MINIX NEO Z83-4

[Radec]

Evening guys

I'm thinking of getting one of these to run my imaging rig wirelessly

MINIX NEO Z83-4 

Does anyone have any comments, suggestions or better alternatives?

Thanks in advance

Radec

[wornish]

Have a look at a Raspberry Pi4.  They are a lot cheaper, a lot more capable and just work great.

Running Astroberry on an RPi4 gives you all the astro apps you need for FREE.

 

There is a world beyond Windows if you take a look 😃

 

 

[Star101]

1 minute ago, wornish said:

Have a look at a Raspberry Pi4.  They are a lot cheaper, a lot more capable and just work great.

Running Astroberry on an RPi4 gives you all the astro apps you need for FREE.

 

There is a world beyond Windows if you take a look 😃

 

 

Will it drive a SiTech Servo II Controller?

Atik 4120EX OSC camera?

[Radec]

15 minutes ago, wornish said:

There is a world beyond Windows if you take a look 😃

I'm normally a Mac Man - so I know that! Just most of the 'off the shelf' stuff

is windows based.

Thanks for the input though

Radec

 

 

[Star101]

3 hours ago, Radec said:

Evening guys

I'm thinking of getting one of these to run my imaging rig wirelessly

MINIX NEO Z83-4 

Does anyone have any comments, suggestions or better alternatives?

Thanks in advance

Radec

I had a quick look and that looks like a great product. I did find another unit - Beelink M1 which has 3x USB3 Ports. Is only Win10 Home not Pro. But I cannot find any to buy. 

Otherwise, the unit you mention , with Win10 Pro, looks great to me

 

[JamesF]

19 minutes ago, Star101 said:

Will it drive a SiTech Servo II Controller?

Atik 4120EX OSC camera?

I'm not at all sure about the former (and I suspect it probably isn't supported), but I don't see why the latter wouldn't work.

Oddly, when I was at university in the mid 80s there was an open source UNIX clone written by Andrew Tannenbaum for teaching operating systems design, and it was called Minix.

James

[Star101]

Thanks James,

SiTech Servo II Controller is the controller on my Mesu 200. I'm sure it will work on UBUNTU but I have not heard of anyone using it. At the moment I use Win10 and everything works. If I could be 100% sure the Pi4 could run my system, I would move over to it. I just don't fancy playing with it to find it doesn't support my Mesu.

The review I just watched for the above MINIX NEO Z83-4 Shows it as Win10 Pro at £179.90 So, I know everything will work on that. 

But hey, I'm open to persuasion

 

[wornish]

@Star101 I think the SiTech Servo II Controller driver for your Mesu only runs on Windows.  Apparently there is a Ubuntu (Linux) version of the SiTech driver but its not even in a Beta form and is not officially supported or being actively developed, hence no one is using it.   So in your case the RPi is a non starter. 

Edited June 8, 2020 by wornish

[Radec]

So, to conclude - this looks like a good one for the price.

It will presumably run all the necessary software (Maxim, APT, Sharpcap, PHD2 & CdC) with me just linking to it from the laptop, thereby avoiding WiFi drop trashing my set up & guiding.

Am I right with that? Only ever used usb hardwire till now

Radec😐

[Kaliska]

I've had the MINIX mini pc running my setup for the past 18 months without any issues (touch wood). I run Stellarium, SGP Pro, EQMOD, PHD, SharpStar etc and its a great bit of kit for the price. You can just see the pc behind the finder scope in the picture.

 

[old_eyes]

I have just upgraded from one after using for a couple of years. It worked OK with APT, NINA, various drivers, PoleMaster, SharpCap, Cartes du Ciel, PHD2 and a couple of other bits and pieces.

i upgraded to a refurbed Lenovo  MP 93 TinyPC with i5, 8GB mem, 240GB SSD, Win10 pro.

Why?

I want to move to unattended operation. So I need auto boot on power. The Minix claimed to have that facility in BIOS, but it wouldn’t work and the supplier could not help.

I use an APS CMOS camera, so have lots of large files. Local storage was limited, but microSD card slot failed quite quickly (a known weakness). I could use an external USB drive, which was fine but took up one of 4 USB sockets. Advantage of a bigger SSD drive.

i found the USB3 port (there is only 1) unreliable with ASCOM drivers. It seemed happier with the native QHYCCD drivers in SharpCap, but definitely prone to dropouts and hanging with NINA and APT.

Not a showstopper, but just irritating enough to waste valuable imaging time.

So far the Lenovo is rock solid. Does everything I want. Yes a bit more expensive, but an investment I am prepared to make. We will see through the next season how reliable it is.

the Minix is a fine, low-cost box. Like I said, I used it successfully for a couple of years, but the limitations were in irritating areas for me. Hence the switch.

[Radec]

Well I'm happy. I went ahead and bought one, installed everything, mounted the PC to my setup and tested it.

Everything works well and using W10 Remote Desktop I can look forward to the autumn & winter without freezing myself half to bits.

Thanks for the assistance and advice, much appreciated.