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INDI Library v2.0.6 is Released (02 Feb 2024)

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

Kstars on Rockpi works great except for Touptek Indi ccd driver.

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So your post got me intrigued with the Rock Pi. I ordered one from Ali Express, with 16GB eMMC storage. It's a speedy little guy, that's for sure! At least, compared to a Raspberry Pi.

I spent some time and ported my Waveshare Stepper Motor HAT INDI driver to work on the Rock Pi 4B. That was pretty straightforward.

So I got everything built and installed, and everything works! At least for a few captures of the ASI 1600MM Pro. And then it stops working until I reboot. :(

dmesg shows a bunch of errors about "Ring expansion failed". Are you getting anything like that in your dmesg?

Apparently that's been fixed in the kernel 4 years ago! The Rock Pi people are using an ancient 4.4 kernel.

I'm going to try pestering them and see if they will at least apply the fix to the 4.4 kernel, if they won't update to a newer kernel.

Otherwise I may have to build a kernel from source, with the patch applied. Not my first choice, however.

-- Kevin
2 years 7 months ago #74085

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I see you also have an ASI1600MM Pro. Are you able to take more than a handful of images with it? I just tell Ekos to loop images on the autofocus tab, and it starts failing after just a few images.
2 years 7 months ago #74086

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I haven't had the chance to have a long go with the ASI1600 yet, I got bogged down trying to find a solution for the toupcam. Hope you find a way to get the latest kernal. I thought of trying to build one from source but it's beyond my Linux skills at the moment.
2 years 7 months ago #74090

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You can download Armbian with Kernal 5.1 from here:

www.armbian.com/rock-pi-4/
2 years 7 months ago #74107

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Nice to know, I'll give it a try!

I'm also having a look at the Odroid N2+ 4GB. It's even faster than the Rock Pi, and has active development. They have 5.11 kernel with Ubuntu 20.10 and Debian 11 running on it. And it has a 40-pin GPIO header compatible with my stepper motor HAT.

I'm amassing quite the collection of single board computers. :)
2 years 7 months ago #74108

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You are not the only one.
I have :
    Raspberry Pi Zero,
    RPi2
    RPi3 (just sold a second RPi3)
    RPi4 which is on my mount.

and now
The RockPi4 which absolutely flies when using M.2 NVME but  I may have to change to a ZWO cam for my guidecam as I cant fix the toupcam issue.


Not looked at the Odroid N2+ 4GB ...yet

 
Last edit: 2 years 7 months ago by David Thompson.
2 years 7 months ago #74109

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So thanks for the heads up on running Armbian. It works much better. I've been running KStars just looping exposures on both my imaging camera (ASI1600MM Pro) and guide camera (ASI290MM Mini) continuously for about an hour, with no hiccups. Sweet!

I need to rewrite my stepper motor INDI driver once again, because Armbian uses a different method for accessing the GPIO pins. But I'm getting good at porting this to new OSes. :)

One thing somewhat concerning, is that when I plug my powered USB3 hub into the upper USB3 port on the Rock Pi, I get nothing. lsusb doesn't show anything, other than the built-in hubs. Plugging into the bottom USB3 port works fine. Dead USB3 port? It doesn't affect me, because everything goes over the powered USB hub. But weird just the same.

-- Kevin
2 years 7 months ago #74122

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I think there is something about having the NVME M.2 connection that interferes in some way with the USB3 port on the rockpi not a big deal though.
Glad Armbian works better.
2 years 7 months ago #74125

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Last night was a full night of imaging with the Rock Pi 4B. ASI1600MM Pro imaging camera, and ASI290MM Mini guide camera. No issues. I also had my Waveshare Stepper Motor HAT installed on the board. Autofocus worked beautifully as well. As a bonus, the HAT provides power to the Rock Pi, so I didn't need a separate 5V supply for the Pi. Just the 12V that goes to the HAT, and it provides 5V to the computer via the 40-pin header.

I do like the extra speediness of the Rock Pi. Especially the storage. I used a 16GB eMMC module, got it as a kit. So much faster than the SD card on the Raspberry Pi. Even the built-in WiFi works better than the Raspberry Pi.

So I would definitely recommend this as a pretty much drop-in replacement for the Raspberry Pi for most people. The only thing that would slow down most people is having to build INDI and KStars from source, since there aren't any repositories for that yet. And Astroberry wouldn't work. So there's some manual work to do, which may not be for everyone.

One nice thing about the Odroid N2+ that I was considering, is that it takes 12V input, and not 5V. So for people like me that have a 12V distribution block (Rig Runner), that makes things simple. I will probably pick up an Odroid N2+ 4GB, just to play with. The specs are even better than the Rock Pi, and is still compatible with my stepper motor HAT.
2 years 7 months ago #74144

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Great news.


There is another version of Armbian that is based on Ubuntu that also works on the Rockpi 4.
It's called TwisterOS.

It gives you the ability to simply use the stable or bleeding edge version of Kstars/Ekos by simply adding the ppa.

You can get TwisterOS for the RockPi from here:

twisteros.com/twisterarmbian.html

Its best to use the mirror link on this site as the host site is VERY slow. You do get a google warning but all is well.


And the ppa links to get Kstars can be found here.

indilib.org/download

This combination gives you speed and the ability to use the ubuntu ppa to get the stable or nightly builds when needed without having to compile from source.

 
Last edit: 2 years 7 months ago by David Thompson.
2 years 7 months ago #74146

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Ah, good news on the PPA! I'm all setup now with Armbian, and INDI and KStars built from source, so I'm good to go. But for new users to the Rock Pi, that would be an excellent place to start.
2 years 7 months ago #74147

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Kevin,

When comparing your RockPi 4b with the RPi4, I've read that you say it's much faster. Are you comparing with an RPi4 with SSD? For sure the SSD improves the speed of the RPi4 too (e.g. I'm currently running an 8Gb Rpi4 w/SSD).

Also, it seems many computer boards are hard-to-get these days. E.g. I've been looking into the latest NUCs, and they're always out-of-stock. Have you tried any of those?

Is this the board you're using: www.amazon.com/SmartFly-info-Computer-Du...ctronics&sr=1-1&th=1
The details there are confusing, e.g. it says "...eMMC module--Optional...". Does that just mean that the connector is there, but you have to supply your own SSD and cable?

Thanks,
Hy
2 years 7 months ago #74284

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