Banana pi the new raspberry pi?

I was sent one of these $50 devices that look pretty much a cloned pi.  In fact when it arrived I placed it to the side thinking it was till I took another look.

So today I decided to take a look in detail at it and spent a good eight hours with it. Firstly I found bananapi.org to be useless and ended up after several googles finding www.leemaker.org which also has links to os images as well as a forum where they keep saying it's not a clone, but surely if that was the case you would move the sockets around a bit?

So here are the specs:

Banana PI hardware: 1Ghz ARM7 dual-core processor, 1GB DDR3 SDRAM,

Banana PI with Gigabit ethernet port, SATA Socket. It can run with Android 4.2.2 smoothly. The size of Banana PI M1 like the credit card, it can easily run with the game it support 1080P high definition video output, the GPIO compatible with Raspberry Pi and can run the ROM Image directly

Hardware specification
CPU	A20 ARM Cortex™-A7 Dual-Core
GPU	ARM Mali400MP2Complies with OpenGL ES 2.0/1.1
Memory (SDRAM)	1GB DDR3 (shared with GPU)
Onboard Storage	SD (Max. 64GB) / MMC card slot UP to 2T on 2.5 SATA disk
Onboard Network	10/100/1000 Ethernet RJ45,optional WIFI
Video Input	A CSI input connector allows for the connection of a camera module
Video Outputs	HDMI, CVBS , LVDS/RGB
Audio Output	3.5 mm Jack and HDMI
Power Source	5 volt via MicroUSB(DC In Only) and/or MicroUSB (OTG)
USB 2.0 Ports	2 (direct from Allwinner A20 chip)
Buttons	Reset button: Next to MicroUSB connector Power button: Next to Reset button Boot button (Optional): Behind HDMI connector
GPIO(2X13) pin	GPIO,UART,I2C bus,SPI bus with two chip selects, CAN bus,ADC,PWM,+3.3v,+5v,ground.
LED	Power Key & RJ45
Remote	IR (Optional)
OS	Android 4.2,Firefox OS and Linux etc. OS
Interface definition
Product size	92 mm × 60mm
Weight	48g

The cloners or makers depending which side of the fence your sitting like to point out how fast and how much extra it has to a raspberry pi and whilst that is true you could buy nearly two pi s for the price of one banana. Also the raspberry pi was brought out as a way to teach programming for as little money as possible which it has achieved with great support for users and those in the education facilitation area.

I had to use a 16gb card as the 8gb image wouldn't fit to a 8gb card.  I did notice the speed increase doing an update and upgrade of the raspbian image.

I wasn't happy with how long the soldered legs sat underneath and maybe another day I will tidy this up to stop the risk of shorting. Maybe this is something that will be sorted before major shipping starts.

Next was to try the gpio board although the same as the pi it didn't like pibrella as my example board lighting up many of pibrella LEDs although I had not told it to.

The site says it supports multiple os's including Debian, android, Firefox and Xbmc which I see being popular due to the memory, processor speed and the ability to add a sata drive which could have all your films on.

There are also other possibilities for this board and on closer inspection has an option to add a battery for rtc, camera and screen through the dsi and csi which they are working on but will not take the raspberry pi s camera due to different connections etc.

So would I buy one? Well at this early stage no, but providing they can get the support in and decent gpio documentations then maybe.

I can't see schools buying into them when the raspberry does everything they need for half the price along with lots of support and downloads from raspberry pi, so for now the jury is out as we wait to see what happens over the coming months.

Camjam May 2014

Wow these always get better, I arrived early to help set up but this time everything had been done early enough. 

First thing to see was the new robot kit from 4tronix was like and was pretty impressed but for nearly 60 quid estimate. Price with no mention if it includes a pi means that although it's good it will be out of reach for lots.

Ryantek was next with his budget robot which is cheap and does what it needs to, this also is a nice platform to start off with before adding and upgrading as you go from starter to pro.  A couple of tables  away was a naughty or nice, bunny that poo'd eggs and a neopixel that lit up laser cut clear panels which was cool.

