Raspberry Pi HackChat

Arsenijs says:14 minutes ago

@Brandon Aaskov Elelemt14 had this customization service exactly for the reason you're mentioning.

Nick Sayer says:14 minutes ago

(I guess maybe that doesn't alter the price)

Brandon Aaskov says:14 minutes ago

@Arsenijs that makes sense. Thank you!

steverobillard says:12 minutes ago

@brandon Aaskov note elemt14 customiztion 5000 unit minimum we get this question a lot on http://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions

Roger Thornton says:12 minutes ago

@Arsenijs AH I see your issue. So 2835 is a mobile chip, but the Pi software doesn't take advantage of any of those features. There is a lot of clever gating, where you turn of sections of the chip not being used, or wake them up only when there is data ready. There's no need when we are plugged into the wall (the assumed use case). We also leave the SMPS and LDOs on all the time, again in a phone everytihng is turned off when not in use. Designing a board for a mobile and a Pi are quite different. HDMI is also a big power drain (processor time wise)

Lutetium says:12 minutes ago

Next question is from @王: Are you planning to release light weight linux distros?

Roger Thornton says:11 minutes ago

@MobileWill CM3 LITE (no eMMC) is failry cheap at $25!

erik pax says:11 minutes ago

I dont think they (element14) do custom zeros, only a/b

altometer says:11 minutes ago

Jeeze, I wonder how much 5000 units would set you back

Arsenijs says:10 minutes ago

@Roger Thornton That's what I suspected. Is there any way a person unaffiliated with Raspberry Pi Foundation could solve these problems? I know some interfaces are exposed to Linux, while some aren't and even the registers aren't documented, which is a problem.

h3liosphan says:9 minutes ago

@Arsenijs yeah pretty facetious of me, NASpi wud be awesome tho

Roger Thornton says:9 minutes ago

@Brandon Aaskov @Arsenijs is right and Farnell have a custom Pi Program. They have the license to take the Pi boards and add / remove anything you don't want. You would pay them for their deicin time and be expeceted to payt for an initial build but opens up a world of opportunities.

clarkhensley says:9 minutes ago

Trying to fill in my project proposal and questions in the spreadsheet, on the cost of being able to read the chat

Edgar says:9 minutes ago

@Arsenijs what is your current goal?

Evan Juras says:8 minutes ago

@Arsenijs just curious, whats the mAH capacity of the Li-ion batteries you're using?

Arsenijs says:7 minutes ago

2000mAh, single 18650 Li-Ion cell.

Roger Thornton says:7 minutes ago

@王 There is a lot of work going on with our distibutions, we already offer Jessie Lite whch removes a lot of the programs we bundle with the standard Raspbian image. How light are you thinking?

Stefan-Xp says:7 minutes ago

@Arsenijs

Thank you for the Link. In my experiences it worked a lot better in December 2016... The main issue seems, that there are not a lot people who are willing to use it. I downloaded and used the VS Studio 2015 community version and was up and running with some simple apps in the matter of hours. But I'm also a bit sad, that you cant use the os like WinCE

Arsenijs says:7 minutes ago

Pi Powered directly from the cell.

altometer says:6 minutes ago

@Arsenijs Not using a boost converter or anything to step up from the cell to 5v?

Arsenijs says:5 minutes ago

Yeah, it's an approach which works, but the one which brings me to my second question.

Edgar says:5 minutes ago

but how? are bypassing the LDO? those are 3.7 batteries

Roger Thornton says:5 minutes ago

@Arsenijs It's an interesting idea but you are going to hit a lot of power related issues be it board design or Software.

erik pax says:5 minutes ago

if i won the lottery I would make a custom pi (https://hackaday.io/page/2909-pi-zero-plus)

Evan Juras says:5 minutes ago

@Roger Thornton How many hardware engineers are on the Pi's design team?

h3liosphan says:5 minutes ago

But WinCE sucked! It's also probably a bit architecturally old for the platform?

Arsenijs says:4 minutes ago

@Roger Thornton I know, but I'm willing to spend time, and I have people with expertise willing to help me with advice and even participate in the development of my project.

Neil Cherry says:4 minutes ago

I hated WinCE, got into our lab and we discovered it need virus protection. ARGH!

Arsenijs says:4 minutes ago

However, there's a question - is it possible right now, without the missing datasheets?

Arsenijs says:3 minutes ago

And here's my second question. "Are there any technical problems which could arise when powering a Pi Zero with a Li-Ion battery connected to 5V input? Provided I'm not using USB devices and I have a battery low-voltage-cutoff set at 3.3V."

M.daSilva says:3 minutes ago

@王 You can also try Buildroot, I don't think you can go any lighter than this ^^

Roger Thornton says:a minute ago

@Evan Juras Currently there are two Hardware Engineers, Mike Stimson and Me. James Adams is the COO and previously used to do the hardware development and so is still heavily involved but it is a great small team and means between the three of us we produce all the designs (and oversee test, compliance, production) that comes out of Raspberry Pi.

joram says:a few seconds ago

how do you do quality control on the produced boards?

do you also design test fixtures?

erik pax says:a few seconds ago

M.daSilva: unless you port it to vc4 directly.

Evan Juras says:a minute ago

@Roger Thornton Cool! I was expecting at least 4 or 5.

