Beaglebone Ai Heating Issues

Oh, please. I've been working with the BB for some time now and comparing the support from the NVIDIA site to the now BB Google forums, the NVIDIA support and community far outshines anything the BeagleBoard folks are doing.  If you can get a response from the BeagleBoard you are lucky.

And the fact the BB AI is using the same SoC as the X15 goes back to one of my original issues; its 6+ year old technology.  It was not designed for any of the newer AI and ML aps or workloads of today.

That's maybe just a render fault (i.e. it could lie down since there seems to be space).. It's a MOSFET, for PWM control, so should run cool too.

That MOSFET is overkill, but it's getting harder finding smaller-package through-hole MOSFETs these days (most are surface mount).

it is a MOSFET used for the Pwm control. I have no 3d model of that package lying down so it renders the default position, there are thermal vias o nthe board, the mosfet should be mounted lying down so it won't stick up above the headers.
As @shabaz pointed out  it is hard to find suitable tht mosfets and this particular one is used for fan and heater control on a ton of 3d printer boards and in my own projects.
feel free to replace it with a different one that is pin compatible. the PCB is not in house yet so I haven't evaluated the design in practive, there may be some changes in later revisions.
I also may do a smd version once evaluated  get it made with a pcba service if the demand is there for it.

I've had great experiences with the BB team-members for years. They're human, everyone has their off days.

jomoenginer  wrote:

 

It was not designed for any of the newer AI and ML aps or workloads of today.

Ok, so what? There's new orgs being formed all the time, dealing with compute and AI at the edge. That's a growing deployment scenario, and even Cortex-M is being deployed for that role. The raw performance isn't the only criteria.. device longevity, industrial temp spec, hard real-time engines, are all things that the TI chips are good at.

It sounds like you expected BB-AI to be something different from what it is.

It's good that the Nano is guaranteed for sale until 2025.. I hadn't realized that.

https://developer.nvidia.com/embedded/community/lifecycle

the fan listed in the bom here: BB AI cooling Addon board available
is the one that fits on the heatsink that is mounted on the BBAI as default.

Have you had any contact from BB themselves on this ipv1 ? As you have helped bring the issues to light perhaps they could ship you a new board as way of a thank you?

Nope. I just expect the board to perform as advertised.  The "AI" in the name seems to imply it is designed for AI, meaning Artificial Intelligence.  Or, are you saying it stands for something else?  Chip longevity is only valid for currently produced products and for a specific support lifestyle, or in cases where a mature device is mandatory by spec;  not typically for new products in this particular space. 

jomoenginer  wrote:

 

...I just expect the board to perform as advertised.  The "AI" in the name seems to imply it is designed for AI, meaning Artificial Intelligence.  Or, are you saying it stands for something else?

I think the board will work for AI applications..

It's predecessor was the BB-X15, powered by some high-powered rocket : )

Back at school, we were taught there used to be some cheerios commercial about feeling groovy, and one person sued the manufacturer because they didn't make him feel groovy in the mornings. The product is different but the concept feels the same : )

Edit media

Dimensions x Small Medium Large Custom

Subject (required) Brief Description Tags (separated by comma) Video visibility in search results Visible Hidden

Parent content

RE: Beaglebone Ai Heating Issues

Poster

Upload Preview

Ok

Cancel

jomoenginer , I understand the frustration, especially when we want hardware to work and just work, and work as advertised.

I think that with the BeagleBone range of hardware it's pushing for something different than with the repeatedly compared nVidia board and that it is open source. Unfortunately regardless of people's opinion and view of open source, that introduces the challenge of it being supported and it relies on the generosity of people with their time and effort to support it well.

This isn't too different from some other boards that are released that rely on the generosity of the Community to support them, and if someone doesn't want to support it, dare I say it, they're free to walk away, and I agree there's some element of expectancy to pay for a product and have it working to a level - and I would suggest that there are products out there which meet that criteria.

BeagleBone gives you the opportunity to get into the hardware on a level that proprietary hardware doesn't, and I would personally suggest that's partly what you're paying for, and it means you have to work a bit more at it, though you can then turn around and say "I did this, this is my cred" and share it, and be appreciated for it. To me that's part of the community and part of open source, you may not agree however it is what I've seen as the ethos behind most open source hardware and software products and it's a challenge to the ecosystem regardless.

This's why we're looking at trying to solve the problem rather than focus on the flaw of the problem and pin someone to it for being responsible, we know what the problem is, we can find a solution and then hopefully the next problem is more a case of "do I put an if statement here?". If we hit a hard wall then we can go back and say it needs changing.

Does that make sense? Help if you can, you don't have to, and we hear you on the issues.