Orange Pi R1 Plus LTS sells with metal enclosure for $35.99

Shenzhen Xunlong Software previously launched the Orange Pi R1 Plus LTS router board powered by Rockchip RK3328 quad-core processor last November for $27.99 on Aliexpress.

As expected, albeit with some delays, the company has now introduced a metal enclosure for the Orange Pi R1 Plus LTS board transforming it into a complete router or gateway. You can get it as part of a kit for $35.99 plus shipping, or if you’ve already purchased the board previously, get the enclosure only for $9 plus shipping.

Orange Pi R1 Plus LTS router/gateway specifications:

• SoC – Rockchip RK3328 quad-core Cortex-A53 @ 1.5 GHz with Arm Mali-450MP2
• System Memory – 1GB LPDDR3 RAM
• Storage – MicroSD card slot, 16 MB SPI flash
• Connectivity
  • 2x Gigabit Ethernet via YT8531C Ethernet PHY and RTL8153B USB 3.0 to Ethernet chip; both tested by the company up to 945 Mbps Tx and 963 Mbps Rx
  • On-board WiFi is not included, but USB dongles with either RTL8723-BU it RTL8821CU are recommended since drivers are available in Linux 5.10
• USB – 1x USB 2.0 port, 1x USB-C OTG port
• Expansion – Unpopulated 13-pin header with earphone, 1x GPIO, TV-out (composite video), UART, I2C, and IR receiver signals
• Debugging – 3-pin header for serial console, fan header
• Misc – Reset key, WAN & LAN LEDs on board, SYS LED.
• Power Supply – 5V/2A via USB-C port; RK805 PMU
  
• Dimensions & Weight
  • SBC – 57 x 56 mm | 29.5 grams
  • Gateway with metal enclosure – 63 x 60.6 x 27.3 mm | 175 grams (TBC)

The company provides Ubuntu, Debian, OpenWrt, and even Android (despite the lack of easy-to-use video output) for the board and gateway. Android and Linux source code has also been made available. You’ll find all those on the resource page together with a user manual and software tools for programming. It appears they may be using Armbian build scripts for the Linux images. Speaking about Armbian, while Orange Pi R1 Plus is supported with “suitable for testing” images, the new LTS version with YT8531C Ethernet transceiver and LPDDR3 memory is not, so it may not work out of the box with Armbian images.

If the metal enclosure looks familiar it’s because FriendlyELEC is making very similar products with NanoPi R2C and NanoPi R2C Plus routers/gateways with virtually the same specifications. The main differences are that Orange Pi went with Motorcomm YT8531C while NanoPi R2C (Plus) is equipped with Motorcomm YT8521S chip, the I/O headers are different, but once the enclosure is fitted there’s no difference in functionality and all ports are the same. The 16MB SPI is nice to have for people wanting to boot their board with TFTP without having to rely on a MicroSD card.

I’ve also noticed Shenzhen Xunlong Software improved the specifications and information for their board with details about Ethernet performance, recommended WiFi USB dongles, and CPU temperature under load in a way similar to FriendlyELEC.

That’s a welcome development. They still share the user manual as a PDF (127 pages) through Google Drive and Baidu, and I’d prefer a Wiki as it’s easier to find a solution that way when navigating the doc, or doing a web search, but maybe that’s just me.

The full Orange Pi R1 Plus Metal Enclosure kit ships fully assembled, but the company also throws a 13-pin header for people wanting to solder it.

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.

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