Red Pitaya Quick Start

What do I need before I start?

• 5 V / 2 A micro USB power supply,

• 4 GB (up to 32 GB) Class 10 micro SD card with pre-loaded Red Pitaya OS,

• Ethernet cable.

• A computer with an internet browser (Google Chrome is recommended),

• router with DHCP server enabled and access to the internet.

Connect to Red Pitaya

Connection types

Wired

Local Area Network (LAN)

This is the most common and recommended way of connecting and using your Red Pitaya boards. Your LAN network needs to have DHCP settings enabled, which is the case in the majority of the local networks. With this, a simple plug and play approach is enabled. Having the Red Pitaya board connected to the local network will enable quick access to all Red Pitaya applications using only your web browser. Simply follow these 3 simple steps:

1. Connect the power supply to the Red Pitaya board,

2. Connect the Red Pitaya board to the router or directly to the PC Ethernet socket,

3. Open your web browser and type: rp-xxxxxx.local/ into the URL field.

Note

xxxxxx are the last 6 characters from the MAC address of your Red Pitaya board. The MAC address is written on the Ethernet connector.

Figure 1: Connecting your Red Pitaya board to the LAN network.

After the third step you will get a Red Pitaya main page as shown below.

Figure 2: Red Pitaya main page user interface.

Direct Ethernet cable connection

Plug the ethernet cable from your PC to the Red Pitaya board.

Here is the procedure for a direct Ethernet connection:

Windows (the Bonjour service must be installed for Win 7/8)

1. Connect the Ethernet cable and wait approx. 30 sec

2. Open the web browser and type rp-xxxxxx.local/ in the URL field

Linux / Ubuntu

1. Open Network settings, Edit Connection, and for the LAN network, select Method Share to other computers under IPv4 Settings.

2. Connect the Ethernet cable and wait approx. 30 sec

3. Open the web browser and type rp-xxxxxx.local/ in the URL field

MAC

1. Connect the Ethernet cable and wait approx. 30 sec

2. Open the web browser and type rp-xxxxxx.local/ in the URL field

Note

xxxxxx are the last 6 characters from the MAC address (on the Ethernet connector)

Warning

If you experience some problems when using the Direct Ethernet Connection described above, try to disable the WiFi connection on your PC (if it has been enabled) and reset the Red Pitaya board (power off/on). If the problem persists, you can try the STATIC IP configuration described below.

Static IP configuration

This type of connection requires additional settings on your PC and Red Pitaya board.

Note

This connection is also arranged via the Network Manager application, so users should first have access to the LAN (DHCP) network in order to arrange a static IP on the Red Pitaya board.

The first step is connecting the Red Pitaya board directly to the LAN network and setting a static IP on it.

1. Establish a direct Ethernet cable connection.

2. Connect to your Red Pitaya main web page.

3. Go to System and start the Network Manager application.

4. Choose the Static option. Then, input the static IP and click Apply.

5. The next step is to set a network setting on the PC. Here is an example on Ubuntu 14.04, but it is very similar on other operating systems as well. To set up a direct connection with your PC, follow these next steps:
1. Launch Network Manager on your computer.
2. Add a new Ethernet connection. (There is no need to create a new network since you can set static IP settings on the existing network and skip all steps up to step 8.)

6. Select Ethernet connection and press Create button.

7. Select the name of the new Ethernet connection.

8. Select Method – Manual, press the Add button, and insert:
• The static IP address of your PC (must be different from the IP address of the Red Pitaya board),
• Netmask (input: 255.255.255.0)
• Gateway (can be left empty)
• DNS servers (can be left empty) and click the Save button.

Note

Once you have these settings arranged, connect the Ethernet cable between your Red Pitaya board and PC, open a web browser, in the web browser URL field, input the chosen Red Pitaya board static IP (in our example, 192.168.0.15) and press enter.

 

Wireless

Wireless Network Connection

To establish a WiFi interface with your Red Pitaya, first, establish a direct ethernet connection. Open the Red Pitaya main webpage and start the Network Manager application. The Network Manager provides access to all network settings of the Red Pitaya board. Select the desired WiFi network, input the password, click “Connect”, and wait for Red Pitaya to configure the settings. Disconnect the ethernet cable from the board and restart it. Red Pitaya should automatically connect to the WiFi.

💡

Note
A WiFi dongle is required to connect the Red Pitaya to a WiFi network (Red Pitaya WiFi dongle). Please note that not all are compatible.

