Orange Pi PC

Basic Features of Orange Pi PC

What is Orange Pi PC?

　Orange Pi PC is an open source single-board card computer, a new generation of arm development board, it can run Android 4.4, Android 7.0, Ubuntu and Debian and other operating systems. Orange Pi PC uses the AllWinner H3 SoC, and has 1GB DDR3 memory

What can I do with Orange Pi PC?

We can use it to build：

• A computer
• A wireless network server
• Games
• Music player
• HD Video player
• Speaker
• Android
  

Pretty much anything else, because Orange Pi Pc is open source.

Who’s it for?

　The Orange Pi development board is not only a consumer product, but also designed for anyone who wants to use technology to create and innovate. It is a very simple, interesting and practical tool, you can use it to create the world around you

Orange Pi PC Hardware Specification

Hardware feature introduction
CPU	Allwinner H3 ARM Cortex-A7 Quad Core
GPU	Mali400MP2 GPU @600MHz Supports OpenGL ES 2.0
Memory (SDRAM)	1GB DDR3 (shared with GPU）
Onboard Storage	TF card (Max. 32GB)
Onboard Network	10/100 Ethernet RJ45
video input	CSI interface camera
Audio Input	MIC
Video Outputs	HDMI, CVBS
Audio outputs	3.5 mm audio port and HDMI
Power Source	DC input, MicroUSB (OTG) cannot be used as power input
USB 2.0 ports	3*USB 2.0 HOST, 1*USB 2.0 OTG
Low-level peripherals	40 pin connector, compatible with Raspberry Pi
Debug serial port	UART-TX,UART-RX,GND
LED	Power led & Status led
Buttons	Power button（SW4）
IR receiver	Support IR remote control
Supported OS	Android,Ubuntu,Debian Image
Interface Definition
Product Size	85mm×55mm
Weight	43g
range Pi™ is a trademark of the Shenzhen Xunlong Software CO., Limited

Top and bottom views

Top View：

Bottom View：

Interface Details

Introduction to use the development board

Prepare the necessary accessories

1)TF card, a high-speed card of class 10 or higher with a minimum capacity of 8GB, it is recommended to use SanDisk TF card, Orange Pi test is to use SanDisk TF card, other brands of TF card may have the problem of system failure

2)TF card reader, used to read and write TF card

3)Standard HDMI to HDMI cable, used to connect the development board to an HDMI monitor or TV for display

4)Power adapter, at least 5V/2A high-quality power adapter, note that the OTG interface of the development board cannot be used as a power input

5)USB interface mouse and keyboard, as long as it is a standard USB interface mouse and keyboard, the mouse and keyboard can be used to control the Orange Pi development board

6)IR remote control, mainly used to control Android system

7)100M or Gigabit network cable, used to connect the development board to the Internet

8)GC2035 or OV5640 camera kit, which can be connected to the CSI interface of the development board to display video images

9)Micro USB interface data cable, when using the ADB debugging function of the Android system, you need to connect the development board to the computer through the Micro USB interface data cable

10)AV video cable, if you want to display video through the CVBS interface instead of the HDMI interface, then you need to connect the development board to the TV through the AV video cable

11)USB to TTL module and DuPont cable. When using the serial port debugging function, USB to TTL module and DuPont cable are required to connect the development board and the computer

12)A personal computer with Ubuntu and Windows operating systems

1	Ubuntu14.04 PC	Optional, used to compile Android source code
2	Ubuntu18.04 PC	Optional, used to compile Linux source code
3	Windows PC	Used to burn Android and Linux images

Download the image and related information of the development board

1)The download URL of the Chinese version is:

 http://www.orangepi.cn/html/hardWare/computerAndMicrocontrollers/service-and-support/Orange-Pi-PC.html

2)The download URL of the English version is:

 http://www.orangepi.org/html/hardWare/computerAndMicrocontrollers/service-and-support/Orange-Pi-PC.html

3)The information mainly contains

a.Android source code: saved on Baidu Cloud Disk and Google Cloud Disk
b.Linux source code: saved on github, the link address is

 https://github.com/orangepi-xunlong

c. User manuals and schematic diagrams: chip-related data manuals will also be placed here
d. Official tools: mainly include the software that needs to be used during the use of the development board
e. Android image: saved on Baidu Cloud Disk and Google Cloud Disk
f. Ubuntu image: saved on Baidu Cloud Disk and Google Cloud Disk
g. Debian image: saved on Baidu Cloud Disk and Google Cloud Disk
h. Armbian image, a image developed by the Armbian community. If you encounter any problems during use, please report to the armbian forum first. The maintainer of the Armbian image and other people who use the Armbian image will assist in solving various problems. This is also a fastest way to solve the problem. Orange Pi is not responsible for maintaining this image.

