ASUS Tinker Board!

[Korth]

ASUS Tinker Board (ASUS 90MB0QY1-M0EAY0)
Product
Wikipedia

An ultra-small form factor SBC built around the Rockchip RK3288 SoC - product page datasheet Wikipedia - 1.8GHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A17 CPU, 600MHz quad-core Mali-T764 3D GPU, high performance 2D GPU, 2GB dual-channel DDR3-1333, RTL Gbit LAN, RTL ALC4040 HD CODEC (192kHz/24-bit through 3.5mm audio/mic jack), 4 USB2.0 ports, MicroSD 3.0 slot, HD MIPI-CSI video/camera input, HD MIPI-DSI (and HDMI 1.4) video outputs, Bluetooth 4.0, 802.11b/g/n WiFi (with IPEX), "TinkerOS" or Debian/Ubuntu or Android 6.01, etc etc etc. It's even got a taste of ASUS engineering (shielded processors, free heatsink). And it's just a first attempt!

Suffice to say this Tinker board is credit card-sized, weighs less than a chocolate bar, costs about $60, and is dimensionally/electrically interchangeable with (though vastly superior to) common Raspberry Pi boards - twice the power (and benchmark scores) of a Pi 3. All you need is a Micro-USB cable (or 5V/3.3V PSU, battery, etc), some kind of (HDMI) display, some kind of user input (USB keyboard/mouse, touchscreen, whatever), and the heatsink ASUS includes with the unit.

Currently the most powerful SBC available that's smaller than any PC motherboard (even Pico-ITX). This Rockchip SoC is used in several mid-end tablets and Chromebooks. 4K (2160p) @ 30fps, HD (1080p) @ 60fps, H.264/H.265 hardware acceleration, etc etc. But its true purpose, of course, is whatever you can plug (or solder) onboard - 28 GPIO pins, 2 SPI, 2 I2C, 4 UART, 2 PWM, 1 PWM/I2S - with the right hardware, you could easily build an "Android" box, HTPC, (mobile) game console, webserver, or weaponized robot brain. ASUS documentation ain't the best, but comprehensive documentation for all the parts is readily available and support keeps growing as more RPi-type builders become aware of this product.

My question - even though this is not a ROG product* - when and where will this product *actually* become available?
* I'm imagining a ROG Tinkerboard with ROG red-highlighted black PCB, angular ROG heatsink, ROG overclocking ... lol.

[xeromist]

I read about this too. I'm not sure I have a project for one right now but I'm glad ASUS is trying its hand at this.

[topyoyoguybest]

Pretty good evolution for the brand.

[Praz]

Hello

The board has been available at Amazon for awhile.

[Korth]

Praz wrote:
The board has been available at Amazon for awhile.

Thanks! But Amazon.com informs me that, sadly, this item cannot be shipped to Canada.

Found the ASUS Tinker Board randomly while I was comparing RPi vs Olimex vs other alternatives. Even without the superior specs, it's got a black PCB! My project is a chassis-embedded hardware monitor/controller for a ROG PC, lol, this SBC seems like the instant winner.

Now just looking for a touchscreen measuring about 3.25"x5.75"(HxW) to cover a full-height drive bay, lol I don't suppose ASUS also sells these? (Doesn't strictly need to be HDMI, I'll build my own interface if needed.)

[chevell65]

Cool man I could use one to run my weather station server.

[Korth]

So now I've played around a bit with my (difficult to procure) Tinkerboard.

Unsurprisingly, ASUS has utterly failed to provide meaningful documentation. They seem to basically assume that you're already expert with RPi boards. Fortunately, this product has an avid global following on this Unofficial Tinkerboard Forums (and Wiki) site, so useful documentation/support is indeed available. It's not quite that easy, of course, because of the more advanced hardware, better called a "Thinkerboard" than a "Tinkerboard".

