Odroid W, or giblets raspberry pie

The other day, I was digging into the price of a Moscow company, in which Malinka bought almost a year ago, and was surprised to find, among other things, Odroid W - that very cost “Raspberry is three times smaller” ...
Taking into account the fact that there was money and I still wanted a couple of these, I made an order and on Friday I took it back ...


This is a “survey book” on probing the paws of a new board and disclosing some things that are not obvious at first glance.



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Where are my connectors ?!

Approximately 90% of the bulwark when discussing the new board accounted for the fact that it is “bald” - USB is not soldered, there is no pio comb, there is no power supply, etc.
For me, this was the decisive factor in the purchase: I really needed a FLAT computer! A number of things stupidly interfered with me, USB - stuck out and threatened to break out, the reliability of the port connector did not inspire confidence (and I stupidly soldered on it!), And the power through the micro-USB - infuriatedly infuriated: well, what kind of reliability can we talk about with this fixture ?!

At the moment, to be honest, only the lack of an eZernet is frustrating, since I worked with raspberries through the net ...

In general, Odroid W is a somewhat “in itself” thing: yes, it’s not so easy to make a cluster out of it, it’s impossible to turn on and play out of the box, you need at least a soldering iron, but ...
But, yes, this is the very “geek thing” that was expected from the first Raspberry and which it didn’t justify slightly, becoming “a thing for everyone”!

Yes, with Raspberries you can fuck all the connectors to hell, but there is a risk that the thread can be damaged.
And here - the device is three times smaller in area and 3-4 times in height !!! And do not freak out in order to save him from all the "superfluous"!

Battery powered

I understand that many stupidly used Raspberry in the “in-patient”, but having the opportunity to plug in the battery is brilliant!
According to the specifications of the board - you can connect 3.7 Volt Li-Po akk (“One bank”) with a capacity of up to 1000 mAh.
On sale at the manufacturer - 750 mAh, in Moscow I found a maximum of 600 mAh in half a day ... I didn’t really look for something, to be honest ...

And then the "joke" from the manufacturers begins: to connect the battery, there is a Molex 53398-0271 connector !!! The rally side of the battery is the Molex 51021-0200, which is really hard to find in Moscow ...
As a result, he killed half a day in search of the connector, spat and decided to solder stupidly on the contacts ...

Upon returning home and reading the drawings in detail, I realized that I began to respect the manufacturer even more: yes, he put on a filthy connector, but ...
But on the opposite corner - it is duplicated by two pins through soldering !!! (on the diagram of connectors - on the bottom right “Battery”)
The test call tester showed that the truth is - He!

SD vs MicroSD

Five points! Definitely!
The disadvantage is that the connector is not on the edge and it will be difficult to change the card inside the device, but ... Damn, you change the system hard so often on your computer, right? On many other microcomputers, the boot flash drive is generally tightly soldered!

The small minus is that there is only a connector from the slot, as a result, the card is mostly hanging in the air and if there is no thread, there is a risk of breaking.

A sea of ​​hate, or “They zagkali composite signal!”

I also longed for glasses - I wanted to make glasses, but then I made out: the second connector on the right, the lower hole: Video Output !!! Composite! Native!

“I have one USB maaal! Two was fine, but I don’t want to install a hub! ”

Visually, only one USB is bred on the board, but in practice there are TWO!
On the right connector - 3 and 4 pins below: the second USB!

Actually, it is through it that the “standard” expansion card with Ethernet and 4 USB works: a banal hub with a network output!

“But why was the UART topic device removed?”

14-15 GPIO - UART0. Actually the same where on Raspberry!

Well, where's the audio output? We do not play like that!

In general, Raspberry users are divided into 4, approximately, categories:
1. "Yes, what the sound is there ?!"
2. "How can you listen to this crap ?! I got a sound stick in there! ”
3. "And I listen via HDMI!"
4. “What are you doing ?! Normal sound! ”

Actually for the latter - 4 Conder and 4 rezuk for 40 and 45 GPIO (PWM TOUT0 (1)), and I left my SB Play to brew!
Given the fact that this is not a DAC, but stupidly PWM - it is clear what such a dead sound was on Malin!

findings

For myself - I found what I was looking for! Raspberry compact size, without unnecessary things!

PS I will not give you a link to the store - the prices are not quite humane to advertise them!