Factor FR201 and FR202 Technical Resources

Manuals and Links

FR201 – User Manual

FR202 – User Manual

Raspberry PI Imager

Firmware Tool

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Supported Operating Systems

The following operating systems have been validated by OnLogic. Other operating systems are not likely to work and are not eligible for support from OnLogic. Installation instructions can be found further down on this page. Refer to the contents pane on the right.

Raspberry Pi OS Lite (32bit & 64bit)
Raspberry Pi OS (32bit & 64bit)

Ubuntu Desktop 22.04 (32bit & 64bit)
Ubuntu Desktop 20.04 (32bit)

Ubuntu Server 22.04 (32bit & 64bit)
Ubuntu Server 20.04 (32bit)

System Setup

• To get started, connect a keyboard, mouse, and monitor before powering up the system.
• If you purchased the standard 60 watt power supply, it will be pre-wired and ready for use.

• For the dinrail power supply, connect the wires as shown below. V+ to the red wire, V- to the black.

First Boot

This section covers what to expect the first time you power your system on.

No OS

If you did not select an operating system when ordering, the system will boot up to a diagnostic splash screen. You can install an operating system using the steps further down on this page.

Raspberry Pi OS

Raspberry Pi OS (Lite)

The Lite version of Raspberry PI OS (Raspbian) boots straight to a login prompt.

• Log in with the following credentials:
• username: pi
• password: raspberry

• You will be prompted to change the default password on first login. re-enter “raspberry” as the current password, and then set your new password.
• The system is now ready for use.

Ubuntu Desktop

Ubuntu Server

Ubuntu server boots straight to a login prompt.

• Log in with the following credentials:
• username: ubuntu
• password: ubuntu

• You will be prompted to change the default password on first login. re-enter “ubuntu” as the current password, and then set your new password.
• The system is now ready for use.

Disassembly

• It is recommended not to disassemble the unit any further unless absolutely necessary. Further disassembly has greater potential to cause warranty voiding damage. Use caution.

• Re-install the module by lining up the screw holes. Gently pop it down into the sockets.
• Note: the screws will not line up if the module is rotate 180 degrees.

---

Installing Operating Systems

Installing Raspberry Pi OS to eMMC

Follow this method if your Factor unit is equipped with onboard eMMC storage.

---

Installing Raspberry PI OS to M.2 Storage

A USB flash drive smaller than the system’s storage is required for this method. Example: The Factor system has 32GB storage. The flash drive must be 16GB or smaller.

• Begin by downloading the Raspberry Pi imager using the link at the top of this page.

• We will now clone the flash drive onto the desired storage drives. Following the example above, run a DD command:

• Install to M.2: sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb status=progress
• Install to eMMC: sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/mmcblk0 status=progress

• Shut down the system and unplug your flash drive.
• Power the system back on and it will boot up into the operating system. The installation is now complte.

---

Installing Ubuntu to eMMC

Installing Ubuntu is a bit more involved than Raspberry Pi OS. Configuration files need to be edited manually or the operating system will not boot properly.

Follow this method if your Factor unit is equipped with onboard eMMC storage.

• Download the two files below and copy them to the boot partition, overwriting the existing two files.
• Choose either 32bit or 64bit depending on what version you selected in the Pi imager

32bit

64bit

• Power up the unit and it will boot into Ubuntu. Log in with the following credentials:
• username: ubuntu
• password: ubuntu

You will be prompted to change the password. Enter a new password. Your system is now set up and ready to use.

Installing Ubuntu to M.2 Storage

A USB flash drive smaller than the system’s storage is required for this method. Example: The Factor system has 32GB storage. The flash drive must be 16GB or smaller.

• Download the two files below and copy them to the boot partition, overwriting the existing two files.
• Choose either 32bit or 64bit depending on what version you selected in the Pi imager

32bit

64bit

Log in to the newly installed OS. See default credentials here. (typically ubuntu/ubuntu)

• We will now clone the flash drive onto the desired storage drives. Following the example above, run a DD command:

• Install to M.2: sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb status=progress
• Install to eMMC: sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/mmcblk0 status=progress

• Shut down the system and unplug your flash drive.
• Power the system back on and it will boot up into the operating system. The installation is now complete.

32Bit Ubuntu Desktop

32bit Ubuntu Desktop can not be installed directly. You must first install Ubuntu Server using one of the methods above. Once server is up and running, the following procedure will install the desktop environment.

---

Wiping the eMMC or M.2 storage drive

The CM4 module has a hardcoded boot order of eMMC > M.2 > USB. This can be problematic if the image on the eMMC or m.2 becomes corrupted or needs to be erased for other reasons. The simple solution is to erase the boot partition. This can be done one of two ways.

Wiping eMMC using another computer

Note that this method can only by used to wipe eMMC storage, not M.2

Wiping eMMC or M.2 using DD

If the Linux image on the Factor unit is still bootable, you can use the terminal to erase the boot partition.

• Run the lsblk command to list the storage devices
• In this example, the boot partition is stored on /dev/mmcblk0p1
• The following command will copy zeroes over that partition, effectively wiping it and preventing the Pi from booting to it.

