banana pi

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments on Add 18650 batteries underneath Raspberry Pi with the Red Reactor board (Crowdfunding)

Add 18650 batteries underneath Raspberry Pi with the Red Reactor board (Crowdfunding)

Red Reactor 18650 batteries Raspberry Pi

Pascal Herczog’s Red Reactor is a battery power supply project that adds two 18650 batteries to Raspberry Pi 4, Raspberry Pi 3, or Raspberry Pi Zero board using the pogo pins for connection. The pogo pin method means the Red Reactor is attached underneath the board, as such does not prevent the user to add a HAT expansion board on top of the single board computer. There’s also a headerless version for custom setup or compatibility with boards such as Arduino, Banana Pi, Orange Pi, etc… where some soldering is required. Red Reactor’s key features and specifications: Battery holder for up to 2x flat-top 18650 LiPo batteries Battery voltage and current monitoring over I2C (INA219) for software safe shutdown control, system reset, and your own functions Safety Battery protection Resettable fuse protects against discharge between 2 cells Over-Charge, Over-Discharge, and 6A Over-Current protection Host connection Pogo pins for Raspberry Pi […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments on OpenWrt 22.03 released with Firewall4, now supports over 1,580 embedded devices

OpenWrt 22.03 released with Firewall4, now supports over 1,580 embedded devices

OpenWrt 22.03

OpenWrt 22.03 open-source Linux operating system for routers and entry-level embedded devices has just been released with over 3800 commits since the release of OpenWrt 21.02 nearly exactly one year ago. The new version features Firewall4 based on nftables, switching from the earlier iptables-based Firewall3, and adds support for over 180 new devices for a total of more than 1,580 embedded devices, including 15 devices capable of WiFi 6 connectivity using the MediaTek MT7915 wifi chip. OpenWrt developers explain that Firewall4 keeps the same the UCI firewall configuration syntax and should work as a drop-in replacement with most common setups, just generating nftables rules instead of iptables ones. You’ll find more details about OpenWrt firewall configuration in the documentation. OpenWrt 21.02 added initial support for the Distributed Switch Architecture (DSA), the Linux standard for configurable Ethernet switches, and OpenWrt 22.03 migrated more targets from swconfig to DSA namely all bcm53xx […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 16 Comments on Banana Pi BPI-R3 WiFi 6 router board features MediaTek Filogic 830/MT7986 SoC

Banana Pi BPI-R3 WiFi 6 router board features MediaTek Filogic 830/MT7986 SoC

Banana Pi BPI-R3 router board

I first noticed the MediaTek MT7986 WiFi router processor in Linux 5.17 changelog. MT7986 is the codename for MediaTek Filogic 830 quad-core Cortex-A53 processor designed for Wi-Fi 6/6E routers with up to 6 Gbps bandwidth, and two 2.5Gbps Ethernet interfaces. Banana Pi BPI-R3 is a router board based on Filogic 830/MT7986A that offers an upgrade to the company’s Banana Pi BPI-R2 board powered by a MediaTek MT7623A quad-core Cortex-A7 processor or even the Banana Pi BPI-R64 board based on a MediaTek MT7622 dual-core Arm Cortex-A53 SoC. Banana Pi BPI-R3 specifications: SoC – MediaTek MT7986A (Filogic 830) quad-core Arm Cortex A53 processor with hardware acceleration engines for Wi-Fi offloading and networking System Memory – 2GB DDR RAM Storage – 8GB eMMC flash, MicroSD card socket, support for M.2 NVMe SSD Networking 2x 2.5GbE SFP cages, 5x Gigabit Ethernet ports (1x WAN + 4x LAN) via MT7531AE 7-port switch WiFi 6 4×4 […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 14 Comments on Linux 5.19 Release – Main changes, Arm, RISC-V and MIPS architectures

Linux 5.19 Release – Main changes, Arm, RISC-V and MIPS architectures

Linux 5.19 release arm risc-v mips

Linus Torvalds has just announced the release of Linux 5.19. It should be the last 5.xx version, with Linux 6.0 coming for the next cycle: So here we are, one week late, and 5.19 is tagged and pushed out. The full shortlog (just from rc8, obviously not all of 5.19) is below, but I can happily report that there is nothing really interesting in there. A lot of random small stuff. In the diffstat, the loongarch updates stand out, as does another batch of the networking sysctl READ_ONCE() annotations to make some of the data race checker code happy. Other than that it’s really just a mixed bag of various odds and ends. On a personal note, the most interesting part here is that I did the release (and am writing this) on an arm64 laptop. It’s something I’ve been waiting for for a _loong_ time, and it’s finally reality, […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments on Banana Pi BPI-W3 – An RK3588 SBC with dual Gigabit Ethernet, SATA, PCIe x4 slot