Method of flashing Linux image to TF card based on Windows PC

1)First, prepare a TF card with 8GB or larger capacity. The transmission speed of the TF card must be above class10. It is recommended to use a TF card of SanDisk and other brands

2)Then use the card reader to insert the TF card into the windows computer

3)Then format the TF card

a.You can use the SD Card Formatter software to format the TF card, the download address is

 https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter/eula_windows/SDCardFormatterv5_WinEN.zip

b.After downloading, unzip and install directly, and then open the software

c.If the computer only has a TF card inserted, the TF card's drive letter will be displayed in the Select card column. If the computer has multiple USB storage devices inserted, you can select the drive letter corresponding to the TF card through the drop-down box

d.Then click Format, a warning box will pop up before formatting, and formatting will start after selecting "Yes (Y)"

e.After formatting the TF card, the message shown in the figure below will pop up, click OK

4)Download the Linux operating system image file compression package you want to burn from the Orange Pi data download page, and then use the decompression software to decompress it. In the decompressed file, the file ending with ".img" is the operating system image file,the size is generally above 1GB.

5)Use Win32Diskimager to burn Linux image to TF card

a.The download page of Win32Diskimager is

 http://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager/files/Archive/

b.Install directly after downloading, the interface of Win32Diskimager is shown below

a)First select the path of the image file
b)Then confirm that the drive letter of the TF card is the same as that displayed in the "Device" column
c)Finally click "Write" to start burning

c.After the image writing is completed, click the "Exit" button to exit, and then you can pull out the TF card and insert it into the development board to start

Method of flashing Linux image to TF card based on Ubuntu PC

1)First, prepare a TF card with 8GB or larger capacity. The transmission speed of the TF card must be above class10. It is recommended to use a TF card of SanDisk and other brands

2)Then use a card reader to insert the TF card into the computer

3)Download balenaEtcher software, the download address is

 https://www.balena.io/etcher/

4)After entering the balenaEtcher download page, please select the Linux version of the software through the drop-down box to download

5)After downloading, use unzip to decompress. The decompressed balenaEtcher-1.5.109-x64.AppImage is the software required for burning

test@test:~$ unzip balena-etcher-electron-1.5.109-linux-x64.zip
Archive: balena-etcher-electron-1.5.109-linux-x64.zip
inflating: balenaEtcher-1.5.109-x64.AppImage
test@test:~$ ls
balenaEtcher-1.5.109-x64.AppImage balena-etcher-electron-1.5.109-linux-x64.zip

6)Download the Linux operating system image file compression package you want to burn from the Orange Pi data download page, and then use the decompression software to decompress it. In the decompressed file, the file ending with ".img" is the operating system image file,the size is generally above 1GB.
a.The decompression command of the compressed package at the end of a.7z is as follows

test@test:~$ 7z x image_filename.7z

b.The decompression command for the compressed package at the end of tar.gz is as follows

test@test:~$ tar -zxf image_filename.tar.gz

7)Double-click balenaEtcher-1.5.109-x64.AppImage on the graphical interface of Ubuntu PC to open balenaEtcher. The opened interface is shown in the figure below

a.First select the path of the image file
b.Then select the device number of the TF card
c.Finally click Flash to start burning

8)The writing speed and remaining time will be prompted during the burning process

9)After burning, the following interface will be displayed. At this time, you can unplug the TF card from the computer and insert it into the development board to start.

Method of flashing Android firmware to TF card

Android image can only be burned to TF card using PhoenixCard software under Windows platform, but cannot be burned under Linux platform

1)First prepare a TF card with a capacity of 8GB or more. The transmission speed of the TF card must be above class 10. It is recommended to use a TF card from a brand such as SanDisk

2)Then use a card reader to insert the TF card into the computer

3)Download the Android 4.4 or Android 7.0 firmware and PhoenixCard programming tool from Orange Pi's data download page, please make sure that the version of the PhonenixCrad tool is PhoenixCard v4.1.2

4)Use the decompression software to decompress the downloaded Android firmware compressed package. In the decompressed file, the file ending with ".img" is the Android firmware

5)Use the decompression software to decompress PhoenixCard v4.1.2.rar, this software does not need to be installed, just find PhoenixCard in the decompressed folder and open it

6)After opening PhoenixCard, if the TF card is recognized normally, the drive letter and capacity of the TF card will be displayed in the middle list. Please make sure that the displayed drive letter is the same as the drive letter of the TF card you want to burn. If There is no display, you can try to unplug the TF card

7)After confirming the drive letter, first format the TF card, click the recovery card button in PhoenixCard, or use the SD Card Formatter mentioned above to format the TF card

8)Then start to write the Android firmware to the TF card

a.First select the path of the Android firmware in the firmware column
b.Select boot card in the type of card to make
c.Then click the burn card button to start burning

9) After burning, the display of PhoenixCard is as shown in the figure below. At this time, click the close button to exit PhoenixCard, and then you can pull out the TF card from the computer and insert it into the development board to start.

