A20-OLinuXino-LIME

Revision as of 04:51, 29 September 2014 by LubOlimex (talk | contribs) (Linux)

A20-OLinuXino-LIME.jpeg

A20-OLinuXino-LIME looks identical to A10-OLinuXino-LIME, except for the more powerful A20 processor. The A10 and the A20 processors are pin-to-pin compatible. Because of the processor, software-wise the board is closer to A20-OLinuXino-MICRO than to the A10-OLinuXino-LIME. This resemblance to other designs definitely might speed the development on the board - a lot of software written for A20-OLinuXino-MICRO might work out-of-the-box with A20-OLinuXino-LIME. Additionally, pinout tables, GPIO maps, etc released for A10-OLinuXino-LIME would apply to A20-OLinuXino-LIME

A20-OLinuXino-LIME features:

  • A20 Cortex-A7 dual-core ARM Cortex-A7 CPU and dual-core Mali 400 GPU
  • 512MB DDR3 RAM memory
  • optional 4GB NAND FLASH memory
  • SATA connector with 5V SATA power jack
  • HDMI FullHD 1080p
  • 2x USB Low-Full-High-Speed hosts with power control and current limiter
  • USB-OTG with power control and current limiter
  • 100MBit native Ethernet
  • LiPo Battery connector with battery-charging capabilities
  • LCD connector compatible with with 4.3", 7.0", 10.1" LCD modules from Olimex
  • 160 GPIOs on three GPIO connectors
  • MicroSD card connector
  • DEBUG-UART connector for console debug with USB-SERIAL-CABLE-F
  • status LED
  • Battery charge status LED
  • Power LED
  • 2KB EEPROM for MAC address storage and more
  • 2 BUTTONS with ANDROID functionality + RESET button
  • 2 mount holes
  • 5V input power supply, noise immune design
  • PCB dimensions: 84 x 60 mm


Official Images from OLIMEX

The file for download xxxx.7z is an archive of xxx.img file. So in order to write the image on SD card you have to unzip xxx.7z file and:

  • For Windows:

Use 7zip and then use Win32DiskImager.exe (http://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager/) for image writing

  • For Linux

Use p7zip package. If you have no installed 7zip then type

   #apt-get install p7zip

Copy a10_Lime_debian_second_release.7z file in your directory and unzip it with

   #7za e a10_Lime_debian_second_release.7z

The output should be a new 4GB file named a10_Lime_debian_second_release.img Put 4GB SD card in your card reader and type

   # ls /dev/sd

Then press two times <TAB> you will see a list of your sd devices like sda sdb sdc note that some of these devices may be your hard disk so make sure you know which one is your sd card before you proceed as you can damage your HDD if you choose the wrong sd-device. You can do this by unplugging your sd card reader and identify which "sd" devices remove from the list. Once you know which device is your sdcard like sda use this text instead of the sdX name in the references below:

   #dd if=a10_Lime_debian_second_release.img of=/dev/sdX


Linux

Download locations:

Torrent of release 2:

Direct download of release 1: A20-OLinuXino-LIME Debian image with Kernel 3.4.90+

Note: the A20-Debian card which we have in our web store contains the same image on 4GB Class10 fast micro SDcard, if you want to use this image please use card of Class10 speed or the performance of Linux will be very slow.

Note: in the previous Debian releases the Ethernet was auto-detected and initialized during boot BUT this was causing big delays in the start-up of the board if you didn't want to use Ethernet or if there wasn't Ethernet cable connected.

You can enable it by following these two steps:

1. To check under what name the LAN is associated write "ifconfig –a"

2. If, for example, it is under eth0 name, then write: "dhclient eth0"

This should enable the Ethernet and then SSH would also be available.

Android

NAND Flash image for Android 4.2.2 with 7″ LCD 800×600 pixels


NAND Flash image for Android 4.2.2 with 10″ LCD 1024×600 pixels


4GB SD-card image for Android 4.2.2 with 7″ LCD 800×600 pixels

Documents

A20-OLinuXino-LIME user's manual

User's manual for A20-OLinuXino-LIME and A20-OLinuXino-LIME-4GB

A20 Brief

A20 brief

A20 Datasheet

A20 Datasheet

A20 User Manual

A20 user's manual

Hardware

LIME shields

Eagle and KiCAD shield templates for LIME

GPIO description

A10-OLinuXino-LIME GPIO description

A template that might be used to create custom shields or own adapters might be downloaded for Eagle or KiCad at the GitHub here: shield template

Power supply and consumption

A20-OLinuXino-LIME requires 5V regulated power supply external source. regulated means that the power supply adapter should provide exactly 5V no matter loaded or unloaded (some cheap wallwart adapters are not regulated and under no load their power supply may be higher than 5V although marked as 5V power supply, please measure with voltmeter if your power supply provide 5V as if you connect more than 5V to LIME it will be damaged!!!)

