I am looking at buying another Raspberry Pi3 but was wondering if the Pi3B+ was better to use and I would move one of my Pi3B’s to my experimenting. What are the thoughts on this?
I have both the 3B and 3B+. The 3B+ seems to have a little edge for other uses, but not for Flightaware. They are both the same, as far as I can tell.
Agreed that they both seem to give similar performance with FA. I am using the 3B+ and getting good results. Recommend the latest and greatest.
Most definetively, specially since the price is basically the same, or was last time I checked.
I purchased the 3B+ based only on the better specs. I did not really need another one at the time. Again, for FA, it was not justified, but being the current model, it’s a no brainer to go with it.
One of the reasons I was going to stay with Pi was the fact that FA image and the others programs I use for my feeders. I was also looking at the tinker board and Odroid as well.
Oh yes…I thought about that as well, but in the end, staying with the mainstream platform won out.
For FA, stay with the Pi. Unless FA releases new features requiring more horse power, there is no need to change it just for FA.
Learning is another story. If that is the plan, go ahead. The TinkerBoard was my preferred choice, but looks like ASUS dropped the ball big time. The Odroid seems to be the good one now.
For last 3-1/2 years, I am using $15 Orange Pi PC, feeding 24/7 to following sites without any problem, or over tempature or overload:
- Flightaware
- Planefinder
- FlightRadar24
- RadarBox24
- Adsbexchange
- Opensky network
I’m sure this board is great. My main concern is that it may not be ‘Plug&Play’ with the FA image.
If ‘Plug&Pray’ most non-technical, non- IT users would ‘suffer’. Multiple feeds surely complicates things.
Availability and easy sourcing are big factors. The price difference is easily ‘eaten’ by shipping alone in some cases.
Yes it wont accept FA image which is Raspbian Stretch, while Orange Pi uses Armbian Stretch.
But the good thing is that it being armh cpu, and its os is derivative of debian stretch, both dump1090-fa and piaware package install is as smooth as on RPi/Raspbian. Package install though not plug-n-play, but not very difficult for most users.
I purchased “set 5” i.e. board + plastic case + power supply adaptor for US$23 + US$5 shipping to Canada.
NOTE:
(1) This model does NOT have built-in WiFi.
(2) It does NOT accept Raspbian image or Piaware image.
It uses the image called Armbian, which is available from page linked below.
There are two versions available, the Ubuntu based (bionic) and Debian based (stretch). Do NOT use Ubuntu based bionic image as piaware and dump1090-fa packages availble at Flightaware may not work with bionic. Use Armbian (stretch) which is what I am using without any problems.
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I have two Pi3b version 1.2
I’ve got a mix of 3B and 3B+ and as previously stated, I’ve not seen much to choose between them for feeding.
However, I am running FlightAirMap as well and while it was fine on the 3B+, it is quite slow on the 3B.
One of the disappointing things about the 3B+ for me is that although it has Gigabit Ethernet, the throughput isn’t that much better than the 3B.
Haven’t tried the POE hat myself but some may find that useful.
I read reports that the 3B+ ran hotter than the 3B but that has not been my experience.
my 3B+ is running about 3C higher VS the 3B
I plan on replacing my FA Pi Aware with 3b+. I have VRS running on Pi 3b and VRS can be a hog on resources
You can use the raspberry pi zero W as well or the raspberry pi 3A+ that has same SoC but only one USB and 256mb ram but is smaller and cheaper
If you want to do PoE, then go B+
I have both a 3B and a 3B+. One major advantage of the 3B+ is it has 5GHz wifi which allows one to use it for other networking things without overloading the 2.4GHz wifi on the 3B. I use my 3B+ as a print server driving LaserJet and InkJet printers as well as 2 ADSB dongles.
I have 8 3b+ all running FA dongle & FA image, all have been excellent - but using a correctly rated power supply is important as voltage fluctuations seemed to impact piaware (as I found out)
I couldn’t see much difference in performance between the 3b and 3b+ with the above config and I’m gathering a lot of system metrics, fwiw. I have found however that a Pi Zero W is also great, unless you are in a very high overhead traffic area or heavy distant signals - where it will start to lock up, impacting network stack heavily.
I ordered a Pi3b+ today from Cana kits. All of my Pi3b’s were from them.
It’s a canadian company, so it must be good.
Next time, check this one out:
Their prices used to be better than Cana Kits, but I have not checked or purchased from them recently.
Another good one, but from the UK this time:
I bought a Pi3B from them cheaper than locally, even with shipping added to the total price.
This is what I ordered.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07BC7BMHY/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1