New Pi Zero $5 stripped down RasPi


 
I'm still checking every few days to see if they come back in stock and every time I check they are "Sold Out". Smokin Hardware ordered one from eBay on Monday but it probably won't be here until next week for testing.
 
Yeah that doesn't belong in this thread really, but that's OK there's not much to say. Seems like there's a new sort of embedded board every month now. The reason the Pi Zero is so attractive is because it should just drop in to the existing software with only a firmware update. That board is pretty nice in that it runs OpenWrt already but the price is a little high. I've been playing with the CHIP computers which are under $10 and include wifi, gpio, and flash storage but don't have OpenWrt running on them yet.
 
JSMathers said:
This probably belongs in a different thread, but has anyone heard of Black Swift (now called Unwired One)? It runs OpenWrt, has on board wifi and can interface to Arduino. Very small form factor, but pricier than the pi zero. Open hardware.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1133560316/black-swift-tiny-wireless-computer/description
Click to expand...

don't know how they are better than the already available: DominoIo Looks to be a great OpenWrt platform....price is decent too....

but Bryan is correct that there's new hardware coming out every month....I'm not a fan of the PiZero(os on a sdcard, wifi usb, no easy header, power consumption...), my bet (and hope) is that CHIP 'works' for a linux iOT...I'll be waiting for my CHIPs order for a while though....
 
Just arrived in the mail. Hoping to test it out soon.

kAqSa98l.jpg
 
Nice! Did the header come with it or did you order that separately. I'm also curious to know if they have the same USB error problems (that kill the wifi) that plague the Pi A/A+.
 
I ordered that header with it. They were super cheap at adafruit. I'm now having trouble powering it up. It worked fine and now nothin...
 
False alarm. Just an old image on an SD card that wouldn't boot. There's no "status" LED on the Pi Zero, just a "disk activity" LED.

Notes:

The latest version of debian jessie boots.

The snapshot version of linkmeter doesn't boot

Copying over bootcode.bin, fixup.dat and start.elf onto the SD card caused the Pi Zero to go into "8 blinks" + "wait 2 seconds" + "8 blinks" ( repeat )

This is indicative of something up within the boot process ( binaries or other config data ). Need to look into this a little more.

As a bonus, it turns out you can backpower the unit over the USB port. You don't -have- to power it via the Power micro-usb port and only use the USB port for USB devices.

kNixFQol.jpg
 
So the weirdness continues.

I compiled a new version of linkmeter including updated rpi firmware files.

I successfully upgraded my existing heatermeter and it boots fine.

Code: 
[    0.000000] Linux version 3.3.8 (steve@basement) (gcc version 4.6.3 20120201 (prerelease) (Linaro GCC 4.6-2012.02) ) #1 Thu Dec 31 00:05:07 EST 2015

Since it's on a MicroSD in an adapter, I attempted to boot my Pi Zero with it. No dice. I'm also unable to boot my RasPi A+ with it. Which is odd, though I've never tried to boot LinkMeter on the A+ before.

I also tried imaging another MicroSD card with openwrt-brcm2708-sdcard-vfat-ext4.img and it won't boot on the Zero or A+. What I haven't done is try and boot my Pi B with it.
 
Re-imaging a MicroSD card and I'm able to boot the RasPi B fine with my self compiled LinkMeter image.

Code: 
BusyBox v1.19.4 (2015-12-30 22:37:13 EST) built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.
 -----------------------------------------------------
 ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT (Attitude Adjustment, r36422)
 -----------------------------------------------------
root@OpenWrt:/# uname -a
Linux OpenWrt 3.3.8 #1 Thu Dec 31 00:05:07 EST 2015 armv6l GNU/Linux
 
Steve_M said:
Where it freezes on boot.

9AR94r0l.jpg


A short video showing it trying to boot and where it freezes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwfuXZ03jB8
Click to expand...