Banana Pi BPI-W3 – An RK3588 SBC with dual Gigabit Ethernet, SATA, PCIe x4 slot

Banana Pi BPI-W3

Banana Pi BPI-W3 is yet another upcoming Rockchip RK3588 SBC but with a different set of features, notably the presence of two Gigabit Ethernet ports, a PCIe x4 slot, and a SATA port, besides to more common dual HDMI output, HDMI input, USB 2.0/3.0 ports, etc… The board layout is somewhat similar to the company’s BPI-RK3588 SBC but with a system-on-module, and instead, the Rockchip RK3588 processor is soldered directly onto the board together with 8GB LPDDR4, and 32GB eMMC flash. Banana Pi BPI-W3 specifications (preliminary): SoC- Rockchip RK3588 octa-core processor with 4x Cortex-A76 cores @ up to 2.4 GHz (YMMV), 4x Cortex-A55 cores @ 1.8 GHz, an Arm Mali G610MC4 GPU, a 6 TOPS NPU, 8K 10-bit decoder, 8K encoder System Memory – 8GB LPDDR4 Storage – 32GB eMMC flash, SATA III port Video Output – 2x HDMI 2.1 ports up to 8Kp60 Input – 1x HDMI 2.0 input […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments on Banana Pi BPI-Leaf-S3 ESP32-S3 board launched for $7.5

Banana Pi BPI-Leaf-S3 ESP32-S3 board launched for $7.5

Banana Pi Leaf BPI-Leaf-S3

Banana Pi is better known for its Arm Linux boards, but the company’s Banana Pi BPI-Leaf-S3 board features Espressif ESP32-S3 dual-core WiFi & BLE AI processor, with compatibility with ESP32-S3-DevKitC-1 minus a built-in USB to TTL chip, and added support for battery and an I2C connector. Banana Pi Leaf (BPI-Leaf-S3) specifications: Wireless MCU – Espressif Systems ESP32-S3 dual-core Tensilica LX7 @ up to 240 MHz with vector instructions for AI acceleration, 512KB RAM, wireless connectivity Storage/Memory – 8MB flash, 2MB SPRAM Connectivity via ESP32-S3 2.4 GHz 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi 4 with 40 MHz bandwidth support Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) 5.0 and Mesh connectivity with long-range support, up to 2Mbps data rate. PCB antenna USB – 1x USB Type-C OTG port for power and programming Expansion 2x 22-pin headers with up to 36x GPIO, 2x 12-bit ADC, 14x touch sensor inputs, 4x SPI, 2x I2C, 2x I2S, LCD interface, DVP camera […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments on Raspberry Pi CM4 compatible module coming soon with Amlogic A311D CPU

Raspberry Pi CM4 compatible module coming soon with Amlogic A311D CPU

Raspberry Pi CM4 Amlogic A311D

Despite assurances by Eben Upton that there’s no supply shortage of Raspberry Pi CM4 modules for commercial and industrial customers, installations or projects requiring just a few modules may be out of luck. So alternatives are needed, and after seeing Rockchip RK3566-based SoMs compatible with Pi CM4, namely the Pine64 SoPine and Radxa CM3, Banana Pi is working on a Raspberry Pi CM4 compatible module powered by Amlogic A311D hexa-core Arm Cortex-A73/A53 processor. Banana Pi BPI-CM4 specifications: SoC – Amlogic A311D hexa-core processor with 4x Arm Cortex-A73 @ 2.0 GHz and 2x Arm Cortex-A53 @, Arm Mali-G52 MP4 (6EE) GPU, 5 TOPS NPU System Memory – 2GB/4GB LPDDR4 RAM Storage – 16GB eMMC flash (up to 128GB) Networking – Gigabit Ethernet PHY on-module, optional WiFi 5/6 module with on-board PCB antenna and external antenna 2x 100-pin high-density board-to-board connector (mostly) compatible with Raspberry Pi CM4 with 1x HDMI, 1x MIPI […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on Linux 5.18 release – Main changes, Arm, RISC-V, and MIPS architectures

Linux 5.18 release – Main changes, Arm, RISC-V, and MIPS architectures

Linux 5.18 release arm risc-v mips

Linux 5.18 is out! Linus Torvalds has just announced the release on lkml: No unexpected nasty surprises this last week, so here we go with the 5.18 release right on schedule. That obviously means that the merge window for 5.19 will open tomorrow, and I already have a few pull requests pending. Thank you everybody. I’d still like people to run boring old plain 5.18 just to check, before we start with the excitement of all the new features for the merge window. The full shortlog for the last week is below, and nothing really odd stands out. The diffstat looks a bit funny – unusually we have parsic architecture patches being a big part of it due to some last-minute cache flushing fixes, but that is probably more indicative of everything else being pretty small. So outside of the parisc fixes, there’s random driver updates (mellanox mlx5 stands out, […]

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