In your profile it says you are responsible for information on this site.
Would you please update the [Specs for Power][1] of M3 ?
The necessary information you can get from [here][2] and [here][3].
At the moment it says: 5V DC via Micro USB or USB OTG
I would change this to:
Power Source
5V DC port (center positive 1,6 x 4,4mm) and Micro USB OTG
Storage Support
SDcard (up to 64GB)
SATA (up to 2TB - USB-to-SATA: GL830)
eMMC ?
WiFi, Bluetooth
not a word in the Specs about this chip - can you get information?
[Highlevel schematics][4] is also missing on that page, can you add this picture?
If you keep information updated, it shows us that you care
Thank you for your feedback.
To be honest when I was making the website I did not spend that much time on the specifications. I spent more time on the css and other stuff. I will update this probably today or within this week.
Interesting. So this website has been created by an individual calling himself ‘projectbananapi’ not affiliated with the device’s manufacturer (whoever this is). And the hoster of this website doesn’t spend that much time on correct informations but more on a snappy GUI of the forum?
And if we (as the so called ‘customers’) demand correct informations we have to ask the hoster of this site to correct the wrong stuff here (have a look at the M2 for example – so many wrong informations here).
Can the stuff there be considered ‘official specs’? It starts with a downright lie
Banana PI BPI-M3 is the open source hardware platform
No SinoVoip product has been produced as Open Source Hardware. They do not even provide correct basic informations. The page above is full of marketing bullsh*t and lacks (correct) informations. Is this really the status quo regarding ‘official informations’? There are none available?
Well, according to that link on www.banana-pi.com is this the official Forum.
And projectbananapi - I am the creator of this official banana pi forum and along with bpi i want to see the banana pi community grow.
So it sounds not totally of the road.
@lionwang
Whether they lie or do not understand OpenSource Hardware; is certainly questionable. What do you say, Lion?
If SinoVoip is not willing to hand out information (schematic) about the device after a couple month, it should not be called OpenSource Hardware. This should be changed in their Marketing
Thank you, this is the confirmation that you’re obviously not able to understand the meaning of ‘open source development’. You simply don’t get it how this works. So we as users can be assured that the whole mess with Lamobo R1 or the BPi-M2 will happen again with the M3. You haven’t learned a single lesson how to become a community player and contribute to the community.
For anyone familiar with kernel development this ‘issue’ (especially the last comment from SinoVoip) will be funny. The hardware developer asks a user for the device tree files for his own hardware (who should provide them if not the hardware manufacturer?!) https://github.com/BPI-SINOVOIP/BPI-Kernel4.0/issues/1
yes, i see , at begin , i only want to do a hardware and software, i support more forum to do open source .
as you know , we support lemaker to do open-source community with lemaker.org , support Dr luo for bananapi.com . but bananapi.com is very slow. so we must create ourself community.
Great! And what does this mean exactly? The final product version will use the crappy Micro-USB-connector instead of the DC jack you list in the so called ‘user manual’ and posted a picture of in the very same post?
The connector itself is crappy by design since the tiny contacts aren’t able to feed more than 1.8A. While this might be perfectly ok for a mobile phone using this connector on a board with a few USB ports and a SATA power connector is simply insane. But as written so many times: SinoVoip didn’t learn a single lesson from past mistakes.
The other and more important problem with the Micro USB connector is that people try to use crappy USB cables. And there exist a lot. Back at a time when not bananapi.com hosted the ‘official support forum’ but instead lemaker.org I wrote about this problem in detail: http://forum.lemaker.org/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=8312
And the ‘funny’ thing is: People never ever will understand that the problem is called undervoltage. They experience random shutdowns under load (since crappy cables lead to undervoltage situations only when the device needs more power) and think: OMG, I need a PSU that is rated higher. So they buy one with 5V/4A (which is completely useless since more than 1.8A will not be delivered through the crappy Micro USB connector) that brings an own cable and realise: Now it works (due to the better cable not the more amperage the PSU could theoretically provide) and attribute that to the higher amperage rating of the PSU and start to spread the word about their power hungry device needing 4A.
