Banana Pi BPI-R4 Lite Wifi7 Router board design with Mediatek MT7987

Nice, this one can be a nice mesh ap cause if i use the normal r4 with a modem i only would need the WIFI7 nic here.

Two things i saw here and would love to see it maybe at bpi r5 :stuck_out_tongue:

  • USB C Debugging Port (like someone said before, this is a game changer! but i also have to say, it’s a dev board. So people who do not know about Serial Connecting by PINs (RX/TX) should consider buying another board/router :wink: but it makes the setup “cleaner” and easier to connect/disconnect)
  • RTC Battery place. This is so much more comfortable, easier and more safe than the RTC port at the normal r4

One thing i am missing at the Lite Version (but for my use case not important)

  • No GPIO header cause for example i am watching the RPM from my used fan with this and give an alarm if fan RPM is zero. Not sure how much heat this one will get, but at the normal r4 with be14 nic and queltec rm520n modem it will get very hot without a fan.

Looking forward to this, especially to make a nice WIFI7 mesh network at home :slight_smile:

greetings

I guess the mikrobus can be used for that purpose.

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I have to say I’m intrigued. Seems to offer a lot for a prosumer device.

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So what the speed of USB Type-c Debug console is?

Serial settings are 115200 8n1 flowcontrol off

I tried to build firmware for r4lite with openwrt ‘main’ branch code, firmware built but failed to boot: Failed to boot openwrt on BPI-R4-LITE · Issue #21676 · openwrt/openwrt · GitHub

Anyone knows why?

Bootrom looks like bl2 is missing…can you show hexdump of starting at 0x4400.there should be something like SDMMC_BOOT

yoki@coding:/tmp$ xxd -g 1 -l 256 -s 0x4400 openwrt-mediatek-filogic-bananapi_bpi-r4-lite-sdcard.img
00004400: 53 44 4d 4d 43 5f 42 4f 4f 54 00 ff 01 00 00 00  SDMMC_BOOT......
00004410: 00 02 00 00 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  ................
00004420: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  ................
00004430: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  ................
00004440: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  ................
00004450: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  ................
00004460: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  ................
00004470: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  ................
00004480: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  ................
00004490: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  ................
000044a0: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  ................
000044b0: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  ................
000044c0: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  ................
000044d0: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  ................
000044e0: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  ................
000044f0: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  ................

firmware: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KUuBLB37Rlw5jpK_AJN2CvbtjYlJAuVT/view?usp=sharing

But now it boots further than your post in openwrt forum…

Is it self compiled? Maybe image too large? I’m no expert in openwrt…maybe write was not complete? Try sync command after dd is finished else it is possible that dd returns and data is still in cache

Boot failed too. https://forum.banana-pi.org/uploads/default/original/2X/8/83de35c2ff0a3a75a9d857aaab999d58c25c54f0.png The startup process keeps getting stuck here. Can this firmware (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KUuBLB37Rlw5jpK_AJN2CvbtjYlJAuVT/view?usp=sharing) successfully boot in your test?

You use upstream openwrt (main branch) without additional packages? Have debian on my R4Lite,no card available to make openwrt test right now.

You should update error on openwrt issue too as this points to bl2 issue.

Additional package: luci-app-openclash, ath11k wifi drivers. I thought software not cause this problem.