|
Since today is the first time I opened up my sbitx box, all kinds of possibilities popped into my head.
For instance I have a Pi 5 on order and I just got the shipping notice. You can buy GPIO extenders and suitable standoffs to mount it and its fan upside-down with some room for airflow. So IMO there probably is a way to fit a Pi 5 into the box mechanically, and with the fan running and perhaps more aggressive CPU throttling and/or fan speeds it probably would be okay in terms of heat. The end plate would need to be modified or replaced because the external USB and Ethernet would now be in a different place. Same could be said for the hatch on the top of the case, it would be in the wrong place. May or may not be an issue depending on what you want to connect to the radio.
As for power, in the worst case the Pi 5 wants 25 watts so 5 amps at 5 volts. It also needs a compatible USB-C implementation that will convince it that it is getting that 5A. If not it falls back to 15 watt / 3A mode to be backwards compatible with older Pis. In the fall back mode it still works, but it does not supply much power to the external USB devices. You can run things like keyboards and mice, but not SSDs/NVMe/etc, they draw too much power. However you can still use them with a powered hub if that use case is important to you.
So, if all of the above is correct, a Pi 5 could work inside the sbitx case. It is said to deliver 2x or more improvement on performance.
Feel free to poke holes into this theory!
--
Regards,
Dave, N1AI
|
Another thought: why would external USB connections be important? Keyboard and mouse can be Bluetooth. Network (when needed) can be WiFi, and you can even use an external hotspot via WiFi when somewhere with mobile networks.
--
Regards,
Dave, N1AI
|
And there is a PCIe lane, which can be used for NVMe without using the USB3 if I remember correctly.
- Rafael
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
On 10/26/23 19:22, Dave, N1AI wrote:
Another thought: why would external USB connections be important? Keyboard and mouse can be Bluetooth. Network (when needed) can be WiFi, and you can even use an external hotspot via WiFi when somewhere with mobile networks.
-- Regards, Dave, N1AI
|
On Fri, Oct 27, 2023 at 04:02 AM, Rafael Diniz wrote:
And there is a PCIe lane, which can be used for NVMe without using the USB3 if
I remember correctly.
Yes, and they are developing an official NVMe "HAT".
It is nice that there is extra room inside the sbitx, hopefully that would allow for Pi5 with both NVMe and a fan to fit inside the sbitx enclosure.
Now that I think about it a day later, the main hope is that all the hardware is compatible.
I too await winter when I will have more time to work on this device.
--
Regards,
Dave, N1AI
|
I'm not clear why we need a Rasp Pi 5 for the sBitX. I have demonstrated the sBitX running SSB and also projecting a slide show (LO Impress) at the same time. The Pi didn't even seem to be taxed at all.
I am looking forward to the Pi 5 but for me with its speed it will replace an old laptop.
|
More speed could help with FT8 decodes.
I also ordered one from the PiShop us but no info on shipping yet. I ordered it with the case with active cooling but for sBITX you would need another solution.
--
73
??? Bob? KD8CGH
|
On Fri, Oct 27, 2023 at 01:31 PM, Bruce W4BRU wrote:
I'm not clear why we need a Rasp Pi 5 for the sBitX. I have demonstrated the
sBitX running SSB and also projecting a slide show (LO Impress) at the same
time. The Pi didn't even seem to be taxed at all.
The case where I see performance lags is if I spin the tuning dial even moderately fast. This could be a software issue or a hardware issue. One reason why I prefer the TUI (Gtk) over the GUI (browser) is that it is more responsive. It'll be interesting to me at least if those tuning lags are reduced both by (a) going to the new Pi OS, bookworm, that has a new graphics stack with Wayland instead of X Windows and (b) going to Pi 5 hardware. Farhan says in one of these threads that his performance profiling shows memory copying is the main user of time. Pi 5's memory system is like twice as fast as Pi 4 so I will find it interesting to see what kind of difference it makes. If Pi 4 is fine, then I'll re-purpose the Pi 5.
--
Regards,
Dave, N1AI
|
The problem is that the encoder isn't getting sampled often enough. It's a software design?issue. A faster CPU won't help. There is already plenty of CPU power available; it's just not being used in the way it needs to be to handle that case.
The Pi 5 might help for a different reason, however. My understanding is that it has programmable I/O ports similar to the ones on the Raspberry Pi Pico. Those could be programmed to handle the encoder in the hardware peripheral, which should make it possible for the rig not to drop any encoder counts at any physically achievable speed of spinning the dial.
