Pandaboard ES Experimentation

Well my new case for the PandaBoard arrived today…

Well, come on then, Keith, show us the case! After the discussion earlier on, I’m curious as to what you finally plumped for!

Sorry – forgot!

One of these:

http://www.streacom.com/products/f1c-evo-chassis/

Still too big for me (far too much air in there!) but it is off the shelf and with a suitable ATX/mini ITX mounting bracket getting the board in was a doddle!

Internal wiring came from Maplins of all places:

USB:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/dual-usb-2.0-8-pin-backplate-46736

5V power distribution:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/graphics-card-fan-adapter-98840

It is off the shelf and with a suitable ATX/mini ITX mounting bracket getting the board in was a doddle!

You mean like:
http://cjemicros.co.uk/micros/individual/newprodpages/prodinfo.php?prodcode=4D-PANDA-ATXMB
:-)

I realise one end of the fan adaptor connects to a fan and the other to the PSU but via what connector?

n.b. we also have the USB cable in stock!

As you can see the fan adaptor has 3 connectors on it.

One is the standard PC 3 pin fan connector (with only the power pins wired), one is a small header connector and the other is a standard 2.54mm header connector.

Of course on J3 of the PandaBoard the V+ and Gnd connections aren’t right next to each other, they are at opposite ends of J3 (5V V+ is pin 2 and Gnd is either 27 or 28) so all you need to do is get the connectors out of the plastic housing using a very small screwdriver and away you go.

I cut the end off the unused small header connector and simply wired them into the power supply connection of the SATA to USB converter that the shiny disc drive needs.

Hi comrades in ARMs!
I am lusting after a Pandaboard-ES, but where to buy? I have gone through Pandaboard.org’s recommended suppliers and have come up with two possibilities (trying to avoid import duties for one thing): Tigal, who price in Euros, and Mouser Electronics. The former charge 169 euros or 234.36 euros for a kit that includes power supply, WiFi aerial, HDMI cable, SD card, case and a ‘U.FL-RPSMA cable’ whatever that is (a WiFi cable?); and the latter GBP109.58, but its website says “This product may require a licence to export from the United States.”. :-((
Don’t mention a firm called XXXXXX as in “The XXXXXX rain forests” as this firm is a tax dodger, neither mention eYYY, another tax dodger.
Cheers

CJE micros list them – probably not too expensive compared to importing. I also think I saw it listed by CPC-Farnell.

I got mine from Mouser.

Don’t get your knickers in a twist about the licence – when you order the board you just have to tell them what you’re going to use it for and promise that you’re not going to use it for military purposes.

Or order an ARMiniX from R-Comp or order from CJE :-)

I have no issues with my ARMiniX btw, really happy. Nice to play zool and cannon fodder again!
Although I’m thinking about CPU heat sync and adding a fan then overclocking up to 1.5
Has anyone here used a heat sync? Any ideas getting one/fitting one?

I haven’t bothered with a heat sink yet as you’ll need to use adhesive thermal paste to stick it on which dramatically reduces the effect of it.

I recall somebody posting somewhere else in the forums that they had done it and was only seeing a drop of a few degrees.

As you’re an ARMiniX owner fitting a fan is trivial – the case is designed to take a 60mm one in the side. I don’t know whether there’s enough depth to take a 25mm deep fan but if there is get one of these:

http://quietpc.co.uk/afdp-6025b

or these:

http://quietpc.co.uk/nf-a6x25

Run them at full speed first but if the noise bothers you then, keeping an eye on !CPUTmpMon, you can try using the fan speed reduction kits these come with.

If you are running to 1.5GHz you must use cooling!

Hmm I have just been looking at Raik’s pictures at the start of this thread again – looks like with the ARMiniX case you’ll be limited to a 10mm deep fan… :-(

= noisy!

Which is the same as my case.

I have had a couple of cunning plans though – just awaiting the hardware to turn up!

Right. The first one is the prototyp from the ARMiniX in DE = PIK (look also https://www.riscosopen.org/forum/forums/1/topics/794#posts-9108) ;-)
I have change the direction of the fan to blowing and the power from 12V to 5V. It is enough and not noisy.
The problem is, it works not with all fans.

TBH not having to run a fan was the main reason for me to get into RISC OS. Plenty of good operating systems for x86 :(

TBH not having to run a fan was the main reason for me to get into RISC OS.

Thing is, when you push a chip hard, all the hamsters in side run around a lot more. This creates heat. If it gets too hot, the hamsters die.

The question I’d ask is – yes, you can have the thrill of running RISC OS at 1.5GHz, but do you necessarily need that?

Back in the summer (ahhh, so cold right now, I remember those days…) I was worried about my Beagle when the core touched 70C given it’s a package-on-package design. So I messed around with the Portable module and knocked back the processor speed to around 2/3rds. For general use (OvationPro, Zap, compiler), I can honestly say I didn’t really notice any difference.

Perhaps the machine would cope with only a heatsink (and no fan) if the zippedy-dodah speed was used in short bursts when necessary?

if the zippedy-dodah speed was used in short bursts when necessary?

