Asus Tinker Edge T User manual

Getting Started
Requirement
• 1 x USB Type-C® cable with data transfer function (to connect your PC to the board’s data port)
• 1 x 12~19V power supply*
• 1 x Monitor with HDMI cable
• 1 x Keyboard and Mouse set
* The power supply is purchased separately.
* The factory settings only includes a U-Boot bootloader and does not include a system
Before you begin the flashing procedure, please ensure of the following:
• The board is completely powered off, and the power cord and cables connecting the board to
your computer are all disconnected.
• The boot mode switches are set to eMMC mode, please refer to the table and illustration below
for the eMMC mode setting.
Image list
https://www.asus.com/AIoT-Industrial-Solutions/Tinker-Edge-T/HelpDesk_Download/
Flashing the Tinker Edge T
Initiating Fastboot mode:
I. Connect the USB Type-C® cable to the USB Type-C® ports on the Tinker Edge T and your host
computer.
II. Power on the board, you should automatically be booted into Fastboot mode.
Please note that you will only be booted into Fastboot mode when booting up the Tinker
Edge T for the first time.
Please refer to the readme file in the unzipped folder for details on other items such as re-
flash or recovery.
Executing the flash script:
I. Download the OS image from the Tinker Edge T website, then unzip the image file.
II. Run the flash script or command file to start the flash process. The flash process should
take a few minutes. Once the flash is completed, the Tinker Edge T will reboot and you
should be booted to the terminal prompt.

Please refer to the readme file in the unzipped folder for troubleshooting steps.
Customize Settings
Change Keyboard Layout
The keyboard layout is set to English (US) as default setting. Refer to the process below
to change the language.
sudo dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration
sudo reboot
Change Time Zone/Date/Time
Use Timedatectl built-in tool in OS to change Time.
oTime Zone
Print Time Zone list.
timedatectl list-timezones
Once you identify which time zone is accurate to your location, run the following command
as sudo user:
sudo timedatectl set-timezone your_time_zone
For example, to change the system’s timezone to Europe/Ljubljana you would
run:
sudo timedatectl set-timezone Europe/Ljubljana
oDate/Time
Enable NTP
sudo timedatectl set-ntp yes
Disable NTP
sudo timedatectl set-ntp no
Set Time (need disable NTP)
sudo timedatectl set-time "2016-11-12"
sudo timedatectl set-time "18:10:40"
sudo timedatectl set-time "2016-11-12 18:10:40"
oVerify
Print to verify the change by issuing the timedatectl command:
timedatectl
Example:
Local time: Mon 2019-03-11 22:51:27 CET
Universal time: Mon 2019-03-11 21:51:27 UTC
RTC time: Mon 2019-03-11 21:51:26
Time zone: Europe/Ljubljana (CET, +0100)
Network time on: yes
NTP synchronized: yes
RTC in local TZ: no
Check Screen’s Resolution

By default, the output is locked at a resolution of 1920 x 1080. Change this setting by
editing file at /etc/xdg/weston/weston.ini. In the [output] section, edit the line
mode=1920x1080 to be a resolution of your choice.
Check Audio’s Output Interface
oOutput Devices:
Output Device
Description
imx-audio-hdmi
HDMI Audio
Check Internet connection
oEthernet
1. Connect an Ethernet cable to the board.
2. Use the following command to check detailed connection information.
Ifconfig eth0
oWi-Fi
Select a Wi-Fi network by running the following command in the device shell:
nmtui
Then select Activate a connection and select a network from the list under Wi-Fi
(wlan0).
Alternatively, use the following command to connect to a known network name:
nmcli dev wifi connect <NETWORK_NAME> password <PASSWORD> ifname
wlan0
Verify your connection with this command:
nmcli connection show
You should see your selected network listed in the output. For example:
NAME UUID TYPE DEVICE
MyNetworkName 61f5d6b2-5f52-4256-83ae-7f148546575a 802-11-wireless wlan0

