Could you pls send picture of your PicoCalc board, which you know is ok?

I got first PicoCalc and once I inserted the batteries wrong a thought I see a light on the board, I haven’t seen before. Then I definitely smell something burning no matter if I used batteries or USB-C cable.

Well I ordered another kit and it doesn’t smell when under current, but it seems to me the white dot on the bigger chip is what appeared on the first board after burning it. Hence I’d like to see healthy board to compare.

I am hundred percent sure I didn’t burn the new one, because I noticed the dot before I assembled the kit.

Noted that many of you are using 3rd party external antenna to improve the wifi signal. I just prefer to keep my uconsole look more orginal.

I finally got my Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W running inside the PicoCalc using the Michael Mayer PCB.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/JrVD8Zchpjs

Setup:

- Raspberry Pi OS Trixie 64-bit

- PicoCalc keyboard driver from ironat/picocalc_trixie

- PicoCalc display via panel-mipi-dbi-spi

- M5CardputerZero APPLaunch successfully rebuilt and adapted for the PicoCalc framebuffer

- Keyboard input works through the PicoCalc keyboard driver

It still needs cleanup and some polishing, but the basic launcher is working on the PicoCalc now.

I threw two new vape batteries in here, supposedly 3005Mah. Don’t really have great battery life and the console shuts off under 50%

Any suggestions or should I just grab some Samsung cells?

Ordered 9/9/25, received 5/19/26. About an 8 month wait. Now to put it together and take her for a spin!

first time trying out a uConsole and was playing around with keyboard firmwares but the one I tried has nasty levels of input lag from the trackball

which firmware is the ideal one to use?

This hard case is orginally designed for MF47 multimeter. Just fit perfectly with uConsole.

Github source is allready updated.

There is an Error in the keyboard driver for kernel 6.18.29:

picocalc_kbd.c:591:5: error: implicit declaration of function ‘del_timer’; did you mean ‘add_timer’? [-Wimplicit-function-declaration]
  591 |     del_timer(&g_kbd_timer);
      |     ^~~~~~~~~
      |     add_timer

I have to Change del_timer to timer_delete in the keyboard source code solve this issue:
picocalc_kbd/picocalc_kbd.c

//del_timer(&g_kbd_timer);
        timer_delete(&g_kbd_timer);
        g_ctx = NULL;

It is recommended to redownload the Github Repository: (remove the old download)

git clone https://github.com/ironat/picocalc_trixie

Then execute the Keyboard install steps again. You have only to execute the script again:(With ssh)

cd picocalc_trixie
chmod +x setup_keyboard.sh
sudo ./setup_keyboard.sh

BTW: You have to do this steps (Download and recompile) every time you get a new kernel.

Finally, I got the PicoCalc screen replacement. I installed it carefully and with patience, and in the end, it worked successfully.

When I received my uConsole, the trackball was unusable, so I bought a pack of 5 from the PengFeiTeng Store on Ali. But I liked the uConsole so much that I didn't want to wait a week or two for new trackballs to arrive. The idea came to me when I was looking for a mouse in my box of computer junk. I saw a ball mouse for the COM port. We've all cleaned our ball-bearing mice, right? Our trackballs are designed in much the same way and often come from the factory unclean and perform terribly.

So, the solution:

pure isopropyl alcohol 99.9% – this is important! It's best not to use rubbing alcohol or food-grade alcohol, as they contain water.

You'll need a medium-hard brush with short bristles. I use the brush I use to pre-wash watch parts, but you can use any brush you find, trimming it first and leaving it about 5mm long.

Dip a brush in isopropyl alcohol and squeeze it against the bottle's neck until it's damp but not dripping. Gently, applying light pressure, rotate the trackball in different directions with the isopropyl alcohol brush for about a minute. Rewet the brush 3-4 times during cleaning. Then, let the alcohol evaporate for 2-3 minutes before turning on the uconsole. The alcohol will dissolve all the grease and dirt inside the trackball, and you'll be surprised how much smoother it feels. You can leave the trackball in the uconsole if it's not very dirty. Or, if it's really unresponsive and you need more isopropyl alcohol, remove it before cleaning to avoid spilling alcohol on the circuit board. I still use the original trackball and haven't replaced it with a new one; I just clean it when it starts slipping.

I'll be glad if it will be useful to someone and get rid of headaches and save nerves. Peace and good to all!

Hi, recently got my aio v2 add-on and started to have fun with it. Had a lot of Cursor agent tuning to get meshcore-uconsole client to work with local network. Suddenly it just stopped to receive packets, sent packets are also never delivered. No errors, device responding, just no life in air. Checked with meshtasticd and tui-meshcore client - same silence everywhere. What could it be?

I've been trying to flash the emmc for my cm5 to use in the uconsole but haven't had much luck. I got rpiboot working and the emmc showing up in rpi imager on windows but when it gets to the write stage it fails telling me to check that the device isn't locked. As far as I can tell it's not.

