ROCK 5B Debug Party Invitation

#268

Prob is v1.4 was prob ordered before many had boards so it may just end up what it is.
Repeating myself in a vane attempt to hopefully Radxa might make a rethink on layout but that decision might of already been made.

I don’t think you can fit to any format as SBC SoC offerings are often very unique but having all I/O on one side of a board makes it very easy to fit any case bigger than board dimensions and Radxa just need to create either stick on or screw down I/O cut outs of simple low cost sheet metal or even plastic.
I liked the PicoItx because the I/O where on one side and the rest with cable extensions could be also, the actual format of PicoItx meant nothing really as for a start it isn’t but there is near no PicoItx product anyway.

I guess if the dsi/csi port convertors where in the shop and compact, relative low cost then no probs as then the extra functionality of the pins is also not lost, they add fiddly complexity, but would work.

#269

Can you provide a detailed list of those?

#271

All information I got is from @amazingfate , mostly in radxa’s official QQ group. He said that in some test environment the board will keep rebooting forever.
Edit: this might be caused by a bad power supply as it randomly reboots even after systemd has boot

#272

Yeah I am not really sure what causes that as I gave up on my 90watt PD as its was doing the same and used a 12v with usb-c adapter.
I tried many times to get it to boot without rebooting and then to cause more confusion after getting it to boot on 12v and going back to PD to do some more tests it booted with the 90watt PD?

#273

I wonder if the problem is mostly with voltages above 12V. My board bootloops when using a 65W power supply, but with another adapter supporting a maximum of 12V 1.5A via USB-PD it’s been perfect. (That’s just a normal USB-C adapter, none of the barrel plug shenanigans.)

2 Likes
#274

@jack for your wiki article about successfully tested chargers I added those I personally confirmed to work with Radxa’s Ubuntu 20.04 image to my review.

Important note: the two Apple USB-C chargers (96W and 140W) do not work with Armbian. Here the board stalls in a reboot loop. Initially (see many posts above) I thought it’s related to adjusting the PDO_FIXED device-tree nodes but it’s related to Armbian. At least the image I tested with (Armbian_20220707f-rpardini_Rock-5b_jammy_legacy_5.10.66.img.xz) shows this behaviour with 2 out of 5 chargers.

Now that I learned that I’m participating in the most stupid ‘debug party’ ever (not just some babbling in closed/hidden Discord channels but also in ‘radxa’s official QQ group’ whatever that is) it’s really time to stop.

Edit: debugfs info queried that way: cat /sys/kernel/debug/usb/fusb302-4-0022 /sys/kernel/debug/usb/tcpm-4-0022 | sort | curl -s -F 'f:1=<-' ix.io

#275

@tkaiser That QQ group is just for Chinese users since most people in China don’t use discord. And actually amazingfate is the only one who gets board and lives in China.

#276

Maybe you can get a PD protocol analyzer (such as power-z’s) to investigate what actually happens during reboot.

#277

Me? Seriously?

Maybe @amazingfate can try out another image with those problematic USB-C chargers and report back here? If it works with Radxa’s image then someone willing to help could start to bisect?

BTW: I put the Ubuntu image I tested with online since it disappeared from releases page.

#278

He often reports in radxa’s public discord group, have you checked yet?

#279

Nope, I can’t check since I’m not using this Discord crap for obvious reasons. If participating in such a ‘debug party’ requires me handing my mobile number over to some shitty US tech company that is specialised in user tracking then I guess I shouldn’t be part of this ‘party’. :slight_smile:

Asides that I have no idea why Radxa printed this when they actively force fragmentation of user discussions:

IMG_1301%20klein
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1 Like
#280

Well seems that most board owners are discussing there. If you don’t want to expose your phone number to discord, you can try google voice, which creates a virtual phone number.

#281

Discord is there and has a more informal chat basis and generally from what I have seen often a more formal summary is posted here, as many use both.
If you don’t want to sign up to discord then don’t, but its not as if you are missing all that much.
Generally there are enough on both and likely would post anything missing that needs to be.

1 Like
#282

See if Radxa will make FPC adapter cables. The RPi “Standard” is based on the limitations of an arm11 SoC from forever ago. I don’t disagree that compatible ports are nice, but trying to merge 2 connectors to one device is way harder than just selecting the desired signals with a flex cable.

1 Like
#283

Actually I mean rpi cm4io’s CSI/DSI ports, which has full 4-lane bus. Beaglebone AI-64 is also using this port. I think convert cable is also a good choice, but if it’s done by a dedicated pcb, there would be a mess to use those ports. @Tonymac32

#284

The latest board layout from Allnet China.

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rock5b-front1
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3 Likes
Introduce ROCK 5B - ARM Desktop level SBC
#285

So a less common connector then than even the normal RPi. 22-pin, 2 or 4 lane (1 of each on cm4io). An adapter ribbon cable should be simple I would think.

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#286

Just a tangential question on PCB art but the crazy track paths you often see on memory is that to make the track length all equal as is it that sensitive in timing?

#287

Yep. Ideally you match impedance, too.

1 Like
#288

Great job! Looks like the heatsink will hold firmly in place now, that was worth it!