But... even that might not totally solve the problem. The other catch is that mechanical encoders are subject to switch bounce. You have to wait a certain amount of time for?them to settle down or else you get false reads. They're not really designed for high signaling rates. If you want to be able to turn the dial fast, the best thing would be to replace the encoder with an optical or magnetic encoder. That, along with the right software, would really let you let loose on the tuning dial if you are so inclined. Given that you can easily change the tuning rate, spinning the dial fast isn't as necessary as it was in a design with an analog VFO, but some operators still like to do it.
On Fri, Oct 27, 2023 at 5:59?PM Dave, N1AI < n1ai@...> wrote: On Fri, Oct 27, 2023 at 01:31 PM, Bruce W4BRU wrote:
I'm not clear why we need a Rasp Pi 5 for the sBitX. I have demonstrated the
sBitX running SSB and also projecting a slide show (LO Impress) at the same
time. The Pi didn't even seem to be taxed at all.
The case where I see performance lags is if I spin the tuning dial even moderately fast. This could be a software issue or a hardware issue. One reason why I prefer the TUI (Gtk) over the GUI (browser) is that it is more responsive. It'll be interesting to me at least if those tuning lags are reduced both by (a) going to the new Pi OS, bookworm, that has a new graphics stack with Wayland instead of X Windows and (b) going to Pi 5 hardware. Farhan says in one of these threads that his performance profiling shows memory copying is the main user of time. Pi 5's memory system is like twice as fast as Pi 4 so I will find it interesting to see what kind of difference it makes. If Pi 4 is fine, then I'll re-purpose the Pi 5.
--
Regards,
Dave, N1AI
|
On Fri, Oct 27, 2023 at 03:16 PM, Bob Benedict, KD8CGH wrote:
More speed could help with FT8 decodes.
Probably will, but I haven't used FT8 enough on sbitx to understand its strengths and weaknesses.
I also ordered one from the PiShop us but no info on shipping yet. I ordered it with the case with active cooling but for sBITX you would need another solution.
I didn't understand that the case also came with a fan, so I ordered the case as well as the stand-alone "active cooler". I'm sure I'll find a way to use both of them.
--
Regards,
Dave, N1AI
|
On Fri, Oct 27, 2023 at 06:15 PM, Shirley Dulcey KE1L wrote:
The problem is that the encoder isn't getting sampled often enough. It's a
software design?issue.
Thanks for all the great insights! I'll keep them in mind going forward.
I was thinking it could be a software issue but was thinking of a totally different scenario. I was imagining (without doing any analysis) that it was a software problem, but one where the decoder was sending frequency change commands to the app faster than it could handle them. This could cause a big spike in resource usage (cpu, memory) that would take the device a while to recover from. In particular I see some times if I change frequency a lot in an exaggerated way, the app locks up.
The radio is quite usable as-is, and the lagging phenomena is not unique to this radio. I have been using linhpsdr software with Hermes Lite 2 on Raspberry Pi 4 and it too could get laggy. It's just interesting to me to try to understand the weak points and address them whenever possible.
--
Regards,
Dave, N1AI
|
The "active cooler" for the RPi 5 includes a heatsink as well as a fan, the "official" case for the RPi 5 includes a fan (much like the available fan accy that is available to add to the RPi 4 "official" case).
It's not clear if the "active cooler" prevents placing a hat on an RPi 4, but I suspect it does - though a GPIO extender may change that.
Also unclear is if the "active cooler" can fit inside any cases for the RPi 5 (it appears to be designed for use inside a project that does not have the RPi itself in a case, but that's just speculation).
RPi 5 boards should start shipping/be available in stores this coming week, Microcenter appears to be expecting them soon...
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
On Oct 28, 2023, at 07:20, Dave, N1AI <n1ai@...> wrote:
I also ordered one from the PiShop us but no info on shipping yet. I ordered it with the case with active cooling but for sBITX you would need another solution.
I didn't understand that the case also came with a fan, so I ordered the case as well as the stand-alone "active cooler". I'm sure I'll find a way to use both of them.
--
Regards,
Dave, N1AI
|
On Sat, Oct 28, 2023 at 12:17 PM, Ken N2VIP wrote:
It's not clear if the "active cooler" prevents placing a hat on an RPi 4, but
I suspect it does - though a GPIO extender may change that.
says:
Well, you can mount a HAT above the Active Cooler using a set of 16mm GPIO extenders. Inevitably there is some disruption to the air flow which will cause the Raspberry Pi to run hotter, but the Active Cooler is still able to handle extended stress tests without significant temperature rises.
RPi 5 boards should start shipping/be available in stores this coming week, Microcenter appears to be expecting them soon...
I took the magazine subscription offer, and got mine today.
--
Regards,
Dave, N1AI
|
Actually mine came with the case but not the active cooler, even though I thought I ordered both.
