EEVblog

[@adslf874yti3q7u4hf83]

I love that you have grid paper but draw diagonally on it

[@EEVblog]

You can't do an isometric projection and keep on the grid lines, even if you rotate the paper. You need 120deg.

[@adslf874yti3q7u4hf83]

EEVblog I figured it might be something like that.

[@JBaughb]

Amazon sells isometric graph paper. Comes in handy.

[@EEVblog]

I should get some of those, because my isometric drawings suck

[@KevinDay]

EEVblog you can also print some of your own isometric graph paper from various sites. Obviously not economical for bulk amounts, but good for a few pages at a time.

[@mikeselectricstuff]

Instead of the ENC chips, you could feed all the SPI ports into an FPGA to emulate them all plus the switch functionality

[@funcatvids9198]

That was also my idea (and I think you could go much faster than 10Mbps), but I get the point of Dave: he wants something that does not require software/firmware, you just plug it and it works. With FPGA you'll need to develop the core in verilog or VHDL that perfecly emulates the ENC if you don't want to create a new linux driver...

[@cleverca22]

my thought, is to dump the PHY on everything, route the SPIMII chip directly into the MII interface of the switch, and skip the PHY layer entirely, then you only need a single PHY chip for the uplink port, and dont need to deal with magnetics (skipped or done right)

[@KeenanTims]

The chip has an integrated PHY, and no MII interface. I guess you could probably find a different one to use, but the ENC28J60 is well supported with the existing tools and boot scripts.

[@Hugatry]

Interesting project and great video. Nice amount of finding and solving problems that could come up in the design phase of smaller projects as well. Looking forward to the next part.

[@phantom349uj]

Hugatry's HackVlog. Yes I rather enjoy hearing Dave go through the thought process. That's the most interesting parts of the videos

[@crasbee]

If high bandwith is not a requirement it might be worth looking into using the serial port. PPP over serial is pretty easy with Linux and to combine the serial ports of the Orange Pis efficiently you could use something like a I²C- or SPI-UART. One Orange Pi would be "sacrificed" as an ethernet-bridge. That wouldn't really matter as they have an ethernet port anyway. The Orange Pi has hardware flow control too which helps with reliability, especially in this configuration. A chip that's worth looking into is the NXP SC16IS740/750/760 which has Linux support too. When using I²C you've got a single bus (or maybe two for performance), less chips and less components. Maybe you could get away with a single crystal oscillator which would save even more components. I like the idea of making a serious cluster. Everyone can throw some RPis into a case with a switch but not everyone can design his own backplane. An answer would be much appreciated :)

[@depchimp]

i was thinking that there are 3 serial ports on the connector, you could use 2 for a daisy chain / round robin networking. removing most of the on board chips. edit: actually this would be bad, a missing card or crashed card would halt everything.

[@crasbee]

You could lay it out in a ring, but that would probably be way more complex and also increase the individual CPU load. PPP over RS232 and I²C would be something that hasn't been done before though :)

[@depchimp]

CookieCrasbe it's interesting idea though, just for an experiment I'd like to give it a go with say a cortex m3 with an raspberry pi. you could have a fairly low power fpga as the hub right?

[@crasbee]

You don't even need a FPGA. The suggested NXP part is a slave UART which means you can hook up to 16 of them to one I2C bus. The Orange Pi has two I2C masters which means you can hook up to 32 UARTs to one master Orange Pi. For performance reasons it would be better to split the amount to the two busses. Given that Dave has 10 Orange Pis with one master, there would be 5 slaves on one bus and 4 on the other. Makes 9 of the UARTs, one crystal oscillator and some passives. That's it for the backplane and IMHO a lot simpler and cheaper than the ENC28J60 solution.

[@depchimp]

Ahhh i see, i was complicating everything still, yea that NXP part i was looking at it the wrong way, (face palm). i saw it as SPI -> USART but its USART -> SPI and you can connect each card to the SPI bus.

[@ian-c.01]

Perfect project for the EEV Blog ! I love this idea and can't wait to see how you implement it, there are a few challenges with the design etc but that is what makes it interesting. I might just have a go at making one myself even though I have no practical use for it, it would make a really interesting build. It is certainly within the skills of the average hobbyist and a great little project idea ! Love it !

[@Sixta16]

I hope Dave will finally build something. Do it! :-)

[@DonkeyLearningIT]

In addition to my previous comment on compute clusters, the Raspberry Pi Zero does not have Ethernet, so you do not even have physically an easy way to have an MPI distributed memory parallel code running on them, or to easily push and pull data packets and distribute them on your Pi Zero compute nodes. Btw, you should definitely Network-Boot your compute nodes, so that way there is no need for a flash card in each of them, and there is a central point of administration.

[@ancapftw9113]

Pi0w has built in wifi. Or you could connect them via USB, and use a pi 3 or 4 for the main controller and internet.

[@mikeselectricstuff]

Samtec SSW right-angle headers can have right-angled pins 0.3 and 0.5" long, so they could be spaced up enough to mate with the Orange Pi headers.

