richard1937 Posted February 7, 2018 Share Posted February 7, 2018 I have several Pi3s and two Asus Tinkers. They work well, Tinker is a bet better of the two. Want something fast to use with my 3D print. and Octoprint etc. So want to run CAD software, Slicer etc. and control of my Creality CR-10. - So, I bought OrangePi and had bad initial experience, and boot SW was in Chinese. So I returned it and got their best? The OrangePi 2 Plus. - Should have been better. My experience is it is very very temperamental. I found, and I see others have experience power supply issues. 1. Must make sure the 5V does NOT go below, 5Vs. The average current runs between .5 and .8 Amp. but there are large peaks. I used a 3A raged supply and even it was flaky, as the current peaks would load the 5V rail down to 4.8 volts or so. Now, if you were only using, without a desktop - you will not experience these issues. BUT - add a desktop and try to manipulate some graphics you will experience lock up and crashes etc. To easily demonstrate the problems bring up YOUTUBE and watch some video. It will be very flaky and will lockup etc. I even added a good size capacitor on the 5V rail and it helped but not enough. Using a Lab supply will do the trick but THAT is just NOT acceptable. For the recorded: I tried all the Desktop Distro on the OrangePi site. Some a bet better then others but NONE were reliable. I have two of these OrangePi 2 Plus, and both are the same. I have try about a dozen, yes a dozen 16 and 32 GB Class 10 SD Cards. I have done the Flashing etc. on two different computers and I have done FULL Formats and I have used both Etcher and WIN32Disk burner. I am open to ideas, but I do think the OrangePi 2 Plus is just not ready for show time. I did NOT have any of these problems with 3 RaspberryPi-3s and the 2 TinkerPis.! HELP - or at this point I will just send these two OrangePis back also. Thanks, Richard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chwe Posted February 7, 2018 Share Posted February 7, 2018 58 minutes ago, richard1937 said: Tinker is a bet better of the two. Depends on use-case, but let's avoid another RPi discussion here.. 58 minutes ago, richard1937 said: So, I bought OrangePi Just for interest... Which one? 58 minutes ago, richard1937 said: 1. Must make sure the 5V does NOT go below, 5Vs. The average current runs between .5 and .8 Amp. but there are large peaks. I used a 3A raged supply and even it was flaky, as the current peaks would load the 5V rail down to 4.8 volts or so. It's a well known problem that undervoltage leads in terrible behavior on those boards, whereas RPi has some sort of 'protection', the OPis have none. In case you're interested in this topic I suggest to search for 'undervoltage' etc. @tkaiser explains it very well multiple times. You could also read in this subforum where we collect 'powering goes wrong'... https://forum.armbian.com/forum/31-sd-card-and-power-supply/ I had good success using Xunlongs PSU with barrel plug on those boards... But mine are mostly headless & ETH only, which eliminates the most common mistakes (if you connect 3 USB devices with 500mA at 5V +HDMI, I'm quite sure that this PSU would also fail - never tested)... 58 minutes ago, richard1937 said: To easily demonstrate the problems bring up YOUTUBE and watch some video. bad example, for YT you need hardware accelerated videodecoding, which only works in some 'special cases' at the moment... Otherwise you generate a lot of CPU load just for videodecoding which is a nightmare. You're right that those H3 boards do not shine on those use cases, maybe we see some progress in the future when Free Electrons develops the needed stuff.. 58 minutes ago, richard1937 said: I tried all the Desktop Distro on the OrangePi site. Xunlong does a decent job in hardware - software is.... a different story. IMHO just forget about their images and start with armbian from the beginning, it's more reliable.. I see no use case where their images are better than the ones provided by armbian. 58 minutes ago, richard1937 said: I have try about a dozen, yes a dozen 16 and 32 GB Class 10 SD Cards. I have done the Flashing etc. on two different computers and I have done FULL Formats and I have used both Etcher and WIN32Disk burner. you don't need a dozen of SD cards, one (or maybe two) do well if you buy reliable cards, test them with f3 or h2testw and burn it with etcher only (WIN32Disk is just a tool to fool you... ). I suggest you follow armbians 'getting started' closely and you should be fine.. https://docs.armbian.com/User-Guide_Getting-Started/ 58 minutes ago, richard1937 said: I am open to ideas, but I do think the OrangePi 2 Plus is just not ready for show time. I did NOT have any of these problems with 3 RaspberryPi-3s and the 2 TinkerPis.! HELP - or at this point I will just send these two OrangePis back also. So after your 'randomly approach' we should try something more 'structured'... I can't guarantee you that it will fit for your use case, cause never used for it but let's see what happens.. Start with the 'getting started' Use the Armbian Image for OPi plus 2e (It's 'more or less' the same board, so for your initial tests it should work). I suggest you use a legacy Desktop image for a start. CAD wouldn't be easy but I suggest you follow @Ucinos content. He has somehow similar ideas... Not the same board, but same SoC, more or less same Image so it should work... I never tested it by my self cause CAD is on my outdated laptop for 3d printing... Have fun.. edit: I'll move it cause I don't think that 'review' is the best place.. it's more a support question (fits also not perfectly here, but IMHO better)... And gave it a less 'generic title'.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkaiser Posted February 8, 2018 Share Posted February 8, 2018 On 7.2.2018 at 8:19 AM, richard1937 said: I did NOT have any of these problems with 3 RaspberryPi-3s and the 2 TinkerPis.! Since those use Micro USB you're clearly using different cables between PSU and your Orange Pi. So simply throw this cable away and replace it with something that does not suck (tiny wires --> voltage drop) or buy the Xunlong 3A PSU with fixed cable. All your problems will be gone instantly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guidol Posted February 8, 2018 Share Posted February 8, 2018 34 minutes ago, tkaiser said: or buy the Xunlong 3A PSU with fixed cable. All your problems will be gone instantly. or easier to get: the Official Raspberry Pi Power Supply (in white or black). 5.1V at 2.5A and also with a fixed cable Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkaiser Posted February 8, 2018 Share Posted February 8, 2018 The large Orange Pi can only be powered through the 4/1.7mm barrel jack usually done with a good PSU or some random USB PlayStation powering cable. Rule of thumb: if there is an USB connector on either end of the cable expect problems. The worst cables I ever bought were 'USB to 5.5/2.1mm barrel' on Aliexpress. Voltage drop that severe that not even a single core Olimex A10 Lime was able too boot (crashed instantly and went into endless reboot loop) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ucino Posted February 24, 2018 Share Posted February 24, 2018 @richard1937 hello From my little experience, running CAD & slice software on arm is not very easy for the moment. But using appimage could be a nice way. On OPiPC+, OpenScad can run with appimage but for the slic3r prusa edition slicers it seems that is not possible for the moment. If you want more information about these 2 tools, please tell me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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