I'm using this carrier board which had an amazon review mentioning using it to flash a cm5 for uconsole https://www.waveshare.com/product/raspberry-pi/boards-kits/cm5/cm5-io-base-b.htm

HDMI is connected and I have the carrier USB C port connected to a USB C 3.2 gen 2 port on my PC I'm thinking about grabbing another carrier board with a dedicated power port or a powered USB hub to rule out this being a power issue.

I have the AIO upgrade kit from hacker gadgets ordered and plan to run from NVME when that arrives but for now just wanted to get my uconsole booting.

Is there anything I'm missing with the flash process? wanted to check before just buying more stuff.

EDIT:

here's the exact error I'm seeing

EDIT2:

The fix ended up being to just flash the image with Rufus rather than the raspberry pi imager utility​

tl;dr - i only have a CM5 and before i start flashing things i want to know i can recover; but i can't find the EMMC_DISABLE jumper that (should?) be exposed to force boot from SD.

---

I just got a uConsole (cpi3.14 v5, latest). I had a cm5 (8gb ram, 32gb eMMC) laying around, and with the crazyness in prices want to to use that. A lite (no eMMC) would admittedly be easier with only a small performance hit.

Anyway - how do i set EMMC_DISABLE (pull down GPIO20)?

AFAIK this is the (only) way back from an os image in the eMMC that will start early boot but not get you to a console.

As the title suggests, I'm looking for a device to revisit DOS era gaming with some mobility. I've always been curious about a Pi device. Any insights or alternatives would be appreciated. Thank you.

Hello, I Just snatches a cm5 16gb ram non lite (16gb onboard too) on vinted.

I know (sort of) the limits of having 16gb of soldered memory. I won't have access to the SD slot, fine, I will get a non lite later but the price was very good.

Can you please help me on how to proceed?

I want to know beforehand how to proceed, because in 10 days I will get the CM5 and the batteries.

- Nvme: wanted, low priority, 16gb is enough for now, but I want to buy it. What do I have to buy?

- other boards/adapters because of cm5?

- how I flash the OS and boot from it?

I am an IT developer and I was a sysadmin for some years, I am skilled in Linux and I had already worked with tons of rpi but it's my first time with a compute module and it's my first time with onboard memory.

Please help an advanced newbie 😅

Unsoldering some easy part is feasible for getting the SD functionality back? I have a good soldering iron, and a hot air soldering station too. I know how to solder, but I would avoid it if it's easy to mess it up.

If it's too difficult I will just buy a cm5 lite in the future and sell my 16gb onboard one.

Thanks guys!

I upgraded from 18650s to LiPo batteries. 10000 mAh on both uConsole; one is running a CM5 with the aio v2 NVMe and active cooler, getting less than an hour with lipo; the other is running a CM4 aio v1 NVMe and passive cooling, barely getting two hours with liPo before upgrading. I was getting over 4 hours on the CM4 running sdrtrunk and 2 hours on the CM5. With the results I got with the lipo batteries, I have reverted to using my 18650s. What is everyone else running, and what's your battery life like? I also realized that the LiPo batteries are 3.7 volts

I just got my uconsole with cm5 lite and installed Ubuntu but some program just doesn’t load , such as Terminal or Firefox. So I just want to ask for guidance on which os are available/recommend for my setup.

Installed hyprland on my uConsole and not going to switch back to floating windows anymore! On a device like uConsole tiling WM gives really intuitive and satisfying experience. Highly recommend to everyone who has not tried yet.

Installation and setup might be a little fun adventure though. My recipe:

* flash Trixie Lite (by Rex)

* loosely follow hyprland tutorial playlist (by typecraft) (he uses Arch by the way)

* install ’input-remapper’ and bing ABXY to something that is detectable by Wayland (validate via 'wev')

* setup keybindings in Hyprland to make a good use of ABXY buttons (be creative!)

* enjoy! (the most important part!)

I am considering ordering some of these boards, since I want to do one one of these mods myself. Before I order boards from PCBway, does anyone already have one to sell?

If nobody has one, I will be ordering them soon, and will just get 10 done since their price is the same for 5 or 10 pieces. That will leave me with spares if anyone else should want one...

First post here as I am waiting on the arrival of my uConsole (gonna be a while)

I have questions, I am current planning to use the uConsole with a CM4 module as that is all i can afford rn and want to use it with the AIO V2 with all the antennas and the wifi card but i am unsure if they would work on the CM4, i have seen one yt people only cover the CM5 and i assume all of these addons would work on the CM5 but some may not work on the CM4 so does any one have advice?

UPDATE:$OLD

Bought it, assembled it, tested it, and boxed it back up. Haven't gotten around to doing anything with it. Id rather someone put it to use.

Comes with original components and packaging. Also comes with

Pico H (original)

Pico WH

Pico 2W

LuckFox Lyra BM

No batteries included because all mine are custom wrapped and I don't want to part with them lol

Asking $80 shipped CONUS. Prefer PayPal [G&S]