--
Regards,
Dave, N1AI
|
The Micro Center site recently said they were expected on November 3, though it currently says "sold out". You can't reserve them in advance, so it's likely that the only way to get one is to figure out which day they're going to show up and be there before the store opens. They're also limiting sales to one per customer.
On Sat, Oct 28, 2023 at 6:11?PM Dave, N1AI < n1ai@...> wrote: On Sat, Oct 28, 2023 at 12:17 PM, Ken N2VIP wrote:
It's not clear if the "active cooler" prevents placing a hat on an RPi 4, but
I suspect it does - though a GPIO extender may change that.
says:
Well, you can mount a HAT above the Active Cooler using a set of 16mm GPIO extenders. Inevitably there is some disruption to the air flow which will cause the Raspberry Pi to run hotter, but the Active Cooler is still able to handle extended stress tests without significant temperature rises.
RPi 5 boards should start shipping/be available in stores this coming week, Microcenter appears to be expecting them soon...
I took the magazine subscription offer, and got mine today.
--
Regards,
Dave, N1AI
|
Looks like I stumbled right out of the gate.
The first step in install.txt says to install WiringPi but the Pi 5 came with the 64 bit OS.
Even worse, it seems WiringPi is end-of-life ( ref: ).
I went to see I could get the code from the author's git site, but:
git.drogon.net is currently unavailable.
Please look for alternatives for wiringPi, etc.
(I really mean look for an alternative - as in use another GPIO library. also read the news on )
-Gordon
So, it really looks like the end of the road for WiringPi.
I could install a bunch of the 32 bit user mode stuff (in particular libc6) and see if I can build sbitx as a 32 bit app running on a 64 bit OS but I think the WiringPi part still probably won't work, because it appears WiringPi knows chipset-level details and it appears the source needs to be updated for Pi 5. I'm pretty sure Pi 5 is not register-level compatible with any of the earlier Pi devices.
I could be wrong, but as of right now it's not really worthwhile to proceed since the code is deprecated and is not available anyway. Maybe I'll feel differently later, who knows...
--
Regards,
Dave, N1AI
|
I have learned more since writing this, and based on a question on the FB sbitx group I will add some updated thoughts about the issues of using Pi 5 in sbitx.? I would say there are three areas of concern: power, heat and software.??
?
Power: Pi 4's standard PSU is a 15 watt device, Pi 5 wants 25 watts.? The sbitx internal regulator that converts 12V to 5V won't cope, from what I have been told.? The power is delivered from the radio to the Pi on its GPIO pins, and I worry that upping it from 3A to 5A will go beyond the pin's limits.? Then there are also likely knock-on effects due to drawing more energy from the battery.
?
Heat: All that power gets converted to heat one way or another.? The Pi provides CPU and GPU temperature readings, those will need to be monitored and if they get hot, something must be done to cool them.? I think there is room for the Pi 5 Active Cooler if a GPIO extender is used to create a bit more room for air flow, but then the holes in the panel will no longer line up.?
?
Software:? The Pi 5 needs Bookworm / Debian 12, the image being produced is Buster / Debian 10 which is quite old.? ?The image being produced uses 32-bit mode whereas the default Pi 5 image is 64 bits.? I found enough help on this group to get to Debian 11 / Bullseye in 64 bit mode.? I haven't ventured further than that so far.
?
Even though I got a Pi 5, I am finding a lot more things to work on with the current hardware/software so I've kind of put Pi 5 for sbitx on hold for now.?
?
--
Regards, Dave, N1AI
|
My Pi 5 did not arrive yet. When it arrives I give an update, but I don't see why it would not work. Are you sure the regulator will not be enough? Can you help me find it in the circuit?
- Rafael
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
On 11/21/23 14:22, Dave, N1AI wrote: I have learned more since writing this, and based on a question on the FB sbitx group I will add some updated thoughts about the issues of using Pi 5 in sbitx.
I would say there are three areas of concern: power, heat and software.
Power: Pi 4's standard PSU is a 15 watt device, Pi 5 wants 25 watts.? The sbitx internal regulator that converts 12V to 5V won't cope, from what I have been told.? The power is delivered from the radio to the Pi on its GPIO pins, and I worry that upping it from 3A to 5A will go beyond the pin's limits.? Then there are also likely knock-on effects due to drawing more energy from the battery.
Heat: All that power gets converted to heat one way or another.? The Pi provides CPU and GPU temperature readings, those will need to be monitored and if they get hot, something must be done to cool them.? I think there is room for the Pi 5 Active Cooler if a GPIO extender is used to create a bit more room for air flow, but then the holes in the panel will no longer line up.
