BPI-R64 V1.2 activate second minipcie

Banana Pi Router design BPI-R64(MT7622)
1

Hi All

  1. I received my R64 with 4g modem with a usb-minipcie converter, does this mean power is still not stable onboard for the minipcie on the new version? I have looked through a few threads suggesting to bypass the current limit, does it still need to be done on the new version (the PCB design looks different).

  2. I am wanting to run 4G modem on first minipcie and lora concentrator on the second minipcie. How can I turn on the second minipcie?

TIA

Xarion

2

What is the difference with v1.2 compared to v1.1 anyway?

3

For 2) you have to make reverse change of this:

Which os do you use?

4

Hi Frank,

Thanks for the reply, I am planning to use openwrt.

Is there still power limitation on the minipcie, will it be a problem with 4G and lorawan concentrator?

Xarion

5

afair openwrt uses a devicetree overlay to enable sata which you should not load/apply if you want to use second pcie slot.

idk about changes in v1.2 @sinovoip has there changed something?

6

I’m not aware of any LORA interfaces which actually use PCIe signalling – they all either use USB or SPI. So on the R64, only one of the two mPCIe slots has USB and SIM slot signals connected (for 3G/4G WWAN modem). The other slot is suitable only for modules using PCIe signals as it doesn’t have USB connected. One can probably modify the hardware to expose SPI signals on either of the two slots (or use a RasbPi LORA shield providing an additional mPCIe slot with only SPI and power connected), but that will then only work with SPI-connected LORA module.

7

thanks @dangowrt, looks like then we’ll have to use pcie1 for the lora interface (usb emulated as ACM0) and USB connector for the 4G WWAN (or the other way round since i got a USB-minicpie converter with the R64)… pity, would have been nice!

are you 100% sure about USB not being available on pcie2, even if enabled as per above convo?

TIA

Xarion

8

Yes, 100%. It’s even printed on the board that CN25 provides only PCIe2.0 signals, while CN8 provides PCIe2.0 (shared with SATA, selectable at boot) and USB2.0.