[time-nuts] Small time server for mobile use.

Oz-in-DFW lists at ozindfw.net
Sun May 24 08:06:34 EDT 2015


On 5/24/2015 5:46 AM, Attila Kinali wrote:
> On Wed, 13 May 2015 09:07:44 -0500
> bownes <bownes at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> For the advocates of RPi solutions, I put about half a dozen in to support 
>> some non mission critical infrastructure about a year ago. We are using them 
>> for for logging, reading QR codes, running a vending machine, kiosk web 
>> browsers, and similar tasks. In short, nothing requiring heavily lifting. 
>>
>> I've been incredibly dissappointed in the results. Well over half of them 
>> have needed replacement and not a one runs reliably. They need rebooting at 
>> intervals from hours to a few tens of days to recover from total lock up. 
>> The problem is not environmental, power or SD cards. 
> Do you know what the problem is?
>
> I know that the RPI has pretty cheap design (like most of these super-cheap
> SoC boards) and does suffer from a few problems. The most common one
> is under-designed power supply. Together with the ultra-cheap wall-wart
> supplies mostly used results in a quite decreased MTBF due to spikes/drops
> on the power rails (BTW: soekris suffers from that too, just that a better
> wall-wart supply doesn't help). Depending on the environment, in which
> those boards are run, overheating might also be a problem.
>
> Other than that, i am not aware of any software or hardware issues that
> would cause the RPI, or any other board, to run unreliably.
>
> 				Attila Kinali
Many of the chips in the original PI run rather hot and need heatsinking
if used in other than free-air ambient temperatures.  I've given up on
them for anything that I can't easily reset.

-- 
mailto:oz at ozindfw.net    
Oz
POB 93167 
Southlake, TX 76092 (Near DFW Airport) 





More information about the time-nuts mailing list