[@mikeselectricstuff]

You can get right-angle headers with pins on the same side, which could be spaced up enough.

[@martintyler4009]

Project looks awesome, can't wait to see more of this!

[@yurikirsanov8763]

You can put right angle connector on to be used as an adaptor - just put it on the board's connector and then you can have vertical ones on the motherboard so you can actually slide these boards on vertical rails down to the motherboard, I think :)

[@kaizen9451]

This weeks videos have been enjoyable Dave. Thanks!

[@exosdel]

I would love to see this pcb come together, a video of all the routing and whatnot! 👍

[@trustthewater]

Regardless of power or practicality, I think a project like this would be of great interest and education to many. I hope it continues.

[@BinaryCounter]

Not sure if that is the case for the orange pi, but the raspberry pi could be back-powered through the usb host port since it was basically directly connected to the internal 5v rail. So the most elegant solution might be to power the board from USB Host and use the data lines to connect it with a usb ethernet chip. You would put the Pis in vertically so you're saving even more space on the mother board. I/O could be handled with ethernet aswell with an extra micro and ethernet chip.

[@RyanMcGuinness]

Love this idea. Thought about doing this a few times myself but never considered a custom PCB. Looking forward to seeing the whole project.

[@aljowen]

I am tempted to say you may end up with baked Orange Pi's if you are passively cooling them in a box with no air flow. Adding a fan or thermally coupling to the case might be a decent idea, depending on acceptable noise levels.

[@phantom349uj]

I'm sure he'd add a small fan just to evacuate the heat

[@sparkplug1018]

easiest way to go about it would be design the motherboard to ATX spec and just mount it in a PC case that he likes.

[@PelDaddy]

45 degree headers and Pis at an angle...

[@EddSjo]

Yes!

[@apexmike849]

Beat me to it! ;-)

[@Mobin92]

Do they even exist?

[@rockinrobstar3327]

Had the same idea? How hard would it be to go to a manufacturer of PCB headers and ask them to make it ?

[@AstralJaeger]

these headers are already expensive enough, then I dont think they will manufacture you only 10 pieces

[@vylbird8014]

I don't know if the Orange is the same, but on the Raspberry the 5V of the USB ports goes to the 5V rail, which means you can backpower them. So all you need is a USB2-to-ethernet chip per pi, an ethernet switch chip, and a backpane with a whole lot of male USB connectors sticking up. Plug the Pi into that: The USB socket will hold it in position while allowing easy disconnection, and supply both power (via the USB 5V line) and a connection to the USB2-to-ethernet chip. Easy. So easy, you could probably cram it all on a single-sided PCB.

[@theLuigiFan0007Productions]

Exactly what I was thinking! I'm pretty certain that would be just as efficient as using a custom motherboard. Those connectors will be physically in the way anyways, might as well just make use of them.

[@mrcrud5]

I love that you are doing it "just because"... There are some projects I've done in the past where there would of been cheaper ready made solutions, or development boards that do the same thing, if not better, but I simply chose to build my own "just because". My latest example was a custom midi controller I designed. I spent probably about 200 dollars on it and some people would feel they need to point out that I could of gotten a product that's already assembled and designed for half the price. What some don't understand though, is I do it because its fun, and its a learning experience. You don't tell someone who loves doing puzzles that they can get the same picture already assembled.

[@HisVirusness]

This seems like a very interesting build. Cannot wait to see where it goes.

[@DonkeyLearningIT]

Hi Dave! I actually work with high performance computing and wanted to build long ago a small "cluster" to be able to make videos on the underlying concepts of what ties a cluster together. However, here in German speaking countries even a Pi Zero costs 40Euros. We just wish to pay $5 for it. Also, for a cluster the networking and the MPI (message parsing interface) and the compilers play a MAJOR role compared to what most people think. Furthermore, for my project the Raspberry Pi3 would have been better, because it supports full ARM KVM (Kernel Virtual Machine on ARM) for being able to migrate on the fly processes from one compute node to an other.

[@DoRC]

An interesting layout but i think i would have gone with a setup that had male rj45 connectors sticking up from the board then have a seperate board that provided power to all the pis. I think it would have been a lot more simple and would allow them to be as dense as possible

[@TheDefpom]

Dave, simpler to use an adaptor board to connect , you could then stack two boards on each adaptor, which plug into a motherboard system.

[@sjuut89]

Raspberry Pi 3 compute modules are on the way. Albeit no Wifi / Bluetooth combi chip, I still think this is a great solution for this project. Especially since you can run the 'usb ethernet gadget' (g_ether) , which will create an ethernet-over-usb socket. So no ethernet-over-spi needed

[@aMondia]

This is a really cool project, hoping we get to follow it every step of the way. Edit: Would be cool to make something like this modular.

