I do not have to worry about the campaign anymore. Now focus on the tech part. 🙂
From tomorrow, everyday I will spend about 1 hour to answer the questions and reply the comment, rest time will all on the Engineer and Test part.
Thank you for everybody support on this campaign!
Here are some questions from indiegogo private message and comment, hopefully this will help you know more about VoCore.
1. Are there SPI pins export?
Only one is exported, it is SPI_CS1, also can be used as GPIO. Rest SPI pins/balls are not exported because they are already taken by SPI flash. Another reason is there is no space for that hole.:D If you have to use SPI interface, please try to jump wire directly from the SPI flash. Good luck 🙂
2. Can I use Li-Battery as power input?
Yes, of course. Li-Battery is about 3.7V~4.3V, and VoCore allowed input voltage range is 3.3V~6.0V, so USB and Li-Battery are both fine to it. Even four 1.2V AA batteries could do that.
3. Why not use BGA SDRAM to make it smaller?
I think I can make it to about 22×23 once using BGA SDRAM, but BGA SDRAM is so expansive, about 5~6USD for one. And 22×23 compared with 25×25 is not a huge difference. So I choose TSOP54 SDRAM.
4. About the heat of CPU.
It is really hot. From my last test, it works around 63C for about 10 days without any error(my house is about 24C, my power is cut off so the test is end there). The feeling of 63C is very hot that you will not want to touch it. 😀 The dock with metal ethernet connector will be designed as a heat sink. Anyway, I think it should be OK to work at 63C or even more, my friend has used RT5350 to make wifi cameras without any heat sink(just be dropped into a metal box to protect it from rain, as he said) for the traffic monitor on Xi’an street about two years ago, the highest temperature of there in summer noon is over 50C. They are still working. 🙂
Thank you! Thank you for everyone support this campaign!
Now go back to work, there still left a lot to do before it release. 🙂
After set to upper setting, it just works. Thanks for joyhope suggestion, it is firewall problem.
My friend sent me a photo, compared VoCore v0.3 with others. VoCore is the smallest and exported the most GPIOs, of course 🙂
VoCore v0.3 size is 27x27mm but VoCore v0.5 is only 25x25mm, even smaller.
This is my first time to record a video for VoCore,  some parts are not very clear, next time will be better 🙂
+5V input, current is about 0.2A when wifi is on. I did not use any power save kernel module or app, amazing! I thought it should be at least 0.25A. :p Its power consume is even less than MT7620A. Wifi output is 100mW.
Youtube:Â http://youtu.be/uNzgvtOJkmw
Youku(China):http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNzE0ODk3NTYw.html
Indiegogo.com: http://igg.me/at/vocore
Now VoCore is on indiegogo 🙂 The people who want to buy it have a better way. Please support this campaign, or it will become my personal toy. 😀
Link is here: VoCore Indiegogo.com Campaign Link
It works. Someone said it is hard and have to change RT5350 wifi driver code, but I did not change any code, maybe the developers of openwrt already fix that? 🙂
SSID for AP mode is VoCore
SSID for STA mode(my house router) is VongerWifi
That is not hard to setup:
First, enable STA mode, add two lines to the end of /etc/config/network.
config interface wwan option proto 'dhcp'
Then change /etc/config/wireless
config wifi-device radio0 option type mac80211 option channel 11 option hwmode 11ng option path '10180000.wmac' list ht_capab GF list ht_capab SHORT-GI-20 list ht_capab SHORT-GI-40 list ht_capab RX-STBC1 option htmode HT20 config wifi-iface option device radio0 option network lan option mode ap option ssid VoCore option encryption none config wifi-iface option device radio0 option network wwan option mode sta option ssid VongerWifi option encryption psk2 option key PasswordForWifi
If your house router has taken 192.168.1.1 as its IP address, you have to change the setting in /etc/config/network, set openwrt ip to other, so it will not conflict with your house router in STA mode. The ip in example is 192.168.61.1.
config interface 'lan' option ifname 'eth0.1' option type 'bridge' option proto 'static' option ipaddr '192.168.61.1' option netmask '255.255.255.0' option ip6assign '60'
After that, looks everything works fine. My computer is able to connect to VoCore and VoCore is able to connect to internet through my wifi. But the only problem is my computer can not connect to internet through VoCore, maybe I have to setup a route on the board, will study on that later.
I opened a facebook page today, have fun!
https://www.facebook.com/VoCore
Do not hesitate to press LIKE!
PS: It is so hard to login to facebook from China, XD.
About 10 meters from my home router(half is walled)
X-Y, Y-Z, X-Z direction for 10 times test, average value:
YAGEO:CAN4311153002451K(4dbi), 5.3 x 2.0 -> -70dBm
Supermax: IAN0201(2dbi), 5.2 x 2.0 -> -72dBm
Sunlord: SLDA72-2R470G-S1(2.5dbi) 5.0 x 2.0 -> -68dBm
Rainsun: AN3216-245 3.2×1.6(0.5dbi) -> -72dBm
????: PCB IPX antenna -> -80dBm
So, after that test, remove the IPX for more clearance zone is a better choice.