Rock Pi X by Radxa
The most bang for your buck with embedded computing! This is probably the most impressive single board computers (SBC's) that we've experienced for the price. This is similar to the Up Board and LattePanda, but more affordable.
Because this board runs Microsoft Windows, it can also run ARC directly. There is an audio jack for speakers and an HDMI for video.
ROCK Pi X is the first X86 SBC(Single Board Computer) by Radxa. It can run Windows and ARC. ROCK Pi X features...
- Intel Cherry Trail quad core processor Z8350
- 64bit dual channel 1866Mb/s LPDDR3
- up to 4K@30 HDMI Video
- 3.5mm audio jack with mic
- 802.11 ac Wi-Fi
- Bluetooth 4.2
- USB Port
- GbE LAN
- 40-pin color expansion header
- Realtime clock
- USB PD and QC powering
ROCK Pi X comes in Model A and Model B; each model has 1GB, 2GB, or 4GB ram options. For the detailed differences between Model A and Model B, please check the Specifications.
This comparison chart, done by our friends at Explaining Computers says it all...
Drivers
Synthiam has assembled a driver package to get your Rock Pi/x Rock'n! The driver package includes an installation readme file, which we recommend reading.
Download Rock Pi/X Windows 10 Drivers (x64)There is a document with step-by-step instructions for installing the drivers. Be sure to read the file and follow the instructions.
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 Performance Tips To Make a Robot.
Avalonia is the only GUI we considered. Actually, when ARC was being developed out of ezbuilder remnants, we drew our a road map. For a brief time we considered porting it to a avalonia, but there were too many restrictions due to dev status. The GUI would have to change significantly, and rendering performance was super terrible. Redundant screen refreshes and redraws. Flickering. And layout issues where things just didn’t line up.
so the decision was to be aware that one of two things is going to happen soon
core will get a GUI that’s cross platform. We can easily fork and adapt to it. Because it’s something we consider to be core compatible as we continue developing
windows moves to the cloud and runs in a Remote Desktop type portal and is available from any os
one of those two things will happen - depends on what’s first
in the meantime, the love from paying subscribers has gotten us pretty hyped and validated our efforts. So there’s a bunch of work going on for new skills. Such as yolo object detection, intel realsense navigation, and ros node integration. Oh and a unity add on. Oh oh and a two way telepresence option for exosphere that turns absolutely every robot into a telepresence.
some pretty cool stuff! Lots of ML items planned to. We’ve been collecting a ton of data from exosphere, and now starting to experiment with the robots self navigating.
I’m really enjoying the ui and performance improvements of recent ARC releases - hope you are to. It’s made a drastic improvement on sbc’s. I’ve been using the up board a lot lately and ARC is so much more response than it has ever been!
Maybe a stupid question but these boards will require a dedicated Windows 10 license, correct. I think those are about $60 so this needs to be considered.
Theoretically you don’t actually have to register your copy of windows. It will still work. You could always buy an oem licence on eBay. Maybe $5
What Nink says. DJ has mentioned this before. I think he said everything in Windows 10 should work except being able to customize your desktop.
No windows license needed. Just install windows and there’s a little message in the corner that says unregistered at all times.
I don’t register windows on my sbc’s
Hey All,
The Rock Pi X heat sink is back in stock at Seeed Studio (China Warehouse)! The stock is pretty limited though.
They still have plenty of Rock Pi X boards too:
https://www.seeedstudio.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=Rock+pi+x
Oh and if I hadn't said it yet, Happy New Year to you guys and gals!
Thx Heatsink is $12 CAD + 10 shipping on Ali Express (for a hunk of metal). I ordered a Rock Pi X and Heatsink from Seeed $103 US including shipping (~$135 CAD I guess after conversion fees etc) lets see how much I get hit up for customs, taxes, courier transaction fees and other stuff.
They need a North American distributor - even robot shop would be a good start for them