The power jack is standard OLIMEX Power jack.

A20-OLinuXino-LIME can be powered from three sources:

  • +5VDC voltage applied PWR jack
  • +3.7V from LiPo re-chargable battery connected to LiPo board connector
  • +5V applied to USB-OTG connector


Power consumption is as follows:

  • LiPo 3.7V power battery: 1.2W
  • +5VDC input power: 1.3W


Comparison table of power consumption might be found at the following link.

LiPo battery allow backup power supply when main power is interrupted. A20-OLinuXino-LIME have power managment IC which charge the battery when main power is present, when power is interrupted the LiPo battery automatically provide backup power supply. Step-up converter prvide 5V for the USB peripherials too. For LiPo batteries we recommend these:


Board dimensions

A20-OLinuXino-LIME basic dimensions in mils: 3305.5 x 2347.0

Some additional measures might be seen in the image here: link

CAD files

A10-OLinuXino-LIME is Open Source Hardware, CAD files are available at GitHub


The CAD product used to design OLinuXino is Eagle and you can download evaluation free version from their web.


Board Layout

A20-OLinuXino-LIME-FRONT.png


A10-OLinuXino-LIME-BACK.jpg

Software

Linux Commands

Linux-Commands Brief Linux Command reference


Python

[pyA10 is Python library for access to A10-OLinuXino-LIME GPIOs, I2C, SPI]

Use:

   #!/usr/bin/env python
   
   import A10_GPIO as GPIO
   
   #init module
   GPIO.init()
   
   #configure module
   GPIO.setcfg(GPIO.PIN#, GPIO.OUTPUT)
   GPIO.setcfg(GPIO.PIN#, GPIO.INPUT)
   
   #read the current GPIO configuration
   config = GPIO.getcfg(GPIO.PIN#)
   
   #set GPIO high
   GPIO.output(GPIO.PIN#, GPIO.HIGH)
   
   #set GPIO low
   GPIO.output(GPIO.PIN#, GPIO.LOW)
   
   #read input
   state = GPIO.input(GPIO.PIN#)
   
   #cleanup
   GPIO.cleanup()


GPIO under Linux

GPIOs are located in /sys/class/gpio directory. Note that first you have to export GPIOs. For example:

add gpioPH2

   root@A10:~# echo 20 > /sys/class/gpio/export

make PH2 output

   root@A10:~# echo out > //sys/class/gpio/gpio20_ph2/direction

turn on onboard LED(connected to PH2)

   root@A10:~# echo 1 > /sys/class/gpio/gpio20_ph2/value

turn off onboard LED(connected to PH2)

   root@A10:~# echo 0 > /sys/class/gpio/gpio20_ph2/value

Full list with supported GPIOs is:

   gpio21_ph7   gpio33_ph20  gpio45_pb12  gpio57_pi2   gpio69_pi14
   gpio10_pg11  gpio22_ph9   gpio34_ph21  gpio46_pb13  gpio58_pi3   gpio6_pg5
   gpio11_pc3   gpio23_ph10  gpio35_ph22  gpio47_pb14  gpio59_pi4   gpio70_pi15
   gpio12_pc18  gpio24_ph11  gpio36_ph23  gpio48_pb15  gpio5_pg4    gpio71_pi16
   gpio13_pc19  gpio25_ph12  gpio37_pb3   gpio49_pb16  gpio60_pi5   gpio72_pi17
   gpio14_pc20  gpio26_ph13  gpio38_pb4   gpio4_pg3    gpio61_pi6   gpio73_pi18
   gpio15_pc21  gpio27_ph14  gpio39_pb5   gpio50_pb17  gpio62_pi7   gpio74_pi19
   gpio16_pc22  gpio28_ph15  gpio3_pg2    gpio51_ph24  gpio63_pi8   gpio75_pi20
   gpio17_pc23  gpio29_ph16  gpio40_pb6   gpio52_ph25  gpio64_pi9   gpio7_pg6
   gpio18_pc24  gpio2_pg1    gpio41_pb7   gpio53_ph26  gpio65_pi10  gpio8_pg7
   gpio19_ph0   gpio30_ph17  gpio42_pb8   gpio54_ph27  gpio66_pi11  gpio9_pg8
   gpio1_pg0    gpio31_ph18  gpio43_pb10  gpio55_pi0   gpio67_pi12  gpiochip1
   gpio20_ph2   gpio32_ph19  gpio44_pb11  gpio56_pi1   gpio68_pi13 