Start the Orange Pi development board

1)Insert the burned TF card into the TF card slot of the Orange Pi development board
2)The development board has an HDMI interface, and the development board can be connected to a TV or other HDMI display through an HDMI cable
3)Connect the USB mouse and keyboard to control the orange pi development board
4)The development board has an Ethernet port, which can be plugged into a network cable for Internet access
5)Connect a power adapter with 5V and at least 2A (3A is also possible)

a.Remember not to plug in the 12V power adapter, if the 12V power adapter is plugged in, it will burn out the development board
b.Many unstable phenomena during system power-on and startup are basically caused by power supply problems, so a reliable power adapter is very important

6)Then turn on the switch of the power adapter, if everything is normal, the HDMI display will be able to see the startup screen of the system at this time
7)If you want to view the output information of the system through the debug serial port, please use the serial cable to connect the development board to the computer. For the connection method of the serial port, please refer to the section on the use of the debug serial port

How to use the debug serial port

Debug serial port connection instructions

1)First, you need to prepare a USB to TTL module. This module can be bought in Orange Pi stores. If there are other similar USB to TTL modules, you can also insert the USB end of the USB to TTL module into the USB port of the computer

2)The corresponding relationship between the debug serial port GND, TXD and RXD pins of the development board is shown in the figure below

3)The GND, TXD and RXD pins of the USB to TTL module need to be connected to the debug serial port of the development board through a DuPont cable

a. Connect the GND of the USB to TTL module to the GND of the development board
b. Connect the RXD of the USB to TTL module to the TXD of the development board
c. Connect the TXD of the USB to TTL module to the RXD of the development board

4)The schematic diagram of connecting the USB to TTL module to the computer and the Orange Pi development board is shown below

How to use the debugging serial port on Ubuntu platform

1)If the USB to TTL module is connected normally, you can see the corresponding device node name under /dev of the Ubuntu PC, remember this node name, it will be used when setting the serial port software later

test@test:~$ ls /dev/ttyUSB*
/dev/ttyUSB0

2)There are many serial debugging tools that can be used under linux, such as putty, minicom, etc. The following demonstrates how to use putty

3)First install putty on the Ubuntu PC

test@test:~$ sudo apt update
test@test:~$ sudo apt -y install putty

4)Then run putty, remember to add sudo permissions

test@test:~$ sudo putty

5)After executing the putty command, the following interface will pop up

6)First select the setting interface of the serial port

7)Then set the parameters of the serial port

a. Set the Serial line to connect to to /dev/ttyUSB0 (modify to the corresponding node name, generally /dev/ttyUSB0)
b. Set Speed (baud) to 115200 (baud rate of the serial port)
c. Set Flow control to None

8)After setting the serial port setting interface, return to the Session interface

a. First select the Connection type as Serial

b. Then click the Open button to connect to the serial port

9)After starting the development board, you can see the Log information output by the system from the opened serial port terminal

How to use the debugging serial port on Windows platform

1)There are many serial debugging tools that can be used under Windows, such as SecureCRT, MobaXterm, etc. The following shows how to use MobaXterm. This software is free and can be used without purchasing a serial number.

2)Download MobaXterm

a.Download the MobaXterm URL as follows

 https://mobaxterm.mobatek.net/

b.After entering the MobaXterm download page, click GET XOBATERM NOW!

c.Then choose to download the Home version

d.Then select the Portable version, after downloading, you don’t need to install it, just open it and you can use it

3)After downloading, use the decompression software to decompress the downloaded compressed package, you can get the executable software of MobaXterm, and then double-click to open it

4)After opening the software, the steps to set up the serial port connection are as follows

a. Open the session setting interface
b. Select the serial port type
c. Select the port number of the serial port (choose the corresponding port number according to the actual situation), if you can't see the port number, please use the 360 driver master to scan and install the USB to TTL serial chip driver
d. Select the baud rate of the serial port to be 115200
e. Finally click the "OK" button to complete the setting

5)After clicking the "OK" button, you will enter the following interface, and you can see the output information of the serial port when you start the development board.

Download the Orange Pi PC User Manual

For more information on using the Orange Pi PC, please see the Orange Pi PC User Manual. (Click to download)