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/mmcblk0 status=progress

An M.2 storage drive will likely show up as sdb, so this command will wipe the M.2’s boot partition:

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb status=progress

Once the drive wipe has completed, proceed to one of the operating system installation guides on this page.

Setting the Serial Mode (RS232/RS422/RS485)

The FR200 series serial mode can be controlled by configuring the embedded FTDI EEPROM. The utility for applying these configuration changes is installed by default on OnLogic provided FR200 series OS images; if you are not using an OnLogic provided image, you will need to install the utility before updating the serial mode.

Installing the EEPROM Tool

• Install required libraries: sudo apt install libconfuse-dev libusb-1.0-0-dev and build tools sudo apt install cmake build-essential
• Download the latest libFTDI and extract it to a folder (tar -xf libftdi1-1.5.tar.bz2)
  • You can also clone libFTDI with git: git clone git://developer.intra2net.com/libftdi
• Build the library and the FTDI EEPROM tool:
  • mkdir libftdi1-1.5/build && cd libftdi1-1.5/build
  • cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX="/usr" ../
  • make && sudo make install

Setting the Configuration

• Download the configuration file for your required mode:
  • RS232 – wget static.onlogic.com/resources/firmware/documentation/configs/FR200_RS232.conf
  • RS422 – wget static.onlogic.com/resources/firmware/documentation/configs/FR200_RS422.conf
  • RS485 – wget static.onlogic.com/resources/firmware/documentation/configs/FR200_RS485.conf
• Flash the EEPROM image: sudo eeprom_ftdi --flash-eeprom FR200_<protocol>.conf
• Reboot for changes to take effect: sudo shutdown -r now

TPM

The TPM is an optional hardware add-on for the FR200 series systems. It uses the Nuvoton TPM 2.0 module. You can download the required Device Tree files and Readme installation instructions from here:

FR200 Series TPM Files

FR202 Digital IO

Note: For the best experience, always update to the latest firmware version before testing these commands.

The FR202 Digital IO is connected to the CM4 via a virtual USB-CDC-ACM serial port; you can see that the USB device is detected using lsusb and OnLogic’s USB Vendor ID:

lsusb -d 353f:

Data can be sent to the device over its virtual serial port, which will be available in /dev :

ls /dev | grep ACM

The serial port can operate either as an interactive UART terminal, or as an endpoint for raw byte commands.

UART Terminal

The FR202’s UART shell supports line editing, history, and TAB completion. Digital inputs and outputs are collected into groups, and dio commands are performed on those groups.

For instance, DO_G0 is “Digital Output Group 0”. A complete list of devices can be produced by running device list. Once you have selected a device, dio commands may be run:

Subcommand	Example	Description
set	dio set DO_G0 0 true	Set the logical state of a digital output to true or false
get	dio get DO_G0 output 0	Get the current logical state of a digital input or ouput
num	dio num DO_G0 ouputs	Report the number of input/output pins available to an IO bank
mode	dio mode DO_G0 open-drain	Configure digital outputs to source or sink current, when supported
pwm	dio pwm DO_G0 0 1000000 50	Set an output as PWM with period in microseconds, and duty in percent
edge	dio edge DO_G0 0	Get the number of rising and falling edges detected by a digital input

To exit the interactive terminal and enter byte-processing mode, run the byte_mode command.

For information about other terminal commands, see: Shell Commands

Byte Mode

When using byte mode, DIO commands are sent in the form of command packets, and each command will receive a status (and optional data) as a response.

The command header is eight bytes in length:

Bytes	Description	Options
0	The message ‘start of frame’ byte.	Must be 0x01, or the message will be rejected. For non request/response frames, it is instead set as 0x02
1	Indicates the kind of command transmitted	Must be one of the Valid Command Kinds
2 – 3	The status of the last command	Should be zero when sending a command, one of Status Codes when receiving
4 – 7	The length of the transfered command data	Must be less than 248, and equal to the length of the command body in bytes

All command headers must indicate the type of data to follow, by setting the command kind:

Kind	Value (u8)	Size	Description
DIO	0x00	8 bytes	Commands that get and set the state of MCU controlled digital IO banks
CAN	0x01	6 bytes	Sideband configuration and reporting for CAN devices
Reset	0x02	0 bytes	Causes a cold-reset of the microcontroller
Version	0x03	8 bytes	Reports the firmware version of the running application image
Ignition	0x04	10 bytes	Configures automotive and power features on supported devices
Disable	0x05	0 bytes	Disables byte processing of incoming data, and returns to an interactive shell

Each command sent will recieve a response from the microcontroller. This response may contain data, but can always be examined to determine if the command succeeded.

