Is Pine right for me -- if so what board?

[MetroWestMA]

Hi Everyone,

I am about to launch a product that I have prototyped around a RPI 3B+, and I may build up to 1000 of them in the first year.

I have several concerns about the RPI -- one is the lack of a rechargeable battery option which the Pine seems to solve -- I have been using USB power bricks, but cannot reliably read battery remaining etc.  So do the pine boards have a charging circuit on board that can programmatically show time remaining / percentage and gracefully shutdown?  And can the be plugged in and unplugged like a iPad or tablet without rebooting to start charging and switch to power charging while the system runs?  If so great!

What is the battery life of the Pinebook with the 8000mAH battery (I have been using 10,000mAH on the RPI), and could I use two 8000mAH batteries in parallel for longer life?

Is the 7inch touch screen comparable in quality and brightness to the RPI standard screen, and can it be rotated to operate in portrait instead of landscape?  Are there other third party screen options?

Another concern regarding the RPI is SD card corruption on non-orderly shutdowns -- is the eMMC option more appropriate or do I need to come up with some read only file system recovery option?

My application requires a 3G/4G modem, touch screen, and makes use of the Ethernet port to provide network sharing to another peripheral -- I have scripts on Unix to remap all the ports -- I'm sure I can get these ported to the Pine64.

In terms of operating systems, my application is current a web browser in kiosk mode running against a local Python / Django web server -- so I could use just about anything, maybe even Android (or I could redevelop a native Android app).  Bu I assume Ubuntu could work well for this and match my development environment.

So is Pine64 for me...and if so what board would I start with.

Thanks in advance for any help, and sorry about all the questions.  On paper the Pine64 products look like a great upgrade over the RPI for what I want.

MetroWestMA

[tllim]

Hi Everyone,

I am about to launch a product that I have prototyped around a RPI 3B+, and I may build up to 1000 of them in the first year.

I have several concerns about the RPI -- one is the lack of a rechargeable battery option which the Pine seems to solve -- I have been using USB power bricks, but cannot reliably read battery remaining etc.  So do the pine boards have a charging circuit on board that can programmatically show time remaining / percentage and gracefully shutdown?  And can the be plugged in and unplugged like a iPad or tablet without rebooting to start charging and switch to power charging while the system runs?  If so great!

What is the battery life of the Pinebook with the 8000mAH battery (I have been using 10,000mAH on the RPI), and could I use two 8000mAH batteries in parallel for longer life?

Is the 7inch touch screen comparable in quality and brightness to the RPI standard screen, and can it be rotated to operate in portrait instead of landscape?  Are there other third party screen options?

Another concern regarding the RPI is SD card corruption on non-orderly shutdowns -- is the eMMC option more appropriate or do I need to come up with some read only file system recovery option?

My application requires a 3G/4G modem, touch screen, and makes use of the Ethernet port to provide network sharing to another peripheral -- I have scripts on Unix to remap all the ports -- I'm sure I can get these ported to the Pine64.

In terms of operating systems, my application is current a web browser in kiosk mode running against a local Python / Django web server -- so I could use just about anything, maybe even Android (or I could redevelop a native Android app).  Bu I assume Ubuntu could work well for this and match my development environment.

So is Pine64 for me...and if so what board would I start with.

Thanks in advance for any help, and sorry about all the questions.  On paper the Pine64 products look like a great upgrade over the RPI for what I want.

MetroWestMA

Check out PINE A64-LTS board. For draft calculation,1,000mAH last you about an hour. Your can parallel the Lithium battery assume that you have enough knowledge to do that. If not, please don't try due to playing with Lithium battery carry some risk.

[MetroWestMA]

tllim -- I was poking around the site some more...so we would go with the PINE A64-LTS, need the BLE/WiFi module and 7 inch touch screen and need to power another peripheral (maybe 300ma) and a USB Cell modem (varies but maybe 300ma on average and spikes to 2A).  Right now I can get about 5 hours out of a USB 10,000mAH USB charging brick with it wired directly up to the cell modem.  I wonder if the PINE A64-LTS board could supply this current or if I would have to put a large capacitor in parallel to the entire power system when powered on to manage spikes?

Does anyone know the power usage of the PINE64 board compared to a Raspberry Pi?

Also -- I would probably run Ubuntu and would need to rotate the touch panel (video and touch drivers) so it is oriented like a cell phone with the port at the bottom (not on it's side or landscape).  This took some work on the RPI, but doable.

In the worst case I could use an external charging brick to extend battery life when needed, but I wanted to make sure the PINE64 board charging circuit won't reset the board when the external power source is plugged in and removed.

Overall this would appear to be a great upgrade to a RPI for what I am planning -- I'll order some parts.

Also, are there mechanical drawings of the PINE 64 board and 7 inch display that I can get to my mechanical to build a new case?

Thanks for your help....

MW

[tllim]

tllim -- I was poking around the site some more...so we would go with the PINE A64-LTS, need the BLE/WiFi module and 7 inch touch screen and need to power another peripheral (maybe 300ma) and a USB Cell modem (varies but maybe 300ma on average and spikes to 2A).  Right now I can get about 5 hours out of a USB 10,000mAH USB charging brick with it wired directly up to the cell modem.  I wonder if the PINE A64-LTS board could supply this current or if I would have to put a large capacitor in parallel to the entire power system when powered on to manage spikes?

Does anyone know the power usage of the PINE64 board compared to a Raspberry Pi?

Also -- I would probably run Ubuntu and would need to rotate the touch panel (video and touch drivers) so it is oriented like a cell phone with the port at the bottom (not on it's side or landscape).  This took some work on the RPI, but doable.

In the worst case I could use an external charging brick to extend battery life when needed, but I wanted to make sure the PINE64 board charging circuit won't reset the board when the external power source is plugged in and removed.

Overall this would appear to be a great upgrade to a RPI for what I am planning -- I'll order some parts.

Also, are there mechanical drawings of the PINE 64 board and 7 inch display that I can get to my mechanical to build a new case?

Thanks for your help....

MW

The PINE A64-LTS battery power already factor in 7" LCD panel consumption. Please visit PINE64 wiki page, http://wiki.pine64,org, for board and LCD panel info.

[zer0sig]

The above suggestion is a good one, and LTS in the name means the board will be produced and supported for at least a few more years (I think it was announced a minimum of 5 years early last year). I don't know what you are planning to run, but as far as I am aware, both Android and Xorg in Linux can be set for portrait orientation like a cellular phone.