Orange Pi 5 is a great alternative to Raspberry Pi 4 and is getting rave reviews.
It costs $75 on AliExpress for a version without Wifi and there is also another new version 5B with Wifi available for a little bit extra.
It has very fast CPU, similar in performance to x86 chips and at the same time it runs without burning much heat, in fact, it does not even need any heat sinks for normal operation.
I ordered 3 boards for all my rigs in the observatory and finally had a test under the stars last night.
Everything worked great.
I updated my instructions on how to install all the astronomy software on this board: https://github.com/avarakin/AstroPiMaker4
Feel free to try and let me know if any issues.
There was a comparison of RPI4 vs OPI5 posted yesterday: https://www.phoronix.com/review/orange-pi-5/2
TLDR: Across 169 different benchmarks I ran with the Orange Pi 5, this single board computer came out to delivering 2.85x the performance of the Raspberry Pi 400 overall
That’s interesting. I just tried the phoronix Cloverleaf benchmark. My new MeLe Quieter 3C Intel Celeron 4 core N5105 @ 2.9 GHz (Jasper Lake) gives results of 508-521 vs 502 for the Orange Pi 5 (lower is better).
Did they resole the issue with the OrangePI, Debian OS and running a VNC server? I know with my Orange Pi3Orange Pi3 I had issues with Debian that did not present with Ubuntu.
And even now, it has some stability issues as it simply quits responding on the VNC server and I have to reboot.
Honestly… my next trip down the lane is with a NUC type system.
The other issue… where are you finding a decent case (besides the translucent ones) for the Orange Pi5?
Looks like you used Jammy… which is Ubuntu… which is what I had no issues with. My issue was with both available versions of Debian from the Orange Pi site.
I think the stability issues are more an Orange Pi issue than the VNC server, as when it happens, even hooking up to wired monitor/keyboard/mouse it’s non-responsive.
I had no issues personally installing the OS, nor any other functions (I’ve played with Linux since Slackware was the “in thing” in the early 90’s).
My current Orange Pi3 rig was more for playing with and creating an article for my site than anything else (but it is set up for my NexStar 8se for captures also). My prime capture setups are a 4GB & 8GB RPi4 loaded with Stellarmate OS.
As I said, my next path will be with a a few NUC’s playing with N.I.N.A and also a Linux/EKOS/INDI install, mainly to create some articles on my site for… and honestly, at the going price on Amazon for the Orange Pi 5B (almost $200 USD) I can, for a little more, get a decent Mele 3Q and actually have a true SSD running the OS instead of an SD card.
Hi Alex, (or anyone else trying to use Ubuntu on an Orange Pi5 for astrophotography)
Have you encountered any issues connecting your devices to Ekos while using Ubuntu on an Orange Pi5 for astrophotography? I am facing an issue where Ekos is unable to connect to my QHY183c, I get a pop-up asking if the device is connected and powered on. Yes, it is. In addition, the serial connections are displaying a port failure error of “No such file or directory.” I am curious to know if you have faced similar issues.
A few months ago, I came across the Orange Pi 5 and thought of using it as a replacement for my RPi4 to take advantage of its stronger machine and faster speeds of the NVMe connection and SSD. With the help of a friend we designed a housing allowing us to combined a few other devices under the OPi5’s roof, such as a 7-port powered USB hub, focuser PCB, EL panel PCB for flats and automated shutter control, and a 12v power supply for three barrel jacks. After some hard work, the device powers up, headless with a VNC desktop via X11. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get tightvnc working, as there was an issue running kstars, and it kept showing an error with Qt.
I have plugged the USB hub into the OPi5’s USB A 3.0 port. The focuser and the EL panel are plugged directly into the other USB A ports, while the mount, camera, and guide cam are all connected through the hub. However, only the ZWO guide cam seems to be connecting. I have used this same setup with RPi4 without any issues.
I ran “ls /dev/tty*” and get like 63 root available serial connections but no indication of what is connected. I also ran “lsusb” and this is what I got:
Bus 006 Device 003: ID 0bda:0411 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. Hub
Bus 006 Device 002: ID 0bda:0411 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. Hub
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 008 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 007 Device 002: ID 1a86:7523 QinHeng Electronics CH340 serial converter
Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 005: ID 0403:6001 Future Technology Devices International, Ltd FT232 Serial (UART) IC
Bus 002 Device 004: ID 0bda:5411 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTS5411 Hub
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 03c3:120c ZWO ASI120MM Mini
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 0bda:5411 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTS5411 Hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 1a86:7523 QinHeng Electronics CH340 serial converter
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
I have tested quite a few Raspi alternative boards (with inid-allsky). In some cases, I have had issues with cameras not working in certain USB ports (plugged directly into the board). I did not note if the ports were USB3 or 2, I just know I had to change ports in some cases.
I run 3 rigs now using this board. Pretty much all of them are using:
OnStep mount controllers which also drives focuser
ASI174 or ASI120 guide camera
Touptek IMX571 mono camera
SX Filter Wheel
Touptek camera has an internal hub, which I am using for running filter wheel and guider.