Arsenijs says:a few seconds ago

Here's some information on "Pi-from-LiIon" - https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=127210&start=25, this got me started. It currently works very well with #ZeroPhone , and I'm going to run extensive stability tests in the near future.

h3liosphan says:2 minutes ago

thank you for the hack chat roger, im off!

steverobillard says:2 minutes ago

Weare allowiing patrons to check a Pi out of the library is there a test suite we can run on return to verify that it is not broken

Edgar says:2 minutes ago

How many Pi's have been made? I have at least 10 doing all sort of things, from bitcoin mining a while ago to high altitude ballooning, one runs my asterisk and one does ham radio packet.

Stefan-Xp says:2 minutes ago

Maybe you are right, but in contrast to Windows 10 IOT you had a lot more freedom (Filesystem, Starting of applications, COM, etc.)

Roger Thornton says:2 minutes ago

@Arsenijs The board is powered from 5V and there is a SMPS that is powered from this to produce 3V3 and 1V8, I don;t know how low the cut off for the SMPS is but running it any lower than 4V is likely to be bad news. HDMI needs 5V and on Zero it is powered from the 5V DC IN, you'll hit HDMI issues without a good 5V.

Roger Thornton says:a minute ago

@h3liosphan hope it was useful, any other questions you can reach me here or on twitter @andy.speers

Roger Thornton says:a few seconds ago

No not @ andy .spears

Lutetium says:a few seconds ago

Next question from @Francisco Dominguez: Do you plan any low power library for the Raspi Zero W?

Roger Thornton says:a few seconds ago

@ Roger_Thornton

Arsenijs says:a few seconds ago

Yeah, I know about the HDMI problems, already discussed them with one person. Isn't there still a diode in line with HDMI power?

h3liosphan says:a few seconds ago

thanks! It was.

Roger Thornton says:2 minutes ago

@Edgar We've just hit 12 Million

MobileWill says:2 minutes ago

@Arsenijs Last night iw as able to power a pi from hdmi

Roger Thornton says:2 minutes ago

@Francisco Dominguez there isn't anything planned.

MobileWill says:2 minutes ago

i unplugged power and it was still running

MobileWill says:a minute ago

the hdmi was connected ot a iogear hdmi switch

Arsenijs says:a minute ago

Yeah, I had this, it was more or a problem than anything - I needed to power-reset a connected display, replugged the MicroUSB but the display continued to work and show characters =D Had to re-plug HDMI.

Edgar says:a minute ago

that is a feature @MobileWill

clarkhensley says:a minute ago

I saw someone asking about lightweight linux distributions on the spreadsheet, and I would like to recommend the yocto project stuff which allows you to create very minimal systems while it's made easy to keep a finger in the soup for further developement , for example with eclipse, examples on how to create a gui can be found with the operating the nextthing is offering with the pocket chip or asteroid os for smartwaches. Tutorials about wayland and OT5 are already available with grea detail.ç

clarkhensley says:a minute ago

I saw someone asking about lightweight linux distributions on the spreadsheet, and I would like to recommend the yocto project stuff which allows you to create very minimal systems while it's made easy to keep a finger in the soup for further developement , for example with eclipse, examples on how to create a gui can be found with the operating the nextthing is offering with the pocket chip or asteroid os for smartwaches. Tutorials about wayland and OT5 are already available with grea detail.ç

Arsenijs says:a few seconds ago

@Roger Thornton Any schematic of current HDMI circuit on the Pi Zero?

MobileWill says:3 minutes ago

the hdmi was connected ot a iogear hdmi switch

Arsenijs says:3 minutes ago

Yeah, I had this, it was more or a problem than anything - I needed to power-reset a connected display, replugged the MicroUSB but the display continued to work and show characters =D Had to re-plug HDMI.

Edgar says:2 minutes ago

that is a feature @MobileWill

clarkhensley says:2 minutes ago

I saw someone asking about lightweight linux distributions on the spreadsheet, and I would like to recommend the yocto project stuff which allows you to create very minimal systems while it's made easy to keep a finger in the soup for further developement , for example with eclipse, examples on how to create a gui can be found with the operating the nextthing is offering with the pocket chip or asteroid os for smartwaches. Tutorials about wayland and OT5 are already available with grea detail.ç

clarkhensley says:2 minutes ago

I saw someone asking about lightweight linux distributions on the spreadsheet, and I would like to recommend the yocto project stuff which allows you to create very minimal systems while it's made easy to keep a finger in the soup for further developement , for example with eclipse, examples on how to create a gui can be found with the operating the nextthing is offering with the pocket chip or asteroid os for smartwaches. Tutorials about wayland and OT5 are already available with grea detail.ç

Arsenijs says:2 minutes ago

@Roger Thornton Any schematic of current HDMI circuit on the Pi Zero?

MobileWill says:2 minutes ago

It was kinda cool but idk how safe

Roger Thornton says:a minute ago

Newer standards of HDMI will actually supply quite large amounts of power over the 5V which is an exciting thing for TV connected devices

MobileWill says:a few seconds ago

all we need now is usb over hdmi

Roger Thornton says:a few seconds ago

@Arsenijs it's the same as Zero and the schematic is on the website I believe, if it's not it will go on my list of things to do

Arsenijs says:2 minutes ago

Thank you! If the part I'm interested in is not included, could I ping you on email or something?

Roger Thornton says:2 minutes ago

@MobileWill There is Ethernet in older versions but I would need to check for USB

Jay says:2 minutes ago

@Roger Thornton Can you talk a little more about the antenna?

\

Roger Thornton says:2 minutes ago

@Arsenijs yes, get me on twitter @ Roger_Thornton

Roger Thornton says:a minute ago

@Jay Whaty would like to know?

Arsenijs says:a minute ago

Oh, I can jsut ask now. 5V from HDMI is connected to H5V net but there's no clue on the schematic sheet on where it goes.