A virtual reality headset with graphics done on a pi was next and was a weird experience, certainly funny watching people wearing it.

The excellent little British robot company was there and have teamed up with kre8 to enter the budget robot market which schools can afford and allow pupils to take home building the robot case out of card and colouring it in and it's own happi breakout board.

Fuze were there with their keyboard case and os which you can learn the old fashion basic on :) certainly good stuff for those who grew up with the BBC micro.

Alex from hdmipi was showing the pi hdmi screen kit which still looks great and hopefully will be shipping in a few months.

Some great talks on various education stuff and on programming the pibrella which has extremely easy commands with about 5 lines of code to do something.

Pimoroni we're doing a learn to solder which participants had the chance to solder a solder ninja this became very popular that they ran out.

On closer inspection of the board it looks like a soc chip, mosi and miso amongst other things can be added so certainly a board that you can add to as you progress, hopefully available in next few months and already I want to order a few as I was surprised how popular they were.

I left with my bags of new stuff including leads and a decent set of small angled wire cutters which has improved the looks of my soldering as I can cut so much closer to the board.

Breakout boards compared

Every few months a new breakout board appears and as ever I get one to see what it can do for me.

This is the first one not really used this much as it needs breadboard cable that had circular and not square pins although once you figured out which gpio is which on it it doesn't take up much space.

This has to be the daddy of them, out from the beginning the adafruit breakout board. Clips nicely onto a breadboard and each pin is clearly marked, certainly one of my favourites.

Same as the adafruit one but in red.

This t shaped one was a favourite for a while, unlike the adafruit one didn't take up to much valuable breadboard and has the benefits of putting power down the power rails on the side.

Not had much of a play with this one yet, needs a mini breadboard in it but other than that has potential and you could add an arduino board to it.

This is another adafruit board with the options if screwing in wires as well as plugging in wires. Has semi prototyping but with a breadboard stuck on it it is ideal for travel, another one of my favourites and probably will design a circuit on this before using the humble pi board to solder the parts to.

As you will see this week I reviewed this one from raspio, brilliant as it protects your pi with zenor diode type fuses. Sits on top of the pi or use an extension cable, this one we be good to see with the previous plate above as then you can have the best of both worlds a mini breakout area and fuse protected gpio s.

So which one so I pick? Adafruit breakout has been round long enough and is a firm favourite on many of my projects. The adafruit prototype breakout means everything is together and the Raspio means its protected against any nasty power surges or short circuits. So really I can't pick any out of these three, but if Raspio made a prototype board like the adafruit one with fuses then I know which one I would then pick.

Sneak look at raspberry pi model c

Raspberry pi are bringing out a screen that plugs into the dsi socket so to reduce power usage further it no longer needs audio or av socket with rumours that the hdmi socket will go as well.

Of course this is false about the model c this is my A with av and sound removed, but it's true about the dsi screen.

Simply simpie

I recieved a new device at the start of the weekend, it's a SimPie a handheld control that plugs into your pi via the gpio socket.

The SimPie has three buttons, RGB led and a buzzer that reminds me of hearing aid tests and no doubt some clever whizz kid will work out how to pwm it in a way that it's only audiable to kids.

It also comes with stickers so you can change the traffic light colour buttons to actually define things like yes, no or off. In fact you could even make your own stickers and labels for it.

The SimPie works on 8 gpio pins, buttons work on 17, 27, 22. RGB led on 18,23,24. The buzzer 4 and ground on Gnd

There is already being work to control fla pi birds in scratch with it while scratch gpio has been updated for SimPie.

So how hard is it to use? Not at all I was able to get the buzzer and led to light with a simple python script in minutes. There is also a couple of code examples over at www.simpie.co.uk and the possibilities are endless, at the top of my head I'm already thinking game controller, doorbell, twitter notifier/email sender. 