Code	Value	Description
Success	0x0000	The last command was processed successfully
Invalid Device	0x0001	The device indicated by the command exceeded the number of devices available to the system
Unbound Device	0x0002	The device targetted exists, but the MCU was unable to attach to and communicate with it
DIO – Invalid Pin	0x0003	The target pin exceeded the number of inputs or outputs actually present
DIO – Pin Read Failed	0x0004	Reading the state of the targetted pin failed for an unknown reason
DIO – Pin Write Faield	0x0005	Writing the state of the targetted pin failed for an unknown reason
DIO – Set Mode Unsupported	0x0006	Setting the DIO mode to push-pull or sink-source is not supported
Invalid Command	0x0007	The subcommand requested was outside of the valid range for the message kind
Bad Message Kind	0x0008	The message kind was not one of Valid Command Kinds
Version – Read Failed	0x0009	Reading the application version failed for an unknown reason

The DIO command format is as follows:

Bytes	Description	Options
0	The DIO action to perform on the device	Must be one of DIO Actions
1	The bank of digital IO to target, or the number of devices	Must be between 0 and the number of DIO banks available on the platform
2	The pin index to get or set	The output pin index starts at 0, the input index starts at 0 + n-outputs
3	The current state of the pin (if read), or the state to set (if written), or the mode to set (mode 0=sourcing, mode 1=sinking)	0 or 1
4 – 7	The edge-count of the pin, or the number of inputs/outputs	0 – MAX_UNSIGNED_INT (u32)

The digital IO command supports the following actions:

Action	Value (u8)	Description
Get	0x00	Read the state and count of an input, or just the state of an output
Set	0x01	Set the logical state of a digital output
Set Count	0x02	Set the edge count of a digital input to the passed value
Set Mode	0x03	Switch between sink-source and open-collector drive mode on supported hardware
Num Devices	0x04	Reports the number of DIO banks available on the device
Num Outputs	0x05	Reports the number of outputs available to the indicated device
Num Inputs	0x06	Reports the number of inputs available to the indicated device

Firmware Updates

1. Download and extract the zmu update tools for arm
2. Download the latest firmware update (v.1.2.5.1)
3. Update the firmware by running one of the following, depending on OS.
   • 32-bit: sudo chmod +x zmu* && sudo ./zmu-arm32 image upload fr202_dio_v1.2.5.1.app.bin
   • 64-bit: sudo chmod +x zmu* && sudo ./zmu-arm64 image upload fr202_dio_v1.2.5.1.app.bin

Front Display

Demo Application

A sample application demonstrating some simple features of the display is provided here. Pieces of this sample package are referenced in the display sections following. It also ships on all OnLogic-provided Pi OS and Ubuntu software images, enabled by default. To disable it, run sudo systemctl disable demo-display from a terminal window.

Display IC Part Numbers

Touch Controller:      ST1633i

Display Controller:    ST7789V

Controlling the Backlight

Display backlight is controlled by an i2c expander at 0x3C on I2C1. 

The OnLogic-provided utility “fr202-i2c” can control the backlight with the commands:

Enable: fr202-i2c set p7v6_shdn 0

Disable: fr202-i2c set p7v6_shdn 1

A list of other controllable signals is available in the help text for the tool. It is provided with the display code samples as well as 

The backlight can also be enabled using the i2ctools utilities as follows:

Configure GPIO IC: i2cset -y 1 0x3c 0x03 0x81

Enable: i2cset -y 1 0x3c 0x01 0xbf

Disable: i2cset -y 1 0x3c 0x01 0xff

Images, Text, and Touch via Python

pip install st7789

apt install python3-rpi.gpio python3-spidev python3-pil python3-numpy 

The provided python example “demo-display” demonstrates the use of Python’s PIL and the ST7789 display library to display static images and text. It runs as a service in OnLogic-provided Pi OS and Ubuntu installations as well.

Video via Python

pip install opencv-python

apt install libatlas-base-dev

pip install -U numpy

The separately provided example “st7789-video” demonstrates the use of opencv’s video library to show a video on-screen. By default, the sample is configured to read and display a video called “test.avi” in the same folder as the application. A video is not provided.

ADC

The ADC is attached to SPI 4 CS0. 

The ADC part number is LTC2448; a description of the SPI protocol can be found in the device manual here.

All ADC channels are differential and configured as follows:
ANALOG IN 0: Channel 0+1

ANALOG IN 1: Channel 2+3

ANALOG IN 2: Channel 4+5

ANALOG IN 3: Channel 6+7

TEMPERATURE 0: SENSOR Channel 8+9, REFERENCE Channel 10+11

TEMPERATURE 0: SENSOR Channel 12+13, REFERENCE Channel 14+15

Troubleshooting/Known Issues

Missing/Disabled Ethernet port in Ubuntu

If one of the Ethernet ports is not detected or shows as Disabled in Ubuntu, you can follow these steps to add it into Netplan and enable it.

1. Run the following command:

lshw
Network: DISABLED

2. Look for the Logical name, which is required in the next step, and run the following commands

cd /etc
cd netplan
sudo nano 50-cloud-init.yaml

3. Add the logical name (found in Step 2) to the 50-cloud-init.yaml file. See an example below:

4. Close and save, then run the following commands

sudo netplan apply
reboot

---

Booting via USB results in black screen

Booting Ubuntu via USB may result in a black screen if the eMMC has an OS image on it. Wiping the eMMC and/or M.2 drive is recommended if that is encountered.