Real-time clock on the HackerGadgets AIO boards
The AIO's PCF85063A keeps time off-grid once the right overlay is in config.txt — and on a CM5 the built-in fake RTC has to be switched off first.
What it takes
- Config change
- Purchase required
Difficulty 1 of 3 — easy.
Details
Both AIO generations carry a PCF85063A on I²C. On a CM4 it is dtparam=i2c_arm=on plus dtoverlay=i2c-rtc,pcf85063a; on a CM5 the chip sits on the CSI/DSI I²C bus, so the lines are dtparam=rtc=off and dtoverlay=i2c-rtc,pcf85063a,i2c_csi_dsi0 under a [pi5] section — bfpa40's thread shows the rtc-pcf85063 ... RTC chip is not present errors you get without them. Once the system clock is right (NTP or GPS), sudo hwclock -w writes it to the chip and sudo hwclock -r reads it back.
Rex's hackergadgets-uconsole-aio-board package sets the overlays up for CM4 and CM5, which is the route the thread ends up recommending.
Links
Open at Forum threadRelated mods
Run a Meshtastic node on the console itself: meshtasticd drives the AIO's SX1262 over SPI, with the graphical MUI, the web UI or the Contact TUI client on top.
HackerGadgets' MIT-licensed CLI and tray tool toggles the AIO v2's GPIO-controlled power rails (GPS, LoRa, SDR, USB) so idle radios stop draining the battery.
On Rex's images a single apt install gives you SDR++ for the AIO's RTL-SDR or a USB dongle; his AIO package adds the sdrpp-brown fork.
Two receivers, two recipes: the 4G card's GNSS via AT+CGPS on /dev/ttyUSB3, or the AIO's GPS on the serial port (/dev/ttyS0 CM4, /dev/ttyAMA0 CM5) at 9600 baud.
Rex's AIO package ships readsb and the tar1090 map as a disabled service with a menu launcher; Intercept or a hand-built dump1090 are the alternatives.
MeshCore has no Linux-native node firmware, so the community built on pyMC_core: guax's YAMPA packet analyser and TUI chat client, and cwill747's GTK app.