Strangely, ASUS chose a very odd Debian fork instead of the (RPi) stable release. Easy enough to get around, although of course you gotta know your RPi to embed your own OS. Strange also that the ASUS OS images are entirely nonstandard formats. Not a great way to engage the freethinking opensource DIY hacker/maker sorts of customers you want to buy this product, lol. Chromium runs awesomely snappy, though, even with a dozen tabs open.

Disappointingly, this SBC is oversensitive about power supply. A standard USB input or +5VDC source just doesn't cut it, especially when also interfacing with a power-hungry display screen. I didn't really expect it to "just work" off "any USB" the way an RPi2 does, but it's dramatically worse than the already notorious RPi3IME units I'm familiar with. It seems you need at least a 1A/5V PSU adapter with tight regulation just to get the Tinker to boot up (though, oddly, it'll happily run stable off standard USB/HDMI afterwards) ... I really think ASUS should include the appropriate power adapter (at least as an option) with each unit, and I think embedding the needed PSU circuitry directly on board would've been obvious (although it was obviously overlooked). Shame on you ASUS, forcing me to jury-rig my own charge-regulated 2A/5V power source ... even though 1A doesn't seem to be *quite* enough ... and making me worry about burning the $60 board with too much power, lack of official documentation doesn't help, so long story short I simply cannot assume this board is "reliable" or "stable" in any high-reliability projects.

A bit of a fail, overall. I'll keep using ye olde RPi3 counterparts - they're less powerful, they suffer from their own issues, but known evils are easier to anticipate/avoid/correct than those which are entirely unknown.

Just saying that this Tinkerboard is pretty nifty but it lacks appeal to a big niche within the small niche it's trying to sell into.

[xeromist]

Thanks for the mini review. Maybe there will be a gen 2 or premium that fixes some of these issues.

Regarding the 2a PSU, you don't have to worry about burning the board. 2A means "up to". It's just like a PC power supply where it's almost never delivering full rated current and it's better to over provision.

[Korth]

I understand that, lol. The difficulty is that I'm trying to determine the minimum power requirement for proper stable (continuous, uninterrupted, unsupervised) operation. A little difficult without any official documentation. A little easier with some extrapolation from component datasheets and with comparisons to similar devices.

Higher-than-normal power requirements and "extreme" oversensitivity to power fluctuations are commonly reported complaints, at the "Unofficial" forums and elsewhere. I note that a surprisingly portion of SBC enthusiasts are capable of interfacing logic hardwares (then writing killer firmware/software code) yet they also lack any fundamental electronics background or skills beyond rudimentary soldering techniques - their interest is not constructing a "perfect" device as much as kludging up a "working" device.

I should've mentioned the thing does get pretty warm. I'm sure it could get really hot under heavy load. It seems the included heatsink is quite necessary, lol.

My application will use a UPS-style battery power source, similar to a laptop (though lower voltage) with enough capacity for maybe 12 hours peak operation and >168 hours standby. Everything mounted in a (large) PC chassis, so airflow and heatsinks will be needed. (Thinking of re-purposing an ancient "small" CPU cooler for the SBC, so heatpipes/rad provide sufficient passive/idle cooling alongside a fan for active/peak cooling. Finally a use for that box of HOPG scraps!)

I guess I should mention that I've been looking at this stuff, lol, it is after all going to be part of a ROG machine. Not many people have done this (yet), but it appears 1.92GHz is reasonable on most parts and >2.0GHz is possible on some parts.

And I agree ... hoping there's a next-version Tinkerboard, and that it addresses the most notable flaws. However it seems like ASUS is just poking experimentally into the market, they don't really seem to know what to do with it (other than select the most high-spec and feature-rich parts available then pack up secondary parts to the maximum limits). I fear that if this product doesn't market well then ASUS may never produce another attempt.

[xeromist]

Ah, I understand now. I figured you'd know something like that but the way it was written confused me. All good.

And I also have kept some ancient CPU coolers thinking I could repurpose them for DIY. Glad I'm not the only one. 😄