 

How to connect your Red Pitaya board over a WiFi network:

1. Start your Red Pitaya web user interface (Use the connection described in LAN connection)

2. Open Network Manager application

3. Insert the WiFi dongle into the USB port on the Red Pitaya board. The recommended WiFi USB dongle is the Edimax EW7811Un V2. In general, all WiFi USB dongles that use the RTL8188CUS chipset should work.

4. When the USB WiFi dongle is plugged in, the system will recognise it and enable additional settings.

5. Select Client Mode, the desired WiFi network, enter your password and press the Connect button.

6. When your Red Pitaya board is connected, the IP address will be shown in the user interface. This IP address is only for the WiFi connection. You can check the connection by inputting a WiFi IP address in the web browser URL field (press enter after inputting).

Now you have a WiFi connection established. If you restart the Red Pitaya board, it will connect to the selected network automatically (if it is available). Also, you can disconnect the LAN connection, and your board will still be available over the WiFi network, i.e., over the WiFi IP address.

💡

Note
WiFi networks are generally not robust, and the full performance of the Red Pitaya application can be affected.

 

💡

Note
When using the Raspberry Pi WiFi dongle, an issue of the dongle not being detected can arise. To mitigate this, detach the power cable from the Red Pitaya and wait for about a minute before powering up the Red Pitaya again.

 

Access Point Mode (Currently not supported)

Red Pitaya can act as an access point when there are no LAN or WiFi networks available. This will allow you to connect your PC, laptop, tablet, or smartphone directly to the Red Pitaya over Wi-fi.

Follow the steps below to enable the access point and connect to it.

1. Start your Red Pitaya web user interface (Use the connection described in LAN connection)

2. Open the Network Manager application

3. Input the name and password of the access point network to be created. The password name should be at least eight characters long. Do not use special signs.

4. Connect your PC, laptop, tablet, or phone to the network created by the Red Pitaya board.

5. Input the Access Point network IP address into the web browser URL field and press enter.

💡

Note
When Access Point is enabled on Red Pitaya, it will continue to boot in Access Point configuration until it is disabled in the Network Manager.

 

💡

Note
The IP address in Access Point mode is always the same: 192.168.128.1

 

Prepare SD card

OS Versions

This Section provides a thorough guide on preparing the SD card for Red Pitaya users, detailing the steps to download and install the appropriate operating system (OS) versions onto an SD card. It covers the selection of OS versions, emphasizing the unified OS image introduced with version 2.00, and offers detailed instructions for writing the image to an SD card using tools for Windows, Linux, and macOS. Additionally, it explains the SD card's structure, including the ecosystem and OS partitions, and presents methods for manual ecosystem upgrades and resizing the file system to utilize the full capacity of larger SD cards. This section is essential for users to correctly set up their Red Pitaya, ensuring it operates with the latest features and updates.

Download and install the SD card image

1. Select an appropriate OS version from above and download it.

2. Unzip the SD card image.

3. Write the image onto an SD card. Instructions are available for various operating systems:

• Windows

• Linux

• macOS

1. Insert the SD card into the Red Pitaya.

Windows

1. Insert the SD card into your PC or SD card reader.
2. Download Balena Ethcer and install it.
3. Open the newly installed Balena Etcher application.
4. Under Flash from file select an unzipped Red Pitaya image file.
5. Under Select target choose the drive letter of the SD card. Balena Etcher will only show you external drives.
Note
Balena Etcher will only show you external drives, but please be careful to select the correct drive if you have multiple cards or USBs plugged into your computer. If you choose the wrong one, you risk erasing data from the selected drive. You can easily see the drive letter (for example, E:) by looking in the left column of Windows Explorer.
6. When you click Flash the computer will prompt you to allow the operation. Click yes and wait for the flashing and validation to be completed.
7. Close Balena Etcher.

Linux

Note

You can also use Balena Ethcer on Linux and macOS. Instructions are under Windows section.

1.3.2.2.1. Ubuntu using Image Writer
1. Right-click on the extracted SD card image and select Open With > Disk Image Writer.
Context menu
Select tool dialog
1. In the Restore Disk Image window, select your SD card in the Destination pull-down menu. Be careful to select the correct device; use the size for orientation (for example, a 16 GB SD card).
Select drive dialog
2. You will be asked to confirm your choice and enter a password. Additional dialog windows will again show the selected destination drive. Take the opportunity to reconsider whether you chose the right device.

Command line

Note

Please note that the use of the dd tool can overwrite any partition of your machine. If you specify the wrong device in the instructions below, you could delete your primary Linux partition. Please be careful.

