News Raspberry Pi computer, is it rational?

n122vu

Addon Developer
Addon Developer
Donator
Joined
Nov 1, 2007
Messages
3,196
Reaction score
51
Points
73
Location
KDCY
Sweet. I'll be picking one up shortly to run my LiveATC feed, which currently sits on my older gaming desktop under Windows 10. Need to check if my wireless router supports PoE.

Just bought a Model B back in December to replace the one in my Stratux that died 2 years ago (because I damaged the microSD slot). Not sure the 3B+ offers anything that would benefit in that application, but I may buy one for a backup.
 

Notebook

Addon Developer
Addon Developer
News Reporter
Donator
Joined
Nov 20, 2007
Messages
11,813
Reaction score
640
Points
188
I suppose its inevitable, the designers will always want to improve their products.

I forgot the BBC Bit. Guess that's more suited.
 

jedidia

shoemaker without legs
Addon Developer
Joined
Mar 19, 2008
Messages
10,842
Reaction score
2,105
Points
203
Location
between the planets
I feel so, yes. Its a small evolution to the previous model, the older models will have a hard time finding a good niche there to keep on getting sold.

Well, people that rely on them for production solutions and don't need the new features wouldn't be too mad if the older models stuck around for a bit longer, but eventually they'll vanish, that's true.
 

tl8

Addon Developer
Addon Developer
Tutorial Publisher
Joined
Oct 16, 2007
Messages
3,645
Reaction score
25
Points
88
Location
Gold Coast QLD
I feel so, yes. Its a small evolution to the previous model, the older models will have a hard time finding a good niche there to keep on getting sold.
Industry is starting to use them a lost more. The Pi 2 on-wards fix most of the issues and are a pretty good board.

We have used a com module (V3) in one of our products.
 

jedidia

shoemaker without legs
Addon Developer
Joined
Mar 19, 2008
Messages
10,842
Reaction score
2,105
Points
203
Location
between the planets
How much would any production solutions have to change though? How different is the new RasPi from the old?

That's just the problem. You don't know.
We potentially deploy our Pis in temperatures between -20 to +50 degree C. The Pi isn't rated for that, or for any industrial application, which is not so much a problem. It just means you have to evaluate the device for your conditions and application and decide whether or not to use it, and then bear the responsibility yourself. No problem.
But every new component added to it invalidates conditional evaluations. Does the new wireless chip (which we don't need) survive these temperatures as well as the rest of the device? Will the rest of the device continue to function if it fails? Do the new components introduce instability in the long run that wasn't caught during testing? We don't know. So we have to test it anew, and after that introduce it into production slowly to see how it performs outside of the test environment long term.

Hardware updates in production solutions with conditional requirements are kind of a touchy thing. So if you don't have any benefit from the new components, it's better to just keep using the older model. The less there is on it, the less can break.
 
Last edited:

Notebook

Addon Developer
Addon Developer
News Reporter
Donator
Joined
Nov 20, 2007
Messages
11,813
Reaction score
640
Points
188
Must admit I hadn't thought much of the Pi in industrial environment. Always thought of it as educational/hobbyist and a bit of prototype development.
Good for it, if its getting more work!

N.
 

tl8

Addon Developer
Addon Developer
Tutorial Publisher
Joined
Oct 16, 2007
Messages
3,645
Reaction score
25
Points
88
Location
Gold Coast QLD
That's just the problem. You don't know.
We potentially deploy our Pis in temperatures between -20 to +50 degree C. The Pi isn't rated for that, or for any industrial application, which is not so much a problem. It just means you have to evaluate the device for your conditions and application and decide whether or not to use it, and then bear the responsibility yourself. No problem.
But every new component added to it invalidates conditional evaluations. Does the new wireless chip (which we don't need) survive these temperatures as well as the rest of the device? Will the rest of the device continue to function if it fails? Do the new components introduce instability in the long run that wasn't caught during testing? We don't know. So we have to test it anew, and after that introduce it into production slowly to see how it performs outside of the test environment long term.

Hardware updates in production solutions with conditional requirements are kind of a touchy thing. So if you don't have any benefit from the new components, it's better to just keep using the older model. The less there is on it, the less can break.

I'd have to check the exact values, but we have gotten our Pi based project rated between at least 0 and 50C. I think it might be lower than zero, but I'd need to pull up the exact docs.

It helped that it was in a sealed case though and had a nice power supply.

The only test that we had issues with was a vibration test and that was because the mount inside broke (The sub chassis connection to the main case). This was on a Pi2 as well.
 

jedidia

shoemaker without legs
Addon Developer
Joined
Mar 19, 2008
Messages
10,842
Reaction score
2,105
Points
203
Location
between the planets
I'd have to check the exact values, but we have gotten our Pi based project rated between at least 0 and 50C.

It is astonishingly resilient for such a cheap device. The range mentioned above is no problem, and we tested the extremes between -40 and +80 degree C. The things worked for two weeks without a hitch, and we finished the test.

The only test that we had issues with was a vibration test

Yeah, luckily vibrations aren't a thing we have to contend with.
 

Artlav

Aperiodic traveller
Addon Developer
Beta Tester
Joined
Jan 7, 2008
Messages
5,789
Reaction score
778
Points
203
Location
Earth
Website
orbides.org
Preferred Pronouns
she/her
Speaking of temperature ratings, by now i got quite a few of them doing stuff like being cameras or being an exit node for a network of sensors in unheated places.
No problems were observed during the winter, with temps as low as -30*C (CPUs on Pis never got below zero, however).
So it's not like it's going to die once water freezes over, especially for hobby uses.


