Rockchip RK32xx Category - Page 8 of 28 - CNX Software

September 12, 2017September 12, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 17 Comments

Factory Prices of Some TV Boxes and Accessories

Some companies that contact me have not read the about section of the blog, and either tell me they can give me a good price for TV boxes, and some even send me their price list. And this morning, I’ve received a EXW (Ex Works) price list this of Amlogic S912/S905X/S905W and Rockchip based TV boxes, as well as some air mice, and Android projectors. The cheapest models are based on S905W and RK3229, with MXQ Pro 1GB/8GB going for $17.5 per unit for 200 pieces orders. For reference that models goes for around $26 shipped online before any discount coupon you may find. At the other end of the scale, you have TX2 model with 3GB RAM, 64GB flash going for $77.5 EXW for 200-unit orders, and sold online for $86 including shipping, again before coupon. Margin must be really low, or the prices above are not that competitive, […]

September 12, 2017September 12, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

SanStar WS-3A Medical Board Runs Android 5.1 on Rockchip RK3288 SoC

Warp United, a “Chinese Health 2.0″/point-of-Care medical technology company based in Shenzhen, launched Warp 3 medical recorder – an Android powered handheld device supporting various vital signs and ultrasound medical modules – earlier this year, and the company has now just introduced SanStar WS-3A motherboard powered by Rockchip RK3288 quad core Cortex-A17 SoC, and running Android 5.1 in order to allow engineers to develop and connect their own medical modules via the various interfaces of the board, and create their own medical products. SanStar WS-3A medical motherboard specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3288 quad core Cortex-A17 processor @ 1.8GHz with an ARM Mali-T764 GPU with support for OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0 /3.0, OpenVG1.1, OpenCL, Directx11 System Memory – 2GB or 4GB DDR3 Storage – 8GB, 16GB, or 32GB eMMC flash, micro SD slot up to 32GB Video Output / Display I/F HDMI 2.0 up to 3840 x 2160 pixel embedded DisplayPort (eDP) […]

September 4, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Linux 4.13 Release – Main Changes, ARM & MIPS Architectures

Linus Torvalds has just announced the release of Linux 4.13 and a kidney stone…: So last week was actually somewhat eventful, but not enough to push me to delay 4.13. Most of the changes since rc7 are actually networking fixes, the bulk of them to various drivers. With apologies to the authors of said patches, they don’t look all that interesting (which is definitely exactly what you want just before a release). Details in the appended shortlog. Note that the shortlog below is obviously only since rc7 – the _full_4.13 log is much too big to post and nobody sane would read it. So if you’re interested in all the rest of it, get the git tree and limit the logs to the files you are interested in if you crave details. No, the excitement was largely in the mmu notification layer, where we had a fairly last-minute regression and […]

August 3, 2017August 3, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 27 Comments

Rockchip Has Setup an Official Open Source Website with Software & Hardware Documentation, Source Code

As a young engineer, I first understood the importance of good documentation thanks to an incomplete Holtek MCU datasheet that made us waste weeks of development, and the value open source software thanks to Sigma Designs’ SDK that was full of binary blobs with our applications often crashing inside those, leading to software development delays, especially since we had access to limited support. More recently, if you ever worked with the most popular Chinese processors found in ARM Linux development board, usually made by Allwinner, Amlogic, or Rockchip, you must have gone through roadblocks due to a lack of documentation and software support. So far, Allwinner is purely relying on linux-sunxi community and “leaks” of their documentation and SDKs, while Amlogic has had their “open linux” microsite for several years, but you won’t find complete documentation like technical reference manual, schematics, and part of the source code requires you to […]

July 11, 2017July 11, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

MA8-4K is a $19 Android TV Box based on Rockchip RK3229 Processor (Promo)

MA8-4K is yet another TV box running Android 5.1 on Rockchip RK3229 quad core Cortex A7 processor, but it might one of the cheapest right now, as GearBest offers it for $18.99 shipped with GBMA87 coupon instead of $27.99 “flash sale” price. This is likely valid for only a few hundred boxes. MA8-4K specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3229 quad core ARM Cortex A7 processor @ 1.5 GHz with ARM Mali-400MP2 GPU System Memory – 1GB DDR3 Storage – 8GB flash + micro SD card slot up to 32GB Video Output – HDMI 2.0 up to 4K2K @ 60 fps, and 3.5mm AV output (composite) Audio Output – HDMI, AV, and coaxial S/PDIF Connectivity – 10/100 Mbps Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi (AP6051 chip); Bluetooth is mentioned in title, but not in description, so it’s unclear whether it’s implemented. USB – 2x USB 2.0 host ports Power Supply – 5V/1.5A Dimensions – […]

July 3, 2017July 3, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

How to Install RKMC “Kodi for Rockchip” App in your TV Box

I’ve started playing with Vorke Z3, an Android 6.0 TV box based on Rockchip RK3399 , and saying that Kodi 17.3 – installed from the Google Play Store – is not working so well is an understatement. The other Rockchip TV boxes I’ve recently reviewed with Android 6.0.1 such as Yundoo Y8 and A95X R2 are all using TVMC, a fork of Kodi 16.1 specifically designed for Rockchip devices. However, there’s no source code for that app, but a Rockchip engineer is maintaining his own fork of Kodi, with the code and some binaries libraries released on Github. The project is called RKMC. I did install the app, but I misunderstood part of the instructions at first, and the device would not boot anymore. I lost many hours of work, as I had to reflash the firmware. So I’ll show how I installed it in Vorke Z3 TV box. You […]

July 3, 2017June 18, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Linux 4.12 Release – Main Changes, ARM & MIPS Architectures

Linus Torvalds has just released Linux 4.12: Things were quite calm this week, so I really didn’t have any real reason to delay the 4.12 release. As mentioned over the various rc announcements, 4.12 is one of the bigger releases historically, and I think only 4.9 ends up having had more commits. And 4.9 was big at least partly because Greg announced it was an LTS kernel. But 4.12 is just plain big. There’s also nothing particularly odd going on in the tree – it’s all just normal development, just more of it that usual. The shortlog below is obviously just the minor changes since rc7 – the whole 4.12 shortlog is much too large to post. In the diff department, 4.12 is also very big, although the reason there isn’t just that there’s a lot of development, we have the added bulk of a lot of new header files […]

June 30, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Husarion CORE2 STM32 Board for Robotics Projects Works with ESP32, Raspberry Pi 3, or ASUS Tinkerboard

Husarion CORE2 is a board designed to make robotics projects simpler and faster to complete with pre-configured software and online management. Projects can start using LEGOs, before moving to 3D printed or laser-cut version of the mechanical parts without having to spend too much time on the electronics and software part of the project. Two versions of the board are available: CORE2 combining STM32 MCU with ESP32 WiFI & Bluetooth module, and CORE2-ROS with STM32 instead coupled to a Raspberry Pi 3 or ASUS Tinkerboard running ROS (Robot Operating System). Both solutions share most of the same specifications: MCU -STMicro STM32F4 ARM CORTEX-M4 MCU @ 168 MHz with 192 kB RAM, 1 MB Flash External Storage – 1x micro SD slot USB – 1x USB 2.0 host port with 1A charging capability; 1x micro USB port for debugging and programming via FTDI chip Expansion Headers hRPi expansion header for CORE2-ROS […]