Maybe Lion Wang thinks it might be better to be compatible to the M1 in this area because the sales of the M2 suck. The problem is: That might be true but is caused by the horrible software and support situation and the fact that all these totally incompatible boards are all called ‘Banana Pi’ which tricks people into the assumption that software might be compatible.
What does this mean? SinoVoip hired kernel developers that did already all the work the linux-sunxi folks are about to do in the next months (LOL!) and this would mean they do closed source development and don’t contribute to the community’s open source development. Or this means that Lion said something that’s not true at all. Hopefully because he misunderstood something.
But not the MicroUSB!
MicroUSB are strong enough to handle may more than 2A if the actually receiver, adapter, and the cable supports it. The Banana Pi only takes about 300mAh so there is still plenty of power to go around.
Well, if you leave the crappy cable aside, you still face the problem about the plug.
It does only fit in one direction
A mobile phone you charge for 2-3h and you are done, the Banana you want to keep plugged for days /weeks.
The contacts are very thin.
The DC Jack, is robust.
Can deliver more Power.
The cables are usually thicker
96boards also uses DC Jack
If you chose the right plug & DC Jack it does hold eachother, so if you have vibration and may be on a wall the plug will not fall out.
If you design the Board like LeMaker BaseBoard, it can cope with 5-12V so you can use your old router or modem Power-Supply to feed the M3
we will update to github about 2015-11-15 all driver on BPI-M3.
In the FOSS (free libre open source software) community we like to help. So release early, release often is very common. Why do you wait so long, Nov. 15. ?
DTS ; DTB do you have engineers working on that?
Device Tree Source ; Device Tree Blob
Will you upload it separately to GitHub so we can easy find it?
For the M3? Useless, this device is only supported by Allwinner’s horribly outdated 3.4.39 kernel. And maybe they also chose an oudated u-boot version (like with the M2 back then) so you won’t be able to exchange script.bin. Software support for the M3 will be even more horrible as with the M2 due to the A83T SoC being not supported by mainline kernel.
@projectbananapi: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Micro-USB_1_01.pdf (specifications exist for a reason. 1.8A is the maximum and crappy cables are widely spread. Using the Micro-USB connector is simply asking for troubles – but hey, the user gets in trouble and the manufacturer doesn’t care as usual)
Time to stop posting here. It’s useless. If one compares with manufacturers who really do ‘open source hardware’ then it’s obvious what’s wrong with SinoVoip: They don’t understand what ‘open source’ means, they don’t listen to their customers, they have no clue about software issues at all and the situation with the M3 will be as horrible as with the M2 a few months ago (even more – only kernel 3.4.39 available!)
You should become a bit familiar with the stuff you’re talking about. I’m using extensive monitoring when doing tests and going productive with systems (be it big iron or in this case a small video surveillance server).
This is a Lamobo R1 powered the crappy way (Micro-USB) vs. a sane way (using the LiPo battery connector that can be used to insert 5V since the PMU disables charging capabilities when the voltage here is above 4.2V). The only nice thing about the R1 is its ability to internally measure the consumption of the whole board including a connected SATA disk.
7.5W-8W without Wi-Fi being used, no USB peripherals and an energy efficient Samsung Spinpoint M9. 7.5 - 8 W translates to 1.5 - 1.6 A. Use an internal USB hub (like on the M3), an USB-to-SATA bridge (like on the M3), a few USB peripherals, turn Wi-Fi on and let the disk spin up and you easily exceed 2A. The crappy Micro-USB connector is rated for 1.8A max and powering the board this way leads to voltage drops.
But I understand: If you don’t look close enough what’s really happening then Micro-USB is the connector of choice (its the worst choice… so hey, this must be SinoVoip’s default!)
