Orange Pi Zero

This diminutive single board computer powered by a quad core H2 processor can be purchased for very little. At the time of writing $6.99 from Alibaba + shipping.

You will need to purchase a Micro SD card separately at least 8Gb preferably Class 10 or faster. I opted for a 16Gb UHS-I SD card from ebay

For serial access I used a FTDI USB board. This can supply 3.3v via a jumper and from what I read the Orange PI Zero does not like 5v.

A good article on getting setup http://codelectron.com/how-to-setup-orange-pi-zero/

I tried a couple of operating systems. I found that RaspbianOS made the SoC run really hot circa 70C you can't keep your finger on its surface for too long.

[   18.170325] CPU Budget: Temperature: 69 Limit state:0 item[1200000,4,-1,0 0]
[   18.670126] CPU Budget: Temperature: 70 Limit state:1 item[1200000,3,-1,0 0]

I switched to https://www.armbian.com/orange-pi-zero/ and now the CPU runs much cooler too 53C

login as: root
root@192.168.1.197's password:
  ___                               ____  _   _____
/ _ \ _ __ __ _ _ __   __ _  ___  |  _ \(_) |__  /___ _ __ ___
| | | | '__/ _` | '_ \ / _` |/ _ \ | |_) | |   / // _ \ '__/ _ \
| |_| | | | (_| | | | | (_| |  __/ |  __/| |  / /|  __/ | | (_) |
\___/|_|  \__,_|_| |_|\__, |\___| |_|   |_| /____\___|_|  \___/
                       |___/
 
Welcome to ARMBIAN 5.30 stable Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS 3.4.113-sun8i
System load:   0.08 0.13 0.09   Up time:       6 min
Memory usage:  12 % of 241MB    IP:            192.168.1.197
CPU temp:      53°C
Usage of /:    82% of 1.4G

This is the ST7735 LCD Unit I picked up off ebay - http://www.ebay.com/itm/112411177768

Wiring as per this: http://www.instructables.com/id/Orange-Pi-Zero-Connect-TFT-SPI-ST7735/

Plumbing the device driver in

root@orangepizero:~# modprobe fbtft_device name=adafruit18 gpios=reset:1,dc:0,led:3 speed=16000000 fps=25 rotate=90 busnum=1
root@orangepizero:~# dmesg | tail -20
[   12.173627] vmouse_input_dev_open
[   12.231171] vmouse_input_dev_close
[   19.578663] gmac0: probed
[   19.579056] gmac0 gmac0: eth0: eth0: PHY ID 00441400 at 0 IRQ poll (gmac0-0:00)
[   19.690572] [STA] !!!xradio_vif_setup: id=0, type=2, p2p=0
[   19.771829] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready
[   22.570352] PHY: gmac0-0:00 - Link is Up - 100/Full
[   40.719165] fbtft_device:  SPI devices registered:
[   40.719232] fbtft_device:      spidev spi0.0 33000kHz 8 bits mode=0x00
[   40.719285] fbtft_device:      spidev spi1.0 33000kHz 8 bits mode=0x00
[   40.719326] fbtft_device:  'fb' Platform devices registered:
[   40.719577] fbtft_device: Deleting spi1.0
[   40.721361] fbtft_device:  GPIOS used by 'adafruit18':
[   40.721410] fbtft_device:    'reset' = GPIO1
[   40.721445] fbtft_device:    'dc' = GPIO0
[   40.721478] fbtft_device:    'led' = GPIO3
[   40.721509] fbtft_device:  SPI devices registered:
[   40.721554] fbtft_device:      spidev spi0.0 33000kHz 8 bits mode=0x00
[   40.721603] fbtft_device:      fb_st7735r spi1.0 16000kHz 8 bits mode=0x00
[   41.656063] graphics fb8: fb_st7735r frame buffer, 160x128, 40 KiB video memory, 4 KiB buffer memory, fps=25, spi1.0 at 16 MHz
root@orangepizero:~# fbset -fb /dev/fb8
mode "160x128"
    geometry 160 128 160 128 16
    timings 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
    nonstd 1
    rgba 5/11,6/5,5/0,0/0
endmode
root@orangepizero:~# 

To display an image

root@orangepizero:~# apt-get install fbi
root@orangepizero:~# fbi -T 1 --noverbose -d /dev/fb8 white-sandy-beach-of-the-derawan-islands-wallpaper-160x128-604.jpg

See the LCD showing the image

This video clip off of you tube

Easily played to the framebuffer on the LCD. Watch the video

# mplayer -vo fbdev:/dev/fb8 Formula\ 1\ \(160x128\).mp4