Does Anyone Use the Craneboard?

Hi Mr. Einstein,

I apologize if you haven't received the support you have expected regarding the AM3517.  It is our desire to assist all of our customers in a timely manner.  I see that many of your questions have been addressed by our E2E community here but it appears that there may be others.  We are happy to try to address your questions.  Would you please highlight your outstanding questions on the AM3517?  

Have you posted any of your craneboard specific questions on the beagleboard.org community site?  If so, we can have those addressed there as well.  

Thank you.

Hello Mr. Crane,

  Thank you for responding to my complaint.  My company is developing an industrial HMI program and we decided to use the CraneBoard for our development since the board features both graphics and CAN bus abilities.  Through long days of experimenting and begging for assistance from the good people here (largely without success since the use of the CraneBoard seems to not be too widespread), finally have been able to get a successful linux Angstrom load to work at a screen resolution of 1400x1050 on an 8 gig SD card.

My real question is WHY DON'T YOU PUBLISH A GETTING STARTED PAPER WITH SIMPLE STATEMENTS OF SPECIFICATIONS??????

The maximum screen resolution is documented NOWHERE!

The maximum usable SDHC card size is documented NOWHERE!

The fact that the Ethernet won't work unless using Power-Over-Ethernet or an external 5V supply is documented NOWHERE (that is, the little USB socket connected to a computer won't operate the Ethernet)!

How to setup a serial port connection to HyperTerm or MiniCom for initial booting is documented NOWHERE!

How to stop the boot process in order to set the screen resolution for Angstrom and the change to the environment variable "mmcargs" in order to change the resolution is documented NOWHERE!

The fact that a powered USB 2.0 hub is required to support connecting the keyboard and mouse is documented NOWHERE (this is especially insane Mr. Crane)!!!!

For example....  Here's what I would like to see on the home page of the CraneBoard: 

Here's a primer on how to boot Angstrom.....

1) The maximum resolution that the CraneBoard supports is 1400x1050 with 24 bits of color.

2) When you use the sample Angstrom build supplied by Mistral, or build your own Angstrom image using the on-line tool located at narcissus.angstrom-distribution.org, the screen will come up at 640x480 with 16 bits of color.

3) The maximum SD card size for the boot SD card is 8 gigabytes.  We recommend using the SanDisk class 4 8 GB SDHC card available at WalMart for about $15. 

4) To change your screen resolution (remember, the maximum is 1400x1050 with 24 bits of color), perform the following cookbook instructions:

a) Hook your CraneBoard's HDMI output to the DVI input of a monitor that supports a resolution of 1400x1050 at 50 Hz refresh rate.  An example of such a monitor is the Samsung 2433.  You can purchase an HDMI to DVI adapter cable at your local Radio Shack store for about $40 or at many other sources on-line for as little as $10. 

b) Hook a Null-modem serial cable to the 9 pin serial port of the CraneBoard.  The other end can either be plugged into another Windows or Linux computer's serial port, or, if your computer lacks a serial port, you can plug the other end of the Null-modem serial cable into a serial-to-USB adapter cable available at Amazon.com for about $10.  We recommend a serial-to-USB cable that uses the Prolific PL2303HX.  The one made by TrendNet (which is available for $11.16 at Amazon) works well.

c) Plug the Craneboard into a 5V 1 Amp power supply.  A "wall-wart" will work fine just as long as it provides about 1 Amp.  The CraneBoard uses an "L" plug for its 5V power supply.  As an alternative, you can use Power-Over-Ethernet to power the board.  NOTE: PLUGGING THE SMALL USB PLUG INTO A COMPUTER WILL NOT POWER THE CRANEBOARD SUFFICIENTLY TO RUN ANGSTROM!!!!

d) Plug a POWERED USB 2.0 HUB into the main USB port on the CraneBoard.  You can then plug a USB keyboard and mouse into the powered USB 2.0 hub.

e) Startup the RS232 terminal emulator on your Windows or Linux-based computer.  HyperTerm (a program provided with Windows XP, but not included with Windows Vista or Windows 7) can be used if you are running Windows.  However, HyperTerm has some problems that require you to re-start it every time you boot the CraneBoard.  We recommend that you use a Linux-based computer as your "Craneboard Angstrom startup computer" rather than Windows.  A very easy to use program called MiniCom is included with Linux and will allow you to connect up to the CraneBoard in order to control the boot process.  Setup your terminal emulator (either HyperTerm or MiniCom) to run at 115000 baud, 8 bits, no parity, no flow control.

f) It is highly recommended (but not absolutely necessary), that you plug the Ethernet plug into a working 10/100 Ethernet connection.

g) You're finally ready to power the CraneBoard in order to boot Angstrom!  Plug in the power and you should see the boot load come up on your Windows or Linux-based computer that's connected to the serial port!  As soon as you see the first "Starting X-loader..." messages, press any key on the Windows/Linux computer to stop the boot....

h) Type the "print" command at the prompt.  You should see a list of all of the boot environment variables displayed.

i) In order to change the screen resolution from the default 640x480x16, we want to add on our desired resolution to the environment variable "mmcargs".

j) To do this, type the following (in this example, we're going to set the resolution to 1280x1024 with 16BPP color and 60 Hz refresh rate:

# setenv mmcargs ${mmcargs} omapfb.mode=dvi:1280x1024MR-16@60

k) If you want to set the MAXIMUM screen resolution of 1400x1050 (50 Hz is our refresh rate at this resolution), here's the proper command line:

# setenv mmcargs ${mmcargs} omapfb.mode=dvi:1400x1050-16@50

Would simple, unambiguous instructions, written by someone whose native language is English have been so hard to put on the Wiki Mr Crane??  Why did I have to spend hours screwing around with this garbage?

Great job, Fredric!

I have also bought a Craneboard especially for making use of the CAN bus. However, I want to develop my application over Android.

Right now I am struggling with installing an application from the Android Debug shell that automatically starts after the boot process is over. From Windows, I can issue a adb install App.apk command, but from the device built-in shell I have trouble finding the install command (if any).

By the way, I am using a TeraTerm as Windows terminal emulator.

About the power supply, are you sure it will only draw 1 Amp? On the board, it is written 2A.

Keep in touch! (we seem to be a small community)

Valeriu

Hi again Valeriu,

  I am afraid that I'm totally ignorant of Android so I don't believe that I can help you too much there..  In fact, I'm a Linux newbie as well, having spent my career doing Windows stuff.  I was okay using a 1 amp 5V power supply and it didn't seem to overheat, but now I use the 3 Amp overpriced Radio Shack one.

Dear Valeriu,

We also have been using CraneBoard.

Below mentioned are some of the useful CraneBoard links:

http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/CraneBoard

http://craneboard.org

Regards,

N.S.SriHarsha

Yeah, we all know about these sites.

Problem is, these sites provide absolutely NO useful information and are misleading and ambiguous.

Hi Fredric,

Please let us know the kind of information that needs to be specified in the Wiki page, we can have the information contributed.

Regards,

N.S.SriHarsha