So, you received your Pine64 board, and now you want to do the first thing that almost all electronic hobbyists do as their first project... blink an LED.

You might have seen a guide like this one, and gone... "that looks easy" or "I'm confused!". If you have used a Raspberry Pi, you're probably going "it's easy"... but there is a catch. Whilst the pine64 does have a 40 pin connector that is mostly compatible with the Raspberry Pi (ie. important bits like I2C, SPI, power are all in the same places), some bits don't work 100% like the Raspberry Pi. The gremlins we know about so far aren't a big problem as long as you know about them, as they are easily remedied. One or two others are annoying enough that you might just go "I wanted to use pin 7 for my project, but on the pine64 it controls the backlight for the LCD board, and turning it off isn't a one line command, so I'll just use another pin". That sort of thing. There are plenty of other I/O pins to choose from, so not being able to use one without some fiddling isn't a drama for most setups. 

The other thing to be aware of is that if you are using accessing the GPIO (General Purpose Input/Output) pins like I'm about to demonstrate, and are using a nice Raspberry Pi Pinout guide like the nice one that Raspberry Pi Spy does, the GPIO numbers are all different! So if you wanted to connect your LED to pin 15, which is GPIO22 on the Raspberry Pi, and told gpio22 to turn on and off, nothing would happen! The reason for this comes from the fact that the pins are grouped differently on the CPU used on the pine64. The detail isn't important, unless you wanted to work out how to calculate it yourself. If so, have at look at this post, and you'll be able to work out the formula used. Needless to say, if you've done it once, you've done it 100 times, so a nice lookup table is always handy. Joey was kind enough to write up a nice reference table showing the Pine64 GPIO pin number / Raspberry Pi GPIO pin numbering  / physical pin numbers. So keep that handy when you want to work out which pin is which. 

longsleep also wrote a very handy script which converts the pin names (the ones like PC7 and PH5) to sysfs GPIO numbers. All you need to do is download it, make it executable (chmod +x pine64-gpio-number.py) and then run it specifying the pin name as an argument... 

The dispatch activity already started on August 19 once we confirmed that second batch (there are two batches, first batch deliver on late July)) ABS and Playbox enclosure delivered from factory to China shipping facility on August 22. Until yesterday, the shipping facility already dispatch out 50+% shipment (around 6,000+) and the rest will continue ship out on next week. Due to intense shipment, the shipping facility didn't provide daily tracking number list to KS support team and the list just submitted yesterday. This means once you get the tracking number, your shipment should be already on the way to you.

We have one hiccup on the ZWave AU module arrangement, when we sorting the ZWave type and discovered backers ordered AU type more than we expected where we can only knows from country list. We have immediately placed additional order two weeks ago and the delivery time is September 7. This means part of the ZWave AU deployment (less than 100) will happen on September 7 and we apologize on this hiccup. The EU and US type ZWave module already deployed together with the enclosure delivery. More than 90% ZWave module shipment accompany with ABS enclosure order.


[Update 8/27/2016] The attached file (already deleted for new update list on below) is the excel file with KS, Backerkit order and shipping tracking number. The list that marked yellow means already shipped with tracking number.  The shipping facility still continue shipped out on this week and I will update this list from time to time. If you have any question or inquiry, please email to support@pine64.org, please don't PM me due to this will overload my current loading which is already very heavy. 



[Update 9/02/2016] The below attached file ((already deleted for new update list on below) ) is the excel file with KS, Backerkit order and shipping tracking number till September 2, 2016. The total shipment quantity is 10328 pieces and the shipping facility already shipping out 9651 pieces up till today. Still have 667 pieces to ship out on next week, this includes ZWave AU module shipment once we received additional module from factory on September 7.


[Update 9/23/2016] The below attached file is the excel file with KS, Backerkit order and shipping tracking number till September 23, 2016. The total shipment quantity is 10328 pieces and the shipping facility already shipping out 10268 pieces up till today. The last 60 pieces (contains ZWave AU module) plan to ship out on this week, this concludes the ABS enclosure, playbox enclosure, and ZWave module shipment.

