Parallella, Raspberry Pi, FPGA & All That Stuff

poppageek
poppageek
Joined: 13 Aug 10
Posts: 259
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Woke to a large handful of

Woke to a large handful of fresh raspberries and delivery of a new RPi Zero. :-)

RPi 2 and RPi 3 stacks looking awesome KF7IJZ. :-)

Love the geeky overkill of the Pive. Could withstand Independence Day 2, Pacific Rim or Vogon invasion. Or become the beginnings of the Matrix...

Cheers!

PorkyPies
PorkyPies
Joined: 27 Apr 16
Posts: 199
Credit: 33740629
RAC: 1404

RE: Pic of the Pi 3 Cluster


What's that board you have all the USB power cables plugged into?

l am looking to tidy up my little 8 Pi cluster at the moment. You should see what they looked like last week (pic on my blog) before I rearranged things a bit. It's still messy but not as bad as before.

I have also been going through them updating to latest set of updates and firmware. I have to run their cache down as they get a new host id when I do it. Trying not to effect output too much so do one at a time.

KF7IJZ
KF7IJZ
Joined: 27 Feb 15
Posts: 110
Credit: 6108311
RAC: 0

RE: What's that board you

Quote:

What's that board you have all the USB power cables plugged into?

This is a 96W 10 port USB power supply made by Inland, which is a MicroCenter brand. I was at MicroCenter last night looking for one of these, but I came up empty handed and they couldn't find them listed in their system anymore :(

An alternative that I have seen are these 60 Watt 10 port models by Anker (https://www.amazon.com/Anker-10-Port-Charger-Multi-Port-PowerPort/dp/B00YRYS4T4/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1465907838&sr=8-3&keywords=anker+10+port+usb and Sabrent (https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-Family-Sized-Charger-Technology-AX-TPCS/dp/B00OJ79UK6/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1465907877&sr=8-2&keywords=sabrent+10+port+usb). My Pi 3 draws 4 watts at full load w/ WiFi turned on, which is ~.8A, so the 60 watt versions I linked to should be fine.

I'm considering V2 of my cluster stacks - using a rack mount 16 or 24 port switch and moving to a 12V rail to power everything (with 12V->5V for the Pis. Maybe even designing a custom board with USB ports with onboard 12V->5V converters capable of providing 50 watts.

ETA: I just found this 100W unit https://www.amazon.com/PowerPort-10-Port-Multi-Port-Charging-Stationfor/dp/B00MHJGH3G/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1465908792&sr=8-1-spons&keywords=10+port+usb+charger&psc=1

ETA2: Just found this unit, which is EXACTLY what the Inland unit was, just rebranded: https://www.amazon.com/ORICO-Family-Size-Desktop-Charging-Technology/dp/B00YX2W9WS/ref=sr_1_24?ie=UTF8&qid=1465909423&sr=8-24&keywords=10+port+usb+charger

My YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/KF7IJZ
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/KF7IJZ

bibiwood
bibiwood
Joined: 24 May 16
Posts: 5
Credit: 59625
RAC: 0

Is there a command for the

Is there a command for the terminal equivalent of the "rainbow square in the corner of the desktop", aka see if the voltage is ok from on an headless raspberry pi ?

KF7IJZ
KF7IJZ
Joined: 27 Feb 15
Posts: 110
Credit: 6108311
RAC: 0

RE: Is there a command for

Quote:
Is there a command for the terminal equivalent of the "rainbow square in the corner of the desktop", aka see if the voltage is ok from on an headless raspberry pi ?

Nothing that I know of that measures the input voltage, but this should work for the core CPU voltage:

vcgencmd measure_volts

I'd have to do some research to find out what the safe voltage envelope is. not sure where the rainbow square is measuring from.

My YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/KF7IJZ
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/KF7IJZ

Anonymous

RE: RE: Is there a

Quote:
Quote:
Is there a command for the terminal equivalent of the "rainbow square in the corner of the desktop", aka see if the voltage is ok from on an headless raspberry pi ?

Nothing that I know of that measures the input voltage, but this should work for the core CPU voltage:

vcgencmd measure_volts

I'd have to do some research to find out what the safe voltage envelope is. not sure where the rainbow square is measuring from.