GPIO
Following table shows the header pinout, including the sysfs paths for each port, which is often the name
required when using the periphery library. You can also see the header pinout from the command line by
typing pinout on the Tinker Edge T.
Note: All I/O pins have a 90k pull-down resistor inside the iMX8M SoC that is used by default during
bootup, except for the I2C pins, which instead have a pull-up to 3.3V on the SoM.
Caution: Do not connect a device that draws more than ~ 82 mA of power or you will brownout the
system.
sysfs path
Pin function
Pin
Pin function
sysfs path
+3.3V Power
1
2
+5V Power
/dev/i2c-1
I2C 2 (SDA)
3
4
+5V Power
/dev/i2c-1
I2C 2 (SCL)
5
6
Ground
/dev/ttymxc2
UART 3 (TXD)
7
8
UART 1 (TXD)
/dev/ttymxc0
Ground
9
10
UART 1 (RXD)
/dev/ttymxc0
/dev/ttymxc2
UART 3 (RXD)
11
12
SAI 1 (TXC)
/sys/class/gpio/gpio6
GPIO 6
13
14
Ground
/sys/class/pwm/pwmchip2/pwm0
PWM 4
15
16
GPIO 73
/sys/class/gpio/gpio73
+3.3V Power
17
18
GPIO 138
/sys/class/gpio/gpio138
/dev/spidev32766
SPI 1 (MOSI)
19
20
Ground
/dev/spidev32766
SPI 1 (MISO)
21
22
GPIO 140
/sys/class/gpio/gpio140
/dev/spidev32766
SPI 1 (SCLK)
23
24
SPI 1 (SS0)
/dev/spidev32766.0
Ground
25
26
SPI 1 (SS1)
/dev/spidev32766.1
/dev/i2c-2
I2C 3 (SDA)
27
28
I2C 3 (SCL)
/dev/i2c-2
/sys/class/gpio/gpio7
GPIO 7
29
30
Ground
/sys/class/gpio/gpio8
GPIO 8
31
32
PWM 1
/sys/class/pwm/pwmchip0/pwm0
/sys/class/pwm/pwmchip1/pwm0
PWM 2
33
34
Ground
SAI 1 (TXFS)
35
36
GPIO 141
/sys/class/gpio/gpio141
/sys/class/gpio/gpio77
GPIO 77
37
38
SAI 1 (RXD)
Ground
39
40
SAI 1 (TXD)
Warning: Use caution when handling the GPIO pins to avoid electrostatic discharge or contact with
conductive materials (metals). Failure to properly handle the Tinker Edge T can result in a short circuit,
electric shock, serious injury, death, fire, or damage to your board and other property.

Using the Periphery library
To access the header pins on the Tinker Edge T, you can use standard Linux sysfs interfaces. But if you'd like
a Python API, we recommend you use the python-periphery library, which is built atop the sysfs interfaces.
You can install the library on your Dev Board as follows:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python3-pip
sudo pip3 install python-periphery
Note:
To access peripheral hardware resources on the Dev Board, you need to run your code with sudo privileges.
You should install the Python 3 version of Periphery because that's the Python version required by the Edge
TPU Python API.
The Periphery library allows you to select a GPIO or PWM pin with a pin number. Other interfaces, such as
I2C and UART pins must be specified using the pin's device path. See the following examples.
GPIO
The following code shows how to instantiate each of the GPIO pins with Periphery:
gpio6 = GPIO(6, "in")
gpio7 = GPIO(7, "in")
gpio8 = GPIO(8, "in")
gpio138 = GPIO(138, "in")
gpio140 = GPIO(140, "in")
gpio141 = GPIO(141, "in")
gpio73 = GPIO(73, "out")
gpio77 = GPIO(77, "out")
Note: GPIO73 and GPIO77 currently support only the "out" direction.
For more examples, see the https://python-periphery.readthedocs.io/en/latest/gpio.html.
PWM
The following code shows how to instantiate each of the PWM pins with Periphery:
# PWM1 = pwmchip0, pwm0
pwm1 = PWM(0, 0)
# PWM2 = pwmchip1, pwm0
pwm2 = PWM(1, 0)
# PWM4 = pwmchip2, pwm0
pwm4 = PWM(2, 0)