1. Insert the SD card into your PC or SD card reader.

2. Open the terminal and check the available disks with df -h. Our SD card is 16 GB. It is named /dev/sdx and divided into two partitions, /dev/sdx1 and /dev/sdx2. The drive mounted at / is your main drive. Be careful not to use it.
$ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdx1 118M 27M 92M 23% /media/somebody/CAD5-1E3D
/dev/sdx2 15.9G 1013M 15.8G 33% /media/somebody/7b2d3ba8-95ed-4bf4-bd67-eb52fe65df55

3. Unmount all SD card partitions with umount /dev/sdxN (make sure you replace N with the right numbers).
$ sudo umount /dev/sdx1 /dev/sdx2

4. Write the image onto the SD card with the following command. Replace the red_pitaya_image_file.img with the name of the unzipped Red Pitaya SD Card Image and replace /dev/device_name with the path to the SD card.
$ sudo dd bs=1M if=red_pitaya_image_file.img of=/dev/device_name

5. Wait until the process has finished.

macOS

Note

You can also use Balena Ethcer on Linux and macOS. Instructions are under Windows section.

1.3.2.3.1. Using ApplePi-Baker
1. Insert the SD card into your PC or SD card reader.
2. Download ApplePi-Baker. Direct link:
◦ ApplePi-Baker-v2.2.3.dmg
◦ ApplePi-Baker-1.9.9.dmg
3. Click on ApplePi-Baker icon, then click Open in order to run it.
4. Drag and drop ApplePi-Baker for installation.
5. Enter your admin password and click OK.
6. Select the SD card drive. This can be recognised by the size of the card, which is 16 GB.
7. Select the Red Pitaya OS image file.
8. It’s coffee time. The application will show you the estimated time for accomplishment.
9. When the operation is finished, the status will change to idle.

1.3.2.3.2. Command line
1. Insert the SD card into your PC or SD card reader.
2. Click cmd + space, type Disk Utility into the search box and press enter. From the menu, select your SD card and click on the Erase button (be careful not to delete your disk!).
3. Click cmd + space, then enter cd into the Terminal. Then type cd Desktop and press enter once more.
4. Unmount the partition so that you will be able to overwrite the disk. Type diskutil list into the Terminal and press enter. This will show you the list of all memory devices.
Unmount with: diskutil UnmountDisk /dev/diskn (insert the number n of your disk correctly!)
5. Type: sudo dd bs=1m if=path_of_your_image.img of=/dev/rdiskn (Remember to replace n with the number that you noted before!) (notice that there is a letter r in front of the disk name, use that as well!)
6. Type in your password and wait a few minutes for the image to be written.
7. When the image is written, type: diskutil eject /dev/diskn and press enter.
8. Safely eject the SD card.

Background

1. 128 MB FAT contains the ecosystem:
• boot files: FSBL, FPGA images, U-Boot, Linux kernel
• Red Pitaya API libraries and header files
• Red Pitaya web applications, scripts, tools
• customized Nginx web server

2. ~4 GB Ext4 contains the OS:
• Ubuntu/Debian OS
• various libraries
• network setup customization
• systemd services customization

Manual upgrade

1. Download a zip file from our download server.

2. Insert the SD card into the card reader.

3. Delete all files from the FAT partition. Use Shift + Delete to avoid placing files into the trash bin on the same partition.

4. Extract the ecosystem zip file contents onto the now empty partition.

• wpa_supplicant.conf

• hostapd.conf

Resize file system

root@rp-f03dee:~# /opt/redpitaya/sbin/resize.sh

root@rp-f03dee:~# df -h

root@rp-f03dee:~# sudo resize2fs /dev/mmcblk0p2

FAQ

The FAQ section in the documentation provides comprehensive answers to common questions and issues related to the setup, connectivity, OS updates, application usage, and hardware specifications of Red Pitaya devices. It addresses how to get started, connect to networks, troubleshoot booting problems, and enhance WIFI connections. Additionally, it guides on updating the OS, dealing with non-booting devices post-update, and ensuring internet connectivity for accessing the marketplace and OS updates. This FAQ section is a vital resource for users seeking quick solutions and deeper understanding of their Red Pitaya's capabilities and troubleshooting methods.

Connectivity

How to get started with Red Pitaya?

• Quick start

How to connect to Red Pitaya in a few simple steps?

• Connected to router

• Direct connection to computer

Red Pitaya not booting anymore?

• A possible cause could be a corrupted card, and the recommendation is a manual OS re-write: Prepare SD card

• Please check Problems connecting to RP for status LED description.

• Was the OS updated recently?

How to connect the external clock to RP?