Software:? The Pi 5 needs Bookworm / Debian 12, the image being produced is Buster / Debian 10 which is quite old.? ?The image being produced uses 32-bit mode whereas the default Pi 5 image is 64 bits.? I found enough help on this group to get to Debian 11 / Bullseye in 64 bit mode.? I haven't ventured further than that so far.
Even though I got a Pi 5, I am finding a lot more things to work on with the current hardware/software so I've kind of put Pi 5 for sbitx on hold for now.
--
Regards,
Dave, N1AI
|
The Pi5 doesn't idle at 5A. It putters along at 1A unless you kick it hard and more cores wake up and start playing smoke on the waters. There will be little gain, really. The sbitx works just?fine even on the rpi zero 2w.? If you find it radio sluggish, what you need is more RAM, mostly for the web and other software.? - f
On Tue, Nov 21, 2023, 8:15 PM Rafael Diniz < rafael@...> wrote: My Pi 5 did not arrive yet. When it arrives I give an update, but I
don't see why it would not work. Are you sure the regulator will not be
enough? Can you help me find it in the circuit?
- Rafael
On 11/21/23 14:22, Dave, N1AI wrote:
> I have learned more since writing this, and based on a question on the
> FB sbitx group I will add some updated thoughts about the issues of
> using Pi 5 in sbitx.
>
> I would say there are three areas of concern: power, heat and software.
> Power: Pi 4's standard PSU is a 15 watt device, Pi 5 wants 25 watts.?
> The sbitx internal regulator that converts 12V to 5V won't cope, from
> what I have been told.? The power is delivered from the radio to the
> Pi on its GPIO pins, and I worry that upping it from 3A to 5A will go
> beyond the pin's limits.? Then there are also likely knock-on effects
> due to drawing more energy from the battery.
> Heat: All that power gets converted to heat one way or another.? The
> Pi provides CPU and GPU temperature readings, those will need to be
> monitored and if they get hot, something must be done to cool them.? I
> think there is room for the Pi 5 Active Cooler if a GPIO extender is
> used to create a bit more room for air flow, but then the holes in the
> panel will no longer line up.
> Software:? The Pi 5 needs Bookworm / Debian 12, the image being
> produced is Buster / Debian 10 which is quite old.? ?The image being
> produced uses 32-bit mode whereas the default Pi 5 image is 64 bits.?
> I found enough help on this group to get to Debian 11 / Bullseye in 64
> bit mode.? I haven't ventured further than that so far.
> Even though I got a Pi 5, I am finding a lot more things to work on
> with the current hardware/software so I've kind of put Pi 5 for sbitx
> on hold for now.
> --
> Regards,
> Dave, N1AI
>
|
Hi Ashhar,
People have different needs, so the faster CPU and GPU would be helpful to some, especially for DSP and media intensive tasks, eg, for vocoders based on ML. Also, the I/O is very improved, while PCIe on it is very good for NVMe usage. I like to play smoke on the water!
: )
Anyway, do you know the limits of the regulator that feeds the Pi? I can just set the cpu governor to keep the clocks low anyway.
- Rafael
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
On 11/21/23 14:51, Ashhar Farhan wrote: The Pi5 doesn't idle at 5A. It putters along at 1A unless you kick it hard and more cores wake up and start playing smoke on the waters.
There will be little gain, really. The sbitx works just?fine even on the rpi zero 2w.
If you find it radio sluggish, what you need is more RAM, mostly for the web and other software.
- f
On Tue, Nov 21, 2023, 8:15 PM Rafael Diniz <rafael@...> wrote:
My Pi 5 did not arrive yet. When it arrives I give an update, but I
don't see why it would not work. Are you sure the regulator will
not be
enough? Can you help me find it in the circuit?
- Rafael
On 11/21/23 14:22, Dave, N1AI wrote:
> I have learned more since writing this, and based on a question
on the
> FB sbitx group I will add some updated thoughts about the issues of
> using Pi 5 in sbitx.
>
> I would say there are three areas of concern: power, heat and
software.
> Power: Pi 4's standard PSU is a 15 watt device, Pi 5 wants 25
watts.
> The sbitx internal regulator that converts 12V to 5V won't cope,
from
> what I have been told.? The power is delivered from the radio to
the
> Pi on its GPIO pins, and I worry that upping it from 3A to 5A
will go
> beyond the pin's limits.? Then there are also likely knock-on
effects
> due to drawing more energy from the battery.
> Heat: All that power gets converted to heat one way or another.?
