RT5350F-OLinuXino development started loooooong time ago, we made the hardware very quickly and hit the wall with the software 🙂
The Hardware had two revisions, we knew that this IC is overheating and need external DCDC power regulator to release it from the heat, but we first decided to try how bad is it with the chip steps down the 5V to 1.2V with internal LDO, well…. the chip was easily rising to 60C at room temperature 20C, so we made revision.B where we add external DCDC and the temperature of the chip cool down to 40C, so far so good.
The next obstracle was WIFI tuning, Ralink have bunch of registers which are not described in the ‘datasheet’ but you have to know what do with them if you want to tune your WIFI to work correctly.
OpenWRT wisely skips this area of memory as each module vendor is responsible to write the optimal info for the chip in these. It took us about year to figure out what to write in these registers, including obtaining NDA info about the chip features.
The result is good, the chip makes link from up to 20 meters when in house and up to 50-60 meters in open air which is about the maximum of this small PCB printed antenna.
RT5350F-OLinuXino is now in stock and cost EUR 15 in single quantity.
We didn’t stop here, we made also EVB with two relays, button, RT5350F-OLinuXino socket, UEXT connector, USB host, two 100MB Ethernet ports and EXT connector with all unused ports.
The RT5350F-OLinuXin-EVB is also in stock and cost EUR 24 including RT5350F-OLinuXino in it.
Then we decided to make new version with just one Ethernet and LED display in DIN enclosure:
you can see it here how it looks in plastic box:
RT5350F-OLinuXino-DIN is still not complete but will be in stock soon (hopefully end of June). The price will be about EUR 35. It will be nice solution for home automation, serving array of ESP8266 sensors and BLE modules as OpenWRT supports 6LoWPAN.
olimex 
May 18, 2015 @ 22:18:36
What is the amount of RAM? 64M?
May 18, 2015 @ 22:35:04
32 MB RAM, 8MB flash.
In one of the previous updates Olimex said that the SOC needed 2 separate RAM chips in order to get to 64MB.
May 18, 2015 @ 22:35:38
Hi
Sounds a very promising platform and very cost-efficient.
I believe that the choice of OpenWRT was to get a easier/better support for the on-chip Wifi but I feel that OpenWRT is not so as easy to get with for sunday-afternoon-DYER as Debian.
May be I’m wrong but my past experience with TL-WR703N went nowhere.
Looks like the PCB could accept a connector for external antenna. Am I right ?
Best regards. Keep going on guys.
May 21, 2015 @ 11:07:32
You could try to boot Debian on that thing but I am not sure how easy it will be. Bear in mind those register values – I don’t know where they are recorded. The board is mainly intended for router usage so OpenWRT is a good choice and one that fits inside the 8MB of available flash (most probably in compressed image) 🙂
May 18, 2015 @ 22:36:17
Nice work 🙂
P.s. You should mention the voltage in the product pages 😉
May 18, 2015 @ 22:39:11
Hi guys,
Sorry if this is not the right place but I would like to hear if you have any plans to make a board for RK3188 or RK3288.
May 19, 2015 @ 00:30:13
They do have a SOM, but that’s sligthly different:
https://www.olimex.com/Products/SOM/RK3188/
May 19, 2015 @ 01:35:53
Oups. Missed it. Thanks for the link.
May 20, 2015 @ 04:55:10
The last sentence is confusing – there’s no relation between BLE and 6LoWPAN.
May 20, 2015 @ 12:09:08
BLE can be the LowPAN part 😉 There are efforts on the topic:
https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-6lo-btle-12
http://teamarin.net/2015/03/03/ipv6-brewed-coffee-bluetooth-smart/
May 20, 2015 @ 12:36:47
https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/RT5350F/RT5350F-OLinuXino-EVB/open-source-hardware
On the official site error in the description?
8MB SPI NAND Flash
May 20, 2015 @ 14:28:05
Datasheet of EN25Q64-104HIP doesn’t explicitly state but I would also bet on NOR vs NAND. Or maybe it’s something strange underneath all so they (producers of meomory) don’t state it 😀
May 22, 2015 @ 14:27:04
EN25Q64-104HIP it is the NOR memory. The BIOS memory used for printers the same. But Chinese sellers write something unintelligible.
8MB SPI NOR Flash is correct.
That there is only for memory boot loader?
To save the image of the file system and the kernel need 4-8 GB NAND memory?
May 22, 2015 @ 20:09:44
OpenWRT (and other router distros) do fit inside 8MB with a compressed image (it is uncompressed in RAM at startup). Most home router do have similar amounts of flash and RAM (and even less for 150MB routers without USB) – check for specific models on http://wiki.openwrt.org/, for example:
http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-wr740n
May 20, 2015 @ 17:38:03
Does Linux on this module have support for UART, I2C and SPI?
