Openelec Build for OPI PC and 2 now with HW decoding

chaszim · Published in 2016-7-20 06:38:53

Edited by chaszim at 2016-7-20 12:18

andreq replied at 2016-7-19 22:53
You want the "Debug TLL UART" pins... don't plug anything in the D- and D+ related to serial!!!

Right, TX, RX & Gnd is the TTL Uart, (which is where I'm plugged). But, the USB cable (I'm having to build) lists pin out as, 1: B+(5v which is eliminated), 2:-D, 3:+D, & 4:Gnd. So, which is which, is -D is used for, TX or RX?? I've now tried both directions swapping (TX/Rx) pins, and still can't get a handshake from putty.

andreq · Published in 2016-7-20 21:58:21

chaszim replied at 2016-7-20 06:38
Right, TX, RX & Gnd is the TTL Uart, (which is where I'm plugged). But, the USB cable (I'm having t ...

STOP!! You can't just go and plug USB > UART!
Hopefully your motherboard have some protection and it didn't blow the USB fuse.

Here's what you need :

https://www.sparkfun.com/products/9717 (ignore the 5v VCC pin!)

Or any other kind of USB to Serial converter cable that run on 3.3v logic. (see jernej post)

There need to be some kind of logic chip in between the UART and USB to talk to the computer.

chaszim · Published in 2016-7-21 01:49:38

andreq replied at 2016-7-20 21:58
STOP!! You can't just go and plug USB > UART!
Hopefully your motherboard have some protection and ...

Initally Jernej said nothing (in his first response/request post) about, needing a cable, having any kind of interface, between the devices. If it's a true to TTL, it's signals are all ready set (IEEE standard) no greater than 5vdc, it will be sending (Tx) & receiving (Rx) as "Square Wave" signals. So, with a less than 3 ft (shielded) cable, between the devices, signal degreation (Roll Over) should be of no concequence. Which is about all the interface device would be correcting for, unless your worried about power isolation. Which again unless your applying power to the cable to pull up Tx & Rx, which then your not in a true Null Modem Cable. Has anyone actually tested, and can confirm, that a regular null modem cable, will not work, or will cause damage to the device??? Because, the responce lag time is one thing, then I've got to wait several more days for a propper interface cable. And I still don't have a handle on setting up PuTTY. Does it really need to be this frustrating?

andreq · Published in 2016-7-21 04:28:22

Sadly it's not 5v TLL level and I've seen many of those "cheap" serial chip burn into fume when sending 5v on their RX lines.
A nullmodem cable should work, but you kinda need some kind of interface that support 3.3v logic to connect to the PC.

USB alone doesn't communicate in "pure" serial with TX and RX lines. I don't know much more about USB protocole, but normaly you need some kind of driver that has specific way of talking to those lines, I don't know any "serial bridge" driver that would allow you to connect anything directly to D- and D+.

Having said that, if your PC do have a RS232 connector (would need to be quite old!) you may be able to feed the OrangePi TX line into the RX and maybe get the msg. You shouldn't connect the RX line on the OrangePi as it would be fed with way too high voltage. But it might not be needed for logging.

But sure enough, the ftdi cable or one of those very cheap CH340 (chinese clone of FTDI chip from wht I can tell) are the easiest way to connect 5v or 3.3v Serial line to your computer through USB.

As for Putty, look at this tutorial : https://kb.cyberoam.com/default.asp?id=2193
The important part is the "COM1" and baud rate. If you get a cable or some kind of interface, you should have a new device display under Com port in Device Manager. The COM number should be written there.
I didnt look into it, but the Baud Rate for the OrangePi has to be written somewhere in the specsheet

chaszim · Published in 2016-7-21 06:45:35

Edited by chaszim at 2016-7-21 06:47

andreq replied at 2016-7-21 04:28
Sadly it's not 5v TLL level and I've seen many of those "cheap" serial chip burn into fume when send ...

OK, you make a good enough case. So, it will be a few more weeks, before I can respond to counter questions, posed from my observations of softwares issues, I stumble across. There's got to be an easier way.

darqoq · Published in 2016-7-21 16:49:54

@jernej: OpenELEC project seems to be dead (they don't push any commits, since May 8, 2016)
Could you try to create fork from LibreELEC (the push commits every day, probably they release ver 8.0 just after Kodi v17 release)
LibreELEC was forked from OpenELEC after you forked co maybe it will be not so hard ?

hav · Published in 2016-7-21 18:23:23

When I connect a wireless keyboard , it works perfectly , but after a few minutes of inactivity stops working. The only way to reactivate it is disconnect and reconnect . Is there any solution?

jernej · Published in 2016-7-22 01:36:19

darqoq replied at 2016-7-21 09:49
@jernej: OpenELEC project seems to be dead (they don't push any commits, since May 8, 2016)
Could yo ...

I'm aware of that, but I couldn't find any post anywhere that OpenELEC is a dead project. Did you? With some work, migrating to LibreELEC is certainly possible and I'm seriously thinking about that. But Kodi 17 has a lot of changes in rendering engine, so some rework would be needed. Is there anyone who would like to help?

jernej · Published in 2016-7-22 01:38:17

hav replied at 2016-7-21 11:23
When I connect a wireless keyboard , it works perfectly , but after a few minutes of inactivity stop ...

I'm always using wireless keyboard with OpenELEC and I newer observed any kind of issues. Could you connect remotelly over ssh or through serial console and post output of dmesg?

jernej · Published in 2016-7-22 04:46:51

I added support for two more boards - Orange Pi PC Plus and Orange Pi Plus 2E. They should work, but additional confirmations are welcomed. Prebuilt images are at their usual locations.