Asus = Pegasus (Patreon)

As we had mentioned earlier we are going to change the onboard computer from Raspberry Pi to the BeagleBone Green Wireless SBC.

Unfortunately our tests showed that the 1GHz AM335x ARM Cortex-A8 processor installed on BB is too slow for our tasks.

Interfaces are the strongest side of this SBC from TI, but the weak processor does not allow to use them in full force.

But now we found a single-board computer that we are happy with.

Meet Asus Tinker Board! Same as Raspberry Pi but better!

Here is a small comparison of different single-board computers for robot developers from Sweetie Bot Project team:

Raspberry Pi

Pros: The best SBC for beginners. The best software and the best community support.

Cons: 1) We have a lot of UART devices - servos. Only one UART is not enough to quickly communicate with them.

2) Poor audio quality. There is no audio codec. It uses a PWM signal with filtering. And there's no audio input at all.

3) Even the newest Pi has an I2C clock stretching bug. It looks like Broadcom does not even think about fixing it. Not everyone faces this problem, but we do.

BeagleBone Green Wireless SBC

Pros: 1) One of the best community and software.

2) The best documentation! Just look at the "AM335x Technical Reference Manual" and "BBB System Reference Manual". They include over 9000 pages in total! You can find schematics, registers, pin modes, you have EVERYTHING you need! Every engineer dreams about it.

3) Good interfacing options. 

4) At least three usable UART ports!

Cons: 1) Not enough horsepower. 

2) No sound, you have to connect an external codec.

Asus Tinker Board

Pros: 1) At least two times faster than Pi3! This is the really powerful thing for its size.

2) Three usable UART ports.

3) Good retail availability in this part of the world. You do not need to order it via  the Internet and wait. You can just go to the store and buy it, same as RPi.

4) 192K/24bit HD Audio codec on board.

5) And last but not least... A pony related name! It's no secret that "Asus"  originates from "Pegasus". While "tinker" means "solder" but there is also a breed of horses with that name - Tinker Horse.

Cons: 

1) The software is still not so good.

2) Poor documentation.

Of course Tinker has some unpleasant sides too, but it looks like we will stay with it in the near future. We are going to use it in both our robots.

This post is not sponsored by or in any way affiliated with Asus Corporation :)