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First Boot of Pi 3

e14 Contributor

This is my first Pi, and while I have a background in microprocessor technology, I find myself stumbling through this setup. I have a Pi 3B with a 3.5" touchscreen plugged in. I have a USB mouse and keyboard installed and headphones plugged in as well. I am using a SanDisk 16GB SD card that I loaded with the 2016-05-27-raspbian-jessie.img file. I have not connected an HDMI display, as I was hoping that it would work with the touchscreen or be accessible from the Win7 desktop I have it connected to for power(once the Pi booted up).

 

I read that it takes a long time for the first boot, but how long? I'm over an hour now, and I still occasionally have the green led flash on and the red one off for a second. My touch screen is lit up, but nothing is displayed on it. I have an explorer window up, but no sign of the Pi being recognized by my desktop.

 

Is it taking longer because of the size of the SD card, and it has to reformat it?

 

Are there any error codes for the flashes that I should be aware of? (there doesn't seem to be any pattern at the moment, the green occasionally flashes on, and on an even longer period the red one occasionally flashes off).

 

I'm supposed to shut this down "cleanly", but how do I do that if it never comes up correctly?

 

Obviously I will not get an answer before I have to power this down for the night, but when I do (assuming it never comes out of it's current state of setup) will it damage the Pi in any way, or just possibly the SD card?

 

Should I take the touchscreen off, hook up an HDMI monitor and try again? Or should I blank the SD card, reformat it, and reload the image file in case it was corrupted from this first attempt?

 

Should I start with NOOBS? I didn't because after reading, I felt that I would just end up with raspbian-jessie anyway, so why hassle with the "middleman". I had no issue using Win32DiskImager to load the image file onto the SD card, but maybe I should have started with NOOBS anyway.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated, as I stumble through learning all of this.

 

Thanks   :-)

 

 

*****Update*****

After nearly 2 hours of sporadic flashing, but absolutely nothing else, I pulled the USB power cord. While powered down I removed the touchscreen and plugged in an HDMI monitor. On power up, it booted and went immediately to a desktop. It must have finished its initial setup the first time.

 

Anyway, the Pi works and now I need to learn what I can do with it. Not sure about the touch screen, but will try again after I learn more about the Pi.

 

Just thought I'd update for anyone who might have a similar issue.

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  • 0

    Thanks to all for your responses and your welcome; it's great to see, and of course be part of, an active community.

     

    As it turns out, this is an inexpensive 3.5" display, that apparently does not support an already established OS installation. It requires that I select the appropriate driver from the manufacturers website, and then download an image file that includes both their driver and the OS (raspbian-jesse); it must be loaded with a fresh OS install. I will have to mount that image file onto another SD card before I try that particular touchscreen again. In the meantime I have ordered a 7" capacitive touchscreen; I realized that I went too cheap with the 3.5" screen. I had planned to ultimately get the 7" screen, but wanted to make sure that the Pi would do what I was looking for.

     

    I can see that a Pi could be very useful for many different applications. My initial project is a greenhouse controller, monitoring and controlling lights, temperature, humidity, etc.

     

    I'm pretty sure that this amazing little machine can do that for me, just a matter of the details.

     

    I had originally thought about a Pi controlling a few arduinos, that actually did the work, but have decided that I would just be over-complicating things for no good reason; my impression is that this Pi could do it all for me.

     

    Any thoughts on that? Or Anybody working a similar project using one of these?

     

    Thanks again to all

Reply
  • 0

    Thanks to all for your responses and your welcome; it's great to see, and of course be part of, an active community.

     

    As it turns out, this is an inexpensive 3.5" display, that apparently does not support an already established OS installation. It requires that I select the appropriate driver from the manufacturers website, and then download an image file that includes both their driver and the OS (raspbian-jesse); it must be loaded with a fresh OS install. I will have to mount that image file onto another SD card before I try that particular touchscreen again. In the meantime I have ordered a 7" capacitive touchscreen; I realized that I went too cheap with the 3.5" screen. I had planned to ultimately get the 7" screen, but wanted to make sure that the Pi would do what I was looking for.

     

    I can see that a Pi could be very useful for many different applications. My initial project is a greenhouse controller, monitoring and controlling lights, temperature, humidity, etc.

     

    I'm pretty sure that this amazing little machine can do that for me, just a matter of the details.

     

    I had originally thought about a Pi controlling a few arduinos, that actually did the work, but have decided that I would just be over-complicating things for no good reason; my impression is that this Pi could do it all for me.

     

    Any thoughts on that? Or Anybody working a similar project using one of these?

     

    Thanks again to all

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  • 0 in reply to e14 Contributor

    To BP:

    I am using the 7" Display (bought from element14) Stock # 49Y1712. Works Great outta the box. There is a Peter Oakes(sp?) Youtube video about this 7" LCD Screen Install (BTW PO is a great contributor here at this Blog) The particular video is not quite exactly what I (or you) will have, but you should be able to work through it. I think PO mentions that the 7" LCD (made for RaspPi) is the Default Display for the RaspPi. GTK (Good To Know). So, I connected (internally) the RaspPi 3B to the 7" LCD W/I a SmartiPi Enclosure. Connected a USB Mouse and a USB Keyboard, then did those Commands that PO mentioned in his Video(s). BTW w/ a USB mouse, the Cursor on the LCD "tracks" either/or USB Mouse/Your-Finger-on-Display. Have not gotten to get the App -that presents the Virtual (screen) Keyboard working yet. But an attached USB Keyboard works fine for now.

    BP wrote>>...

    I can see that a Pi could be very useful for many different applications. My initial project is a greenhouse controller, monitoring and controlling lights, temperature, humidity, etc.

    USCDADNYC reply>>Maybe an Indoor Herb Garden is a distant Project for me

    BP wrote>>...

    I had originally thought about a Pi controlling a few arduinos, that actually did the work, but have decided that I would just be over-complicating things for no good reason; my impression is that this Pi could do it all for me.

    USCDADNYC reply>>Actually using a (few) Arduinos is the (ecological/practical) way to go w/ small projects. Why use a Sledge Hammer to "swat" a Fly? But other constraints/Abilities/$$$ come into play. Can one handle two platforms (RaspPi and Arduino)? Although both are quite inexpensive. Then there is the Time Factor(s). I have a Student License for MatLab/Simulink. This product has S/W Apps that integrate MatLab-RaspPi-Arduino. (MatLab student license costs $99 USD [US Dollars])

     

    USCDADNYC (NY NY USA)