Pandaboard ES Experimentation

Hi,

Does anyone know if either of these methods of expanding the potential of the Pandaboard ES, or better still, has anyone successfully tried them? Don’t want to melt my Pandaboard, now that it’s just become my main RISC OS machine!

On-Off Switch
Additional USB Ports

I’ve looked at Raik’s pictures of the internals of the BIK and it’s not a method he uses, but I wondered if this would work in the same way?

I noticed on the header pins diagram that there is also a “Warm Reset” pin at 11 – would this allow a reset switch also?

The additional USB Ports are used in the PIK (=ARMiniX) and in the PandaXL.
I not have a answer for the other questions. I will check the datasheets.

A friend of mine installed the on-off switch and its ok as I see..

Only if I could find a dammit case (small form factor) for the Panda….

Sorry, break for the children…

At first, you must look at PIK = Panda. BIK is Beagle. ;-)

On Panda we use Pin26 (Power On Reset) from J3. Its the same way (parallel) as the Reset on Board.

What do the On-Off Switch? I know, ON/OFF. Technical?
If you use a ITX case with a ATX Power supply, you need switch the green wire to ground for power on the supply.

Small enough

or is bigger better ;-)

look at

http://home.arcor.de/raik_fischer

Hi, I have just got a panda board es and I’m after some guidance around software and hardware – all the way in NZ.

First thanks to Chris G’s wonderful zip package that made booting it easy as pi.

- does the nut pi package work with it? I will have to upgrade my easiwriter and artworks so they work on arm 7 and I will probably have to move from Pluto to messenger for emails.
- what the best storage environment to go with, I currently have a 2 gb USB stick which is slow what do other suggest? Should I go USB stick or USB hard drive?

- I am keen on having it replace my Iyonix as my main RISC OS machine. I expect to get the CMOS widget as not having it is a pain.

Any advice would be great – especially from those who have made it their main machine.

Thanks peter

The nutPi will only work on Raspberry Pis

For your main hard drive get hold of the fastest SD card you can lay your hands on (I use an 8GB SanDisk Extreme Pro) as your basic hard drive using SDFS.

The latest version of Fat32fs will (using an obey file) allow you to access the necessary FAT partition on the card (the bit that contains the ROM and the other needed files to boot).

If you intend to clock your machine to the maximum then you’ll probably want to get a fan for it – the PandaBoard can run hot!

In general a fully clocked PandaBoard ES blows seven bells over all of the other modern native platforms. However be aware that it isn’t as stable as the OMAP3 (beagleboard etc.) version of RISC OS.

Hope this helps :-D

Raik and Chris, thanks for your help.

Having read up a bit more, it appears the On-Off switch it a bit of a prolonged solution, in that you need to press it for about 8-10 seconds to switch off the computer, but it comes back on with a simple press IF it’s been switched off that way. As I am using an external 5v 4a DC supply, and the reset option on J3 is working, is it possible to emulate the “long press” in software, like the Iyo does – so that on a Shutdown, instead of saying that the machine is ready to be turned off, it says something to the effect that your machine will turn off in ten seconds and then the “long press” happens automatically?

That said, I will probably still consider implementing the actual momentary switch. Being utterly useless at electronics (and programming for that matter), can I combine the USB and on-off switch ideas? Could I use pins 1-8 for the USB header AND still use 12 and 8 for the switch? I know 8 is a ground, but is it okay to use it for two separate functions at the same time? Or could I use 12 and one of the grounds on J3 to achieve the same thing?

Any help appreciated!

Any advice would be great – especially from those who have made it their main machine.

Peter, email me at andy dash marks with the domain name of o2 dot co dot uk as I have something that may be of use to you.

Andy, I am not sure about the power on/off switch, the guy I know that installed it on his Panda (running OpenSUSE for ARM NOT RISC-OS) told me it was working ok. In my case, I power on/off the pandaES via a switch on the PSU…

Peter: I have installed the CMOS widget, works fine.

Raik: I m looking for a smaller case than a mini-itx, something like This

Chris: Like this
and this
But the Panda is a little bit thick ;-)

Edit: Sorry, uppercase and lowercase letters… it should be working yet.

Raik: those links are coming out fehler 404

Chris xc8: Getting the PandaBoard to re-boot using either ctrl-shift F12 & return or the button on the board just doesn’t work for me – it is always pull out the 5V supply.

In terms of cases I am designing my own as there really isn’t anything suitable on the market – I was considering copying what I had done with my ARmini and use one of these again:

http://www.itx-warehouse.co.uk/Product.aspx?ProductID=887

But in the end I have decided to go down my own route as I don’t really need the shiney disc drive in the enclosure and I want a nice big (i.e. quiet!) top fan for to keep the thing cool.

