I made it easy 🙂 Most part are copied from Poray X8. Some uci config are really hard to understand, have to read code.

Patch for VoCore. I am new to make patch, not sure how to add new file to patch…hope this patch is in right format.

http://vonger.cn/upload/vocore.patch

Two new created files:

path: openwrt/target/linux/ramips/dts/
http://vonger.cn/upload/VOCORE.dts
path: openwrt/target/linux/ramips/rt305x/profiles
http://vonger.cn/upload/vocore.mk

Then delete tmp folder under openwrt, then run make menuconfig, VOCORE will be appear there.

And to use it as a module, you’d better change “Image configuration”->”Preinit configration options” -> IP address for preinit network messages(192.168.61.1), and Boardcast address for preinit network messages to (192.168.61.255).

Any idea about this openwrt config is welcome, I am new to that. Please leave a comment. 🙂

PS:
This is better, if my way is not working, please try this. Thank you, Markus Z 🙂
http://vocore.freshdesk.com/support/discussions/topics/1000033335

Next monday I will go to ShenZhen factory to make about 300pieces VoCore. Its PCB is ready. I will upload some photos of the PCB once my friend WuTong at ShenZhen get it. 🙂

This alpha version did not export SPI yet. Beta version will be almost same as final release version, still need about six weeks.

These days I am working on PayPal, they limited my account…Hope this thing be solved soon.

Someone said I will cost 20% on develop and 80% on other mess things, now I know he is absolutely right 😀

This is my USB test platform, looks like I make a mistake on the first version of dock, USB can not work, so I have to make this ugly thing 😀 Lucky me, everything works normal.   in /dev/ the sda node appears, next, I need to mount it to system, then I can read/write the USB disk. But my USB disk is ExFAT format, and I did not compile that support to VoCore firmware, so need some more work. Time for lunch. 🙂

I get a news from some website. It said MTK will public MT7688 which has embedded 256MB(or 256Mb?) memory, power consume will be cut to 40% about later 2014.

It will be expansive to embed memory on the chip…This will become an magic chip for hobbyist, just pray for the price lower, lower, lower…

Anyway, this will not effect current VoCore, if I use it to make a smaller VoCore but cost much more than raspberrypi+wifi, that is useless. And new chip will always have tons of bug, at least two years for the stable, I do not want to be the little white rat. 😀

This is NOT final version of v1.0, anything might be changed. 🙂

VoCore.v1.0.sch

The three days I am working on SPI. It is a little hard to route, but I added SPI interface to the pins finally.

The upper shows the SPI pins export map. The advantage of this version is all GPIOs(it is real, all 28 GPIOs have exported), and SPI interface is exported too.

The disadvantage is GPIO14, GPIO15 are too near each other, if you solder a connector to GPIO15, it might cover some of GPIO14.

I have tried many ways to make the two GPIOs to be together peacefully, but looks like there is no prefect solution.

If you have any good idea about this, please leave a comment. 🙂

GPIO works, not that hard. 🙂

GPIO is map to linux file system.
It is here: /sys/class/gpio
in this folder, there are three files/folders:

root@OpenWrt:/sys/class/gpio# ls
export     gpiochip0  unexport

export: this is used to export GPIO interface, so we are able to use it by command/code directly.
unexport: unexport the exported GPIO interface.
gpiochip0: not sure about that, should be a map for gpio control driver.

Export one GPIO, for example, GPIO0, it is at top-right of VoCore.

echo 0 > export

Now, interesting, a new folder named gpio0 appears:

root@OpenWrt:/sys/class/gpio# ls
export     gpio0      gpiochip0  unexport

So we have succeeded map gpio0 to the file system.
Go into that folder, we will see:

root@OpenWrt:/sys/devices/10000000.palmbus/10000600.gpio/gpio/gpio0# ls
active_low  device      direction   edge        subsystem   uevent      value

active_low: looks like a notify. 🙂
device: it is a link, device -> ../../../10000600.gpio
direction: in/out, depend on this.
edge: do not know… 🙂
subsystem: a link again, subsystem -> ../../../../../class/gpio
uevent: emm, I am too lazy to search it. 😀
value: this is input/output/current value of GPIO.

If we want to use GPIO0 control a LED, we must make its direction out.

echo out > direction

Now, use a simple script to make the LED flash:

while [ 1 ]
do
echo 1 > value
sleep 1
echo 0 > value
sleep 1
done

Looks like everything works fine. Video here:
Youtube: http://youtu.be/aOTZYtB8U3w
Youku: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNzE5Nzc2MzI4.html

Just one problem, the WLAN_LED should remain bright when it boots into Linux as the old version, weird, it just come to dark when wifi is ready. I think there must be something wrong with dts, I changed it. 😀

I replace the old 2.2mm tall SPI flash and put a new 1.0mm tall SPI flash to VoCore, but then I find I can not update u-boot or firmware.
There are the command:

wget http://vonger.cn/upload/uboot.img
mtd write uboot.img u-boot

Looks like it works smoothly, no error reported.
But after I reboot VoCore, it is still the old version…
I thought that must be my mistake, I uploaded the wrong version of the uboot, so I just do the wget/mtd again.
Unfortunately, it is still the old version and even worse, the UART outputs some random code sometimes.

That really scared me 🙂 I was thinking: is that caused by the hot summer? Outside is over 35℃, VoCore is about 68~70℃. But somebody had tested, RT5350 could work normally even over 90℃,  so we can exclude this possibility.

The second guess is about software. I tried the same thing and compared it with another VoCore, that one works well.

So I confirm that is hardware problem, especially on the SPI flash part. At that time, I remember there is a pin named WP(write protect) on the SPI flash. That pin must be driven to high(3.3V) or the SPI flash will not be able to write(randomly).

Then I put some paste on the pins and solder the 8 pins again, make sure every pin is well connected, then plug VoCore to power, everything is back to normal. 😀

Right side is a normal one, easy to buy from market. The left one which will be used to the release version of VoCore is very very rare. I am lucky, find them in a store. Its mark is 1240, means its production time is about 2012.10(almost 18months ago).

I have checked a lot of datasheet, finally get that. 😀

Schematic: alpha version for VoCore v1.0

VoCore.v1.0a.sch

If you have any good idea about this sch, feel free to contact me, I am glad to hear from you!

PCB will be open soon 🙂