May 20, 2015 @ 22:52:52
yes
May 21, 2015 @ 09:30:35
Hi, I believe there is no category for RT5350 on olimex forum. Could you create one?
May 21, 2015 @ 22:32:11
Can I use the openwrt driver on this board for wifi monitor mode?
May 22, 2015 @ 00:38:49
What about 802.11s support? How many free space after bare minimum open wrt install?
May 25, 2015 @ 10:29:40
There is 802.11s (mesh point) support – “iw list” returns the following:
Supported interface modes:
* IBSS
* managed
* AP
* AP/VLAN
* WDS
* monitor
* mesh point
There are around 3MB left free (the firmware that we sell the board with).
May 25, 2015 @ 10:33:21
Does ad-hoc mode works? Can you force a cellid?
May 25, 2015 @ 22:52:03
Great to finally see this!
Minor: the .brd and .sch are out of sync on github. Would be nice to have this fixed to have some more security about the actual board pinout.
One thing I noticed in this and a couple of your other recent designs: there is only one 22uF bulk cap on the USB’s 5V. USB spec requires min 120uF. Would like to hear your thoughts on this. 22uF obivously saves lots of footprint and costs.
Are all IO 3v3 tolerant? Any plans to add or sell a fitting shield? At least there seem to be slots on the board already.
May 25, 2015 @ 23:13:05
Nice observations. What do you mean by “fitting shield”?
May 26, 2015 @ 08:56:43
I googled “shield” – has indeed too many meanings. Particulary when there are .1″ pitch pins involved.
Anyways, I talk about an EMI shield can. There are ground traces prepared for it and milled slots which could be used for mounting it. Haven’t seen a wifi module yet that came back from EMI testing without such a shield. If its really justified in all cases or just used to hide your design I can’t tell.
May 26, 2015 @ 09:08:06
I check and files open well with Eagle 4.16 which we use to develop and Eagle up to version 6.xx
With version 7.xx Eagle complain for inconsistency error but I guess this is some bug in the new version 7 which we do not use
May 26, 2015 @ 10:28:58
I use 6.x. Its a package problem which might go away when installing your libraries? 0603 caps have different packages in schematic and boards (run ERC).
May 26, 2015 @ 11:31:37
fixed now!
Jun 03, 2015 @ 00:44:31
Sir, are you interested to connect your module on the INTERNET CLOUD and be accessible from anywhere ? RT5350F
Jun 15, 2015 @ 13:45:22
Olimex, Please do remember that it’s illegal to sell this device in Europe and US without type approvals in place – please let us know your FCC ID for this device for US (if you’re planning on selling it in US) or share your ETSI test report or atleast as a minimum give us a declaration of compliance against your company name otherwise this product is illegal and no one are allowed to even power it on.
Jun 15, 2015 @ 16:10:59
It seems like there are new standards for testing in EU also .. http://acstestlab.com/wireless/selling-your-wireless-devices-in-europe-what-you-need-to-know-about-changing-requirements
Jun 15, 2015 @ 19:39:16
I believe that when you sell your board as a development board and not as an end-user home device you don’t need to go through any certifications.
Jun 15, 2015 @ 23:43:48
Strictly speaking they need CE because you can buy really *everything* needed to run this module from the Olimex store. If you embed a certified module into your own product you need to follow the manufactures hardware integration guide to avoid own testing. Since this module doesn’t have this guide and the evaluation board is not tested either you will need to retest your design with this module in any case.
Furthermore it would need to comply to European waste directives, ensure RoHS compliance, have a local office in every European country where they want to sell hardware, have manuals in the respective local language.
I stopped thinking about this myself. There wouldn’t be a single hardware company left in Europe or ever started if you’d think about this.
And nobody cares. I have never heard of more than 10 cases were companies had to pull their products. And those cases usually were cases were odd chemical substances were found in the product or the use of the product could case severe harm.
As long as nobody files a complain against you, you are fine. You issue a paper stating CE certification. If someone wants to see your test protocols, he or she first has to file a complaint and go to court. Then there will be arguing if its really ready-to-use, etc.
Olimex is flying deep under every CE radar. Whoever would sue them is either an a**hole or has an deep economical interest due to lost business. Since Olimex to my knowledge only produce 10k – 100k units there is per definition no economical interest. Its companies like 1M+ unit companies like TI, Sony, Apple that fly above the radar and they don’t care about Olimex.
Oct 07, 2015 @ 13:40:56
Hasnt RT5350 been declared EOL?
Oct 07, 2015 @ 20:00:23
how many do you need? 🙂