Morning gents,
Running an RPI 2 myself, but I see the older B+ units are a lot cheaper these days.
Looking at adding a new station (namely my father).
Looking to use the older B= purely for FA and related apps (feeders etc) - how capable is the old B+ with current (2.03, MLAT) and future requirements of FA?
Worth bothering with, or too limited?
I’m currently running on an RPi1 B. With MLAT enabled it does push it a bit with loads constantly around 1-1.5, but the web interface of dump1090 is still responsive. I think the amount of data you’re receiving will have an effect too.
I’m running PiAware on an old crappy first-gen-ever model A and it’s fine 
My piaware test system is a B+ so it should be fine.
I’m running with an old B - reasonbly busy area, also feeding planefinder and on occasion FR24, it’s fine.
1B, 1B+, 1Pi2 running 2.0.4 w/o problems in a quiet neighborhood. PC running dump1090 & PP.
My main FlightAware box is a very early 256mb Pi model B…
uptime
17:14:46 up 128 days, 6:39, 1 user, load average: 0.64, 0.67, 0.68
It’s been pretty stable… I stripped down the OS, throwing away a lot of stuff, and changing the video split to the minimum, as it runs headless.
As a production system, it doesn’t get updates very often, only when they’re necessary. It also gets backed up automagically twice a week.
One of the downsides of running on an older system, like this one, is that doing anything with USB, like unplugging or plugging in anything, WILL cause the sucker to reboot. And that’s with the polyswitch fuses in this early board bypassed, and extra slug tantalum filter caps added.
They are also susceptible to power fluctuations. I use the Pololu +5 buck/boost converter https://www.pololu.com/product/2574 with almost every Pi system I have; it means I can run the system from 3 to 30 Volts DC.
For headless systems, you can not only reclaim memory used for video, but you can also cut current consumption by 30 - 50mA by disabling HDMI:
/opt/vc/bin/tvservice -o
Oh, this system takes input from another dump1090mutability instance, one with its own antenna and RF chain. Even with that, and running the latest PiAware with MLAT enabled, TOP says it’s using 60% of the CPU. I have this one overclocked to 900MHz, and as the uptime shows, it’s stable.
I’m looking at placing ADS-B packages at friend’s places in the Valley. One of the things I’m including in the package is a recessed reset switch (behind a small hole in the front panel) that can be operated using a toothpick or something similar. That way if the little sucker goes nonresponsive, I can call someone and have them tickle the reset switch. As pointed out in many places, power-cycling a Pi is the best way to corrupt the SD card. You might also think of establishing a port-forwarding rule in your host’s router/firewall, forwarding a high port to the Pi’s port 22 so you can log into it using SSH to check things.
Package it up and have fun.
bob k6rtm
I’m using the original model B (not the B+), which is running the following:
dump1090-mutability
piaware
piaware mlat client
planefinder client
flightradar24 client
My site is fairly busy (1500-1600 messages/sec at peak times) and CPU usage averages at about 80%. Adding anything else to it causes it to run out of CPU and drop samples. It’s overclocked to 1GHz (it’s run stably at that for over 2 years on other tasks) and the wifi and rtl dongle are connected via a powered USB hub.
I also have modesmixer2, obj’s other mlat client and planeplotter’s uploader running, but had to move them to a separate pi 2 because of lack of CPU on the other one. The pi 2 has enough power to run all of the ADS-B software simultaneously with plenty of CPU to spare. Unless you really want to save the extra cost it’s well worth getting the pi 2, but if not then the above should give you an idea of the limit of the earlier designs.
Thanks for your all your experiences guys
Very interested to see all your customizations on the earlier models to keep them going, and pleased to see those of you using those older models are still getting value out of them.
In the UK we can get the RPi2 at c£28, so as you say - a B+ would have to be very cheap to make it worth while…
That said, if I can get one on flea-bay for a few ££ I might have a go, give my dad that plus my current GPAntennna now I’ve moved to an external-ised gp.
Should be enough to get him started…