For usage examples, see the https://python-periphery.readthedocs.io/en/latest/pwm.html.
I2C
The following code shows how to instantiate each of the I2C ports with Periphery:
i2c2 = I2C("/dev/i2c-1")
i2c3 = I2C("/dev/i2c-2")
For usage examples, see the https://python-periphery.readthedocs.io/en/latest/i2c.html.
SPI
The following code shows how to instantiate each of the SPI ports with Periphery:
# SPI1, SS0, Mode 0, 10MHz
spi1_0 = SPI("/dev/spidev32766.0", 0, 10000000)
# SPI1, SS1, Mode 0, 10MHz
spi1_1 = SPI("/dev/spidev32766.1", 0, 10000000)
For usage examples, see the https://python-periphery.readthedocs.io/en/latest/spi.html.
UART
The following code shows how to instantiate each of the UART ports with Periphery:
# UART1, 115200 baud
uart1 = Serial("/dev/ttymxc0", 115200)
# UART3, 9600 baud
uart3 = Serial("/dev/ttymxc2", 9600)
Caution: UART1 is shared with the Linux serial console. To use the UART1 port in your application, you
must disable the serial console with the following command:
systemctl stop [e-mail]
Note: UART3 is not enabled by default in Mendel 3.0 (Chef), but we've released a package update to
enable it. First check to see if it's available on your board:
ls /dev | grep ttymxc
If you see ttymxc2 listed, then you're all good. If not, then you need to update as follows:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo reboot now
For usage examples, see the https://python-periphery.readthedocs.io/en/latest/serial.html.

Sample Code
blink.py
from periphery import GPIO
import time
LED_Pin = 73 #Physical Pin-16 is GPIO 73
# Open GPIO /sys/class/gpio/gpio73 with output direction
LED_GPIO = GPIO(73, "out")
while True:
try: #Blink the LED
LED_GPIO.write(True)
# Send HIGH to switch on LED
print("LED ON!")
time.sleep(0.5)
LED_GPIO.write(False)
# Send LOW to switch off LED
print("LED OFF!")
time.sleep(0.5)
except KeyboardInterrupt:
# Turn LED off before stopping
LED_GPIO.write(False)
break
except IOError:
print ("Error")
LED_GPIO.close()
Example (Run)
sudo python3blink.py

How to check current hardware information
Current CPU frequency
To read current real-time CPU frequency:
sudo cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/policy0/cpuinfo_cur_freq
Current GPU frequency
To read current GPU frequency
sudo cat /sys/kernel/debug/gc/clk | grep sh | awk '{print $4}'
Current CPU & GPU Temperature
To monitor real-time SoC temperature
watch -n 1 sudo cat /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp
Advanced Script
save below text as hwinfo_moniter.sh
#!/bin/bash
soc_temp=$(sudo cat /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp | awk '{printf "%.2f", $0 / 1000}
')
cpu_freq=$(sudo cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/policy0/cpuinfo_cur_freq | awk '{printf
"%.2f", $0 / 1000000}')
gpu_freq=$(sudo cat /sys/kernel/debug/gc/clk | grep sh | awk '{printf "%.2f", $4 / 1000000}
')
echo "SoC Temp=> $soc_temp degree C"
echo "CPU Freq=> $cpu_freq GHz"
echo "GPU Freq=> $gpu_freq MHz"
example:

$ sudo chmod +x hwinfo_moniter.sh
$ ./hwinfo_moniter.sh
SoC => 55.00°C
also can watch it every seconds by:
$ watch -t -p -n 1 ./hwinfo_moniter.sh

Get started with the Two Camera Demo
Requirements
1. Tinker Edge T
2. Image version >= TINKER_EDGE_T-MENDEL-0.0.14-20190904
3. 2 x Coral or AIY’s MIPI Camera
Set up on Tinker Edge T and MIPI Camera
4. Insert the two MIPI camera to the CSI ports (Red part) of Tinker Edge T:
-Back:
-Front:

5. Power on Tinker Edge T and open the terminal by mouse (Red part):
6. Enter the name of demo app in the terminal (edgetpu_object_detect or
edgetpu_face_detect) (Red part):
-edgetpu_object_detect : Object Detection by MobileNet-SSD v2
-edgetpu_face_detect: Face Detection by MobileNet-SSD v2

7. Minimized the terminal by clicking the red part and move the camera windows by hold the
windows key + mouse left key:
8. You should see results like this:
Congrats! You've just performed an inference on Tinker Edge T.