Edited by ekim at 2019-6-28 06:30

Hi, I bought a 3G-iot for a project that I am working on. It is a remote beehive monitoring system. I has it working well with an Arduino and a 2G module however 2G was closed in Australia. This lead me to Orange pi. To be honest, it has not been easy so far. This is the method that I have used to get linux on the 3G, and remote SSH as well as tightVNC. It should work for you too. Any comments are welcome. this is my first experience with orange pi. Hopefully it will make it easier for you.....

The first thing that I recomend is setting up PUTTY so you can see what is happening.
I got it from here.
https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/latest.html

Install it.

You will need a usb to ttl converter. I used something like this...
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32335363035.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.27424c4dND06oD

Install the required driver on your pc.
Install Putty.

Ok, now connect them

This is the pinout from orange pi 3g


You can see pins 9 is ground. 11 is TX 13 is RX
connect them to your ttl converter  gnd-gnd  tx-rx rx-tx

now on your pc open settings device manager


and check which com port your adapter is on. Mine is on com 6




Open putty and set the settings These are my settings they are serial, your com port , and speed 921600 now click on serial and ensure flow control is none/ none. Just as in the photos.




Ok, you should be able to start your 3g-iot and see the output on your putty session.

One quite important thing.... when it starts, it pauses on some hashes for a few seconds. This seems to be the only time that you can flash to your orange pi. Remember this! It cost me hours to figure this out!

Ok, next get the drivers and flashing software from the orange pi site.
https://mega.nz/#F!WGwUhAZJ!xcc_4wd_UG_0OLruixz3ww

and the linux image
http://www.orangepi.org/downloadresources/orangepi3G-IOT/2018-12-03/c86e082a8b8bdc7a244d873cf3144356.html
note user .. root, password .. orangepi
or user ..orangepi , password ..orange pi

Install the driver, and the MTK flash tool.

Now unzip the linux file.
In the linux files is a file called a scatter file. the path to it on my system, in the linux files that you just unzipped is under image, as you can see from my path to it..
C:\Users\miker\Downloads\orange pi\3G_32g4g_linux_emmc_v01_20181129.tar\3G_32g4g_linux_emmc_v01_20181129\3G_32g4g_linux_system\images

Right, start the flashing tool, and add the scatter file to the apropriate box. The rest will auto populate.
Chose DOWNLOAD ONLY to avoid more work...

OK, fingers crossed, you are good to go.

install 3 jumpers.
The first across con 2
the second and third are in parallal orientation to con2


You can see a box to click to download. Clicking it required a bit of timing.
Have putty open and running.
Now plug a usb cable to the 3G-iot as well.
The 3G should start, and you should get info on putty.
If you have device manager running as well, you will see a comport open and close. Watch putty. When you see hashes like in the image below, click the download button.
There is more info in the 3g-iot manual aswell.
OK, congrats, you should have linux on your 3g-iot.
Next I'll post on resizing and SSH

.

Ok, now hopefully you have a linux on orange pi 3g-iotI recommend now resizing the file system. Unless you do this, you will be very limited in what you can do, as the image you have installed does not use all the memory of the device.

Rather than rehash it, I recommend you go to where I got the answer, on this thread.
http://www.orangepi.org/orangepibbsen/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=4327&extra=page%3D1

Thanks again to StGhost

Edited by ekim at 2019-7-2 14:11

Ok, lets set up WIFI...
From a very nice post...
https://dogfeatherdesign.com/network-setup-orange-pi/

We don't have nano, but we do have vi or vim

So from the command prompt.....
$    vi /etc/network/interfaces

Add the following 4 lines to the end of the file:

type "i" to go to insert mode.
then ad the following lines...

auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet dhcp
wpa-ssid ≺Your Access Point Name aka SSID≻          # wpa-ssid myNetwork
wpa-psk ≺Your WPA Password≻                         # wpa-psk myPassword

now press esc

now type ":w"
enter
and ":q"

type sudo reboot

now log back in

try ifconfig
you should have wifi.
Another method ...
http://sirlagz.net/2012/08/27/how-to-use-wpa_cli-to-connect-to-a-wireless-network/

Now...

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

sudo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

Here is the sauce of this info

https://lucsmall.com/2017/01/19/ ... the-orange-pi-zero/

My next project is getting a data connection via 3G
Any help would be appreciated.