Carrier boards for Raspberry Pi CM4 modules are all over the place for routers, NAS, industrial gateways, and more. Here’s another one with the Minimal Carrier Board for Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4, or MinCab, that powers the RPi CM4 module via a USB Type-C port.
That’s about all it does, although you would also be able to access some GPIOs, 5V, 3.3V, and GND signals via pads on the carrier board. Specifically, eight GPIOs are accessible with IO14, IO15, IO2, IO3, IO4, IO12, IO13, and IO18. Ivan Kuleshov explains this can be useful for Smart Home systems for instance, but it could be anything that requires WiFI and/or Bluetooth connectivity, a powerful Linux capable processor (as opposed to something like ESP32), and a few I/Os.
The MinCab might be a good alternative to the upcoming (and delayed) Raspberry Pi 4 Model A for people wanting to use Broadcom BCM2711 processor in a more compact form factor, although to be honest the space-saving against a carrier board like Piunora is not that much, as you’ve got some ports at the cost of the system being thicker.
Uptime Lab does not have any information about the carrier board on its website at this time. It’s similar in concept, although admittedly much smaller (when the CM4 is not connected), to the open-source hardware Less-is-More (LiM) carrier board that also offers a USB-C port for power and two LED’s, as well as a MicroSD card slot for the latest version.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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Those looking for a more useful minimal CM4 carrier board might want to look at https://wiki.geekworm.com/CM4_Stick which is available on Amazon.
Give me one more USB port, like the Raspi Zero!
Even a small version for CM3+ would do 🙂