Arsenijs says:a minute ago

https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberrypi/schematics/RPI-ZERO-V1_3_reduced.pdf

Arsenijs says:a minute ago

https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberrypi/schematics/RPI-ZERO-V1_3_reduced.pdf

Arsenijs says:a few seconds ago

There's the 5V net, but I don't see it connected to H5V anywhere

Arsenijs says:a few seconds ago

I saw it on previous schematics, but I can't be sure the connections would be the same.

Jay says:6 minutes ago

@Roger Thornton I guess I'm curious if you guys had any other original implementations for the W's "antenna" , if you tried any other designs, what problems you ran into, and or why you decided on the final design.

sfrias1 says:4 minutes ago

@Arsenijs you probably have a primary problem performance related for step-up power, because 3,7V to 5V is too wide gap, and conversion is less efficient as the gap widens.

Arsenijs says:5 minutes ago

@sfrias1 there's no step-up in my deigns.

Roger Thornton says:5 minutes ago

@Arsenijs 5V DC in is connected through a Diode to H5V (HDMI 5V)

Arsenijs says:4 minutes ago

Which way does the diode point?

erik pax says:4 minutes ago

up

sfrias1 says:2 minutes ago

@Arsenijs Ok. too low voltage then.

Arsenijs says:3 minutes ago

Is that the only component there, on H5V? Is that the D6, I see it near the board edge on the Zero v1.3, between the HDMI and USB, closer to HDMI.

Roger Thornton says:3 minutes ago

@Jay We worked with a company called Proant who we license the Antenna design from. We initially used the Chip antenna used on the Pi3 but Proant offered us a smaller, slightly better performing antenna and also because the design is purely based around the copper cutout very cheap.

Arsenijs says:2 minutes ago

@sfrias1 *designs. ZeroPhone has no step-up, for instance - apart from the one powering the full-sized USB port. And, thank you but this is not the case.

sfrias1 says:a few seconds ago

@Arsenijs Ok.

Arsenijs says:a minute ago

Unless you're talking about margins, which I'm going to test extensively soon - this isn't standard usage, after all, hardly anybody uses Pi Zero like that.

Jay says:a few seconds ago

Nice to know thanks Roger

Arsenijs says:a few seconds ago

But thank you!

joram says:a few seconds ago

@Roger Thornton do you also design test fixtures for the produced boards?

Edgar says:a minute ago

Just curious, what is the cost of the BOM alone for the Zero W?

sfrias1 says:in a few seconds

@Arsenijs :-)

Evan Juras says:a minute ago

@Roger Thornton I second @Edgar's question!

Roger Thornton says:a few seconds ago

@joram During manufacture there are a set of automated test machines that take the Pi from the production and using a custom jig connect HDMI, USB and SD Card into the Pi,. run a comprehensive set of tests to check the board is running correctly and then package it up into the final box

Roger Thornton says:a minute ago

@joram the whole test line it Wales is now automated from pouring parts in at the start to a finished product at the end. IT's a true marvel of engineering and Sony deserve a medal for the work they've done

Roger Thornton says:a few seconds ago

@Edgar as anyone knows in this industry that's hugely sensitive and confidential!

erik pax says:a few seconds ago

no manual soldering at all?

Arsenijs says:15 minutes ago

Yeah, seems like D6 is the diode (and H5V is also available on PP20), and the power flows from 5V to H5V. Theoretically, a HDMI monitor shouldn't be able to power a Zero - but could power a B+/2B/3B, due to the RT9741. Would that be a right assumption, @Roger Thornton

Roger Thornton says:15 minutes ago

@erik pax Zero W is purely SMT (one wave of reflow oven), Pi3 goes through a solder bath (for through hole components) and then two (top and bottom) reflow oven passes

joram says:14 minutes ago

thanks, that sounds like a big automation task, and quite some follow up to keep it running

Edgar says:14 minutes ago

Ok, i was just wondering. The economics of a $10 computer is just mind boggling.

spencer says:14 minutes ago

@erik pax if Pimoroni can do hammer-in headers, I'm surprised they don't also do hammer-in hdmi, usb and sd card ;-)

Roger Thornton says:14 minutes ago

@erik pax Sony has a bunch of robots to place all the through hole parts, it's amazing, I am visiting them next week to cahtch up on things and if they permit me I will post a video on tiwitter of the robots

joram says:14 minutes ago

;-)

clarkhensley says:13 minutes ago

Ay finally up t date with this page

13 minutes ago

there's a transcript

steverobillard says:13 minutes ago

you missed my question

steverobillard says:12 minutes ago

We allow library patrons to check out a Pi. Is there a test suite we can run upon return to check everything still works? Do you have a test jig that goes along with this?

joram says:11 minutes ago

+ the question about a test suite for users outside the factory

Roger Thornton says:10 minutes ago

@steverobillard Sorry for missing a good question! At the factory we have test jig that runs a set of test but these are to find maunfacturing defects. I would suggest you boot it up and connect something to USB, if all that works then basically everything is working

Edgar says:10 minutes ago

How many layers are on the Pi 3 B?

j0z0r pwn4tr0n says:10 minutes ago

6

Roger Thornton says:10 minutes ago

@Edgar 6

steverobillard says:10 minutes ago

Thanks Roger

Arsenijs says:9 minutes ago

He said they're using a custom jig, it's probably not open-source. You could probably make one yourself - four flash drives, one "3.5mm audio input" speaker, HAT with solder jumpers on GPIOs, one HDMI monitor and some Python code =)

joram says:9 minutes ago

that sounds like a cool hackaday.io project

erik pax says:8 minutes ago

how does testjig boot the pi, does it emmulate an sdcard? or via jtag?

steverobillard says:8 minutes ago

@arsenjis I am thinking of connec tmp102 to test I2c and some LED arrays to test the GPIO's

Arsenijs says:7 minutes ago

You'd also need to check WiFi and BT - I've actually got one Pi3 that I didn't properly handle and dropped in a box with other random components. Under the magnifier, I can see that a small, small corner of the WiFi+BT chip broke off, and it isn't detectable.