So now I've mentioned the great things what are the negatives? Well there is one negative, might be because its a prototype but a longer lead as I can see a child be holding it and when distracted turn round and send the pi for a fly.

The other thing would be a hook or clip on the back to hang SimPie up and no doubt by the finished design little things like that will be added.

You probably asking yourself is there room for this in an every popular pi assesory market place? Well yes it is large enough for use in a classroom, the buttons can be decorated and programmed for anything it has lights and sound and is ideal for projects that need that, obviously building your own circuit would be better, for learners starting out this could be the stepping platform into electronics. Those who have been into this sort of stuff for a while could use it quickly for a quick project that involves pressing a button etc safely.

This is certainly one to watch over the coming months and with it available in black, orange, purple and green there should be a colour for everyone except the really fussy.

So once again it looks like Cyntech have managed to plug the market with yet another great accessory for the pi.

Building a small robot

With all the stuff for a @pi_borg picy robot I set about building one.

Next up was soldering the wires to the board including the motors ensuring one side was wired opposite to take in that the motor was facing the other way, this way it will ensure both motors run the same way ie driving them both forwards.

The @pi_borg boards.

And together

Notice the wiring

Putting it together I luckily had some extenders so I could place everything within the pi case, however just after this pic was taken I broke the battery pack off so now have it on top.

Now I'm this far I will save the programming side for another blog another day.  But feel free to look at piborg.org for sample scripts for this.

Assembly of AirPi V1.4

Starting from opening up the kit sort out everything into manageable areas so everything is tidy and easy to find. Once your soldering iron is to temperature then we are ready to begin.

First job solder the gpio header on, I for this tutorial have left it till last but for most it be easiest to do this first.

Next is the resistors I have lined them up keeping the first brown stripe to the right to ensure easy reading of the resistors.  As I have placed each one in in the correct part of the board I have bent the legs underneath to hold it in place dns make soldering easier.

A closer look at resistors.

And the back

Next was to trim the wires down with a pair of electrical wire cutters to tidy up the board and prevent short circuiting.

By now if not already you should be confident in your soldering.

The photo resistor and mic were next to be soldered followed by the LEDs. Note the LEDs have a positive a negative positive being the longer leg and negative the shorter one.

Again once soldered cut off the excess to prevent short circuiting to your board.

Now we want to place the chip holders, there are two for this project and if you look carefully at them and the board, one end has an indent this needs to match with the board and later the chip that goes into the chip holder.

When we have soldered them on they should look like this.

The back before soldering, notice how ive slightly bent the legs in on one and out on the other? This is to keep the holders in place and should the solder ever break should still keep connection.

Again when soldered.

Now just a few things left, the dht22, place the legs into the hole and bend into place before soldering , this should then keep in place on the board.

Then the bmp sensor.  I found with my previous airpi kit the heat from the board interfered with it so on this one I'm soldering the extended legs first, then using bluetac to hold the bmp so I can solder it at the top of the legs allowing air flow around it to disapate any board heat.

As I left the legs till last this is the last stage for me, carefully ensuring the extended gpio sits flush u solder each leg on. You don't have to use the provided extended you could use a normal header or cut this one down.  However if AirPi.es do bring out any additional add on boards then you won't be able to plug them onto this board.

You will notice the adafruit gps board location on the board, this is an optional extra to log your location and use UTC time with an extra program like gpsd. 

Although I won't show you how to solder it on its the same as the bmp but can sit as close to the board as possible, here is what it looked like on my v1.2 AirPi board.

Now it's time to head over to http://airpi.es/kit.php and follow links to the software to make all this work.

Should you experience any problems then there is the airpi forums at 

http://airpi.freeforums.net/board/1/general-board

Have fun with the airpi and don't forget to share yours with everyone, you could even add a link at the bottom.  Mine is sat in the conservatory so often seems high but can be viewed at 

https://xively.com/feeds/1002148982 however I do try to in the summer have it outside iron the windows ledge to allow for a more accurate reading.