I assumed it would need the boot firmware files updated to support the new hardware, this is always the case when they come out with a new hardware revision. However, I don't see it locking up, it looks like a normal boot to me. See? It is fully booted! "Press Enter to activate this console". It even is running linkmeterd because at 29 seconds there it is worried that you have a blank HeaterMeter so it loads the SPI module and tries to flash it.

Maybe the keyboard isn't working, or maybe the USB in general isn't working, but it isn't locked up at all (apart from not accepting input perhaps).
 
Interesting. I was under the assumption that something was wrong with the large gap in loading the SPI driver. I'll admit that in all this time, I've never hooked up my LinkMeter RasPi to a display, so I was expecting to see a more verbose boot log showing some system services starting.

While the RasPi A+ does seem to work, it continues to do the same thing at the Pi Zero with the on-board LED. It blinks 8 times, pauses, then blinks 8 times again. According to this, it means "8 flashes: SDRAM not recognised. You need newer bootcode.bin/start.elf firmware". If it's running OK and continues to do the 8 flashes, I'm not too concerned.

I guess now the focus is on the USB for the Pi Zero. I'll have to boot it up with Raspbian and see what lsusb and other utils report.
 
Yeah the updated firmware expects the kernel to turn off the flashing LED when it takes over from the bootloader. This functionality isn't in the kernel we have so the LED just stays blinking. I think there a way we can override this after boot but usually it is inside a case so the LEDs are pointless anyway apart from seeing that the board has power.

The boot messages aren't like a Raspbian, which starts like 100 services that each output a message. The only output you see is the kernel log (driver output) and like one or two messages from OpenWrt. I believe I could pipe the syslog output to tty but seeing as it is your only console if something went wrong and you were trying to stop it, the logspam would make it near impossible to get a command out accurately so I've never changed it.
 
Success!



Contents of the kernel log here.

As it turns out, I had to make an OTG USB cable for it to work. I originally spliced a USB female <> Micro USB male cable together, but that's not enough. You also have to connect the GND to the Sense pin on the Micro USB end.

Gk6PlNE.jpg




Flashing the AVR also works fine via the Pi Zero

Code: 
hm.hex               100% |*******************************| 67636   0:00:00 ETA
Stopping LinkMeter OK

LinkMeter platform is BCM2708
AVR fuses ffd705 OK

                          13246cd311d5eb277c6c70faab61fe76  /tmp/hm.hex
hmdude: compiled on Dec 30 2015 at 23:50:48
Using port: /dev/spidev0.0
Loading ihex file: "/tmp/hm.hex" (24042 bytes)

    0% |                                                  |     0 (0.0s)
    0% |                                                  |     0 (0.0s)
    5% |##                                                |  1204 (0.1s)
   10% |#####                                             |  2406 (0.2s)
   15% |#######                                           |  3608 (0.4s)
   20% |##########                                        |  4810 (0.5s)
   25% |############                                      |  6012 (0.6s)
   30% |###############                                   |  7214 (0.7s)
   35% |#################                                 |  8416 (0.9s)
   40% |####################                              |  9618 (1.0s)
   45% |######################                            | 10820 (1.1s)
   50% |#########################                         | 12022 (1.2s)
   55% |###########################                       | 13224 (1.4s)
   60% |##############################                    | 14426 (1.5s)
   65% |################################                  | 15628 (1.6s)
   70% |###################################               | 16830 (1.7s)
   75% |#####################################             | 18032 (1.8s)
   80% |########################################          | 19234 (2.0s)
   85% |##########################################        | 20436 (2.1s)
   90% |#############################################     | 21638 (2.2s)
   95% |###############################################   | 22840 (2.3s)
  100% |##################################################| 24042 (2.5s)
Update successful
Starting LinkMeter OK


And because Murphy's Law never fails, my OTG adapters arrived in the mail this afternoon!

 
Last edited:
No, I'm using a freshly compiled snapshot. I haven't tried the September snapshot again. I'll do that tomorrow to see if it works out of the box or if it needs updated firmware files.
 
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