Ordering

I ordered the Orange Pi PC Set 3 from Ali Express. You can find it here: http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Orange-Pi-PC-set-3-Orange-Pi-PC-Transparent-ABS-Case-USB-to-DC-4-0MM/32451086788.html

If you would rather order from Amazon, here are some sets to consider (affiliate links, all prime eligible). You’ll pay a bit more, but get US shipping and not have to wait for 2-3 weeks.

• Orange Pi PC Project Board (Board Only)
• Orange Pi PC with Case and Heatsink
• Orange Pi PC with Heatsink and Power Cable

You’ll want to pay attention and get a power cable. Unlike Raspberry Pi’s, these boards don’t take power through Micro USB. The upside to this is that with a large enough power supply you can power USB peripherals without a powered hub.

Unboxing Photos

With no further ado, here are my unboxing pictures. It arrived in a modest sized box straight from China.

Orange Pi PC in Shipping Box

You’ll notice the lack of packing materials, but everything was in good shape.

Orange Pi PC Set 3 Box Contents

Here is everything still shrink wrapped.

Orange Pi PC Set 3 Boxed

Here is the board, shipped appropriately in a static bag.

Orange Pi PC in Static Bag

The power cable is from USB to a barrel adapter. This makes it easy to power from a computer, or something like this (affilate link).

Orange Pi PC Case and Power Cable Unwrapped

The board is slightly bigger than a credit card.

Orange Pi PC Top

Orange Pi PC Top (Angled)

I like the three USB ports. Also, compared to the older Raspberry Pis, this boards 10/100M port has direct connection to the SOC meaning true 100 Mbps speeds.

Orange Pi PC USB and Ethernet Ports

HDMI, but I don’t plan on using it.

Orange Pi PC HDMI, Power, and Audio Ports

Here I am installing it in the case, but haven’t screwed it in yet. The fit was good and snug, but went in without requiring any modifications.

Orange Pi PC In Case (Bottom Off)

The case also came with some non-slip pads.

Orange Pi PC In Case (Bottom)

Here is the new PC booting Armbian. Huge shout out to those guys, this whole thing wouldn’t work without their work. I gave them some beer money and if you find the project useful, you might want to as well.

Orange Pi PC Powered Up and Booting Armbian (Lego Flash Drive for Scale)

Conclusion

I turned the Orange Pi PC into an rsync offsite backup server with an OpenVPN tunnel back to my home network. You can read about the OpenVPN config in my previous post here. Stay tuned for a future post about the rest of the setup to turn it into my backup server and to see it in the final configuration.