Hi, I’m trying to setup Digipi with Digirig lite and a Raspberry Pi Zero W, when I run the software its coming up with a message it cant find the sound device. Also tried to setup Aprsdroid with the Digirig lite but failed. Is the Digirig or cable faulty?
As a sanity check I would try your Digirig with a Windows PC. Both of the computing devices you attempted are not optimal for troubleshooting. Pi Zero on the account of underpowered minimalistic hardware and Android on the account of limited diagnostic options.
That being said you can at least run lsusb in console of your Pi and see if system seed Digirig’s sound card.
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I’ll give that a try.
Best 73
So I’m going through similar issues with my Digirig lite and a Pi Zero 2 running Direwolf.
I have found that the Pi will recognize the USB device, but it will not assign it to the typical “ttyUSB0” device in the /dev directory, it was assigned to ‘hidraw0’.
use the command ‘lsusb’ like stated above to see if the device is being seen by the Pi. if not, make sure the adapater cable you are using is a data cable and not a power only cable.
If the digirig is being recognized it should show up as C-Media Electronics audio device or something similar. then, in order to find the device assignment it should create a new device in the /dev directory. use ‘ls /dev’ to find what new device was created and that should be your Digirig
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I just got a digirig-lite, intending for it to replace the digirig-mobile that I currently use with a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 for portable use. However, it appears unreliable for this use.
It often takes plugging it in, disconnecting, and trying again multiple times before it is recognized by the Pi. I saw another forum msg that suggested perhaps the problem is that the lite is more sensitive to the USB voltage.
When not recognized by the Pi, the green power LED still comes on, but neither the audio devices nor the /dev/hidraw0 cm108 device are usable nor are mentioned in dmesg.
When used with a Windows laptop, the lite is always recognized on the first try.
Using a powered USB hub, y-cable, or something else to provide more reliable power isn’t a useful solution since my hope was to simplify my hardware system (compared to the digirig mobile), not add more parts.
Peter LaRue
AI7YN
TLDR: RPi zero not good for digirig, RPi 3 works fine.
So a quick update:
It looks like K0TX is correct and my experience is similar to AI7YN. the RPi zero is unreliable for use with the digirig lite.
I am using a RPi Zero 2 W. I was having nothing but issues with the Digirig lite. The Pi zero would have issues recognizing and assigning a com port at times. If I did get it to register, as soon as direwolf triggered the PTT the Digirig would fail and the USB would disconnect. the Pi would have to completely reboot in order to bring the USB communication back. Each reboot required reconfiguring all the settings since the Pi would reassign the digirig to a new port.
I switched over to my Digirig Mobile and had similar issues. It was very rare, but I did have perfect operation a few times with both, but nothing consistent enough to make me believe it was worth messing with more.
I switched the entire setup over to a RPi 3 and so far everything has been working since the first try. My best guess is that the Pi zero just doesn’t have consistent voltage/current through the USB port for proper operation, even with a proper power supply (5v/3A). The next step would be to try a powered USB hub or independently power the DIgirig and see what happens. Too much work for now so I guess ill just be using the RPi 3 for my build.
hope this helps anyone else with these issues
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In case of any issues that manifest themselves at the transmit time, the likely reason is RFI. These types of issues are especially severe with HTs while using the stock antenna. The factors at play with RFI include the length of the cables, chocking, grounding, ground plane size etc.
Contrary to other comments in this thread, I have found my Digirig Mobile to work very reliably with both Raspberry Pi Zero W and Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W. The problems that I described above occurred only with the Digirig Lite.
I agree with K0TX that problems occuring upon transmit are usually symptoms of RFI. When used with an HF radio, a 1:1 choke balun in the feed line can help to eliminate this problem. I also found that powering the radio and a raspberry pi from the same source (such as a 12v battery directly powering the radio, with a 12v-to-5v adapter to power the raspberry pi) can provide another path for RFI to reach the Pi from the radio.
Peter LaRue
AI7YN
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I wonder whether the difference between Digirig Mobile and Digirig Lite isn’t sensitivity to voltage, but rather a higher transient peak current draw during startup. I don’t have a convenient way to measure current transients in the USB line, so this is just a guess.
Peter LaRue
AI7YN