BPI-R4 - any information?

[dangowrt (Daniel Golle)]

@josh4trunks

I assume it’s the one being powered

That’s correct. The PoE-version of the R4 (which isn’t produced yet and cannot be bought anywhere, as far as I know) can be powered over PoE on the 2500M/1000M/100M/10M RJ-45 port present instead of SFP2/LAN.

[buggz]

Dang, I want one of these soo bad, especially after getting my BPI-R3 working so good.

However, I am really wanting to connect a Quectel 5G 5G RM521F-GL to it, as that is my service provider internet connection, T-Mobile Home Internet.

[M10 (M)]

Ten gigs passive dac works like a charm.

[balika011]

it’s super easy to make however. You need to remove the cage, solder in a LPJG0926HENL connector and an RT5400 PoE module and your done. You have the PoE model.

[M10 (M)]

So, if i solder some cables to bottom pads od board to a connector i’ll have one more eth port working?

[simon]

We have already adjusted RM520N-GL and RM500U-CN on BPI-R4.

Theoretically, RM521F-GL is no problem, but the driver may need to be debugged.

[simon]

The built-in 2.5G PHY and USXGMII_1 of MT7988A are optional, so if 2.5G RJ45 is used, the 10G SFP2 LAN will not work,and the DTS needs to be modified.

[buggz]

If this could be tested, and found to provide the FULL capabilities of this modem, I would be willing to purchase this kit immediately!

@simon

Theoretically, RM521F-GL is no problem, but the driver may need to be debugged.

[simon]

Hi,buggz,

We don’t have the RM521F-GL module, but it is the same platform as the RM520N-CN we adjusted and should be able to be used directly.

[buggz]

Thanks for this info!

[batman]

Hi all,

Not sure if its right form to ask this … Does Banana Pi 3 supports RDKB ? is there any effort done in this direction ?

Thanks

[danpawlik (Dan)]

Hello folks, Recently I have done a stupid think: based on that manual Getting Started with BPI-R4 - Banana Pi Wiki I flashed my OpenWRT build instead of mtk-bpi-r4-NAND-20231030.img as it was in the manual. Now I got troubles to start BPI-R4 without SD card (also I got troubles to run official image - BPI-R4-mtk-bpi-r4-SD-20231030 - because of the error: " JFFS2 filesystem corrupts immediately Magic bitmask 0xXXX not found errors")

Is there any way to flash the NAND memory after booting OpenWRT from sdcard? I’m trying to compile now a build that will include kmod-mtd-rw package so I hope I would be able to flash it, but maybe there is a way to do it from the u-boot menu or by using MediaTek U-Boot System Recovery Mode?

Thanks for advice, Dan

[FvB]

Hi Dan I do not have the board myself - yet. But until some of the skilled people in the forum may reply You can have a look at page 3 (bottom) in this link and get some info that may help You :

Banana Pi BPI-R4 embedded router boasts x2 10G SFP+ and Wi-Fi 7 Support

(link provided by @alexago)

Cheers

[danpawlik (Dan)]

Thanks for advice. Same step as it is described in the article is on official wiki page. I think i would be able to reflash the mtdblock0 partition if the official OpenWRT SDcard image will work but it does not because error “JFFS2 filesystem corrupts immediately Magic bitmask 0xXXX not found errors”.

I think official image has ‘blockd’ package installed, so it tries to mount it automatically when system starts and that’s the problem.

That’s why I would like to flash it via uboot if its possible.

EDIT: I need to check once again steps what I have done, but probably those below helps:

• create OpenWRT build with

CONFIG_PACKAGE_block-mount=y
CONFIG_PACKAGE_blockd=m
CONFIG_PACKAGE_mtdev=m
CONFIG_PACKAGE_kmod-mtd-rw=y

• Install optionally mtdev and/or blockd and kmod-fs-autofs4 (dependency)

insmod mtd-rw.ko i_want_a_brick=1
mtd erase /dev/mtd0
dd if=openwrt-mediatek-filogic-bananapi_bpi-r4-snand-preloader.bin of=/dev/mtd0

As I mention, those steps probably are working in my case, but I really prefer to flash broken partitions/blockdevice with factory image. If someone can make dump of all partitions/BD, I will be grateful.

[lu_zero (Luca Barbato)]

Do you have the usb-c serial connected in the R4? I still hope a new revision of r3-mini would have it.

[Lorem_amicus (Michael Fischer)]

Hello,

you read the getting startetd with R4?:

https://wiki.banana-pi.org/Getting_Started_with_BPI-R4#Prepare_to_develop

→ it looks not that a debugging over USB-C port of R4 would be possible. You speak my mind if you say in 2024 there is better solution! For me it is a bit suspicious because the uploaded BPI cases are closed … . But for a maker → this is not a problem !

Using Debug UART

I was looking for a USB-C board which has 4 holes for mounting. I want to give a short overview of my research: For me, the best board I found (on the first view) was that: [grafik] But I just say this, because it is the same chip like in my DSD TECH SH-U09B3. It is the CP2102N from Silicon Labs (https://www.silabs.com/): [grafik] I have not testet any of the boards jet! So good luck! If someone fonud some other boards for usb to TTL please post it!

[lu_zero (Luca Barbato)]

the r3-mini has a serial exposed in the usb-c, but it isn’t connected due concerns about people frying the board by connecting the usb-c directly to underpowered laptop ports. I assume the R4 has the same setup, would be nice to have it since powered usb-c hubs are more common nowadays…

[Lorem_amicus (Michael Fischer)]

That sounds good . Now I understand why OpenWrt One has two USB-C ports. One for power and one for debug.

I think we can find the information about serial connection of USB-C in the schematices.

[Lorem_amicus (Michael Fischer)]

Now I understand what you mean! But BPI-R4 looks not like debug over USB-C capable. Sadly …

[lu_zero (Luca Barbato)]

if there is enough room hopefully that could be addressed in further revisions.