I'm sure you're looking at this review because you're in the same boat as everyone else right now trying to either replace a broken Pi, or buy a new one... and the prices are 3x-5x due to the shortage. This board definitely hits the right price point and after two days of tweaking things, I got it to run Mailsail and I'm back in business. Here are some Pro's and Con's:
Pro: Same footprint as RPi, including GPIO location and pinouts.
Pro: Lower heat production than my Pi3.
Pro: CHEAP. Available.
Con: No wifi. Not a big deal for me. All my printers are running Ethernet.
Con: I can't get UART_A working. I tried everything. I'm using this via USB for now.
Con: Very limited number of available software appliance packages. To keep your expectations in check, assume you will download a working Linux, and then you need to do everything else (i.e., download and run KIAUH to get Mainsail and related components running)
Keeping all that in mind, and having some experience with SBCs, this one wasn't too terrible. It would have been great if I could have fired up the UART... but thats fine... its better than a dead RPi and a non-functional printer... LOL. I just bought a second one to be part of a simple NOE which I'll use to experiment with to see if I can get the UART functional, while the other one is in my OE.
***UPDATE: January 2023***
I've bumped up my review from 4 stars to 5. This little guy has been a godsend. Its cheap, runs mainsail just fine... and there is an added bonus (why I raised my rating): It runs at or even slightly below 5 volts!
Before, with my RPi's, I'd constantly get under-volt errors. The FAQs say that you need a "clean power supply" and I'm running the damn thing on an 750W ATX power supply! Turns out, the RPi needs more than 5V which causes all these undervolting issues. Long story short, Le Potato makes that issue go away... so it just earned itself one more star.
Also, in case you're stuck in your transition, here is how to get Mainsail on it:
-Download the Raspbian image from Libre Computer's repository.
-Use your favorite tool (Balena, or the RPI imager) to write that image on to the micro SD card.
-Connect the board with a USB keyboard, and to a monitor with HDMI, and power it/boot.
-Once booted, log in via the GUI, launch a terminal window, then launch the configurator at the terminal window( sudo raspi-config )
-In the raspi-config, go to Interfacing Options, then select SSH, and then enable
-Shut down the pi, disconnect the monitor and keyboard, boot again.
-SSH to the Potato's address
-Once logged into the libre, next you need to get KIAUH and the instructions for that can be found by searching for th33xitus and kiauh in google... but summary: you'll need to run one command to clone the KIAUH repository, then run KIUAH and the rest of the process should be pretty self explanatory.
after this step is done, you can connect your libre over to the printer controller with a USB cable (I'm still trying to figure out the UART connection), and complete configuration of the controller/mainsail.
Good luck!
| Processor | 1416 MHz none |
|---|---|
| Memory Speed | 2133 MHz |
| Graphics Coprocessor | Mali-450MP |
| Wireless Type | Infrared |
| Number of USB 2.0 Ports | 4 |
