RM500U-CN 5G HAT
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Overview
Features
- Integrates extensive network protocols, with multi drivers and software support, compatible with different OS including Windows / Linux / Android.
- USB 3.1 port (USB 2.0 compatible) for connecting to PC, Raspberry Pi, or Jetson Nano host board to enable high speed 5G communication.
- Standard M.2 B KEY slot, compatible with different 5G modules: RM500U-CN / RM500Q-GL / RM500Q-AE / RM502Q-AE series.
- Onboard UART, PWR, and RST control pin, built-in voltage level translator, enabled via DIP switch, for use with hosts like Raspberry Pi or Arduino.
- Onboard USB-C connector, enabled via a switch, for connecting standalone power supply for the module, allows more loads, stable amd flexible power supply.
- Onboard power supply on/off switch, reset button and LED indicator, easy to turn on/off the module or monitor the operating status.
- 2 x SIM card slot, dual card single standby, switchable via AT command.
- High-efficiency power supply circuit, up to 3A output current.
Selection Guide
What's On Board
Number | Name | Description |
---|---|---|
① | Raspberry Pi GPIO header | Easy connect to Raspberry Pi |
② | Switch | Enable the corresponding pin |
③ | M.2 interface | Compatible with RM500U-CN / RM500Q-CN / RM500Q-GL /RM50XQ-AE and other series of 5G modules |
④ | SIM card holder | Onboard two SIM card slots, dual card single standby. The default SIM1 card slot works, SIM2 is on the back, requires module support, and must be switched through AT commands |
⑤ | USB 3.1 connector | Backward compatible with USB 2.0, can be used to connect to PC/Raspberry Pi/Jetson Nano, etc. |
⑥ | USB Type-C connector | 5V 3A input; stable and flexible power supply |
⑦ | Audio port | SIM82XX series support audio function, RM50XX series do not support this audio function |
⑧ | Antenna connector | Onboard four-way antenna, strong signal |
⑨ | Reset switch | One-key reset |
⑩ | Power switch | To facilitate the power supply mode of the control module:
——If set to USB, the module will provide power through the "⑤.USB3.1 interface"; |
⑪ | Cooling fan | Cool down the Raspberry Pi and 5G module at the same time |
⑫ | Indicator | Check the module running status anytime, anywhere |
Pinout Definition
After connecting to Raspberry Pi, these pins (TX, RX, D4 and D6) can be connected or not through the DIP switch:
4G/5G modules function testing
Category | 4G/5G Module | Network Communication | GNSS Positioning | Voice calls through Earphone Port |
Dual SIMs | UART Interface | External Power Supply? |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
5G | SIM8202G-M2 | 5G/4G/3G | Support | Support | Support | Support | Optional, but recommended |
5G | SIM8200EA-M2 | 5G/4G/3G | Support | Support | Support | Support | Optional, but recommended |
5G | RM500U-CN | 5G/4G/3G | NOT Support | NOT Support | Support | Support | Recommended |
5G | RM500Q-GL | 5G/4G/3G | Support | NOT Support | Support | NOT Support | Recommended |
5G | RM500Q-AE | 5G/4G/3G | Support | NOT Support | NOT Support | NOT Support | Recommended |
5G | RM502Q-AE | 5G/4G/3G | Support | NOT Support | NOT Support | NOT Support | Recommended |
LTE-A | EM06-E | LTE-A/4G/3G | NOT Support | NOT Support | NOT Support | NOT Support | Optional |
LTE-A | A7906E | LTE-A/4G/3G | NOT Support | NOT Support | NOT Support | NOT Support | Optional |
4G | SIM7600G-H-M2 | 4G/3G/2G | Support | Support | NOT Support | Support | Optional |
4G/5G Module Compatibility
If you need to use the M.2 TO 4G/5G HAT for other 4G/5G modules, you can refer to the M.2 connection diagram below, check whether there is any pin conflict, and then connect to test:
Working With Windows
Install drivers
- After connecting the RM500U-CN 5G HAT to the computer through a double-ended usb3.0 data cable, there will be a series of devices without drivers installed on other devices:
- Download the driver to your computer and unzip the compressed package.
- Enter the RM500U_Driver directory.