How to edit board configurations and definitions in the official Debian Linux?

It is described in this wiki article: How_to_edit_board_configurations_and_definitions_in_the_official_Debian_Linux.

Add Voice to your OLinuXino project

Installation of Festival on OLinuXino

How To?

How to generate boot-able SD-card Debian Linux image for A20-OLinuXino-LIME?

To be added

Note that Linux-Sunxi Kernel is a work-in-progress, this means you can try the current stage/sunxi-x.x branch but if something is broken and doesn't work just revert to the git tags we give in the blog and they should work for sure

Sunxi u-boot loader The linux-sunxi git page contains a lot of sources for all Olimex Allwinner boards.

How to change HDMI, VGA and LCD resolutions?

The default SD card setup is made with settings for HDMI 720p/60Hz. If you want to change to some other LCD, VGA or HDMI resolution then you have to start change_display.sh script file in /root directory.

Type:

   ./change_display*

or

   ./change_display_a20_lime.sh

and press "Enter".

Then choose the resolution and the interface(LCD, HDMI). Note that the selection of a specific resolution is done by navigating with the arrow keys and pressing "space" button. Make sure the asterisk marks your selection properly.

The supported resolutions are:

For LCD:

  • 1. 4.3" (480x272)
  • 2. 7" (800x480)
  • 3. 10" (1024x600)
  • 4. 15.6" (1366x768)

Important: initially the boards are calibrated for a specific display. If you re-write the image (no matter whether the SD card or the NAND memory) you would need to use a mouse to calibrate the display initially. It might be impossible to calibrate it via touching the display.

For HDMI:

  • 0. 480i
  • 1. 576i
  • 2. 480p
  • 3. 576p
  • 4. 720p50
  • 5. 720p60
  • 6. 1080i50
  • 7. 1080i60
  • 8. 1080p24
  • 9. 1080p50
  • 10. 1080p60

For VGA: (note that the VGA signals are routed to custom 6 pin connector and you need from adapter to standard VGA connector)

  • 0. 1680x1050
  • 1. 1440x900
  • 2. 1360x768
  • 3. 1280x1024
  • 4. 1024x768
  • 5. 800x600
  • 6. 640x480
  • 7. 1920x1080
  • 8. 1280x720


How to detect and enable the Ethernet controller (if it is disabled by default)?

Note: in the previous Debian releases the Ethernet was auto-detected and initialized during boot BUT this was causing big delays in the start-up of the board if you didn't want to use Ethernet or if there wasn't Ethernet cable connected.

You can enable it by following these two steps:

1. To check under what name the LAN is associated write "ifconfig –a"

2. If, for example, it is under eth0 name, then write: "dhclient eth0"

This should enable the Ethernet and then SSH would also be available.

How to download new Android image to the NAND memory of my A20 board?

To repair the image on the NAND re-upload it following these steps:

  • 2. Go to firmware tab of the program and point to a valid Android image (the latest official one may also be downloaded above).
  • 3. Disconnect the power supply and USB cable from the A20 board.
  • 4. Press and hold RECOVERY button, apply power supply 5V, release RECOVERY button.
  • 5. Connect USB cable to the mini USB connector.
  • 6. You will be asked for drivers for the bootloader. Navigate to the folder where you extracted the PhoenixSuit and install the drivers from the respective executables (or manually point the installer to the drivers folder in the PhoenixSuit installation path).
  • 7. PhoenixSuit will detect the board and would ask for the method of writing the image. Choose method of writing the image and confirm your wish to write the image.
  • 8. Wait till upgrade succeeds


Note that it is not recommended to have your mini USB connected to an external USB hub. This might cause delays and might distort the signal levels. Always test with the USB connected straight to the USB ports of your computer.

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