here for further discussion of WiFi performance:

https://forum.armbian.com/index.php/topic/3243-orange-pi-zero-xradio-st-cw1200/?p=22863

 

Summary:

 

  On 1/28/2017 at 12:54 PM, tkaiser said:

Single antenna low power Wi-Fi in 2.4 GHz band is great to send some sensor data around but please don't expect 'throughput' with this 'as cheap as possible' type of wireless device.

 

The best I got with el cheapo Wi-Fi (tested with OPi Lite, Banana Pro, Pine64 and NanoPi Air) here in my place was 20 Mbits/sec over a pretty short distance using a good AP configured to use highest power profile. At night! During the day and especially in the evening when loads of other devices around utilize the same radio channels bandwidth drops down to laughable numbers and latency increases like hell.

 

BTW: 20 Mbits/secs means not even 3 MB/s! Just to be sure... I'm always surprised about the huge amount of confusion around Wi-Fi: people thinking there would be something like 'guaranteed bandwidth', hiding SSID would improve security, same with MAC filter... all plain BS but a lot of people believe in  :(

Posted

Thanks! I'd love to contribute to the solution, but my skillset is limited (a lot of the stuff you said over there was over my head).

 

I posted there. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help.

Posted
  On 1/31/2017 at 5:04 PM, Sdpetersen said:

Thanks for the tip, borombo, but my application already uses the USB for a flash drive for expanded storage.

 

There's 2 additional USB ports available from the expansion header. You'll need a 2.54mm to USB-A female adapter. Something like this would work (with the pins re-arranged appropriately).

 

Alternatively, Xunlong sells an expansion board for the Orange Pi Zero which adds two USB ports, microphone, IR, and audio/video out.

 

 

  On 1/31/2017 at 6:26 AM, Sdpetersen said:

I have a Rpi3 set up about the same as the OPi0, and when I connect it up I get the full 30. Each time I've tested with the OPi and RPi, my phone is the only device connected.

 

Say what you will about the Raspberry Pi foundation, but their hardware support is pretty good. This is a case of "you get what you pay for"

Posted

Thanks gentlemen for the recommendations, but if I bought all that to make it work, I might as well buy an RPi.

 

The thing is, the OPi0 has exactly the hardware I need for my application: 1 USB port, 512MB+ RAM, onboard wifi, an additional NIC (wireless would be great, but wired will work too), microSD memory, capable of running linux (LAMP server).

 

If it were a one-off project, I'd be all for buying the nicer SBC (I've built my project on 3 different RPi versions and have at least 10 RPi's) or buying the accessories to make it work (that's something else I've done before), but I'm looking to mass produce my device for commercial sales and where I don't have the capital to develop my own board, I'm using off the shelf hardware. I like this board because it gets rid of the extras that cause my customers confusion (HDMI, SPDIF, 4xUSB) and it brings down my costs.

 

Do you guys have any recommendations for a different SBC that meets my minimum requirements, but costs less than the RPi3? Or a good resource that lists lots of SBCs and let's me search/filter for my needs?

 

As it is, the OPi0 works adequately, but the wifi isn't very fast or reliable, so I'm looking to solve that problem or find another solution.

Posted
  On 2/1/2017 at 9:36 PM, Sdpetersen said:

Does the OpiPC+ have a better wifi adapter that won't have the same problems as the Opi0?

Yes, it's bettter.

Posted

Thanks @Igor... I just looked that up, and it brings up a new issue: power adapter. Another thing that made the OPi0 more "realistic" to use is the fact that it uses the Micro USB to power it and not some "custom" (or not as common) power adapter.

Posted

Powering via micro USB should be avoided where and if possible, especially in productive environment. Better to power via header. This goes for all boards which fancy micro USB power connector.

Posted

OPiPC+ is powered using traditional Barrel 4mm x 1.7mm.

Of course, OPiPC+ is twice as big footprint form-factor of OPi0, but 3 USB instead of 1, 2x or 4X DRAM, 8MB eMMC which once initialized with "nand-sata-install", you remove MicroSD forever, reducing BoM cost.

Posted

@Igor, are you saying that RPi got it wrong by doing the USB power? If so, could you give some reasons - I'd like to know more.

 

@matinayotte, that sounds great, but my application requires 32Gb storage or more, so I'd need the SD card regardless.

Posted

USB Power ? as discussed many times on this forum, microUSB connector and cheap/crappy/dirty cables can't provide enough power to the board.

 

you can still boot from eMMC and use MicroSD only for data.

Posted
  On 2/2/2017 at 3:04 AM, Sdpetersen said:

@Igor, are you saying that RPi got it wrong by doing the USB power? If so, could you give some reasons - I'd like to know more.

Just an example. I've got a first Raspberry Pi (model B ) powered via microUSB (just because I'm too lazy to free up GPIO pins and make a peoper cable) and if I plug, for example, a card reader into its USB port, it will simply reboot. So while it's possible to use microUSB for some use cases, it's hard to prevent end users from using a crappy cable and a more crappy power supply. Compared to it H3 Orange Pi boards except Zero can't be powered from microUSB and require a power supply with a compatible barrel plug - luckily Xunlong sells a pretty good one, so clueless users have less chance to get it wrong.

Posted

This is my config for OPi Zero, used in TorBox project

 

https://github.com/znoxx/torbox/blob/master/scripts/etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf

 

Just change driver back to nl80211 and your built-in zero wifi will work. Or, if u use realtek dongle - leave rtl driver. Attention, driver for realtek is available with patched hostapd.

