Last weekend, we all went camping near the slopes of Uludağ. My wife, son, and I set up the tent while sitting by the pool, and I was working on a small electronic circuit I brought with me. I had designed a simple sensor circuit on a Banana Pi board to measure the weather, but for some reason, I think I made a mistake in the connections. When I powered on the board, instead of sensor data, I was getting random numbers on the screen. Anyway, I debugged for hours right there by the campfire, but eventually, I realized I had forgotten the ground wire. Classic fail, of course 🙂
That moment made me think about how often such errors occur in embedded systems. While spending time with my family, I can’t do coding, but it’s a perfect time for idea generation. Technical pursuits like this in outdoor activities like hiking or camping sometimes inspire me.
Now, let’s get to the main topic about Banana Pi. By the way, everyone thinks of bananas when they hear the name, but there is actually a tech device called Banana Pi, you know? It is a small board designed for embedded systems, emerging as an alternative to Raspberry Pi. I discovered this board while working on electronic circuit design and built several projects on it. It has become a very popular trend nowadays, ranking high in search results under the name banana when searched in the tech category.
The best feature of Banana Pi is that it is open-source and affordable. I think it costs around $20-30, but I don’t remember exactly, so it’s accessible. I mainly use it in embedded system projects, especially IoT. For example, once I did home automation with LED control on this board. I added a simple web interface with PHP and used jquery, so clicking buttons would turn circuits on and off. It was fun, seriously.
Of course, not everything is perfect. Sometimes drivers are incompatible, like on Windows. I tried to integrate this board in a project by developing a REST API with C# to send data to a PostgreSQL database. Normally, I use Dapper, but I set up MySQL on the board for this embedded project. I encountered a firewall issue when establishing the connection. In the end, I opened the ports and it worked, but it was quite a hassle.
By the way, I remembered something similar happening during a mountain climbing trip last month. While reaching the summit, my phone’s GPS malfunctioned, but if I had a device like Banana Pi, I could have processed offline map data. Anyway, that’s tech life for you.
Banana Pi uses processors from the Allwinner series, usually models like A20 or H3. They are ARM-based, so they are powerful yet low in power consumption. I built a dashboard with vue.js to display data from the board. It uses jquery ajax calls to fetch data from the REST API on the frontend. A practical solution, I think. If you’re interested in embedded systems, I recommend starting with Banana Pi. It is easy to program with Linux distributions.
Installation and First Steps
To set it up, first buy the board from the official site. The official site provides image files for download. You write the image onto an SD card using a tool like balenaEtcher. Then, you power it with USB, and it boots up. I did a project on data storage with PostgreSQL on it. I wrote Dapper queries in the C# backend for the API. The connection string is set like this: Server=banana-pi-ip;Database=mydb;User Id=user;Password=pass; Make sure to set a static IP, or it will keep changing.
It’s quite simple, actually. But sometimes, the Ethernet connection drops, based on my experience. I once added a WiFi module to the circuit, but poor antenna compatibility caused weak signals. So, I continued with a wired connection 🙂
Let me give a practical example: say you’re reading sensor data from a DHT11 for temperature. You write a Python script to read from GPIO pins on the board. You then open a web service with PHP that returns the data as JSON. Using jquery poll every 5 seconds on the frontend. That’s it. I did a similar project with reactive Vue.js.
By the way, I saw a website with detailed guides about Banana Pi projects, but I forgot the link. Search for “banana pi embedded system projects” for plenty of examples.
Advantages and Disadvantages
Advantages? Cheap, has community support on forums. Disadvantages? Software support can sometimes lag behind for new OSes. For example, there’s an Android port, but it’s probably not very stable. I used MySQL in my projects as an alternative to PostgreSQL. CRUD operations with Dapper are fast in C#.
Overall, Banana Pi is ideal for electronics enthusiasts like me. I spend time on it at my home workshop in Bursa with my family. My son is also curious and helps me sometimes. Isn’t that nice?
Should I divert a bit? During a family trip to Gemlik last month, we got caught in traffic, but I suddenly thought of a new API idea for Banana Pi. I couldn’t code it, of course, but I took notes on my phone.
Regarding its popularity, search volume for Banana Pi is increasing in the tech category. I believe we’ll see more projects in the future. If you do circuit design, try this board. Integrate a REST API and use MySQL.
Be careful, overheat can occur under heavy load. Add a heatsink or cooling device. I forgot to do that once, and the board shut down during a project due to heat. My fault 🙂
There are reviews on TechRadar about alternatives to Banana Pi boards. Also, on r/embedded subreddit community discussions are ongoing.
In conclusion, Banana Pi is a fun tool. It’s perfect for an introduction to embedded systems. Try it out with my practical tips. If you face issues, leave comments so we can share experiences. Ultimately, sharing makes the tech world better.
Honestly, I’m satisfied with this board. I plan to do more complex things with Vue and jquery in my future projects. Maybe I’ll write a blog series about it. Anyway, that’s all for now.