I just wanted to put this out there. Purchased a new Pi4 for our repeater site, for our VHF, UHF repeater controllers and a UHF steerable CDM remote base. I figured why not get the more powerful Pi. Bad decision. As soon as I plug in a third URI they fall over and all the URIs “die”. No matter what combo or model, DMK, RB, RB-Lite. I moved the Flash card over to a Pi3B (not even a +), no problem they run fine.
Now I’m reading that the Pi4’s have current capacity limits on the USB ports? WTH.
Has anyone else experienced this? Any experience with powered hubs and assigning multiple URIs? What about a Pi5? I like the Pi’s because Vilros makes a passive heatsink case, no more fans. -Jim
A Pi4’s USB max power output is 1.2A. However I am pretty sure the same limit applies on a Pi3. That should be enough power for three cards. If you are having power issues its more likely to be the power source for the Pi system as a whole. You aren’t trying to power the amp on the DMK with USB power are you?
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I have to question why they all run fine on a Pi3. I tried a RB RIM instead of the DMK, same issue. Also increases the supply current available to the pi, same issue. Almost as though something maybe software might be going on, all the heartbeats die. No issues with the same image/flash card plugged into the Pi3. Gives me pause to maybe try a different image with the Pi4 hardware now that we’re discussing this.
When your USB stops working does dmesg report any undervolt errors? That would be a sign this is power-related.
There are known issues running multiples of the same type of USB device on rPi4 boards. Supposedly, this was fixed in rev 1.4 and rev 1.5 boards, but I’ve found this to not be the case in my testing. It is a low-level problem, nothing to do with the operating system.
You can sometimes get around this by using a USB hub of a specific chipset, can’t remember which now.
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Okay, so ASL3 is working great on the Pi4 with three assorted URIs. They are now all functioning (on the bench anyway). This new ASL3 is going to be one heck of a learning curve for me coming from ASL legacy and HamVoip over the past ~10yrs.
My first rewrite will be scripts for binary control of the GPIO pins out to a Moto CDM remote base radio. The legacy version had GPIO definitions in IAX.conf. If anyone has tackled a steerable CDM on ASL3 I would be interested in any differences.