Roger Thornton says:7 minutes ago

It 's a big set of linear actuators that physically pluc things into the ports.

Edgar says:6 minutes ago

How many revisions before the first PI was officially in the market? I remember reading somewhere that the first py was going to be based on at atmega micro.

Arsenijs says:6 minutes ago

@steverobillard you don't need that. Just make a header that connects GPIOs in pairs. Say, GPIO2 to GPIO3, set GPIO2 as input and GPIO3 as output, toggle the GPIO3 and check the state by reading GPIO2, then swap roles and repeat. Shouldn't take much more than one second for all GPIOs, and should be fully automated.

steverobillard says:5 minutes ago

@arsenemutumbu1215

Arsenijs says:4 minutes ago

By automating, you make the testing process easy even for somebody technically illiterate - pulg in HDMI, the shield with jumpers, SD card and power, wait one minute, get test results on HDMI monitor.

steverobillard says:4 minutes ago

@Arsenijs Rozenbahs

Arsenijs says:4 minutes ago

Don't forget my question about the diode =)

Roger Thornton says:4 minutes ago

@Edgar The Pi was born with a Broadcom powered board and it made sense to carry that on and use a chipset that the founders knew and had worked on

Arsenijs says:4 minutes ago

Oh no you summoned my friend again =D

steverobillard says:3 minutes ago

yeah the arthritis is acting up and my typing is not the greatest today

Roger Thornton says:3 minutes ago

@Arsenijs You're exactly right on the GPIO testing, what was the Diode question?

Arsenijs says:3 minutes ago

"Yeah, seems like D6 is the diode (and H5V is also available on PP20), and the power flows from 5V to H5V. Theoretically, a HDMI monitor shouldn't be able to power a Zero - but could power a B+/2B/3B, due to the RT9741. Would that be a right assumption?"

Roger Thornton says:2 minutes ago

Yes you shoudn't be able to power the Zero through the HDMI without some modifcation

clarkhensley says:2 minutes ago

Would it take a different setup to produce wearable electronics? Is there smth like a smaller package size for the smt components to scale everything down?

Arsenijs says:a minute ago

@steverobillard no, it's that chat sometimes is weird like that, don't mind =)

Roger Thornton says:27 minutes ago

Hello everyone, it's great to be here and I am looking forward to talking to you all.

altometer says:26 minutes ago

:<

altometer says:26 minutes ago

Hi Roger, thanks for coming!

mediocreengineer says:26 minutes ago

@Roger Thornton This is the first event I've attended. Please ensure you give the question before you answer it, so we all get the context.

h3liosphan says:26 minutes ago

hi roger!

steverobillard says:26 minutes ago

welcome roger

Arsenijs says:25 minutes ago

Also, there's a "message" button in the top right corner of this messagebox, it kind of makes the mesages easier to keep track of.

Nick Sayer says:25 minutes ago

Hi, Roger. My project is SPI driven, so this will be a first for me on R-PI (done it a lot with bare AVR).

Roger Thornton says:25 minutes ago

@mediocreengineer It's my first time here too so will be sure to answer as everyone wants!

Arsenijs says:25 minutes ago

Like, it's a "message" icon, right under the "Add a Project" in the top bar.

Nick Sayer says:25 minutes ago

(don't really have a question, just thought I'd open with SPI discussion)

Sophi says:24 minutes ago

What new features are you considering for the next iteration of the Raspberry Pi? How do you make it so cheap?? (from @Edje13)

Roger Thornton says:24 minutes ago

OK , well the 40 pin header gives you access to an SPI port so you can add any SPI device you want, alot of common IC's have drivers already

Nick Sayer says:23 minutes ago

I didn't think to check to see if there was a driver for my chip already. I was planning on using /dev/spi.* and... the ioctl interface?

Arsenijs says:23 minutes ago

Especially the Linux kernel drivers, they're pretty good. For example, with MCP23017, you can use a kernel driver for it, and it'll actually make the MCP GPIOs available like Linux GPIOs, you could use them like you'd typically use Raspberry Pi GPIOs - so you don't need to bother with I2C stuff at all, just load a driver.

Nick Sayer says:22 minutes ago

A quick google doesn't show anything helpful for the MAX6951 in terms of kernel drivers. But I have mucho experience with talking to this chip from AVR, so I don't mind "byte banging" it in user space.

Roger Thornton says:21 minutes ago

@Edje13 That's a great question, we have constant conundrum of trying to work with what are great features and what the whole user base benefit from. We are also tied to the Processor we use and the interfaces it has. Pi is cheap beacuse we spend an awful lot of time trying to remove excess components, looking for new suppliers and understanding where costs are based on a board.

Neil Cherry says:21 minutes ago

but byte banging in Linux can't be time dependent

Evan Juras says:21 minutes ago

Thanks Roger! Are you looking at new processors at all?

Brandon Aaskov says:21 minutes ago

I have an "am I taking crazy pills" kind of question: I can never see the raspberry pi as a bluetooth device from my iphone. I can request to pair to the iphone from the pi, and that works. I can see the pi in any other device (namely computers), but not iOS. Am I missing something here? Is there something about an Apple device that's making this so illusive? Happy to do the ground work but I want to make sure it's possible before I pull my hair out (what's left of it).