 
  ＡBSENCL and PLYBENC and Z-Wave -Shipping update 20160902.xls (Size: 788 KB / Downloads: 820)

This thread describes a successful connection providing a UART Serial Console on a Linux Host however, this should work on Windows and Mac. The PINE64 board used is a 2GB version (A64-DB-2B-Rev B 2016-02-25). The connection is provided by a USB To RS232 adapter purchased from eBay:
NOTE: you would need 3.3v USB To RS232 adapter, otherwise you may fry your PINE64!


The successful connection is made on the EXP connector:

    Connect the GND (it should be labeled on the USB Module Adapter) to Pin 6 or 9 of the EXP connector.
    Connect the RX (it should be labeled on the USB Module Adapter) to Pin 7 of the EXP connector.
    Connect the TX (it should be labeled on the USB Module Adapter) to Pin 8 of the EXP connector.


Plug the USB end into your Linux host. Find the tty that has been assigned to it by opening a terminal window and typing

ABS Plastic Server Enclosure 15.24cmX10.16cmX5.08cm from Radio Shack

This classic Radio Shack ABS Plastic enclosure ( 6x4x2 inches ) is ideal for the pineA64 board, particularly for server applications. These boxes are being marketed by Radio Shack and others like EBay and Amazon. The enclosure is readily modifiable , but is the classic rugged Radio Shack quality ABS box hobbyists and amateurs have come to expect for years.

The box has the classic interchangeable plastic or aluminum base plate fastened by four rugged corner screws. The cabinet is ideally suited (size and shape) for the PineA64 board; with room left for mounting power supply filters, batteries and GPIO cabling, or even a fan.

If you need a ground plane , the aluminum bottom plate (or top plate!) is perfect; else if you need a non Gaussian enclosure the interchangeable ABS plastic bottom plate is also perfect. While I do plan to place my desk Pine board on display in one of Dustin's classy cases, my headless server boards need to be protected too... and this little box is a perfect enclosure.

Hello all, 
I'm looking for some answers you may be able to help me with. I have a screen from a Kindle Fire HD7 and curious whether or not it can be adapted for use with my Pine+? 
I also have a smaller non touchscreen LCD from an old baby monitor that I would like to try. 
Any help would be most appreciated!

Just wondering if its possible to add a boot image to the image if its possible with the stock image and if so how id have to go about that?

Hi,

I just noticed a problem with the above script and do not recall seeing this in the past. When I run it, I get the following:

debian@pine64:/usr/local/sbin$ sudo ./pine64_health.sh
CPU freq : 480.00 MHz
CPU count : 4
Governor : ondemand
Core voltage : 1.04 V
SOC Temp : 35 C
Cooling state : 0
cat: /sys/devices/soc.0/cpu_budget_cool.16/roomage: No such file or directory
Cooling limit :
debian@pine64:/usr/local/sbin$

Does anyone else see this? I am wondering if this could be related to the recent kernel update or if something else is going on.

Thank you!

I took an old desktop pc case I had, stripped it down and mounted my Pine64 in it. I stripped the power supply down to the external cord connector and switch, allows me to switch it on and of easily. Mounted a small cpu fan under the board for a little cooling, and left the original case fan. Wired in a power strip for the power supplies for the pine64, cooling fans and speaker power. Wired up the front usb ports to a usb plug for the pine so both front usb ports on the case work. Then mounted a speaker on the front of the case. Granted, I would have to remove the cover to swap out sd cards, but i'm primarily using it to learn ubuntu, so not an issue right now. Lol, takes up some space, but hey, it works.


   
   
   

Hi,

The last couple of days I have been working on making our Pine A64 useful, at least in some way. It took some time, but progress is quite promising. Maybe someone would be interested in trying it out.

Hi all,
I got my self an Adafruit 16x2 LCD display, put it all together, plugged it in and it won't turn on, not even the backlight. I was wondering if someone had experience with the LCD and don't mind helping me.

I got two of the PINE64 while back for my OBDII project as well as for a another project for the kitchen and its been on the shelf for a while. I have no experience with GPIOs or I2C and recently got socked in to experiment with it. From what I read, PINE64 pins are same as it on Raspberry Pi and I though that the LCD would be compatible with PINE64. Aperintly it's not the case. If I can get some guidance on how to make it work with PINE64, that would be awesome.