I don’t need to use a separate USB hub and I even have a spare USB port.
I encountered couple of issues:
Once in a while I had issues with running main camera using USB3 port, so I normally use USB2 port for camera.
There was a weird issue where one of the rigs was not able to connect to the main camera. It turned out that a DC/DC converter from 12v to 5v was at fault. No idea why, because rest of the things were working just fine. Maybe it was not strong enough or had poor signal. Once I replaced it, all is working fine.
So some suggestions are:
Use separate power supplies for powering different components
Try using USB2 port for camera and also use USB2 cable
Try to get rid of USB hub, at least temporarily, I always had problems with USB hubs, especially 7 port ones
If you have issue with serial connection, you need to make your user as part of dialout group. You can find command in my Makefile
I also use tightvnc, see my script how it is installed
Update and lingering issue - I was able to work on this issue intermittently over the last few days. I checked the dialout group and my user was indeed already included. What ended up fixing my serial connections was to follow the instructions from the website ask Ubuntu. Admittedly, I don’t fully understand why this worked other than there seemed to be a product ID conflict and commenting this out did allow me to connect to my devices via /dev/ttyusb0,1,2,3…
Here is the solution :
Edit /usr/lib/udev/rules.d/85-brltty.rules
Search for this line and comment it out: ENV{PRODUCT}==“1a86/7523/*”, ENV{BRLTTY_BRAILLE_DRIVER}=“bm”, GOTO=“brltty_usb_run”
Reboot
LINGERING ISSUE - I still cannot get my QHY183c to be recognized by Ekos. When I start the service in Kstars Device manager I see the following:
2023-05-09T03:18:40: startup: /usr/bin/indiserver -v -p 7624 -m 1024 -r 0 -f /tmp/indififo88932c7a
2023-05-09T03:18:40: listening to port 7624 on fd 5
2023-05-09T03:18:40: Local server: listening on local domain at: @/tmp/indiserver
2023-05-09T03:18:40: FIFO: start indi_qhy_ccd
2023-05-09T03:18:40: FIFO: Starting driver indi_qhy_ccd
2023-05-09T03:18:40: Driver indi_qhy_ccd: pid=3013 rfd=9 wfd=9 efd=10
2023-05-09T03:18:40: Client 8: new arrival from 127.0.0.1:49540 - welcome!
2023-05-09T03:18:40: Driver indi_qhy_ccd: – qhyccd.cpp param
2023-05-09T03:18:40: Driver indi_qhy_ccd: QHYCCD|QHYCCD.CPP|InitQHYCCDResource()|START
2023-05-09T03:18:40: Driver indi_qhy_ccd: QHYCCD|QHYCCD.CPP|InitQHYCCDResource|auto_detect_camera:false,call InitQHYCCDResourceInside
2023-05-09T03:18:40: Driver indi_qhy_ccd: QHYCCD|QHYCCD.CPP|InitQHYCCDResourceInside|START
2023-05-09T03:18:40: Driver indi_qhy_ccd: QHYCCD|QHYCCD.CPP|libusb_version 1.0.25.11696
2023-05-09T03:18:40: Driver indi_qhy_ccd: QHYCCD|QHYCCD.CPP|libusb_init(libqhyccd_context) called…
2023-05-09T03:18:40: Driver indi_qhy_ccd: QHYCCD|QHYCCD.CPP|InitQHYCCDResourceInside|numdev set to 0
2023-05-09T03:18:40: Driver indi_qhy_ccd: QHYCCD|QHYCCD.CPP|InitQHYCCDResourceInside|END
2023-05-09T03:18:40: Driver indi_qhy_ccd: ************************** config file path 23.3.26.4 svn: 1 ************************************
2023-05-09T03:18:40: Driver indi_qhy_ccd: QHYCCD|QHYCCD.CPP|InitQHYCCDResource|Load ini filePath = /home/orangepi fileName = qhyccd.ini
When I run lsusb in terminal it doesn’t recognize the device as QHY, it’s seeing it as Cypress WestBridge. I did read that there could be an issue with the fxload file. So I downloaded the latest SDK from QHY’s Linux support page for arm64. I decompressed it and found the fxload and replace my /sbin/fxload, but that did not work.
I run your script in an opi5 with m.2 ssd for the system and data. My rig comprises nikon camera, az-eq5 mount and sv305 guide camera. All working fine. I’m willing to install an wifi usb adapter in order to connect from phone to monitor kstars.
I see that the opi5 manual indicates three adapter but I’m not sure if they support AP mode. Have you had success enabling AP in some wifi adapter worth being recommended.
@Fausto
Instead of using USB dongle, I decided to use PCIe card, inserted into m.2. I used couple of different Intel based WfFi cards and both of them worked. I think USB also should work, but I decided that it is more important to have higher speed of WiFi as opposed to disk, so used the PCIe card for Wifi.
My script already installs everything for Access Point, all you need to do is to modify /etc/create_ap.conf to point to correct device names for ethernet and wireless adapter.