Nick Sayer says:20 minutes ago

@Neil Cherry Well, I'm referring to using the SPI interface to perform individual transactions... Not bit banging, meaning I'd be clocking the individual bits out on GPIO lines by hand.

Nick Sayer says:19 minutes ago

@Neil Cherry And actually, bit-banging the 6951 works reasonably well - it isn't sensitive to timing. But user-space bit banging on R-Pi would be slower than I'd like.

Arsenijs says:19 minutes ago

MAX6951: Oh, that must be because it's not anything Linux typically uses - with RTC, GPIO, PWM etc, it makes sense to write a kernel driver because there's a subsystem in Linux to make work with this easier, and I think there isn't a 7-segment display subsystem in Linux =)

bengt bäverman says:19 minutes ago

@Roger Thornton What features have you contemplated, but rejected due to them driving cost?

Nick Sayer says:19 minutes ago

@Brandon Aaskov You've made the Pi "discoverable," right?

Arsenijs says:19 minutes ago

@Brandon Aaskov Are you using BT LE or just 4.0?

Lutetium says:19 minutes ago

Next question is from @Paul Smith, and tags onto the one just asked: When developing a device like the Raspberry Pi, where do you start? Does it begin with "this is a good/interesting processor, let's build a product around it", or "we want to do this, what hardware do we want"?

Roger Thornton says:19 minutes ago

@Evan Juras We have a great relationship with Broadcom who have fostered the idea from the outset and we see that relationship going on for a long time

ronald.sutherland says:18 minutes ago

@Roger How does the WiFi interface with the processor, I guess I'm wondering if an SPI on the GPIO header was lost.

Brandon Aaskov says:18 minutes ago

@Nick Sayer I have made it discoverable. @Arsenijs, this is my current hunch. As far as I know it's just 4.0 and the iPhone has requirements for BLE. That said, I'm not sure how to opt for one or the other on the pi side.

Evan Juras says:16 minutes ago

@Roger Thornton Makes sense! I'm sure it helps that you used to work there too. Seems like the BCMs work great for the Pi. thanks for answering!

h3liosphan says:16 minutes ago

Hi Roger, just throwing a question out there for you - can you say anything about that innovative antenna design on the Zero W, licensed from somewhere. Thanks

altometer says:16 minutes ago

@Roger Thornton on that note, does the wifi have the same issue where it shares the bus with USB?

Roger Thornton says:16 minutes ago

@bengt bäverman There are lots of exciting things that sadly don't make sense for the main board, market specific things like a second Ethernet port or long range low speed radios, that's why we added the 40 Pin header so people could add stuff they needed for a particular task. There are some amazing HAT boards out there.

Arsenijs says:16 minutes ago

@ronald.sutherland AFAIK it's SDIO, it's an interface that SD cards use. BT is connected through one of the UARTs.

Arsenijs says:15 minutes ago

So it neither has the USB contention issue, nor takes SPI or GPIO from the 40-pin header,

Roger Thornton says:15 minutes ago

@ronald.sutherland Wi-FI connects over SDIO and the BlueTooth over UART

erik pax says:15 minutes ago

is there a solderpad or pin to connect an fm antenne to the wifi/bt/fm chip?

Arsenijs says:15 minutes ago

erik - no, they couldn't route it out, at least that was the answer for the Pi3.

spencer says:15 minutes ago

Can the Bluetooth be disconnected to free up the UART?

Nick Sayer says:14 minutes ago

@Arsenijs Have you confirmed that with a real zero W, or are you speaking of the B 3?

Roger Thornton says:14 minutes ago

@h3liosphan We licensed the antenna from a company called Proant, the antenna is basically just a ground plane cut out with some tuning capacitors. They are a great team of engineers in Sweeden

Roger Thornton says:13 minutes ago

@erik pax due to the tight nature of the PCB layout the pad isn't broken out.

Arsenijs says:13 minutes ago

It's on a BGA ball of that Broadcom radio, and I don't think the ball position changed. Nick Sayer - is that what you're asking about?

Nick Sayer says:13 minutes ago

@Arsenijs One of the questions I'm waiting to answer is whether you have to play overlay games on the zero W to bring out BT and serial console at the same time.

h3liosphan says:13 minutes ago

cool, thanks. I already have two zero W boards. Easier in the uk! They work great

Brandon Aaskov says:12 minutes ago

@Nick Sayer good question

Arsenijs says:12 minutes ago

Probably, if the clock speed changes dynamically. I'll check when I get my Zeros.

Brandon Aaskov says:12 minutes ago

Also, thanks for doing this @Roger Thornton!

Nick Sayer says:12 minutes ago

@Brandon Aaskov I got it working on my B 3, but I had to use "turbo_force" to make it reliable.

Arsenijs says:12 minutes ago

enable_uart=1 in config.txt should work.

Roger Thornton says:12 minutes ago

@Nick Sayer The UARTs are wired the same as Pi3

Roger Thornton says:11 minutes ago

@Brandon Aaskov happy to help!"

Nick Sayer says:11 minutes ago

@Roger Thornton Ok, so you use the same overlay magic to get serial and BT at the same time? Thanks for confirmation. :)

Arsenijs says:11 minutes ago

You can disable BT UART, yes. I'm not sure if it's remappable to the previous pins, though.