- Click setup.exe to install the driver. After the installation is complete, the device manager will generate the following devices:
Common AT commands
EM25X、EM06E and RM50X series 4G/5G module support AT command control, some basic AT commands are shown in the table below:
Command | Description | Return Value |
---|---|---|
AT | AT test command | OK |
ATE | ATE1 sets echo ATE0 turns off echo |
OK |
AT+CGMI | Query module manufacture | OK |
AT+CGMM | Query module model | OK |
AT+CGSN | Query product serial number | OK |
AT+CSUB | Query module version and chip | OK |
AT+CGMR | Query the firmware version serial number | OK |
AT+IPR? | Set the module hardware serial port baud rate | +IPREX: OK |
AT+CFUN=1,1 | reset module | OK |
AT+QUIMSLOT? | Query SIM card selection: Return 1, select SIM card 1; Return 2, select SIM card 2 |
+QUIMSLOT: 1/2 OK |
AT+CPIN? | Query the status of the SIM card and return READY, indicating that the SIM card can be recognized normally | +CPIN: READY |
AT+COPS? | Query the current operator, the operator information will be returned after normal networking | +COPS: OK |
AT+C5GREG? | Query 5G network registration status | +C5GREG: OK |
AT+QENG="servingcell" | Query UE system information | |
AT+CNMP | Network mode selection command: "mode_pref":Automatic "nr5g_band" : 5G NR "lte_band":LTE only "gw_band":WCDMA only ... .... |
OK |
Open the device manager, find the port number corresponding to AT Port; then open the sscom software, select the corresponding port and baud rate, check AddCrLf
; click the sscom EXIT
button and pull out the preset It is best to open the serial port and send the corresponding AT command to test.
SIM Card Selection
The 5G HAT has two SIM card slots onboard, a dual SIM card, and single standby, which can be switched and enabled by AT command.
- SIM card 1 is selected by default, You can use the following command to query and confirm:
AT+QUIMSLOT?
- To switch SIM card 2, please use the following command:
AT+QUIMSLOT=2
- Switch back to SIM card 1, please use the following command:
AT+QUIMSLOT=1
- Check whether the corresponding card slot recognizes the SIM card:
AT+CPIN?
RNDIS dial-up Internet access
- Download and install the driver
- Open the RM50X AT port and send the following commands to dial up the Internet:
AT+QENG="servingcell" AT+QCFG="usbnet",3 AT+CFUN=1,1
- And then you can find that there are some unrecognized devices in the Device Manager on the computer, such as RNDIS (with exclamation mark).
- Right-click the 'RNDIS', search "Update Divers" and select "Let me pick from a list of available drivers on my computer", then select "Network adapters" from the device list.
- Select "Microsoft" in the manufacturer list of the Network adapters window, and then select "Remote NDIS Compatible Device" in the list on the right, which is the remote NDIS compatible device.
- Click 'Next' and wait for the installation to finish, the RNDIS Kitl device will be installed successfully.
Working with Raspberry pi
Ubuntu system use
- Raspberry Pi programming Ubuntu 22.04 system image
- Confirm system version information
sudo apt-get install screenfetch screen fetch uname -r
The USB device descriptor needs to be loaded for the first use
In order to identify a module, the module's VID and PID information needs to be added to the file [kernel]
- Check the VID and PID of RM500U
lsusb
- Install gcc and make tools
sudo apt-get install gcc sudo apt-get install make
- Add VID and PID
wget https://www.waveshare.net/w/upload/9/9e/RM500U_FOR_RPI_Ubuntu22.04.zip unzip RM500U_FOR_RPI_Ubuntu22.04.zip sudo chmod 777 -R RM500U_FOR_RPI_Ubuntu22.04 cd RM500U_FOR_RPI_Ubuntu22.04 sudo ./install.sh
- After successfully adding the PID and restarting the Raspberry Pi, enter the following command on the command line interface and five device symbols USB0-USB4 will appear
ls /dev/ttyUSB*
ECM dial-up
- open minicom
sudo apt-get install minicom sudo minicom -D /dev/ttyUSB2
- Send the following commands in minicom for ECM dialing
AT+CPIN? AT+QENG="serving cell" AT+QCFG="usbnet",1 AT+QNETDEVCTL=2,3,1 AT+CFUN=1,1
- After configuring the ECM mode, CTRL+A->X->Yes to exit minicom
- Use the following commands to get IP and set DNS:
sudo dhclient -v enxe2f1fbfdd5e7 sudo apt-get install udhcpc sudo udhcpc -i enxe2f1fbfdd5e7 sudo route add -net 0.0.0.0 enxe2f1fbfdd5e7
- After dialing, the Raspberry Pi can see that enxe2f1fbfdd5e7 has obtained the ip through the following command (different systems are different, the actual obtained IP shall prevail):
ifconfig
- Test enxe2f1fbfdd5e7 network status
ping -I enxe2f1fbfdd5e7 www.baidu.com
5G network speed test
In the speed measurement part, because the Raspberry Pi comes with a Gigabit Ethernet port, and there are few USB network cards above Gigabit, we use the SpeedTest For Python tool to perform speed measurement by the commands. Connect to the terminal of OpenWrt and enter the commands one by one to measure the speed:
## Raspberry Pi OS sudo apt install speedtest-cli speedtest # or use speedtest_cli
or
## OpenWRT opkg update opkg install python3 opkg install python3-pip pip install speedtest_cli speedtest # or use speedtest_cli
5G HAT Minicom Serial Port Debugging
4G/5G Modules UART Interface Support
For SIM8202G-M2 and SIM8200EA-M2 these two 5G modules, the UART interface is closed by default and needs to be opened through AT commands:
AT+CCUART=1
Raspberry Pi Serial Port Enable
Since the Raspberry Pi serial port is used for terminal debugging by default, if you need to use the serial port, you need to modify the Raspberry Pi settings. Execute the following command to enter the Raspberry Pi configuration:
sudo raspi-config
Select Interfacing Options ->Serial ->NO ->YES to disable serial debugging.