• STEMlab 125-14 & STEMlab 125-14-Z7020

• SDRlab 122-16

How can I make sure that Red Pitaya is connected to the same network as my computer/tablet/smartphone?

1. Open the terminal window.
• Windows: Go to RUN, type in cmd and press enter.
• Linux: Click on the application button, type in Terminal and press enter.
• macOS: Hit cmd + space, type in Terminal and press enter.

2. Enter the arp -a command to get a list of all devices in your local area network and try to find your Red Pitaya MAC address on the list.
$ arp -a
? (192.168.178.117) at 00:08:aa:bb:cc:dd [ether] on eth0
? (192.168.178.118) at 00:26:32:f0:3d:ee [ether] on eth0
? (192.168.178.105) at e8:01:23:45:67:8a [ether] on eth0
Note
If you have a cable connection, then your MAC address is written on your Red Pitaya LAN connector.

1. Type your Red Pitaya IP into your WEB browser and connect to it.

1.4.1.8. Problems connecting to RP?

1. First, check the LEDs:
1. If the green LED is not ON or is blinking. It seems like something is wrong with the power supply, or maybe it’s the USB cable. Make sure that:

you have plugged the USB cable into the right USB connector on the Red Pitayayour power supply is 5V/2Atry to replace the USB cable and also the USB power supply

2. If the green LED is turned ON but the blue LED is turned OFF. In this case, there is an error while loading the Red Pitaya system from the SD card. Make sure that:

you have correctly inserted the Red Pitaya SD card and the Red Pitaya OS has been installed (Notice that Red Pitayas already comes with a pre-installed OS on SD cards. Anyhow, SD cards might get corrupted- in such case follow this instruction on how to Prepare SD card to properly re-install Red Pitaya OS to SD card)try to use another SD card

3. If both the green and blue LEDs are ON, but the red and orange LEDs are not blinking. The red LED indicates CPU heartbeat, while the orange LED indicates access to the SD card. Notice that these two LEDs always start blinking 10 seconds after the green and blue LEDs are turned on.

2. Make sure your Red Pitaya and computer are both connected to the same local network.

3. Consult the connection guide for advice.

4. Try disabling the VPN, because it may be preventing the connection.

5. If you are a Windows user, please look at the note below.

How to find the Red Pitaya URL if it is not written on the sticker?

Slow WIFI connection?

• Check the WiFi signal strength on your PC/tablet/smartphone.

• Check the WiFi signal strength of your Red Pitaya.

Connect to your Red Pitaya via an SSH connection.Enter the cat /proc/net/wireless command to get information about link quality and signal strength.Link quality measures the number of packet errors that occur. The lower the number of packet errors, the higher this will be. Link quality goes from 0-100%.Level, or signal strength, is a simple measure of the amplitude of the signal that is received. The closer you are to the access point, the higher this will be.

• If you are in an area with many routers around you, more of them might operate on the same wifi channel, which drastically decreases data throughput and slows down connection. Here are the instructions on how to change your wifi router channel in order to optimize your wireless signal. For MAC users, we recommend using the Scan feature of the Wireless Diagnostic Tool in order to find the best wifi channel.

WIFI dongle not detected?

OS

How to upgrade OS?

• Prepare SD card

Is Red Pitaya not booting even after OS update?

• Please use the Balena Etcher application to rewrite the OS manually. The latest Windows update has been reported to have broken the Win32 disc imager. Prepare SD card

• Upgraded from an older Red Pitaya OS to the 2.00 Unified OS? Please try GitHub issue #250 and GitHub issue #254

Is Red Pitaya failing to update?

Applications & Web Interface

How can I start using RP measurement applications?

• Connect to Red Pitaya

My device shows the wrong measurements. How can I calibrate it?

Undesired disconnections?

An application is not working?

Software

How to control Red Pitaya remotely using LabVIEW, MATLAB, and Python?

• Remote control

Where can I find the ecosystem, software, and FPGA images?

• Red Pitaya ecosystem - please check the specific branches for older ecosystem versions

• Red Pitaya FPGA

• Red Pitaya archive - software archive

How to start with FPGA development?

• Software

• FPGA tutorials

Hardware

Where can I find Red Pitaya schematics, 3D models (.step), and important componetns?

• STEMlab 125-10

• STEMlab 125-14

• SDRlab 122-16

• SIGNALlab 250-12

Is there a hardware difference between the STEMlab125-14 and the ISO17025 versions?

What are the main differences between different Red Pitaya boards?

How to report a bug?

• The model of Red Pitaya used,

• Version of Red Pitaya OS,

• Information about the bug,

• Clear instructions about how to reproduce it.