 

Also I use almost recent version of hostapd from w1fi with realtek patches. You can grab binary here: https://github.com/znoxx/torbox/tree/master/hostapd

Warning - arm6 is for Rpi 1, so use other one :)

 

And here are the tests:

 

http://www.speedtest.net/wp/63198076.png - this one is for default antenna

http://www.speedtest.net/wp/63198476.png -this one is for modded antenna

http://www.speedtest.net/wp/63199253.png - this one is for modded antenna inside case :)

 

The antenna mod is decribed here: http://znoxx.me/2017/02/01/altiernativnaia-wifi-antienna-dlia-orange-pi/

 

Also ensure, that your Zero has running haveged daemon to have best results acting as access point.

Posted
  Quote

Also I use almost recent version of hostapd from w1fi with realtek patches. You can grab binary here: https://github.com/z.../master/hostapd

Warning - arm6 is for Rpi 1, so use other one  :)

 

Latest hostapd, normal and patched for Realtek are built from sources and available within Armbian package base (apt.armbian.com) by default since early days of the project:

apt-get install hostapd

or

apt-get install hostapd-realtek
Posted
  On 2/2/2017 at 8:21 AM, Igor said:

 

Latest hostapd, normal and patched for Realtek are built from sources and available within Armbian package base (apt.armbian.com) by default since early days of the project:

apt-get install hostapd

or

apt-get install hostapd-realtek

 

Wow, thanks! Did not noticed that!

And can I use hostapd-realtek with nl80211 driver by changing the config ?

Posted
  Quote
And can I use hostapd-realtek with nl80211 driver by changing the config ?

 

I forgot / am not sure if this combination work, but just try. I think realtek version is needed on some older drivers, while nl80211 is used with more recent realtek drivers found in mainline kernel. We provide both, that you are ready to do quick experiments without a need to compile hostapd on your own.

Posted

There is no really "wrong" with usb power. Even Arduinos can run on USB power.
Problem is that USB spec itself don't enforce the amp output for higher numbers (which these boards would require).

 

Meaning that cheap USB cables/connectors don't need to support example more than 1.0a witch is not really enough for power hungry devices.
Example USB-C is more than enough if it ever gets to the soc - scene.

 

I once connected by mistake a 0.5a usb cable to 2.4A power source and yes wires started to heat up and the power source itself started to give error blinking 

 

  On 2/2/2017 at 7:59 AM, zador.blood.stained said:

Just an example. I've got a first Raspberry Pi (model B ) powered via microUSB (just because I'm too lazy to free up GPIO pins and make a peoper cable) and if I plug, for example, a card reader into its USB port, it will simply reboot. So while it's possible to use microUSB for some use cases, it's hard to prevent end users from using a crappy cable and a more crappy power supply. Compared to it H3 Orange Pi boards except Zero can't be powered from microUSB and require a power supply with a compatible barrel plug - luckily Xunlong sells a pretty good one, so clueless users have less chance to get it wrong.

Posted
  On 2/2/2017 at 10:59 AM, jkajolin said:

There is no really "wrong" with usb power.

 

It's the same problem as in other areas: Mismatch between expectations and reality. Users not familiar with Ohm's law or electronics in general think Micro USB would be great to power a device (since they think they can use the gear already lying around) but it's exactly the opposite.

 

While the Micro USB connector can be considered a broken design to power anything that needs more juice than an Arduino the problem most users are running into with Micro USB is the cable and the quality of their power source (using cheap chargers is asking for trouble). Most of the times the problem is also not related to 'not enough current' but voltage drop in reality. Though there's a relationship between the current needed by the device and the voltage available due to most USB cables being crap (resistance way too high): Ohm's law, please see here or there for details.

 

TL;DR: Using average USB chargers and average USB cables chances are pretty high to run in undervoltage situations as soon as the current demand of the device increases (due to connected peripherals or high CPU utilization and stuff like that).

Posted
  On 2/2/2017 at 9:26 PM, manuti said:

USB-C

 

This is something completely different than crappy Micro USB. USB-C's own 'power modes' allow for 1.5 or 3A at 5V and USB PD (power delivery) profiles also go up to 3A @ 20V which any standard compliant USB-C cable has to be able to deal with (some cables also allow for USB PD profile 5 which means 100W).

 

And now compare with Micro USB situation. Back then USB current ratings were just 500 mA maximum so it's no wonder so many cables exist that use tiny diameters for both data and power lines since the voltage drop at below 500 mA isn't that much compared to what an SBC under full load with attached peripherals might pull when exceeding 1A or even more.

 

BTW: I had a good laugh when reading through USB PD and USB-C specs some time ago and checking participants/editors list. Seems Apple took every engineer available and sent them to USB implementers forum to prevent the disaster when this insane Micro USB crap got specified 10 years ago.

Posted

Hello guys, at the moment I have big trouble with setting orange zero as AP. If i use
legacy version I can setup AP properly, but at nightly version I continually getting resets or bootloops. I have tried  5.27.170321, 5.27.170323, 5.27.170324 with same result.
Here is my listing from serial console if I want to start hostapd:
 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Can anyone help me resolve this problem please?

Posted

Hello friends,

 

Does anyone created a working Ad-Hock network via Orange Pi Zero using default onboard network chip?
Please help, I am getting stuck.

 

I have tried configuring like this:

source-directory /etc/network/interfaces.d
auto wlan14
iface wlan14 inet static
  address 192.168.1.1
  netmask 255.255.255.0
  wireless-channel 1
  wireless-essid Ad-HocNetwork
  wireless-mode ad-hoc
 
Thanks in advance.
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