Hi, Am 19.12.2017 um 10:57 schrieb H. Nikolaus Schaller: > Hi all, > even if it looks as if nothing is happening, it > is sometimes behind the scenes and we are still alive > and committed to improve the GTA04. > > > First of all there is a new release of the Letux Kernel: > > letux-4.15-rc4: http://projects.goldelico.com/p/gta04-kernel/ > > > Next, Andreas has provided some patches for U-Boot. > > The most important one is to fix the "charge auto" > command so that I was able to add it to the boot.scr. > > What problem does that solve for you? > > The GTA04 had a problem that existed right from the > beginning, but wasn't ever solved well. > > If you let the battery drain below 0% the device would > no longer start on battery insertion. Only if you connect > it to a charger, the battery will start charging with > ~50-100mA. After a while the battery voltage reaches > 3.2V and this will wake up the GTA04. > > But then it starts to boot through U-Boot into the full > Linux kernel. This is a situation where the power hungry > OMAP and Display and backlight are all turned on > and draw ~400 mA. This immediately starts to discharge > the still almost empty battery and unless you are lucky, > the system will shut off, before it can start the Linux > charger driver and switch to 500 mA mode. > > So in the wort case the device would cycle and try to > start Linux every ca. 10 minutes but never succeeds. > In the best case the battery gets more and more energy > and after several cycles Linux fully boots and you can > charge up to 100%. In the worst case it cycles forever. > > The solution is simple: we just have to enable 500mA > charging earlier. E.g. in U-Boot, which means ca. 3 > seconds after the system turned on. > > What you should do: update your U-Boot in NAND. > > To do this, use makesd gta04 / makesd gta04a5 to format > a "production image" SD card (dual partition). Insert > into your GTA04, press the AUX button and insert the > battery. This will flash the new U-Boot into NAND > (red screen) and from that moment on you have this new > feature in your U-Boot and can use the SD card for other > things. > > So thanks to Andreas!
This is really great news! Kudos to Andreas and Nikolaus for working it out, it should make the GTA04 a much more reliable device. > Andreas has also prepared drivers for dfu access, > but I have not yet tested and integrated that. Comes > soon. > > This will allow to reflash NAND through USB so we > might eventually be able to do such updates without > a need for special SD cards. > > > On the OS (user space) side we still have to find a way > to rebuild and maintain QtMoko2 and Replicant. If someone > is doing experiments, please share! Or if someone wants > to take care of it, please tell. We are a community > which lives from exchange and activity of many individuals. > > > Regarding the GTA04 accessories like Qi & battery > charger or the FST-1 clone, it still needs some time for > preparing the first prototypes. It is not forgotten, but > takes time since hardware production need 100% perfection. > We can't apt-get upgrade a PCB :) > > > Finally, there is a new idea for a tool to help repair > the broken GTA04A5 boards, which collect dust. You remember > that the OMAP processor chips had shorts under the BGA > balls and that I have already removed these bad chips a > while ago: > > https://twitter.com/goldelico/status/918127907284901888 > > What has to be done next is to mount new ones and this > is where the new idea for a special tool comes in. > Its task is to protect the chips from swimming > away or rotating while melting the BGA solder balls. > > I plan to build and test the tool in January - with new > energy :) Sounds great! I hope it can revive some of the GTA04a5 boards. > So please don't loose spirit and enthusiasm. Tinkerphones > and GTA04 are not dead but alive... And you can help to > make them even more alive by tinkering with your GTA04 > or other device :) Please use this mailing list to share > ideas and ask questions and give answers. > > Let me close with wishing happy holidays and a good start > into 2018 which will hopefully bring a lot of new (and good) > things to tinker with - and good discussions. > > Nikolaus Happy holidays to you, and the whole community, too! Lukas
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