eli beaglebone black user s manual - fdi€¦ · eli and beaglebone black qsg p a g e | 2 ......

ELI BeagleBone Black User’s Manual

Copyright ©2014, Future Designs, Inc., All Rights Reserved

E L I a n d B e a g l e b o n e B l a c k Q S G P a g e | 1

9/19/2014 Copyright ©2014, Future Designs, Inc. Revision 1.0

Table of Contents 1. Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 2

2. ELI Quick Start Guide ............................................................................................................................ 2

3. Cables and Connection Requirements ................................................................................................. 2

4. Startup Procedure ................................................................................................................................ 3

5. Software and Operating System Downloads ...................................................................................... 5

6. Preparing the Demonstration Software .............................................................................................. 5

7. Installing the Demonstration Software ............................................................................................... 6

8. Using the Demonstration Software ..................................................................................................... 7

9. Communicating with your BeagleBone Black ..................................................................................... 8

10. Updating the Factory BeagleBone Black ....................................................................................... 10

11. Other Software for Debian that may be helpful ........................................................................... 11

12. Writing your own image to an SD Card from the eMMC .............................................................. 13

13. Troubleshooting ............................................................................................................................. 14



1. Introduction

FDI introduced ELI® as a solution to the common customer problems of adding an LCD interface to computing platforms such as the BeagleBone Black. ELI is designed, manufactured and tested here in the US, by FDI’s skilled production team, and every unit is fully supported by our US based team of engineers and technical specialists. Our ELI units are plug-and-play so they work “right out of the box” with the BeagleBone Black system.

BeagleBone Black

2. ELI Quick Start Guide

It is understood that if you are here you have already read the Quick Start Guide for your particular ELI

unit. If you have not, please find the QSG here.

3. Cables and Connection Requirements

All current ELI systems have been tested using the following setup including the BeagleBone Black with

the AM335x 1GHz ARM Cortex-A8 processor.

1) 12VDC +/- 5% 2A Power Supply to power the ELI

2) The following cables for connecting the ELI board to the Beaglebone Black and to the PC;

a. (1) HDMI Cables Type A Male to Type D Male (Full size to Micro)

Example PN: Molex PN: 0687860003, Digi-Key PN: WM1283-ND

b. (2) USB Cables, Mini-B to Full Size-A

One for BeagleBone Black to ELI Board (touch screen support)

One for BeagleBone Black to PC (power and console for BBB)

An optional AC to USB Adapter may be used in cases where the board needs more

power than just what the Computer can provide, similar to the PSA05F or the PSM03A.

http://www.teamfdi.com/wiki/doku.php?id=namespace:eliqsgs

http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/PSA05F-050Q/993-1068-ND/2384534

http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Phihong/PSM03A-050Q-3-R/?qs=sGAEpiMZZMt5w6YCUaBPUV62ri%252bvTBfae6RO2DhIqqA%3d



c. (1) 4GB Micro SD Card for transferring the OS to the BeagleBone Black (must be no

larger than 4GB, minimum 2GB)

3) If you would like to use your own desktop as a console, download the BeagleBone Black USB

network drivers here:

http://beagleboard.org/getting-started#step2

4) The Beaglebone Black works out of the box with our ELI boards. However if you would like to

see everything that the BeagleBone Black can do with ELI, we recommend you download the FDI

BeagleBone Black Demo image, located in section 5 of this guide.

4. Startup Procedure

BeagleBone Black to PC Connections

http://beagleboard.org/getting-started#step2



BeagleBone Black to ELI Connections

Note: This demonstration is for the BeagleBone Black out of the box with no changes to the EMMC

internal storage. It will drive the ELI without any software changes, downloads, or modifications to a

BeagleBone Black.

1) Connect the HDMI cable and USB cable from the BBB to the ELI board

2) Power the ELI board with a 12VDC +/- 5% 2A power supply

(Ex: Digi-Key PN: T1071-P5P-ND )

Power may be connected either via the 2-pin terminal block J8 or via the 2.1mm power jack P2

(center positive)

3) Connect the USB Cable from the BBB Mini-USB to the PC (primarily used for power)

4) The ELI screen should power on and show the BBB boot sequence, eventually booting into a touchscreen calibration. Follow the steps of touching the highlighted markers. After this the device will boot to the GUI screen.

