Table of contents

RoadTest: New Year's Grab Bag RoadTest

Author: mstewart197930

Creation date: 6 Mar 2019

Evaluation Type: Development Boards & Tools

Did you receive all parts the manufacturer stated would be included in the package?: True

What other parts do you consider comparable to this product?:

What were the biggest problems encountered?:

Detailed Review:

Introduction

Ok, so got my second choice here, the EVK-PH8800 board.

I am familiar with these type of boards as very similar style of boards are used within railway signs on stations in the UK, to process the display data feed and show the service/notcies etc.

First things first, plug it in to the serial and switch it on and see what happens.

ok booted up nice and quick.

ok, whats the root password? couldnt find it listed anywhere, so just tried blank and in i logged.

change the root password to something more secure....

VGA Setup (also SD CARD)

Wanted to try and get VGA up and running, but unless you create an SD card to boot you cannot switch the display port as the filesystem doesn't exist on the internal eMMC.

so to ceate an SD card.

All the downloads/documents are stored in dropbox:-

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/1jh8mc5ru8cx8e2/AACG8uQdm7TJ8rV1ptSPFTLRa?dl=0

After downloading the SD card image, writing it to an SD card (had an 8Gb laying around), modified the structure a little as I wanted more space for the root filesystems.

3Gb for root, rest for a  mount to store data and my own scripts in.

ok, insert SD card and start it up, again still nice adn fast to startup, this time the filesystem is available, so can follow how to setup VGA in the manual:-

ok, VGA setup, only wanted this as a backup just in case....

Networking

configured the network port ETH0,

did this by adding the following to the bottom of dhcpcd.conf uinder /etc

rebooted and voila, on my home network.

Wanted to try and get VGA up and running, but unless you create an SD card to boot you cannot switch the display port as the filesystem doesn't exist on the internal eMMC.

Remote Access (SSH)

Try and log in via SSH, and should of thought first, but root blocked from logging in over SSH, sensible precaution, so back to serial.

create a new user, 'ms' and create and set permissions on home directory

try SSH again and we are all set.

Where to locate the board

Found an old project box, take out the guts of the old project, a few modifications and attach the board, only cables needed are power and ethernet and then attached the device to my office wall.

Project

My idea for  the project to use this for was as a home server to control and manage several automation tasks around the house.

It HAS to be secure as I plan on adding the front door release as it is fairly common for my missus to lock herself out of the house and when we moved into the house,

the house already had a door system in consisting of:-

Front door Buzzer

2 ringers/handsets with Buzzer to release the 12v front door lock

(already modified one of these previously as it is outside the kids bedroom, put in an extra switch to be able to disable the ring as it is really loud)

Remote access

created a /cron folder.

then made a simple bash script to update a dynamicdns account with my external IP

Script:

                              #!/bin/bash

                              IPADDR=`wget -qqO- --no-check-certificate 'https://duckduckgo.com/?q=what+is+my+ip' | grep -Pow 'Your IP address is \K[0-9.]+'`

                              wget -qqO- --no-check-certificate "https://api.dynu.com/nic/update?hostname=mshome.kozow.com&myip=$IPADDR&myipv6=no&username=XXXXX&password=YYYYY"

and then set it to be called form crontab every morning, as my IP is classed as Sticky, so changes very rarely, so this should be ok.

crontab -e

SHELL=/bin/bash

MAILTO=root@example.com

PATH=/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin

# For details see man 4 crontabs

# Example of job definition:

# .---------------- minute (0 - 59)

# |  .------------- hour (0 - 23)

# |  |  .---------- day of month (1 - 31)

# |  |  |  .------- month (1 - 12) OR jan,feb,mar,apr ...

# |  |  |  |  .---- day of week (0 - 6) (Sunday=0 or 7) OR sun,mon,tue,wed,thu,fri,sat

# |  |  |  |  |

# *  *  *  *  * command to be executed

1 06 * * * /cron/Update_remote_dyn_dns_com

Wanted extra security on SSH connection as dont like just username/password when opening to the internet, and as i said earlier, need extra security...

so wrote a c program, that will act as a menu system and an extra security section.

