Orange Pi is a low-cost Raspberry Pi competitor. It is developed by the Chinese Shenzhen Xunlong CO Software company. Just like the Raspberry Pi, Orange Pi is an Open Source project.
Orange Pi offers a wide variety of offerings, that start at $2 and go up from there.
I purchased an Orange Pi Lite for about $15, and I’ve been quite happy with it.
Compared to the Raspberry Pi, Orange Pi is:
- less expensive. Faster for the price
- has more hardware options and form factors
This blog documents some of my installations steps to get an Orange Pi (Lite) running with Raspberry Pi functionality.
Some Interesting OrangePi Offers
There are quite a few different modules that are available. Some of the ones that I found interesting are:
Orange Pi Zero – there a few model, the 256MB LTS ($2), to the Zero 2 ($30).
Orange Pi 3G-IOT-B – includes a built-in 3G SIM card support ($22). There are also 4G models.
Base Installation
Like the Rasp Pi there are a number of OS options that can be installed. I chose the Armbian OS, which seems to be the most popular.
There are a number of ways to put an image on an SD chip, I like: pi imager. Once an image has been installed, the command line can be used to get the basic things setup and installed
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Welcome to Armbian buster with Linux 5.4.43-sunxi
System load: 0.00 0.00 0.00 Up time: 21 min
Memory usage: 41 % of 492MB IP: 192.168.0.113
CPU temp: 52°C
Usage of /: 16% of 15G
Last login: Sat Apr 17 12:28:07 2021 from 192.168.0.111
On Pi the config tool is called raspi-config, on the Ambian OS it’s : armbian-config
This tool is used to setup initial key things like: Wifi, Bluetooth, SSH, Desktop setting etc.
Depending on the OS that has been installed you may have everything you need or you may need to do further installs. For myself I needed to load “Pi type” features such as: the gpio utility, Python GPIO library and Node-Red.
I logged in as root for all my base installations.
GPIO (WiringPi) Utility
The gpio utility is super useful for manual seeing and setting GPIO pins.
To install gpio :
git clone https://github.com/orangepi-xunlong/WiringOP
cd WiringOP
chmod +x ./build
sudo ./build
The pinouts are different that the Rasp Pi, to see them enter: gpio readall
root@orangepilite:~# gpio readall +------+-----+----------+------+---+OrangePiH3+---+------+----------+-----+------+ | GPIO | wPi | Name | Mode | V | Physical | V | Mode | Name | wPi | GPIO | +------+-----+----------+------+---+----++----+---+------+----------+-----+------+ | | | 3.3V | | | 1 || 2 | | | 5V | | | | 12 | 0 | SDA.0 | OFF | 0 | 3 || 4 | | | 5V | | | | 11 | 1 | SCL.0 | OFF | 0 | 5 || 6 | | | GND | | | | 6 | 2 | PA6 | OFF | 0 | 7 || 8 | 0 | OFF | TXD.3 | 3 | 13 | | | | GND | | | 9 || 10 | 0 | OFF | RXD.3 | 4 | 14 | | 1 | 5 | RXD.2 | OFF | 0 | 11 || 12 | 0 | OFF | PD14 | 6 | 110 | | 0 | 7 | TXD.2 | OFF | 0 | 13 || 14 | | | GND | | | | 3 | 8 | CTS.2 | OFF | 0 | 15 || 16 | 0 | OFF | PC04 | 9 | 68 | | | | 3.3V | | | 17 || 18 | 0 | OFF | PC07 | 10 | 71 | | 64 | 11 | MOSI.0 | OFF | 0 | 19 || 20 | | | GND | | | | 65 | 12 | MISO.0 | OFF | 0 | 21 || 22 | 0 | OFF | RTS.2 | 13 | 2 | | 66 | 14 | SCLK.0 | OFF | 0 | 23 || 24 | 0 | OFF | CE.0 | 15 | 67 | | | | GND | | | 25 || 26 | 0 | OFF | PA21 | 16 | 21 | | 19 | 17 | SDA.1 | OFF | 0 | 27 || 28 | 0 | OFF | SCL.1 | 18 | 18 | | 7 | 19 | PA07 | OFF | 0 | 29 || 30 | | | GND | | | | 8 | 20 | PA08 | OFF | 0 | 31 || 32 | 0 | OFF | RTS.1 | 21 | 200 | | 9 | 22 | PA09 | OFF | 0 | 33 || 34 | | | GND | | | | 10 | 23 | PA10 | OFF | 0 | 35 || 36 | 0 | OFF | CTS.1 | 24 | 201 | | 20 | 25 | PA20 | OFF | 0 | 37 || 38 | 0 | OFF | TXD.1 | 26 | 198 | | | | GND | | | 39 || 40 | 0 | OFF | RXD.1 | 27 | 199 | +------+-----+----------+------+---+----++----+---+------+----------+-----+------+ | GPIO | wPi | Name | Mode | V | Physical | V | Mode | Name | wPi | GPIO | +------+-----+----------+------+---+OrangePiH3+---+------+----------+-----+------+
Python GPIO Library
The Raspberry Pi Python GPIO library as been ported to the Orange Pi and it’s called OPi.GPIO. To install it:
# if required install PIP for Python 2 and 3
apt install python-pip python3-pip
# install Orange Pi GPIO library for Python 2 and 3
pip install OPi.GPIO
pip3 install OPi.GPIO
A quick test from to test that things are working:
root@orangepilite:~# python3
Python 3.7.3 (default, Dec 20 2019, 18:57:59)
[GCC 8.3.0] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import OPi.GPIO as GPIO
>>> GPIO.setmode(GPIO.BOARD)
>>> GPIO.setup(12, GPIO.OUT)
>>> # set pin 12
...
>>> GPIO.output(12, 1)
>>> GPIO.input(12)
1
>>> GPIO.cleanup()
Node-Red
To install Node-Red, (logged in as root), use the following command, and follow the prompts (don’t install Raspberry support). This install takes about 20 minutes and Node.js will also be added:
bash <(curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/node-red/linux-installers/master/deb/update-nodejs-and-nodered)
The next step is to install the Orange PI GPIO support:
cd $HOME/.node-red
npm install node-red-contrib-opi-gpio
To manual start Node-Red enter: node-red-start & . To manually stop Node-Red: node-red-stop. See the Node-Red documentation for more info.
A simple circuit to set and read GPIO would be:
Final Comments
A Orange Pi is awesome for generic or simple hardware projects.
If however you’re doing projects where you need tops, for motor controls or relays then I would still to a Raspberry Pi.
Fun Tech Projects 