First Looks: Rock 5a (and a rant)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 18 ก.ค. 2023
- This little SBC has a lot of promise - what appears to be very capable specs. Maybe a "before its time" type deal? To me, this won't be a Raspberry Pi killer, take a ride along with me as I build this out and figure out all the ins and outs of this Single Board Computer
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I think I owe you some spotted cows after this experience
It was fun for sure!
It was enough to read what's written on the "eMMC" chip. The preinstalled chip is not in fact emmc, but SPI with an eMMC-like connector. Also, the connector is in fact strong enough to keep it in place, it just needs to be plugged in properly. Never happened to me.
Thanks for the tip! Good thing that wasn't the point of the video and I didn't focus on it.
For about $14 more you can get a ZimaBoard 832 Development Kit, which is 2 single board pc's plus a buttload of extras. And its assembled.
That's a fantastic deal
What a trooper Steve for enduring all of the hurdles. Thanks for the thorough review!
73 - KF6IF
Indeed! Thanks!
Now we have a sharp knife! Thank you sir!
BTW, I was planning to buy one, but now I'm skeptical with all your bad experience.
Glad it helped. I was shocked.
Thanks so much for the review Steve.
Interesting about the eMMC module coming loose, but I'm sure it's just a prod teething issue like a lot of these RasPi alternatives even though its performance looks impressive.
Have used that flimsy, clear acrylic case on my Pi3 & it cracked in the exact same spot on the side panel mount, so I swapped it for a different blue/clear C4Labs case (much more sturdier & highly recommended) to mount my PiStar hotspot & never looked back.
For my Pi4, I skipped the acrylic clear case & went straight to a Argon M2 case with inbuilt fan & M.2 SSD similar to KM4ACK build a Pi setup & very happy with it.
Probably best to wait a while to see the product mature first & let them iron out the bugs.
In all fairness, RPi4 availability has picked up over the past 2 months & the RPi4 at least is compatible with KM4ACK Build-a-Pi script but unsure if these RPi alternatives will even work.
I'm sure Andy will work it all out.
At $399 wow that's nearly a 50MHz 2 channel base level Rigol scope or 200MHz handheld Owon scope so might give this one a miss.
Orange Pi 5 looks like a better way to go
I am assuming the Rock "5"a means there were 4 before this one... maybe we need the Rock 5a mkII ??
@@temporarilyoffline good point TO!.
I've seen a 4C sold here by Altronics but different manufacturer.
If anything these bonus features are likely inspiring Eben Upton to possibly incorporate these extra features into the RPi5 ie eMMC flash storage, 12vdc input.
A lot of the pi3 & pi4 changes from earlier models I believe were influenced by competitor SBCs.
Wonder how the 5A also copes with PiStar & AMBE
They also sell an aluminium case.
Great video, tnx !
You got it!
These are starting at just $60 on Arace (one of Radxa's listed retailers) - definitely more of a hassle than Raspberry Pi, which inarguably has much better support & documentation, but at *less* than the cost of a 4GB Pi 5, this is kind of hard to turn down.
I don't think its bad if you know what your way around linux/hardware.
I think you are the first review of the Rock 5A… everybody else has been reviewing the Rock 5B…. I think I know why now…
Could be!
Rock 5B was available before the 5A. I just received my pre-order link for the 5A (I was a bit late signing up).
Hmmm, thanks for the insight. The link to Amazon above shows a $399.00 computer. How is that a Pi competitor?
It was $99, I guess they are out of stock... (it wasn't really a competitor anyway)
Do you think it's a good idea to put a heatsink on the wireless card?
I do, that thing got really hot!
@@temporarilyoffline Is there a sticker on the card, or you think I can put the heatsink directly on top of it?
@@LivingLinux I believe there was a sticker on the card. If you can remove it, great, but if not, the heatsink will still help.
The Power Over Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet is a very nice plus over a Raspberry Pi.
I couldn't test it, but I wonder if it's on the USB bus, or on a dedicated bus.
So the uncut video is 4hrs? Haha
You are very patient T.O. I think this may be an Alpha version.😟
A is for alpha!
Wished these RPi manufacturers would recognise that people are placing these RPis in 12VDC portable applications & provide a separate 12v DC clamped power input so we don't have to go hunting for 12v - 5v USB DC/DC converters.
I'm sure even if it was a separate MOSFET off the board t handle the power dissipation, it's doable.
Let's hope RPi manufacturers are also hams & check out TO & others as if I had one wish, it's 12VDC input
I here ya John. Check out this trick that Thump made: th-cam.com/video/7rteR00m6iI/w-d-xo.html
@@temporarilyoffline ou thanks TO!.
Appreciated much, sounds like i owe u a Aussie BBQ meal if I ever visit the USA lol
@johnathanasiou9284 looking forward to it!
Reminds me of the FriendlyArm that I bought about a decade ago. Nice hardware, but woefully lacking in support. I'll pass, I've already learned that lesson. BTW, the Amazon link takes us to a $399 board. Sketchy as heck...
Thanks for the heads up!
I'm hoping/guessing the $399 deal is because they are out of stock and not because they are stupid... 🤣
looks nice. Can you pick up 2 meters on it.
Probably could!
With Pi availability improving (just picked up a pi 4B 8G at standard MAP pricing $75), why mess with this? Your link shows it costing $399.99 from Amazon.
Exactly! You can get it right from radxa, but why bother with Pis getting better and this thing not being that great?
Orange PI 5 Plus.
Those plastic cases are a pain to assemble; best buy two for the first one always gets broken. If you want a plastic case, HOT GLUE.
The Orange PI 5 Plus gets you NVME, M.2 wireless, ability to add a EMMC drive as well. 8 cores and 16 g ram; plus two HDMI outputs and one input, USB-C, A few USB -A 3.0, ..
Sounds like a nice machine!
Sounds like a nice machine!
It could have been worse, it could have been mine. 😂
This is definitely a hard pass for me. Thanks for heads-up.
Any time!
at this point I'm not buying any more sbc's that don't have m.2 nvme storage... once you go nvme you never go back, and I have an odroid m1
I added an m.2 sled to my pi with this case: amzn.to/3DnhBeg this is the best case for a shack machine! Totally agree.
I'm definitely going to have to pass -- love to hear about the speed but almost everything else "attached" had issues -- needs to move past "alpha" stage!
Right!
First impressions cannot be done over. Speed is nice but if you spend an inordinate amount of time getting it up and running you might be better off with a Raspberry pi. 73
Exactly
I think I'll stick with Pi's
Me too!
@@temporarilyoffline both are pure trash and not worth the money,
you can buy a NUC that will burry any SBC and it will be chaper and come complete with everything you need,
SBC are overpriced overyped garbage and AR sucks still, and still can not complete with X86
NUC's are so cheap now it isnot woth it to spend more moey for somehtat is 100 times slower and coast more and requires you to buy all kinds of accessories and then you have a fuck ton of bugs and probllems and it is non stop troubleshoting and instability unreliability, just buy a NUC and buy a rpi pico or some other board to add GPIO via USB , SBC's are just a bad meme totally not worth it econimically or or worth the aggravation
you are probably only going to save few pennies on epectricity with an ARM board other than that there is no benefit at all over an mini PC, NONE
Next.
You got that right!
price with shipping and accessories is like $300 not $100
and that was on the pre order "deal" (rip off)
they gouged me on shipping and I got defective board an I can;t return it, stay away from this trash
My thoughts exactly