Victor says:11 minutes ago

The amazing cost of the pi makes it available to those of us on a limited budget, but are there any plans for a higher end board with all the bells and whistles cut from the flagship pi?

sfrias1 says:11 minutes ago

Hi, just arrived late. My apologies :-D

Roger Thornton says:10 minutes ago

@Victor isn't that the Pi3?

davedarko says:10 minutes ago

+1

Roger Thornton says:9 minutes ago

@Nick Sayer Yes it is the same as the Pi3, it's a peculiarity of the processor we use

Lutetium says:9 minutes ago

Question from @altometer: Are there any compatibility issues with existing Rpi zero Shields?

Roger Thornton says:9 minutes ago

@altometer

Roger Thornton says:9 minutes ago

@altometer No, it is the same 40 Pin GPIO header that is used on all the recent Pi products with the same set of GPIO wired to it

altometer says:8 minutes ago

sweet

Arsenijs says:8 minutes ago

So, only problems could be with 1) UPS and PSU shields (higher consumption of WiFi/BT?), shields using UART to communicate, and, well WiFi shields are not needed anymore =)

Victor says:7 minutes ago

@Roger Thorton Touché. Haha

Lutetium says:7 minutes ago

next is a question from @spencer: Will there be any kind of assurance that the original Pi Zero will still be produced, or will it be dropped in favour of the Pi Zero W (Meaning my product won't work any more - stupid stupid UART thing)

Nick Sayer says:7 minutes ago

I think that's a *huge* draw for embedding the Pi - the fact that the GPIO is consistent across the whole line like that.

Nick Sayer says:7 minutes ago

Even the first 24 being consistent with the really old models.

Arsenijs says:7 minutes ago

*26

Nick Sayer says:7 minutes ago

What @Arsenijs said

Lutetium says:6 minutes ago

and a question from @Radomir Dopieralski: Why the ancient ARM core?

steverobillard says:6 minutes ago

@spencer I asked this on the forums yesterday and they will keep making the original zero in fact they added an assembly line to make the zer oW and help with inventory.

Brandon Aaskov says:12 minutes ago

Also, thanks for doing this @Roger Thornton!

Nick Sayer says:12 minutes ago

@Brandon Aaskov I got it working on my B 3, but I had to use "turbo_force" to make it reliable.

Arsenijs says:12 minutes ago

enable_uart=1 in config.txt should work.

Roger Thornton says:11 minutes ago

@Nick Sayer The UARTs are wired the same as Pi3

Roger Thornton says:11 minutes ago

@Brandon Aaskov happy to help!"

Nick Sayer says:11 minutes ago

@Roger Thornton Ok, so you use the same overlay magic to get serial and BT at the same time? Thanks for confirmation. :)

Arsenijs says:11 minutes ago

You can disable BT UART, yes. I'm not sure if it's remappable to the previous pins, though.

Victor says:10 minutes ago

The amazing cost of the pi makes it available to those of us on a limited budget, but are there any plans for a higher end board with all the bells and whistles cut from the flagship pi?

sfrias1 says:10 minutes ago

Hi, just arrived late. My apologies :-D

Roger Thornton says:10 minutes ago

@Victor isn't that the Pi3?

davedarko says:10 minutes ago

+1

Roger Thornton says:9 minutes ago

@Nick Sayer Yes it is the same as the Pi3, it's a peculiarity of the processor we use

Lutetium says:9 minutes ago

Question from @altometer: Are there any compatibility issues with existing Rpi zero Shields?

Roger Thornton says:9 minutes ago

@altometer

Roger Thornton says:8 minutes ago

@altometer No, it is the same 40 Pin GPIO header that is used on all the recent Pi products with the same set of GPIO wired to it

altometer says:8 minutes ago

sweet

Arsenijs says:7 minutes ago

So, only problems could be with 1) UPS and PSU shields (higher consumption of WiFi/BT?), shields using UART to communicate, and, well WiFi shields are not needed anymore =)

Victor says:7 minutes ago

@Roger Thorton Touché. Haha

Lutetium says:7 minutes ago

next is a question from @spencer: Will there be any kind of assurance that the original Pi Zero will still be produced, or will it be dropped in favour of the Pi Zero W (Meaning my product won't work any more - stupid stupid UART thing)

Nick Sayer says:7 minutes ago

I think that's a *huge* draw for embedding the Pi - the fact that the GPIO is consistent across the whole line like that.

Nick Sayer says:7 minutes ago

Even the first 24 being consistent with the really old models.

Arsenijs says:7 minutes ago

*26

Nick Sayer says:7 minutes ago

What @Arsenijs said

Lutetium says:6 minutes ago

and a question from @Radomir Dopieralski: Why the ancient ARM core?

steverobillard says:6 minutes ago

@spencer I asked this on the forums yesterday and they will keep making the original zero in fact they added an assembly line to make the zer oW and help with inventory.

Roger Thornton says:5 minutes ago

@Spencer We are still planning to produce the original Zero but we think the Zero W is alot more exciting and reduces the additional parts needed.

Nick Sayer says:5 minutes ago

Once upon a time, I considered wiring a Pi up with a coin acceptor to revive from my youth the old biorhythm machines that used to be in the arcades. It's whacky psuedoscience, yes, but profitable. :)

Arsenijs says:5 minutes ago

I'll add my question from the spreadsheet - "Why does Pi Zero consume so much current - around 80-100mA from 5V, more from Li-Ion? What can be done to decrease the power consumption, apart from the usual ["disable HDMI", "disable green LED"]?"

erik pax says:5 minutes ago

is the bootrom still the same in W as pi1 or has it been updated like the pi3?

spencer says:4 minutes ago

@steverobillard I kind of hope people buy lots of the W to releive supply problems with the Zero - but hope enough people still buy the Zero that they don't drop it :-/

Nick Sayer says:4 minutes ago

100 mA doesn't seem like a lot to me for what you get...

steverobillard says:4 minutes ago

@spencer https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/ten-freakin-bucks-zero-w-aftermath/#comment-1272741

Brandon Aaskov says:4 minutes ago

That's about what the Model A+ consumed I think

spencer says:4 minutes ago

Thatnks @Roger Thornton :-)

Arsenijs says:4 minutes ago

It's a lot when you're building a mobile phone, even more when you're looking on how to make it actually work well.