On the Pi3 7 inch touchscreen (ubuntu 16) I just built I originally saw the "rainbow square" after I added on a 6" USB extension cable. Removing that cable fixed the problem. HOWEVER, I am now powering that same Pi3 with 7 inch touch screen with a Powerbank rated at: 16750mAh with two outputs: 2.4A and 2.1A. I am using the 2.4 output and occasionally notice the "rainbow square". I will get a new short USB cable and see if it makes a difference. I feel certain that the Powerbank is an adequate source. I do not have any USB devices connected. So there is no battery drain in that respect. I am not sure what is going on. Any thoughts? I can jack in a wall brick but the whole idea is to not be tethered to a wall.

KF7IJZ
KF7IJZ
Joined: 27 Feb 15
Posts: 110
Credit: 6108311
RAC: 0

My guess is that your USB

My guess is that your USB battery outputs slightly under 5V - any way to test the output voltage?

Smaller/larger power wire cables will help (scroll up to read my treatise on USB power cabling).

My YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/KF7IJZ
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/KF7IJZ

Anonymous

RE: RE: Went to copy

Quote:
Quote:
Went to copy backup from another one and write to new SD card only to have WinDiskImager complain new SD card was smaller. They are all Sandisk Ultra 16Gb cards.

I've run in to this before and when it's happened, try unplugging and plugging back in your card reader.

Sounds like the card is not partitioned to its full size of 16 gig. make sure the SD card you are copying to is sized to its full capacity. You may have a 16 gig card but if the partition was sized to 8 then the copy will fail. I use gparted on linux to expand the partition to the full capacity of the card.

bibiwood
bibiwood
Joined: 24 May 16
Posts: 5
Credit: 59625
RAC: 0

RE: RE: What's that

Quote:
Quote:

What's that board you have all the USB power cables plugged into?

This is a 96W 10 port USB power supply made by Inland, which is a MicroCenter brand. I was at MicroCenter last night looking for one of these, but I came up empty handed and they couldn't find them listed in their system anymore :(

An alternative that I have seen are these 60 Watt 10 port models by Anker (https://www.amazon.com/Anker-10-Port-Charger-Multi-Port-PowerPort/dp/B00YRYS4T4/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1465907838&sr=8-3&keywords=anker+10+port+usb and Sabrent (https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-Family-Sized-Charger-Technology-AX-TPCS/dp/B00OJ79UK6/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1465907877&sr=8-2&keywords=sabrent+10+port+usb). My Pi 3 draws 4 watts at full load w/ WiFi turned on, which is ~.8A, so the 60 watt versions I linked to should be fine.

I'm considering V2 of my cluster stacks - using a rack mount 16 or 24 port switch and moving to a 12V rail to power everything (with 12V->5V for the Pis. Maybe even designing a custom board with USB ports with onboard 12V->5V converters capable of providing 50 watts.

ETA: I just found this 100W unit https://www.amazon.com/PowerPort-10-Port-Multi-Port-Charging-Stationfor/dp/B00MHJGH3G/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1465908792&sr=8-1-spons&keywords=10+port+usb+charger&psc=1

ETA2: Just found this unit, which is EXACTLY what the Inland unit was, just rebranded: https://www.amazon.com/ORICO-Family-Size-Desktop-Charging-Technology/dp/B00YX2W9WS/ref=sr_1_24?ie=UTF8&qid=1465909423&sr=8-24&keywords=10+port+usb+charger

Orico offers a 100W 12 ports USB charger:
http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/ORICO-DUB-12P-5V2-4A-EU-US-UK-Plug-Desktop-Super-Charger-20A100W-12-USB-Ports/105327_32617413339.html

bibiwood
bibiwood
Joined: 24 May 16
Posts: 5
Credit: 59625
RAC: 0

RE: My guess is that your

Quote:

My guess is that your USB battery outputs slightly under 5V - any way to test the output voltage?

Smaller/larger power wire cables will help (scroll up to read my treatise on USB power cabling).

One of those cheap "USB doctor" gadget can be very useful to find what is going on: http://www.aliexpress.com/item/LCD-Voltmeter-USB-Charger-Capacity-Current-Detector-Voltage-Tester-Meter-voltimetro-For-Cell-Phone-Power-Bank/32413435793.html
My guess is that the battery voltage drops below 5V when you have a high current.

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