5) This confirms proper connectivity and basic operation of the ELI and BBB. From here you can use some of the basic programs available on the BeagleBone Black.

6) If you wish to use the demonstration software from FDI, you should proceed with the software installation below, or set things up yourself following our guide listed below that.

http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/EPSA120200U-P5P-SZ/T1071-P5P-ND/2235263



5. Software and Operating System Downloads

FDI has a list of demo software that you can download for your specific SBC.

Click here for the BeagleBone Black Debian Wheezy demo software which supports:

ELI70-CR

ELI101-CR

As we add more products to the ELI Family, we will update this list with more of these images. You can also download any of the following directly from the folks over at BeagleBone here. We recommend the Debian eMMC Flasher image found here with a torrent link also available here.

6. Preparing the Demonstration Software

1) Format the 4GB micro SD to FAT (Not FAT32) This can be done in a Windows 7 computer by:

a. Open a command prompt in Administration mode

b. Type the Following commands:

i. diskpart

ii. list disk

iii. Find the flash card in the resulting list, which will look something like this:

iv. Select that disk number: select disk

v. Clean

vi. Create partition primary

vii. Active

viii. Format fs=fat (This will take roughly 10-20 minutes) or Format fs=fat Quick

ix. Select a letter that isn’t being used by your computer: assign letter=f

x. exit

http://www.teamfdi.com/eli/os-images/FDI_BeagleBone_Black_Image_ELI-ALL.zip

http://beagleboard.org/latest-images

http://debian.beagleboard.org/images/BBB-eMMC-flasher-debian-7.5-2014-05-14-2gb.img.xz

https://s3.amazonaws.com/debian.beagleboard.org/images/BBB-eMMC-flasher-debian-7.5-2014-05-14-2gb.img.xz?torrent



2) Unzip the contents of your downloaded image into a safe location on your computer.

3) Write the newly downloaded OS to the new disk. This can be done on any Windows 7 computer

by:

a. Opening up Win32 Disk Imager. If you do not have this, you can install it by going here.

b. Set the Device to the flash card.

c. Click the folder button next to the device name, and locate where the .img file is on your

computer.

d. Once that is located, click “Write”.

4) Unmount and eject the flash card from your computer and insert it into the BeagleBone Black

Micro SD Socket.

7. Installing the Demonstration Software

Note – this process will overwrite the existing software on the BeagleBone Black so make sure

you have a backup and understand the new software will replace the existing software

completely. This step is optional and not required to use the ELI with the BeagleBone Black.

1) Connect the HDMI cable and USB cable from the BBB to the ELI board.

2) Power on the ELI board with the 12V power supply (optionally provided with the board).

3) Connect the USB Cable to the BBB Mini-USB (do not connect to the PC yet).

4) Insert the SD Card into the device.

5) Now power on the BeagleBone Black. It will automatically boot from the SD Card.

6) The Beaglebone Black will now automatically write the disk image from the flash card to the on

board eMMC.

a. If at any point all 4 USR lights start flashing at once, there was a problem. Turn off the

Beaglebone Black, and remove and re-insert the flash card.

b. This process will take roughly 20 minutes.

7) Once this is completed, shut down your Beaglebone Black by tapping the icon in the bottom

right and then tapping “Shutdown”.

8) Remove the SD Card from the device. Your BeagleBone Black is now configured with our demo

software.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager/



8. Using the Demonstration Software

Note – this process will overwrite the existing software on the BeagleBone Black so make sure you

have a backup and understand how to return your system to the factory default

1) Plug your ELI Board’s HDMI, USB Touch and Power in. The ELI Board should be on and plugged

into the Beaglebone Black before turning on the BeagleBone Black. If the ELI Board is not

plugged in and turned on prior, the touch screen will not work. After this, turn on the

BeagleBone Black.

2) When the boot is finished, it should send you to the desktop. There are 3 immediate

applications on the desktop:

a. The ELI Demo Video

b. The ELI Demo Presentation

c. The Graphics Demo

d. 3) Double tap the ELI Demo Video. The video will buffer for about 10-15 seconds and then begin

playing. Close this after you’re done.

4) Double tap on the ELI_Demo_Presentation. Click “Execute” located on the left. This will open

LibreOffice in slideshow mode and you can now click through our slideshow to demo the ELI

Board.

