Here are the results - - an out-of-the-box SanDisk 64GB Pixtor is exFAT formatted. It will not work in the Dreamcatcher DATA slot exFAT formatted. I had to reformate it with Rufus to LargeFAT32 to get it to be recognized. When operated as a LargeFAT32 data card, I loaded it with music at a 1% fill level.
The SanDisk 64GB Pixtor formatted exFAT out-of-the-box written with the Win32DiskImage and Skylark 5.1 works fine in the OS slot. Here’s its partition information before it was booted in the Dreamcatcher:
Here’s the System Status look at the 64GB SanDisk in the OS slot with an 88% filled 32GB FAT32 data card in Skylark 5.1:
Here’s the System Status look at the 16GB SanDisk in the OS slot with a 1% filled 64 GB FAT32 data card in Skylark 5.1:
Here’s the System Status look at the 16GB SanDisk in the OS slot with an 88% filled 32GB FAT32 data card in Skylark 5.1:
My presumption is a 128GB SD card or a 1TB Western Digital Passport hard drive LargeFAT32 or FAT32 formatted will work as storage, but not be useful in the OS slot. I don’t have a 128GB SD card to try, and my 1TB Western Digital Passport hard drive is being used as my backup repository (which I can’t mess with at this time). Perhaps someone else can try bigger storage LargeFAT32 or FAT32 formatted. Ken
Ken,
It depends on how large of an off-grid library people want. To really answer that question, you have to ask people that live off-grid and wish they had Internet access to a library, what did you want to know?
I’m sure they could care less about facebook, puppies and kitties. However, I can see how recipes for inexpensive meals for example. I don’t know. I seriously lack in the area of off-grid or third-world emergency shelter living. But I would want a library full of stuff, training tapes, etc. so that I could survive.
Konrad, when I travel I have 3 off-line data sources I use on my Windows notebooks/tablets: Rachel 32 GB English, old version of MS’s Encarta, and latest Encyclopedia Britannica.
What else are you using and where are you finding them? Ken
I’m collecting ideas. Essentially, this far supersedes the 1970’s whole earth catalog. Outernet to me is like having a whole public library in a box with a live newsfeed to provide all of the real-time information anyone would need. Essentially what the Internet was first envisioned as.
I’m looking at a very large part of Rachel with a complete copy of Wikipedia. Definitely, I would love to find a way to D/L wikimapia. I had not considered Britannica.
I would love a large recipe book, with recipes from all over the world. How to cook something good, given a local farmer’s market and a few spices maybe?
If had a vehicle I depended on, an entire Chilton’s manual, or equivalent for it would be essential.
I also wish there was a way to find the 10,000 most popular searches that are not puppies, kitties, the Kardashians, etc.
Still thinking about what needs/should/wants to go in my little postage stamp.
Again in re writing the Dreamcatcher/Skylark 5.2 Set Up and User Manual I want to verify with @Abhishek some ideas on micro SD card size.
A micro SD card larger than 32 GB (64 or 128 GB) can have the Skylark OS image written to it without any special formatting. My only question is whether a larger micro SD card in the OS slot makes any operational difference as long as you have large micro SD card in the data slot.
For example, it I use a 16 GB micro SD card for the OS, and a 64 or 128 GB micro SD card (FAT 32 formatted which is the only way it will be recognized in the data slot) for data storage, is there any advantage to having both micro SD cards so large? Ken
Correct, for the OS card, going larger than 16GB does not really add value. 16GB, even at the upgraded rate of the Ku-Band service is worth 60 days of data, assuming zero overheads, zero repeats, and no cleanup of old files (weather, news, messages, etc).
In actual practice, with auto-cleanup of old files, the system will never use 16GB of space for its main storage.
Its much more important to have a better quality SDcard in the OS slot - if I were to choose between buying a 32/64GB card vs a 16GB one - i’d buy a 16GB one, but a higher quality/higher rated one.
I did run into a recent problem booting with both the OS and Data sd 's installed. I had been using the DC with Armbian and decided to change back to Skylark.
Completely shut down… installed a working OS sd card and installed my Rachel data sd card.
The DC would not boot completely. The heatbeat was flashing and the sd access led was on/flashing a lot, the radio led was on. But it would not boot.
Removed the data sd and it booted up just fine, then re-inserted the data card and everything is OK.
yes, I have randomly observed that - no boot if something is installed in the other slot. I have not yet been able to narrow it down. On some boards, booting works, and on others it doesn’t.
I currently have no fix for it. Just the workaround that you already figured out. But its worth mentioning again:
If skylark doesn’t boot successfully and you have a second sd card installed, remove the second sdcard temorarily (while Skylark boots).
This morning as I was checking my DC 3.02Q Skylark 5.2 unit, I found it disconnected from the LAN, and not responsive to the browser/ip address. I went outside to check the unit and found that it was warm (it is mounted in a “Handy” box from Home Depot), the power LED was lit, however, nothing was happening, no heartbeat, etc.
I shutdown by disconnecting power and restarted the unit, whereupon everything returned to normal after the reboot. From the System logs, it appears to have stopped at 08:38. My reboot shows as 16:38, and within about four minutes, downloading was back to normal.
Is it possible that the unit overheated? I have not experienced this type of shutdown before, but it would seem strange for it to wait until 2:30 AM MDT, when it is not warm here yet (it has been increasingly warm during the days, approaching 76 to 80 degrees F, but not particularly hot), nights get down to the 50’s F. I wonder if I need to consider better ventilation of the DC unit, and perhaps a sealed box is not a good idea once the heat comes up in this coming season? Constructive comments are welcome…
Hmm I wonder if it did over heat the rpis still have that issue lol that would be a good feature to add to the skylark UI a temp readout of the CPU since I have a funny feeling that’s what happened or you had a voltage dip on the power in line.
the powerdown seems to be the work of the PMIC, not the CPU, from what I have observed. CPU temp doesn’t seem to affect things as far as thermal shutdowns go.
I will look into finding something which is a bit more indicative of thermal issues.
There may not be a temperature sensor on the DreamCatcher 3.0X board. It might not be that hard to add on as a daughter board with some simple software to read it.
