RTC from HackerGadgets RTL/SDR Board

uConsole
1

I am having issues with my RTC syncing and holding time if not connected to my Network WiFi. Iam currently troubleshooting it and am having the following error show in the logs.

~ $ dmesg | grep rtc

[ 0.341572] rpi-rtc soc@107c000000:rpi_rtc: registered as rtc0
[ 0.342942] rpi-rtc soc@107c000000:rpi_rtc: setting system clock to 2025-08-17T18:06:04 UTC (1755453964)
[ 1.721020] vc4-drm axi:gpu: bound 107c410000.pixelvalve (ops vc4_crtc_ops [vc4])
[ 1.732850] vc4-drm axi:gpu: bound 107c411000.pixelvalve (ops vc4_crtc_ops [vc4])
[ 1.764859] vc4-drm axi:gpu: [drm] Cannot find any crtc or sizes
[ 1.768443] vc4-drm axi:gpu: [drm] Cannot find any crtc or sizes
[ 1.772101] vc4-drm axi:gpu: [drm] Cannot find any crtc or sizes
[ 1.776068] rtc-ds1307 1-0068: probe with driver rtc-ds1307 failed with error -121
[ 1.792922] rtc-pcf85063 1-0051: RTC chip is not present
[ 1.792941] rtc-pcf85063 1-0051: probe with driver rtc-pcf85063 failed with error -121

I had a crazy thought but before i take apart the uconsole again is it possible that the battery that was preinstalled on the expansion board was already dead or perhaps installed backwards? I never even looked harder then seeing it was installed and went on about assembly… thoughts??

2

have you set the RTCs time by sudo hwclock -w after you’ve installed the card and have accurate system time?

what CM are you using?

how did you set up the RTC?

3

I did use the sudo hwclock -w and after it reflected the correct time

I am using the CM5

I setup the RTC using the RTC Setup instructions found from the QR Code linked site: HackerGadgets uConsole RTL-SDR/LoRa/GPS/RTC/USB Hub All-In-One Extensi – Hacker Gadgets

My main concern aside from the time not staying after power off power on is the errors reflected in the dmesg log…

4

The setup instructions are incomplete for the cm5. I have made a package that will set up and configure the card and install some programs with it. There is also info about setting the cm5 up with RTC further in the thread.

5

I fought to get Savvycan loaded and working on this CM5 w/emmc so after your suggestion about the newer package i think i will get a CM5 without the emmc so I can easily remove the SD Card for issues like this without tearing apart the uconsole. Ill keep you posted AND Thank You

1 Like
6

Just ordered my non emmc CM5 from Newark Electronics so hopefully it will be here this week, can you give me a link to that new package that is CM4/CM5 Hackergadgets AIO Board friendly?

7
8

Thank You i should have read your previous EMail closer and I would have had all the info i needed

-Brian-

9

I had the same problems with the RTC on the CM5. after you install rex’s amazing package for the hackergadget board, my RTC still wasn’t working.

first thing I had to do is stop the fake RTC.
it will show the correct time, you can write time to it, and read time from it, but once you lose power to the CM5, the time goes away. so I had to disable that, to be able to use the hackergadgets RTC.

furthermore, It seems that for some of us, the rtc doesn’t work on i2c bus 1.
I ran “i2cdetect - y 1”, and the table was empty, meaning that it did not detect the chip.
In a different thread someone found out that we need the i2c_csi_dsi0 command in boot/config, to assign i2c bus 10 (not 1).

so my /boot/firmware/config.txt has the following lines:
[pi5]
dtoverlay=spi0-0cs
dtoverlay=clockworkpi-uconsole-cm5
dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d-pi5,cma-384
dtparam=rtc=off
dtoverlay=i2c-rtc,pcf85063a,i2c_csi_dsi0
dtparam=pciex1=off
dtparam=uart0
dtparam=ant2
dtparam=i2c_arm=on

10

When i want to load my SD Card with the OS do I need to choose a specific version of Bookworm or may I use the most current one then install the package Rex has referenced?

11

You need to use one of Rex’s images here on the forum, the uconsole needs a custom kernel and device tree so you can’t use standard raspberry pi images

12

Gotcha and thank you!