Introduction
Banana Pi R3 Router is a very high performance open-source development board with MediaTek MT7986 (Filogic 830) quad core ARM A53, MT7531A chip for network/ethernet, 2 GB DDR4 RAM and 8 GB eMMC flash onboard.
Furthermore, it supports Wi-Fi 6 2.4Gz Wi-Fi using the MT7975N chip and 5Ghz Wi-Fi using the MT7975P chip. It also contains two SFP 2.5GbE ports and five GbE network ports.
Top view:
Bottom view:
Wiki pages
There exists separate wiki pages, which are kept up-to-date. And contain more details:
English: Banana Pi BPI-R3 - Banana Pi Wiki (banana-pi.org)
Chinese: 香蕉派 BPI-R3 - Banana Pi Wiki (banana-pi.org)
Unofficial wiki (English): en:bpi-r3:start [FW-WEB Wiki]
Features
- Fast quad core processor: MediaTek MT7986A (Filogic 830), ARM Cortex A53 SoC designed for routers
- 2GB DDR4 RAM
- Wired network:
- 5 GbE network ports
- 2 SFP 2.5 Gbe ports
- Wi-Fi:
- 4T4R 2.4Ghz 802.11bgnax Wi-Fi (MT7975N)
- 4T4R 5Ghz 802.11anac/ax Wi-Fi (MT7975P)
- dual-band Wi-Fi 6 support
- Either 6GHz or 5GHz possible (see here)
- Only WiFi 6 is natively supported. WiFi 6E (extended) requires a separate adapter.
- 1 SD/ MMC controller:
- 8 GB eMMC flash storage
- Micro SD card slot
- 1 SPI controller:
- 128 MB NAND flash storage
- 32 MB NOR flash storage
- USB 3.0 Port
- Mini PCIe slot (for 4G LTE module, only USB 2.0 connected, no PCIe/SATA lanes)
- Sim card slot (for 4G, connected to mini PCIe interface)
- M.2 PCIe interface (for storage or Wi-Fi, PCIe x2)
- 26 pin GPIO
- PoE, Power over Ethernet (optional)
- Supports OpenWRT (BPi v21.02, 22.03 snapshot)
- Supports Debian & Ubuntu
- Debug-Uart
- 3v3 TTL
- Usb2serial adapters: cp2104,FT4232, maybe ch340 (no G)
- Profilic, cp2102, ch340G WiFi firmware does not start issue-report
- Connection: gnd-gnd, rx-tx, tx-rx
- 115200 8n1 (8databits,1 startbit), no flow control
GitHub Repos
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Official BPI-R3 kernel v5.15 + firmware repo: BPI-SINOVOIP/BPI-R3-bsp-5.15 (github.com)
-
Official OpenWrt 21.02 for BPI-R3 repo: BPI-SINOVOIP/BPI-R3-OPENWRT-V21.02.3: BPI-R3-OPENWRT-V21.02.3 (github.com)
-
Frank’s U-Boot repo: GitHub - frank-w/u-boot at 2023-04-bpi
-
Frank’s BPI-R3 kernel v6.1 repo: GitHub - frank-w/BPI-Router-Linux at 6.1-main
Images
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Official vendor images see: Banana Pi BPI-R3 - Banana Pi Wiki (banana-pi.org)
-
Latest official OpenWRT snapshot image: OpenWrt Firmware Selector
- Instructions: Banana Pi BPI-R3 OpenWRT image
-
Frank’s Debian Bullseye image: [BPI-R3] Debian Bullseye Image
-
Frank’s Ubuntu 22.04 image: [BPI-R3] ubuntu 22.04 Image
Webshop
The official AliExpress Store links are listed below.
Order the router (only the board, without accessories): Banana Pi BPI-R3 Router Board - AliExpress
Order the combined package deal incl. metal case and accessories: Banana Pi BPI-R3 Router Board + case + accessories - AliExpress
Other Links
- 3D printed cases: Banana BPI R3 3D Printed Case
- Cooling solutions topic: [BPI-R3] Running Hot
- Review: Banana Pi BPI-R3 Review: Details, Pricing, & Features (androidpimp.com)