Getting back on the broader topic, the whole stack of 10 RPi zeros had been chipped apart and used in a variety of projects.
The most persistent one is a time lapse/network camera, of which i made a bunch, and which are placed in many locations within 2000 km radius.

Another one is an IoT gateway, since i like making all kinds of smart home thingies but don't feel like it's a good idea to connect them to the internet. So they are all wired together, and there is also a Pi zero in there somewhere with a wifi dongle that does the encryption and communications with the outside world.


These projects revealed more flaws of the Pi, more precisely that it's flakey.
The cameras tended to lock up every week or so, for reasons i never figured out (in all climates).
There is a watchdog timer in the CPU, but it does not work all that well.
In the end i had to add timed reboots to them, and an external reboot timer for the ones that would need a plane trip to access.
Annoying.

The other thing is that the CPU does not do real time tasks all that well - i wrote a kernel module to handle the wired bus i mentioned, and it never quite worked right. Best i can tell is that the timers onboard got some randomness to them, or there is some kind of not-controllable frequency changing going on.
Annoying.

In the end, it's not as in-control as you can get on a proper microcontroller, which is largely offset by it's ability to do microcontroller level things while carrying a full scale Linux.
 

Urwumpe

Not funny anymore
Addon Developer
Donator
Joined
Feb 6, 2008
Messages
37,588
Reaction score
2,312
Points
203
Location
Wolfsburg
Preferred Pronouns
Sire
Well, there is no such thing like a true Real-time Linux, so this should not be too surprising. Even with the kernel compiled as PREEMPT_RT, it should be rather unresponsive compared to what different kernels achieve.
 

Marijn

Active member
Joined
Mar 5, 2008
Messages
755
Reaction score
166
Points
43
Location
Amsterdam
Looking forward to it, haven't been this excited since I bought my SYM...
I remember programming such a thing when I was a kid, creating some sort of ticker. When it was bedtime, it had to be switched off, clearing all memory.
 

Fabri91

Donator
Donator
Joined
Jun 2, 2008
Messages
2,176
Reaction score
228
Points
78
Location
Valmorea
Website
www.fabri91.eu
KW5rjDT.jpg


Well, that's somewhat unexpected now, isn't it?
 

Artlav

Aperiodic traveller
Addon Developer
Beta Tester
Joined
Jan 7, 2008
Messages
5,789
Reaction score
778
Points
203
Location
Earth
Website
orbides.org
Preferred Pronouns
she/her
Well, that's somewhat unexpected now, isn't it?
Yeah, why would anyone ruin a perfectly good computer by putting Windows on it...?

On a serious note, how usable is it?
Is there any software available for ARM Windows?
I suspect it's no longer compatible with Windows CE of the 00s, the last time i saw such a combination.
 

Linguofreak

Well-known member
Joined
May 10, 2008
Messages
5,017
Reaction score
1,254
Points
188
Location
Dallas, TX
These projects revealed more flaws of the Pi, more precisely that it's flakey.
The cameras tended to lock up every week or so, for reasons i never figured out (in all climates).
There is a watchdog timer in the CPU, but it does not work all that well.
In the end i had to add timed reboots to them, and an external reboot timer for the ones that would need a plane trip to access.
Annoying.

Are you using stock Raspbian or something else?

The tl;dr of the below is that systemd should be purged with fire if you have it installed (which Raspbian uses by default, and maybe exclusively on more recent releases).

I set up a GPS timeserver on a Pi, and found that it was randomly locking up. I was also having all sorts of trouble getting systemd service files set up that would properly start the gpsd and/or ntpd servers, and with systemd's "helpful" habit of grabbing the port a service is using and forwarding traffic on that port to the process (rather than just letting the process listen on its own), and then holding on for dear life to that port after the service crashed due to the trouble with getting the service file configured.

Then I remembered reading about systemd causing random lockups (across different hardware, not just in the Pi), so I installed sysvinit and threw systemd in the trash and *voila*, all three problems were *instantly* solved.

:censored: systemd. It does well enough for the desktop use case, but it's a nightmare on a server. I remember when I was just getting started with Linuxbeing puzzled at how controversial Pulse Audio was, as I had never had any trouble with it. Then Lennart Poettering foisted systemd upon the world (and I was also confused by the controversy over that, until my Pi timeserver experience), and then I understood what shaky ground you're on if you install any software that has his name behind it.
 

jedidia

shoemaker without legs
Addon Developer
Joined
Mar 19, 2008
Messages
10,842
Reaction score
2,105
Points
203
Location
between the planets
KW5rjDT.jpg


Well, that's somewhat unexpected now, isn't it?


I did some prototpying with Windows IoT some... huh... three years ago, possibly? At that time it was still very much in its infancy and couldn't possibly hope to support a production solution, but it's not unexpected that progress was made since then. Still, that they'd throw out an ARM compilation of Win10 is somewhat surprising.



Very glad we went for Linux none the less... I really like my windows as a comfortable desktop in my spare time, but when I need to get actual work done, I'd rather stay as far away from it as possible.
 

Kyle_E

Begining Double Bassist
Joined
Oct 24, 2016
Messages
63
Reaction score
24
Points
23
Top