Atomic Pi by Team IoT
The Atomic Pi is a high-power SBC (single board computer) for mounting inside a robot, and the specs are impressive. You get a single-board computer with an Intel processor for thirty-five American dollars. You get 16 Gigs of eMMC Flash, more than enough for a basic Windows/ARC system. It includes Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, a real-time clock, ethernet, and fast USB 3. The best part? It was only thirty-five dollars.
Drivers
The Windows 10 x64 bit drivers are a little difficult to find for the Atomic Pi, surprisingly. So we are hosting them for you here to run on your Atomic Pi powered robot. Unzip the files on a USB thumb drive and install them on your Atomic Pi. The WiFi drivers below will also enable 5ghz, increase speed and range.
Installation Tips & Performance for SBCs
We have a guide in the Support section that includes steps on freeing storage space, increasing the performance, powering the SBC, and running headless with remote desktop software of robot computers, such as single-board computers. View the instructions HERE.
Wow, with the rising chip prices, Amazon has this Atomic Pi on for an excellent deal right now. Only $87 CAD.
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07N298F2B
I ordered three of them from amazon some weeks ago. They were 38.99 with free shipping here in the USA. I have some power adapters and usb hubs on the way to get these working. Hopefully they jive well with Synthiam and EZBs. I am downloading all the drivers and recommended ISO files tonight to load on thumb drives.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08CGFM2B1?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details
Dang, Amazon updated the price to 49.99 now! I just checked the link. Maybe their algorithm raised it specifically because I ordered those three. Well, anyways it is still cheap and better value than a base level panda and rock pi with the same Intel Atom X5- 8350 CPU
Do you think this Atomic Pi SBC is faster and stronger then the Rock Pi X?
It takes my onboard Rock Pi X forever to boot into windows and start up ARC. About 2.5 minutes. I'm running it headless and connect to it remotely. Then once running the visual interface lags. I'll click on something in ARC (like a menu item or a skill setting menu) and it will hesitate. However Commands sent to the robot through connected USB EZB's seem to be fast enough. But I haven't yet really sent a lot of commands from complex scripts running at the same time.
I was thinking about going to a faster and more powerful SBC the the Rock Pi if there is one.
I don’t have a Rock pi X to compare to. I will say this, if you set the cpu to turbo all the time then Atomic Pi should handle it better because of the massive heatsink. I also plan to add a high flow fan over mine too. The Rock Pi X has a couple of advantages, one being it is very small and the next that you can get a variation with 4 or even 8 gb ram. In my mind I am thinking of cost first as I will not be mad if I waste 40 bucks on a board that was not as fast as I needed. The rock pi x cost is so high you might as well buy a full fledged mini pc and just pop it out of the case. You can get mini PCs now with Intel N5000 series chips for 140-180 that walk all over the atom x5-8350. Booting up I imagine is always going to take a minute or so because your running from a usb or slower emmc on these maker grade boards.
Thanks for the insight jstarne. That makes sense.
Being a user of both the Atomic Pi and the Rock Pi X, I can say that the 4GB on the Rock Pi X versus the 2GB does make a performance difference. It's much faster navigating around windows on the Rock Pi X. It's still doable on the Atomic Pi but more patience is needed.
@Jeremie, That's good to know. I actually have the Rock Pi X with the 4GB ram option. I can deal with the slight delays in the Windows interface when I'm working in ARC or Win it's self. I am manly worried about the timing between this SBC and the EZB's on the robot. I have a lot of commands going to the robot through several EZB's. Most of the scripts and commands are timing sensitive. I notice I've already had to increase some sleep() commands in some of my scripts so they run properly or at all.
Time will tell. It won't be too hard to pull the Rock Pi X and replace it with a faster computer using the same USB connection to the EZB's or just go back to all WIFI connection.
I have been working with this Atomic Pi a few hours trying different things like reinstalling, checking for corrupted files ect. I install the win 10 lite from the ISO file on this synthiam website, and then WiFi driver. The WiFi is working fine, but the resolution is stuck on 800x600 no sound through HDMI. I tried downloading the full driver pack and click DrvBK.exe and I get the error in the above picture. I have tried DISM and scan commands for corrupted files. I tried reinstall clean twice. Now I am suspecting the ISO was corrupted while burning to the usb drive. I installed Rufus USB imager and I am starting over again. Any ideas?