The
> Pi provides CPU and GPU temperature readings, those will need to be
> monitored and if they get hot, something must be done to cool
them.? I
> think there is room for the Pi 5 Active Cooler if a GPIO
extender is
> used to create a bit more room for air flow, but then the holes
in the
> panel will no longer line up.
> Software:? The Pi 5 needs Bookworm / Debian 12, the image being
> produced is Buster / Debian 10 which is quite old.? ?The image
being
> produced uses 32-bit mode whereas the default Pi 5 image is 64
bits.
> I found enough help on this group to get to Debian 11 / Bullseye
in 64
> bit mode.? I haven't ventured further than that so far.
> Even though I got a Pi 5, I am finding a lot more things to work on
> with the current hardware/software so I've kind of put Pi 5 for
sbitx
> on hold for now.
> --
> Regards,
> Dave, N1AI
>
|
This is a 3A regulator, but I am skeptical. It is a plug-in so you can use a +12,+5 smps with the 5v going directly into the 5v regulator socket.
On Tue, Nov 21, 2023, 9:43 PM Rafael Diniz < rafael@...> wrote: Hi Ashhar,
People have different needs, so the faster CPU and GPU would be helpful
to some, especially for DSP and media intensive tasks, eg, for vocoders
based on ML. Also, the I/O is very improved, while PCIe on it is very
good for NVMe usage. I like to play smoke on the water!
: )
Anyway, do you know the limits of the regulator that feeds the Pi? I can
just set the cpu governor to keep the clocks low anyway.
- Rafael
On 11/21/23 14:51, Ashhar Farhan wrote:
> The Pi5 doesn't idle at 5A. It putters along at 1A unless you kick it
> hard and more cores wake up and start playing smoke on the waters.
> There will be little gain, really. The sbitx works just?fine even on
> the rpi zero 2w.
> If you find it radio sluggish, what you need is more RAM, mostly for
> the web and other software.
> - f
>
> On Tue, Nov 21, 2023, 8:15 PM Rafael Diniz <rafael@...> wrote:
>
>? ? ?My Pi 5 did not arrive yet. When it arrives I give an update, but I
>? ? ?don't see why it would not work. Are you sure the regulator will
>? ? ?not be
>? ? ?enough? Can you help me find it in the circuit?
>
>? ? ?- Rafael
>
>? ? ?On 11/21/23 14:22, Dave, N1AI wrote:
>? ? ?> I have learned more since writing this, and based on a question
>? ? ?on the
>? ? ?> FB sbitx group I will add some updated thoughts about the issues of
>? ? ?> using Pi 5 in sbitx.
>? ? ?>
>? ? ?> I would say there are three areas of concern: power, heat and
>? ? ?software.
>? ? ?> Power: Pi 4's standard PSU is a 15 watt device, Pi 5 wants 25
>? ? ?watts.
>? ? ?> The sbitx internal regulator that converts 12V to 5V won't cope,
>? ? ?from
>? ? ?> what I have been told.? The power is delivered from the radio to
>? ? ?the
>? ? ?> Pi on its GPIO pins, and I worry that upping it from 3A to 5A
>? ? ?will go
>? ? ?> beyond the pin's limits.? Then there are also likely knock-on
>? ? ?effects
>? ? ?> due to drawing more energy from the battery.
>? ? ?> Heat: All that power gets converted to heat one way or another.?
>? ? ?The
>? ? ?> Pi provides CPU and GPU temperature readings, those will need to be
>? ? ?> monitored and if they get hot, something must be done to cool
>? ? ?them.? I
>? ? ?> think there is room for the Pi 5 Active Cooler if a GPIO
>? ? ?extender is
>? ? ?> used to create a bit more room for air flow, but then the holes
>? ? ?in the
>? ? ?> panel will no longer line up.
>? ? ?> Software:? The Pi 5 needs Bookworm / Debian 12, the image being
>? ? ?> produced is Buster / Debian 10 which is quite old.? ?The image
>? ? ?being
>? ? ?> produced uses 32-bit mode whereas the default Pi 5 image is 64
>? ? ?bits.
>? ? ?> I found enough help on this group to get to Debian 11 / Bullseye
>? ? ?in 64
>? ? ?> bit mode.? I haven't ventured further than that so far.
>? ? ?> Even though I got a Pi 5, I am finding a lot more things to work on
>? ? ?> with the current hardware/software so I've kind of put Pi 5 for
>? ? ?sbitx
>? ? ?> on hold for now.
>? ? ?> --
>? ? ?> Regards,
>? ? ?> Dave, N1AI
>? ? ?>
>
>
>
>
>
>
|
Dave, N1AI
Bruce W4BRU
Bob Benedict, KD8CGH
Shirley Dulcey KE1L