Need advice on setup, RPI ,SBC or small PC for multiple node

AllStarLink
1

I've been doing allstarlink setup since acid, it is not my first rodeo.

But I was not following the scene that much lately. and I have some question for the knowledge pool and some advice based on your experience.

I have a site that is not easy to reach in the winter where I have a 900MHZ and a UHF repeater under ASL. I also have an APRS node at 144.39. All of those runs on 3 raspberry pi and I have a kiwisdr at the same site.

As you can see that is a lot of SBC on a montain top. We do have from time to time the usual crashing of on of those and we are able to reset them remotely. Lately its been happening much more than before, and it is not always the same SBC. We wanted to maybe use a 5volt power supply from an old computer, hoping it will be more stable than the 4 small power supply we have for each of the SBC, But that is like putting all our eggs in the same basket. And having independent device is what was the more appeling for using SBC rather than a computer for the whole setup. But using a single power supply kind of breaks the purpose. So I was wondering what you guys thinks about using a nice I5 with 16 gig of ram and a 500 gig SSD all of this in a fanless setup. I could run the APRS and both ASL node on the machine. I used to run acid on a P4 with 2 node and both nodes were using USBRadio and all was running grate. We switched to simpleUSB whne we went to raspberry pi's I really liked USBRadio rather than simpleUSB. The only drawback was that sometimes the USB port would get mixed and the settings were mixed. I only had to log remotely into the computer and switch the number of the ports in the good nodes setup and all was well for some times.

SO the main question, Keep the RPI and run a single PWS for all of them? Or go with a fanless setup and go back to USBRadio? Is the mixing of the USB port still a going thing or was there a fix?

The computer been runing windows on it for 2 years on site, so we know that the machine is working well. It was running a small DVR for our IP Camera, we switched the recording of site as we now have a fiber and bandwith is not a problem anymore.

So what you say?

Pierre
VE2PF

2

I use Meanwells from fleaboy. Cheap but supposedly medical grade.

3

Yes, that or a no cost to me computer power supply is about the same. A stable 5 volt with enough power to support a lot of SBC's Hoping they are working well of course.. But what is your point of view about using a real computer vs some SBC's?

4

I've only used modular server PSs (HP, as I recall) for their 12v, turned up to 13.5.; 35A, roughly shaped like a carton of cigarets. I use it when I need 12v on an itinerant basis. Kinda noisy fan but reliable for the last 20...