5) Double tap on the Graphics Demo application and click on “Execute” on the left of the popup.

This will open another LibreOffice Slideshow and demonstrate the full depth of our display.

6) Once you are finished, tap on the green man in the bottom right corner to bring up a shutdown

menu. Click “Shut Down” to turn off your Beaglebone Black. It is recommended to do this any

time you are turning the system off to properly flush the file system.



9. Communicating with your BeagleBone Black

It’s highly important to have an easy way to communicate with your BeagleBone Black to allow for quick

software changes etc. There are two ways of doing this. A simple USB HUB will allow you to connect

keyboard, mouse, and any other device needed, or using the built in USB -> Ethernet drivers for

windows to communicate remotely to your BBB over the miniUSB used to power the device.

Steps for setting up Putty for your BeagleBone Black

1) Download putty: http://the.earth.li/~sgtatham/putty/latest/x86/putty.exe

2) Set up Putty to look like the following:

3) Click Open

4) The first time you connect to this device, you will get a security alert. Click yes on this and

continue.

http://the.earth.li/~sgtatham/putty/latest/x86/putty.exe



5) You will see a prompt below, type “root” and then hit enter

6) You will now be logged into the device. Any commands listed below that are needed to be

done in the LXTerminal can also be done here.



10. Updating the Factory BeagleBone Black

The Debian Wheezy distribution of Linux is the basic operating system that comes on all BeagleBone

Black devices as of the Rev C release in March 2014. A few bits of software are recommended even if

you are not going to be using the FDI Image to get your projects up and running. Most all can be found

using an apt-get call, but specific instructions for installation are included, with shell commands in italics.

Plug the ELI Board into your BeagleBone Black, and power them on.

1) Connect to your BeagleBone Black through your preferred method described above.

2) Type the following command:

sudo apt-get update

This will throw a lot of text into your terminal window, the BBB is getting updates for its file

system, applications installed, and security updates.

3) Type the following command:

sudo apt-get upgrade

This will install all updates that the system found. Note: this process can take up to 30 minutes,

depending on your internet speed. Then restart your Beaglebone.



11. Other Software for Debian that may be helpful

This is software that is not needed to run your Beaglebone Black on our ELI boards. However we have

found it to be useful and are including it in this guide to help you with any needs you may have.

1) LibreOffice is an open source office suite that lets you view and edit .ppt, .doc, and .xls

documents. We recommend that to take care of any slideshow needs. Libre Office cannot use

any files with a .$$$x extension (.pptx, .docx) so any files you want to transfer over to the RPi

must be office 95-2003 format (.ppt, .doc, .xls).

a. Open up a command terminal LXTerminal, or log into the device through a remote

connection on your desktop.

b. Type the following:

sudo apt-get install libreoffice

c. After this installs (Will take a few minutes) the following programs will be in your Home-

>Office tab: Base (Database), Calc (Excel), Draw (Publisher), Impress (PowerPoint), and

Writer (Word)

d. It is possible to write scripts to open powerpoint slides in slideshow mode only by

making the following script:

#!/bin/bash

libreoffice –show /directory/of/poweroint/name_of_slideshow.ppt

2) Xine Media Player is an open source media player that works with the BBB. Note: Due to the

hardware limitations of the BBB, it can only play a maximum of 480p at 15 fps on any media

players that are available for it, and it’s recommended that a lower resolution is used.




sudo apt-get install xine-ui

c. Xine is a plug and play media player. A note is that the Beaglebone Black does not have

a dedicated graphics chip, so videos will be have a bit lower frame rates than on a

desktop. This will just demonstrate the capabilities of the BBB, and is the media player

that we have found to work best with our ELI boards.

3) GPicView is a fairly low weight image viewer that allows you to display basic images / image

slide shows.




sudo apt-get install gpicview



4) KSnapshot is robust screenshot capture software that allows you to capture your desktop.




sudo apt-get install ksnapshot

c. To use, simple tap Home > Graphics > KSnapshot

d. You can also adjust both the region of capture and the snapshot delay time. This will be

a time between when you tap the “Take a New Snapshot” and the actual screenshot

happens.