Open the /boot/config.txt file, and find the following configuration statement to enable the serial port, if not, add it at the end of the file:
enable_uart=1
Restart to take effect:
1. Insert the module into the Raspberry Pi, and turn the S_TX and S_RX of the DIP switch to ON:
2. Install minicom, minicom is a serial debugging tool for the Linux platform:
sudo apt-get install minicom
3. Open ttyS0 through minicom——ttyS0 is the serial port of Raspberry Pi 3B/3B+/4B, the default baud rate is 115200;
sudo minicom -D /dev/ttyS0
4. For Raspberry Pi 2B/zero, the user serial device number is ttyAMA0; you can use the following command line to confirm, serial0 is the selected serial device number, as shown below:
Working with Jetson Nano
Hardware Connection
Connect the RM500U-CN with a double-ended usb3.0 data cable, and connect an external 5V power supply to the Type-C power supply port of the RM500U-CN 5G HAT, as shown in the figure:
Load USB Device Descriptor
In order to identify the module, the module's VID and PID information needs to be added to the file [kernel]
- View VID and PID of RM500U
lsusb
sudo apt-get install unzip wget https://www.waveshare.com/w/upload/9/93/RM500U_CN_For_Jetson_nano.zip unzip RM500U_CN_For_Jetson_nano.zip sudo chmod 777 -R RM500U_CN_For_Jetson_nano cd RM500U_CN_For_Jetson_nano sudo ./install.sh sudo reboot
After successfully adding the PID and restarting Jetson nano, enter the following command in the command line interface to display five device symbols USB0-USB4
ls /dev/ttyUSB*
RNDIS
- Enable minicom.
sudo apt-get install minicom sudo minicom -D /dev/ttyUSB2
- Send the following command ECM in minicom.
AT+CPIN? AT+QCFG="usbnet",3 AT+CFUN=1,1
After the module restarts, and the NET light is on, use the following command to check the network status (optional).
AT+QENG="servingcell"
Get the IP and set the DNS with the following commands:
sudo dhclient -v usb1 sudo apt-get install udhcpc sudo udhcpc -i usb1 sudo route add -net 0.0.0.0 usb1
After dialing, you can see that usb1 gets the IP through the following command:
ip route
ping -I usb1 www.baidu.com
About Speed
Due to many inconsistencies between actual and laboratory conditions, the 5G speed will not be ideal and stable at 100MBPS. There are the following points:
- Base station distance, the closer to the 5G base station, the better the signal and the faster the speed;
- Base station load, the fewer people using it, the faster the speed will be, and the rush hour will be slower;
- Number of base stations: Due to spectrum relationships, the same amount of 4G coverage requires double the number of 5G base stations
- Operator: You need to confirm whether your 5G card is limited in speed, you can periodically ask the operator to reset your network
- Indoors are worse than outdoor: building penetration loss, and indoor diffraction loss
PS: The current number of base stations still does not have good coverage, and the speed measurement in different locations is not the same.
Resources
Program
Assembly drawing
Software
Datasheet
Related Application Cases
FAQ
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AT+QCFG="usbnet",0 driver type is NDIS(QMI)); AT+QCFG="usbnet",1 The driver type is ECM; AT+QCFG="usbnet",2 The driver type is MBIM; (RM5XXQ support) AT+QCFG="usbnet",3 The driver type is RNDIS AT+QCFG="usbnet",5 The driver type is NCM;
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Support
If you require technical support, please go to the Support page and open a ticket.