Nick Sayer says:3 minutes ago

Really? I must be misremembering. I had it at ~200, but I could be wrong.

Arsenijs says:3 minutes ago

Wasn't the BCM2835 originally a mobile phone chipset?

h3liosphan says:3 minutes ago

except for this UaRT issue I'm only just hearing about, why would you need the original zero? Can the issue not be worked around?

Roger Thornton says:3 minutes ago

@Radomir Dopieralski The ARM core is really rather old yes, only 2835 (the original chip used) is a POP package (memory soldered on top of the processor) which makes it ideal for small spaces, Zero W. If you look at Pi2 or Pi3 you can see the space and routing that processor + discrete memory take up, it simply wouldn't fit. Zero W is a fantastically powerful board but it's never meant to replace the Pi3.

spencer says:3 minutes ago

The origina Zero is half the price :-)

Brandon Aaskov says:3 minutes ago

@Arsenijs I agree. The project I'm looking at needs to draw as little power as possible so being able to get some low-hanging fruit, like disabling LEDs, would be great.

Nick Sayer says:2 minutes ago

And what UART issue? If it's the BT thing, that does have a workaround in config.txt.

steverobillard says:2 minutes ago

@spencer I hope they do too . I donated the Pi Zero's needed for the python/physical computing course we are running at the library and becasue of the one pi per order restrictions paid more in shipping than the pi's cost

Roger Thornton says:2 minutes ago

@erik pax same as Zero

Roger Thornton says:a minute ago

@spencer

spencer says:a minute ago

@Nick Sayer Only a work around if you use Linux. Doesn't work on bare-metal programming ;-)

Radomir Dopieralski says:a minute ago

@Roger Thornton thank you!

Nick Sayer says:a minute ago

@Scallamerican

Roger Thornton says:a minute ago

@Spencer we made it a policy never to stop producing a board, you can still buy the original Pi.

Nick Sayer says:a minute ago

@Spencer ah.

Roger Thornton says:2 minutes ago

@Arsenijs Power consumption is mainly from the Wifi chip, we leave it on permanently as we assume a mains supply. In your phone there is a lot of work spent turning off un-needed things to keep consumption down

h3liosphan says:a minute ago

ok million quid question - when are we going to see the Pi 4!?

Arsenijs says:a minute ago

I'm talking about the WiFi-less Pi Zero.

Nick Sayer says:a minute ago

I think the next should be the Pi 3.1, then the Pi 3.14, then the Pi 3.141.....

Arsenijs says:a minute ago

I've now designed and ordered some power monitoring boards that I'll use to make a power monitoring test jig. I aim to get the most out of a Zero with software tweaks, playing with clock speeds, kernel parameters etc. However, it's all of no use when a Pi Zero consumes 50mA even when the SD card is not plugged in.

Greg Bushta says:a few seconds ago

@Nick Sayer :-D

Greg Bushta says:3 minutes ago

@Nick Sayer :-D

Roger Thornton says:3 minutes ago

@Arsenijs Yes BCM2835 was a mobile phone chip that we all worked on many years ago (a shockingly long time ago now). We were orignially working on Multimedia Co-Processor chips, something that would have hardware acceleration for intesive tasks like Video decode, ISP or 3D and then with 2835 we added in a very small ARM as a proof of concept

Edgar says:2 minutes ago

will there be a version of the pi with 1 gig ethernet?

Roger Thornton says:2 minutes ago

@Nick Sayer I really like the numbering scheme idea!

davedarko says:2 minutes ago

at least make a special 3.141 version :)

h3liosphan says:2 minutes ago

Niiiiice!

Roger Thornton says:2 minutes ago

@h3liosphan There will be one but I can't say when

/dev/null says:a minute ago

Are there any plans to include USB 3 on the Pi 4? Would make my day if that ever happens :)

Nick Sayer says:a minute ago

@Roger Thornton if I had a feature request, it'd be USB over pins. That is, USB for hats.

Lutetium says:a minute ago

Question from @M.daSilva How did you manage to boost the Rpizero to 1GHz, considering the original BCM2835 could run at 700MHz, and would be unstable if overclocked at 1gig?

Arsenijs says:a minute ago

So, yeah, my question still is unanswered. Just what consumes so much, compared to a regular phone?

davedarko says:a minute ago

+1 for usb hats

steverobillard says:a minute ago

@davedarko +1 version 3.14

Neil Cherry says:a minute ago

My USB hub sits on my Pi Zero

Neil Cherry says:a minute ago

pogo pins

davedarko says:a minute ago

something for D+ and D- like there is for run and tv

Nick Sayer says:a few seconds ago

There have been more than a couple things I've decided not to do because adding a usb device connector and a 4 inch cable was just *lame*

Roger Thornton says:a few seconds ago

@/dev/null I think it would be an exciting addition; What do you need USB3 for ?