5) Florence Virtual Keyboard. This is a small program that will run in the foreground when open,

and allow you to type into any program you have open as though it were an actual keyboard.

a. Open up a command terminal LXTerminal from the ELI, or log into the device through a

remote connection on your desktop.


sudo apt-get install florence

c. The program will be installed, and can be opened by tapping the home button in the

bottom left (shown below), clicking “Universal Access” and clicking the Florence Virtual

Keyboard.

Other Software that may be helpful



12. Writing your own image to an SD Card from the eMMC

If you have software you want to clone across multiple Beaglebone Blacks, you have two options. 1)

run everything off of sd cards which can get expensive, or 2) clone the eMMC onto a flash card to

allow multiple copies of your software to run on multiple machines. Luckily this is really easy to do

with a script that is native to the Debian Wheezy build for BeagleBone Black.

1) Format a Micro SD card to FAT and Active as listed in section 6.

2) Have your flash card ready but do not insert it into the Beaglebone Black yet.

3) Turn on your Beaglebone Black.

4) After your Beaglebone Black is booted up, insert your Flash Card.

5) Open up a terminal or Putty window, and type the following:

/opt/scripts/tools/eMMC/beaglebone-black-make-microsd-flasher-from-eMMC.sh

6) This will write your current eMMC to the flash card as a .img

7) The writing process will take between 10 and 20 minutes, so keep that in mind. When finished, all

4 USR lights will be on and your screen should look something like this:

8) After it is done, shut down your device and remove the flash card. This card can now be inserted

in to any other Beaglebone Black to write to the eMMC.

9) Before powering it on, insert this micro SD card into a new Beaglebone Black. Then power on the

device.

10) After about 20 minutes, all 4 USR lights will turn on and the Beaglebone will be ready for use.

11) You can copy this file to a computer using the Win32DiskImager that is used to write images to SD

Cards.



13. Troubleshooting

While some people who are advanced users won’t need something like this, we thought it would be

helpful to have some common issues we have found listed here, and their workarounds that we have

found, or just a quicker reference for those who do.

1) Calibration of the touch screen:

So something happens and now your touch screen is completely out of calibration. Here are a

few steps to take to make sure your ELI unit is working again with your Beaglebone Black

a. Shutdown the device and plug in a USB hub into the USB port of your Beaglebone Black.

In the USB hub, plug in either a keyboard or a mouse, and plug in your ELI Touch Screen

USB cable.

b. On boot, if the touchscreen calibration does NOT come up, do the following:

i. For keyboard, open up a terminal, and type in the command xinput_calibrator

ii. For mouse, click on the home button in the bottom left, then go to Preferences

and click “Calibrate Touchscreen”

Follow the calibration instructions and you should be good to go!

c. You can also download our calibration files for the ELI70-CR or the ELI101-CP. Copy the

information from the text file and paste it into the

/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/99-calibration.conf file.

2) Incorrect resolution on the Screen:

You boot up your ELI unit and your cursor is off centered after boot, you can’t see most of our

ELI logo desktop, and you cannot see the taskbar, or the reverse is happening where you have a

large amount of black space around the desktop view. This means your ELI touchscreen is

getting the incorrect resolution. Here’s a few steps to fix this issue:

a. Shutdown the device.

b. Turn off power to the ELI board

c. Unplug both ends of the HDMI cable from both the ELI board and the BBB.

d. Plug in the ELI board’s end of the HDMI cable, making sure it is fully seated into the slot.

e. Plug in BBB’s end of the HDMI Cable, making sure it’s fully seated into the slot, pressing

firmly into the Beaglebone Black.

f. If this happens again, check the Beaglebone black with a different monitor to see if it is

getting correct resolution with that. If so, there is a possibility that the BBB’s HDMI port

is faulty.

3) Beaglebone Black does not boot: Symptoms include:

a. Only the left power light comes on with no USR lights.

b. USR LEDs flash on briefly then turn off

This is likely caused by ether a bad EMMC flash or power. Check the following:

c. If the BBB is connected through your laptop, try powering it with a USB inverter, similar

to what is used to charge a tablet or smartphone.

http://www.teamfdi.com/wiki/doku.php?id=namespace:touchcalibration

http://www.teamfdi.com/wiki/doku.php?id=namespace:touchcalibration



d. If the issues still continue, it is likely that you have a bad EMMC or a corrupted operating

system. In this case we recommend re-flashing your image with ether a copy of your

own, one of ours, or the downloadable BeagleBone Black image listed in later sections.

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