First step, create a user and replace shell in passwd to my executable:-

                              mark:x:1002:1002::/home/mark:/mon/emblogin

C program contains signal handler to block exceptions, although you would more than likely get logged off if you tried CTRL+C etc

when logged in via normal username/password you get then presented with this screen:-

The secondry auth comes by entering one or more of the above digits depending on other variables, and these change every time.

Once correct code is entered you get to a menu system:-

This needs developing further as all the hardware isn't built/in place yet.

wrote a little script to test out controlling the relays as below:-

                              #!/bin/bash

                              key={Note Telling you}

                              wget -qqO- 'http://192.168.100.170/auth?USER=1337&PASS=l3tm31n&KEY='`echo $key`

                              wget -qqO- 'http://192.168.100.170/gpioact?0=on'

                              sleep 2

                              wget -qqO- 'http://192.168.100.170/gpioact?0=off'

                              wget -qqO- 'http://192.168.100.170/auth?'

Shopping List

ESP-01s X 3 (already have some of these in my toolbox)

DHT11 X 4 (want to monitor temperature at certain points in house and my office with a future to cretae full thermostat system)

5V relay modules for ESP-01 X 4 (to control objects e,g lighting, boiler etc, probably need some more of these in future)

MQ2 Smoke Gas LPG Butane Hydogen gas Sensor Module (5V)

FTDI232 board with 3.3v support

now to develop the software for the esp-01's before they arrive as I already have a couple to play with, created a programming module to easily program the ESP-01's.

added the two LED's as an after thought so that i can test out the GPIO pins.

To put in programming mode, hold down P and press R and release, it is now available to program over serial........

Decided to use PlatformIO to program the ESP's, so installed Atom and platformIO on my laptop.

requirements for the ESP software:-

setup as webserver and connect to home network.

be able to authorise some how

be able to control both GPIO's on module

be able to read DHT11 data

be able to send data through serial port to attached device.

Web server structure:-

Wrote the code for the esp-01 devices and all seemed to work as expected apart form 1 issue, the relays.

The relays automatically switch to on when powering up due to the way the esp-01 works, which isnt really an issue for the automatic lighting, BUT does come to an issue where the front door is concerned, as this means if there was a power outage in the house, when it came back on, it would release the front door, so still looking at either creating a specific module myself, or modifying one of the relays.

Below is a Test video, just controlling a strip of 5V LED's, wrapped around a copper pipe(as a heat sink)

it is controlled from the script above for testing the relay boards

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New Year's Grab Bag RoadTest - Review

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For now.....

This is as far as I have got with the project up to now but will keep posting updates as i steam along, unfortunatly because i didnt know what I was getting i ddint order the extra parts i wanted for the project till after it arrived and some stuff has literally arrived this week, others I am still waiting for....

Conclusion

I am very impressed with the board overall, perfect for this kind of project.

The CPU is 1000MHz  ARM Cortex A9 32Bit RISC Microprocessor

On onBoard RAM is 1Gb DDR3 SDRAM.

4Gb eMMC Flash for booting if not using SDCard (PreLoaded with Linux OS)

Gigabit network ports

VGA and HDMI connectors

It has no moving parts at all, no Fans, HDD and doesnt get awfully warm whilst running,

although I have got a couple of holes in the top of the project box for heat to escape, just in case.

Overall neat and nice little linux board, ideal to be left on as the power consumption is very low compared to a server like my SUN V100, or DELL R200.

Full Specs:-

BOOT LOG

[   10.089050] random: nonblocking pool is initialized

[   10.813488] c_can_platform 481cc000.can can0: bit-timing not yet defined

[   10.820545] c_can_platform 481cc000.can can0: failed to open can device

[   10.859522] c_can_platform 481d0000.can can1: bit-timing not yet defined

[   10.893015] c_can_platform 481d0000.can can1: failed to open can device

[   10.937472] usb0: eth_open

[   11.343665] cpsw 4a100000.ethernet eth0: Link is Up - 100Mbps/Full - flow control off

UPDATE     16/04/2019

-----------------------------

ESP-01 issue where all ports are on initially on startup, I have found a solution and have some on order.

The microchip MCP23016, this is a port expander which is driven over the I2C bus, which is available on the ESP-01.

My plan on arrival is to hook up the MCP23016 with one of the modules and modify the relay board to be driven through the expansion chip.

When these have arrived, ill wire one up and see if it meets my needs with regars to not enabling on startup....