Nick Sayer says:a few seconds ago

(to a hat)

MobileWill says:a few seconds ago

Pi with Type-c ;)

xemexe says:a few seconds ago

I luv Pi

Arsenijs says:2 minutes ago

A cutout&testpoints on the pHAT + wires to two testpoints on the Zero =) Also, there are testpoints for USB D-/D+ on the Pi 2 and 3, right under the USB sockets.

Roger Thornton says:2 minutes ago

@Nick Sayer that's a really interesting idea and would open up a lot of additions to the HAT what would you have on a HAT that connected to USB?

Nick Sayer says:2 minutes ago

@MobileWill WAY too complicated / expensive

Arsenijs says:2 minutes ago

Yeah, and pretty much useless.

davedarko says:a minute ago

Not that it'll get overlooked: Question from @M.daSilva How did you manage to boost the Rpizero to 1GHz, considering the original BCM2835 could run at 700MHz, and would be unstable if overclocked at 1gig?

Nick Sayer says:a minute ago

@Roger Thornton My first idea was a Pi PoE hat. It would have the Ethernet interface right there on the hat so you wouldn't have to loop an output cable over.

Arsenijs says:a minute ago

However, a "Type-C RPi HAT" would be an interesting idea for a Kickstarter campaign, that'd be useless but have all the buzzwords to part fools with their money (and around 10 people that could actually make use of it).

Roger Thornton says:a few seconds ago

@Arsenijs Wii-Fi and Bluetooth are very heavy consumers of power if you don't turn them on and off in a clever way, Radios are very power hungry.

MobileWill says:a few seconds ago

@Nick Sayer True but its getting better. I have started working with type-c

MobileWill says:2 minutes ago

Type-c could allow for some interesting project using 1 connector for everything

/dev/null says:2 minutes ago

@Roger Thornton Would like USB3 to make use of Gb Ethernet adapters. Right now, I'm using a Pi as my router after I got tired of putting up with the instability of me wireless router.

Arsenijs says:a minute ago

@Roger Thornton I understand that, but I'm talking about the Pi Zero that doesn't even have WiFi and BT. Essentially, the consumption comes either from the BCM, or from the SD card.

h3liosphan says:a minute ago

Thanks Roger, also, how about building in a SATA interface over high speed interconnect, wipe out the NAS box market overnight!?

Nick Sayer says:a few seconds ago

@MobileWill - I started going down the road of designing a car -> USB C power socket. I mean, yes, you can get them from Amazon, but I wanted to see what was possible.

Roger Thornton says:a few seconds ago

@MobileWill @Nick Sayer USB-C negotiation isn't very compliacted it is just reading a resitor value for the simple negotiations, all you need is a cheap ADC.

Neil Cherry says:a few seconds ago

@Roger Thornton, usb3 == faster access to root (mount sdx on an ssd)

/dev/null says:5 minutes ago

@Roger Thornton Would like USB3 to make use of Gb Ethernet adapters. Right now, I'm using a Pi as my router after I got tired of putting up with the instability of me wireless router.

Arsenijs says:4 minutes ago

@Roger Thornton I understand that, but I'm talking about the Pi Zero that doesn't even have WiFi and BT. Essentially, the consumption comes either from the BCM, or from the SD card.

h3liosphan says:4 minutes ago

Thanks Roger, also, how about building in a SATA interface over high speed interconnect, wipe out the NAS box market overnight!?

Nick Sayer says:4 minutes ago

@MobileWill - I started going down the road of designing a car -> USB C power socket. I mean, yes, you can get them from Amazon, but I wanted to see what was possible.

Roger Thornton says:4 minutes ago

@MobileWill @Nick Sayer USB-C negotiation isn't very compliacted it is just reading a resitor value for the simple negotiations, all you need is a cheap ADC.

Neil Cherry says:4 minutes ago

@Roger Thornton, usb3 == faster access to root (mount sdx on an ssd)

Neil Cherry says:3 minutes ago

Sorry, I'm on several chats, trying to pay attention

MobileWill says:3 minutes ago

@Nick Sayer my problem has. been the cc lines, my design isn't working for reverasbility. but thats another topic

erik pax says:3 minutes ago

USBC with HDMI Alt.Mode to replace miniHDMI

Arsenijs says:3 minutes ago

Lol, nobody's wiping the NAS market out. USB3 and SATA would either need to be over USB, or need to move to another Broadcom chip.

Stefan-Xp says:3 minutes ago

@Roger Thornton: How is the general mood on Windows 10 IOT? Do alot people use it? To me it seems most people are using linux

Arsenijs says:2 minutes ago

@Stefan-Xp https://nicola.blog/2016/08/03/raspberry-pi-why-i-chose-not-use-windows-iot/

Roger Thornton says:2 minutes ago

@Arsenijs I am not sure if I follow what is the issue with Zero's power consumption that you are seeing?

Arsenijs says:2 minutes ago

Well, let me just plug one in...

Roger Thornton says:a few seconds ago

@erik pax I saw HDMI over USB-C at CES and think it is a great idea. Essentially all you need is a a way to get the CEC and other contorl signals over the diff pairs. I think it's a really neat soloution.

Arsenijs says:a few seconds ago

tl;dr it drains battery a lot faster than mobile phones do, and it's a mobile phone chipset-based thing. Where's the consumption, nd how can I decrease it/can I even?

MobileWill says:a minute ago

Will there be a low cost compute module, like a pi zero version?

Brandon Aaskov says:a minute ago

@Roger Thornton, if someone has made a prototype with any of the pi devices, and wants to create a new board with only the required features, is this something the Pi Foundation does or would this need to happen through a third party?

Nick Sayer says:a few seconds ago

Can you instead perhaps under clock the CM?