I was absentmindedly looking through the Wimp sources earlier and cursing who wrote it as a giant wodge (instead of breaking it down into logical modules named after what the function is); anyway, I noticed that the Wimp appears to have a fast mode and a slow mode…at least for the Stork, it seems.

It’s in Wimp02, look for “WimpPortableFlags”, and then for “callback Entry”.

What is the mechanism that selects between fast and slow speeds? It looks like it counts idle events?

I was wondering if it would be possible to re-introduce this logic to the Beagle/Pi/etc which is supported by the Portable module to select between full speed and a slower (half?) speed, and have the Wimp handle processor speed automatically?

[of course, it will remain possible to override the Wimp by setting the “fast” speed slower than the CPU’s fastest]

Actually Rick the extra 300MHz running an OMAP 4460 to 1.5GHz does make a difference as does a stupid o’clock fast SD-Card with SDFS :-)

I was seeing 85C during the summer when using dcraw to convert files from my DSLR to tiffs…

Even now whilst it is cold here in London !CPUTmpMon is reporting 60-70C without any cooling.

Sorry kidz but cooling is a necessity if you want to push the envelope on these boards.

Patrice “only” use a xM and if this is to hot he can use this
http://www.chris-johnson.org.uk/software/download/cpuclk100.zip
tool to push down the max CPU speed. But it works only with OMAP3. May be Willi Theiss can implement the function in the OMAP4-Port but at this time it is not working, I mean.
My PandaXL (This fan is noisy :-(… cut the wire ;-)) runs with 1GHz… It’s fast enough, I’m the brake. It is a big case with maximum air ;-)

was wondering if it would be possible to re-introduce this logic to the Beagle/Pi/etc which is supported by the Portable module to select between full speed and a slower (half?) speed, and have the Wimp handle processor speed automatically?

???
Running CPUClock that appears to be exactly what happens.
http://www.chris-johnson.org.uk/software/cpuclock.html

Hi,Hi the time bug is back… I’m before…

@Keith
Sorry, “kidz” is long gone ;-) But you did not mean me. As I wrote, in the small case I have a fan ;-)
If I use the original sucking fan with 12V I became not a better temperature than with the original
reversed blowing fan with 5V.

That’s why I never liked Hamsters, they’re just plain creepy. My BB-xM seems to be hitting 80°C on a regular basis without me using something heavy like e.g. lame or ArcEM, even disabled the screen saver for that reason. Apples and oranges of course but I do feel a little disappointed when comparing the Beagle with my Tegra 2 Android tablet in this respect.

Re. CPUClock: I have produced an alternative version in the form of a Boot-Configure tool. This allows you to set the fast and slow speeds as before (but no continuous readout of actual speed), and the settings are obviously remembered over a reboot. If there is any interest, let me know and I will let you have a copy. It isn’t yet on the web site.

If there is any interest, let me know and I will let you have a copy. It isn’t yet on the web site.

Well the obvious answer there is steven dot pampling btinternet dot com

The second, less obvious answer is – had you considered a small (optional)icon on the bar with just the current speed?

What would be nice is an environmental display, near the switcher, showing cpu speed and temperature and battery

@David R Lane:

Don’t mention a firm called XXXXXX as in “The XXXXXX rain forests” as this firm is a tax dodger, neither mention eYYY, another tax dodger.

Please spare us this rubbish, David. What they are doing is entirely legal. It seems monstrous to me that the politicians make the laws, then bleat when someone uses the law to their advantage in a way that the politicians hadn’t thought of.

The directors of the companies involved would be in dereliction of their legal duties as directors if they didn’t maximise the profit of their companies.

Over to Aldershot or email for any follow-ups.

the obvious answer there is steven dot pampling btinternet dot com

In the post.

had you considered a small (optional)icon on the bar with just the current speed?
What would be nice is an environmental display, near the switcher, showing cpu speed and temperature and battery

The first is a possibility

CPUTmpMon is in existence, written by WPB of this parish. It would be possible to incorporate the temperature monitor code into CPUClock, with WPBs full agreement, of course. Would need a little work, since CPUClock is in C, while CPUTmpMon is Basic/Assembler. Is there sufficient interest to do something like this?

At the moment CPUClock works only on the BB, the full set of Portable2 SWIs not being implemented on PB/RPi, so the battery state/etc is a bit academic, and presumably would be for the Panda only.

That would be cool (sorry!), however it rests on the implementation of the Portable2 SWIs on the PandaBoard to happen, as you said.

Battery status is really only for those who are running OMAP3 ROMs on pandoras etc.

As we all know, whilst on the subject of battery, even though the PandaBoard has a RTC there’s no battery back up for it!

What would be nice is an environmental display, near the switcher, showing cpu speed and temperature and battery

Except the style guide says the icon should go on the left, since the CPU & battery/batteries are physical devices :) (Not sure how the display manager ended up on the right!)

Battery status is really only for those who are running OMAP3 ROMs on pandoras etc.

Plus it’s already there