Good news! BPI is releasing BPI-R4 V1.3!

Banana Pi Router design BPI-R4/BPI-R4 Pro(MT7988)
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The image below shows the new BPI-R4.

image

The following are the main updates.Hardware changes:

  1. ESD protection measures have been added to the serial port.

  2. Additional card slot packages (similar to the R3mini’s) and eSIM packages have been added to the SIM card slot.

  3. A NOR package has been reserved under the SD card slot (this function is reserved as there is no related image yet).

  4. The DIP switch components have been replaced.

  5. The circuitry for the SFP and M.2 BKEY has been optimized.

I think it will be available to you soon. Please contact BPI if you are interested in purchasing it.

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Like almost all high tech leaks, it has to be photographed with worst potato phone possible.

How I can really look what’s really improved to the PCB design looking at that? Please attach datasheet with the change log, like the industry does, so I can at least try to retrofit something into my older revision. So far I can see unpopulated IC place besides m2 as main difference only.

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Yes, my photography skills are terrible. For more detailed information, please check the BPI website; all the information is available in the Resources section.

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The schematic is still v1.1 so it would seem…

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are you sure? On their Google-Drive are now V1.3 files. I have not looked in detail on the schematics, but the schematics have a V1.3 designation on the right corner and there is a nice CHANGELOG file with all changes: BPI-R4-Main-V13-Changelist.pdf (inside the same .rar file with the schematics)

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Ok, may I still have the old one in my downloads :wink:

Edit:

Nope, the schematic still has 11 in the filename…

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I just happened to view the Rev 1.3 schematics hours ago.

Screenshot 2026-04-02 at 10.59.15 PM
Screenshot 2026-04-02 at 10.59.15 PM1684×424 41.2 KB

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1adKBT8Td1RQUtAP2ZzsU-0Ebv0-ynU__?usp=sharing

Though the summary from hyf is more concise and comprehensible.

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The 1.3 schematic is out for multiple months I reckon, because I checked it before I made an order for this board (at the end of Februrary) and I clearly remember the planned footprint for the eSIM chips. When the board arrived, that was a little surprise for me, because my new board is not an 1.3 instead of a v1.1.

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Screenshot_20260402-174605_Chrome
Screenshot_20260402-174605_Chrome979×654 64.5 KB

Guess this is the link that is not updated… It points to 1.1.

In the hardware link it has the .rar with 1.3.

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Schematics of both Rev 1.1 and Rev 1.3 should exist on the wiki website. Owners of Rev 1.1 will need to refer to the 1.1 schematics.

So looks about right to me.

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It is there, although it is not marked very clearly. And missing v1.0 and v1.2 if this archive needs to be complete.

May need some tidying up, to make it look a bit more professional.

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where have you this folder link? in wiki is still only the v11 pdf linked. the rar from your folder is v13 (filename and content). maybe you have the upper folder to get the 1.2 schematic?

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I went to the Wiki: Banana Pi BPI-R4 | BananaPi Docs

Scrolled to the Ressource section: Banana Pi BPI-R4 | BananaPi Docs

and on BPI-R4 V1.3 Hardware file sub-section, I clicked on Google drive link.

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R4V1.2 is an intermediate version, and no documentation will be provided for this version. Please focus on V1.3. Hardware documentation has been mentioned above and is available on the official website.

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Great change log, thanks.

Can you comment the reasons on the dedicated SFP 3.3V power omission?

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V1.1

image
image1247×406 68.2 KB
V1.3
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image967×438 63.6 KB

Hello, I’m not entirely sure what the specific power loss situation is or how it happened. However, from V1.1, it can be seen that the SFP’s power supply is also related to a certain GPIO, while V1.3 removed this control. They both draw power from 3.3VD.

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As far as i see that means that sfp currently not working (like my 1g fibre one) on R4 finally should work? Imho this needs to be done for r4pro too…some sfp only pull down moddef0 when they got power…if R4(pro) gives power only when moddef0 is down they never come up.

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Have you tried to pull down that line with the corresponding GPIO pin?

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Afaik you cannot access gpios which are mapped to a device (here the moddef0). I just noticed that the sfp is not detected.

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He probably means literary pull down in hardware terms. It means pull to zero, preferably via resistor.