BPI-R1 power settings

Banana Pi SBCs design BPI-M1/M1+/R1(A20)
1

I have my BPI-R1 setup with bananian. It works well for a day and then stops (freezes). I have purchased this power supply: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N5NKVVU/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Output is 5V/2A. But the freezing continues. I have read mentioned to lower RAM speed init in u-boot and not use the wifi. So my questions are what are:

  1. Does this power supply look like what I need? Is there something better?
  2. What are the recommended power settings and how do I change them?
  3. How do I diagnose if this is a power issue?
2

BPI-R1 ,just need 5V/2A , are you connect others on BPI-R1 ,such as sata ???

3

I’m just using a microsd card for storage. I also have four ethernet cables plugged in. That’s it. The powersupply I bought is 5V/2A.

4

Is your Micro USB cable longer than 30cm?
Does it have an AWG number on the cable, if so what is the number?

5

USB cable is 150 cm. I’ll have to look at the AWG number on the cable when I get home tonight.

6

The AWG number on the USB cable is: 22

7

Lucky you, with 22 !! Unfortunately, your cable is too long, you loose power on the way to the R1, If you want to understand why read here.

If you have powerbank or external HDD they often come with shorter cable and also thick like AWG 20/22.

8

So I should get a AWG 22 cable that is 30cm or shorter?

9

Well, AWG 20/22 is much better than say AWG 28.

I use a 30cm long cable from my PowerBank(Accu) my Harddisk spin up, works like a charm. Try to get a cable between 30-50cm and AWG as said above and please report back if it runs stable.

Btw, you do know that bananian stopped development. See the news on his website.

10

Thanks. Yeah you’re right, not under active development any more. Do you have a suggestion for an image to use?

11

Which Kernel do you use right now (uname -a) on Bananian ?

12

the kernel is: 3.4.113-bananian. It’s the latest image they put out I think.

13

Well, I am using armbian, but the R1 is depricated there as well. Currently we are trying to get mainline Kernel working with a differnent driver for the Switch, but Multimedia wise it might lack of some functions.

Depricated, we are a few testers but no one who can develop. If someone steps up and does together with the testers some fixes before new releases (twice a year) - Igor will take it back to supported.

Did you have some sucess with the shorter cable already?

14

The shorter cable hasn’t arrived yet. I’ll let you know how it goes.

15

The shorter cable arrived. Plugged it in and booted, but only gets to the following line and nothing more happens:

Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0
16

Did you reburn the SDcard? If so, did you use https://etcher.io/ ?

17

Yes I reburned the SD card using dd like every other time. Why would I need to use etcher.io?

18

you don’t need to use etcher, but it does verify the data written on the SDcard. SDcard and USB-Micro cause most of the troubles. Find out more about that: https://docs.armbian.com/User-Guide_Getting-Started/#how-to-prepare-a-sd-card

1 Like
19

I downloaded the the Armbian_5.31_Lamobo-r1_Debian_jessie_next_4.9.7.7z and installed. It worked. I can login and update. Can you direct me to some good instructions on how to configure everything? switch, wifi, etc.

20

Looks like the issue with booting bananian was power. You were right. My usb keyboard was taking too much power. I unplugged it and logged into via ssh from the beginning.