Once I have actually fitted headers to the expansion connectors I’ll have a play with the USB and reset connections – at least I already know I can power fans from pin 2 and 27/28 on J3 :-)

Raik: nice case!!
Keith: check for the e-mini cases (like the “e-mini Q6”) , also, I think a nano-ITX (the size of nano-ITX is 120×120 mm) case would be perfect for the PandaES…

Once I have actually fitted headers to the expansion connectors I’ll have a play with the USB and reset connections – at least I already know I can power fans from pin 2 and 27/28 on J3 :-)

I bought some of these, as my soldering skills would result in me getting big dollops of silver stuff all over the place and probably not making any kind of connection that I actually needed!

Chris: I work also on a small case (150×140mm) for the RPi. I will take the Panda inside and make any pictures ;-)

Edit: Sorry, only a RPi Picture
I did not have enough time to disassemble my PandaXL.
In the front there is a card reader, rear a 4-port USB hub (under the RPi). Which would remove the Pandaboard. The panels are still handmade. Later I’ll take the same material as the Armini(X) rearplate.

Andy: Very interesting the “Solderless Headers”. Work it?

btw, guys, do you know if its possible to dual boot RISC-OS / Linux on Pandaboard? I think there is a boot script (something like this) for Beagleboard….TIA

I know this post
https://www.riscosopen.org/forum/forums/5/topics/697
I have only test ubuntu on my Panda. It was to slow to use.
On the Pandora I use the bootloader on two ways to boot RISC OS.
I like a clean root. So I have a RISCOSboot directory. I change the entrys in the Angstrom Bootloader and I can start RISC OS from the regulary FAT-card and also from the Slackware ext2-card. It works not from the nand.
I think, but I don’t know, it should be possible to use a Linux with bootloader.

Try the new build of OpenSUSE

Andy: Very interesting the “Solderless Headers”. Work it?

Raik, they work very well! They are a bit of a tight fit, but once they’re in place, they’re not coming out!

I’ve now managed to connect up my front USB sockets through the J6 socket (pins 1-8) and my reset switch through the J3 (pins 26 and 28) one.

Still wondering if anyone knows if it would be okay to use the common/ground from the USB port pins (either pin 7 or 8) and pin 12 for on-off, AS WELL as for the USB. Any ideas?

Does reset fail for anyone else? Whichever way I do it, the machine doesn’t reboot properly.

EDIT: Oops, I see some others further up the thread have this problem too. Is it a common issue, then, or is it just a few of us?

Still wondering if anyone knows if it would be okay to use the common/ground from the USB port pins (either pin 7 or 8) and pin 12 for on-off, AS WELL as for the USB. Any ideas?

Yes – of course it’s OK.

Chris: I have try this http://download.opensuse.org/ports/armv7hl/distribution/openSUSE-stable/images/openSUSE-12.2-ARM-XFCE-panda.armv7l-1.12.1-RC2.raw.xz but with no luck.
It looks like it boot, the Monitor LED switch from green (standby) to blue (incomming signal) but nothing is displayed (If I use a wrong MDF under RISC OS, I became a error message “Signal out of range”.). I use the same HDMI connector with RISC OS.
Use you a other image or must I plug the HDMI-cable to the other port? The serial console is not usable to me at this time.

Yes, I use the same image. The HDMI that I am using is the same as the RISC-OS: the P1 (DVI-D).

This one http://download.opensuse.org/ports/armv7hl/distribution/12.2/images/openSUSE-12.2-ARM-XFCE-panda.armv7l.raw.xz works. Now I need a little time.

arggh.. I just noticed (my freaking eyes…)and I am very sorry for this that the 1st image you mentioned is the RC2! I never used that image.

Well my new case for the PandaBoard arrived today which has finally caused me to solder in the pins for J3 and J6.

So now I have an internal shiny disc drive and an extra external USB port without any sign on an internal USB hub or an internal power supply – everything that needs a separate 5V supply is just pulled off pins 2 and 27 of J3.

Which is really rather groovy.

The case has a pushbutton on the front which I have connected to pins 26 and 28 on J3, but, of course, until the bug is sorted out, it mimics the little button on the board i.e. when pressed the power cycles but only 1 of the indicator LEDs lights up and the board doesn’t boot.

Need to do some metal munching though as the shiny disc drive support bracket is getting in the way of where I need to fit a rather nice and quiet 5V 60mm fan…

Also really ought to sort out the internal wiring as it is a bit of a kludge at the moment just so I could get the thing up and running!