[@HennerZeller]

How about you make a cheap PCB, that makes the connector an edge connector with 2.54mm pitch ? The edge connectors with two rows are really cheap to get on eBay. Also, edge connectors are somewhat 'classic' for these kind of slotted boards. And less awkward plug-in operation. Advantage: the adapter board is really cheap, as you don't have to buy any component, it is literally only a piece of PCB. Not to worry about making a slot in the main-board, in particular as it literally cuts you out of making nice bus-connections between compute boards that you might want to do (e.g. you could directly wire up some boards for high-speed connection without detour through ethernet).

[@sharpx777]

why not create a backplane with the ethernet ports, you could use the board off that switch you have vertically and crimp short cables. I don't think spi will be nearly as fast as gig ethernet

[@DanieleGiorgino]

He doesn't need speed, just basic connectivity.

[@sharpx777]

fine but it's still easier and ready to go with the benefit of speed and less protocol overhead by using a dedicated ethernet chip.

[@DeusWolf]

I think part of the goal is building something that requires the EE skills that are demonstrated in his videos. While your solution would actually work better it doesn't require any design or engineering work and would make for a somewhat less interesting project/video.

[@sharpx777]

you're right, would be interesting. There's potential on that header though, maybe create a backplane with the GPIO lines for transferring data between nodes on a 16 bit bus or something like that

[@MikrySoft]

He wouldn't get speed anyway, it's 10/100 over USB

[@aboldy]

while this is not much use to anyone I'm really interested to watch the process of design and build. That would be very interesting as a sort of though project rather than an actual product. Great work Dave.

[@lelandclayton5462]

I would do a backplain board and edge card daughter boards as adapters for the Pi. This way you don't need any slots in cut into the PCB and you can customize the edge cards to do certain things let alone make them compatible with the different flavor pies. If I was to build a cluster that would be the route I would go and probably toss it into a old IBM XT or AT case. The Ethernet over SPI is a great idea.

[@Zyztematic]

Looks great! Looking forward to part 2 :)

[@EscapeMCP]

"Supercomputers" NEED fast communication between nodes - it's this that allows nodes to work on a problem simultaneously. It is this reason why all other builds have the "ugly" (your definition) cables connecting all the nodes together. You need to run software to manage the cluster as well (e.g. Hadoop), rather than just running the stock OS - this would allow it to dynamically allocate resources to whatever is needed at the time. Is what you have here is 10 standalone computers power- & network-linked in a single case performing a distributed computing task - still very interesting, but don't call it a supercomputer - you do yourself a disservice if you do. Just call it an Orange Pi Cluster - jobs a goodun

[@ElectraFlarefire]

I really don't think you should be titling your video 'Raspberry Pi Supercomputer Cluster' unless your /actually/ using Raspberry Pi's.. You could say 'Raspberry Pi compatible' maybe? The real work is getting the networking and software to work as efficiently as possible over so many tiny cores, especially if it's your own workload and not just seti or equivalent. Say what your actually doing, don't be click-bait.

[@EEVblog]

I said and showed how I might use Raspberry Pi Zero's. It's hardly click bait.

[@ElectraFlarefire]

It's pretty damned close. You spent the whole video holding one of the orange pi's and going on about how much better they were than the pi's, or at least that's how it came across with the occasional 'oh but zeros are also an option'. No problems at all with you using them and building your cluster using them if they are the best option for what your doing, but unless you have a stack of Raspberry Pi's on the bench, it seems more like your using their name to make the video more popular as 'Orange Pi' cluster doesn't have the same ring/search cred.

[@Azagro]

Electra Flarefire Same thing, it definitely wasn't a turn off seeing an Orange Pi instead of a Raspberry Pi

[@nullstress]

Click bait m8 for that KZbin money, yo.

[@ElectraFlarefire]

RadicalJane Never had a problem with the content, only the title. Looks like an interesting approach and I'll be looking forward to seeing how it progresses. ***** Better value for money? Sure. Better for cluster computers assuming your happy to fight the software a bit? No worries. Better product.. Depends on what your doing! I own and use Rasberry's, ODroid's and Cubieboard others. If having it work well matters, I use a Pi. It's software and community support are brilliant(There's still updates for my original Pi B 'made in china'), responsive and HUGE. You can get nearly anything you need for them. Where some of the other boards half that age no longer have any manufacturer support. If I need a feature not on the pi or price is a bigger worry, I use others as suit. (The Cubie is great as it has a SATA port and onboard(as in on-chip) ethernet instead of the rubbish one the Pi has). Different strokes for different folks, as the saying goes.

[@autarchprinceps]

If you really want to make a clean design priority, a raspberry pi compute module would probably be the best solution. Then your custom mainbaord would just need a so-dimm compatible connector for each.

[@ornotermes]

I would have used raiser cards, they could be soldered directly to the header on the module. I would also look in to using a card edge connector, like PCI-E.

[@Marc83Aus]

If you wanted maximum density I suppose you would have to go with short ribbon cables and find some other way of mechanically connecting the boards t stay in place. Edit: Oh, no I have it, what you want is to use 2 headers, attach the right angle one to the orange pi's, then put standard 40 pin headers into the board directly below where you want the pi's, then you can insert each board straight down without any larger gap between the board needed. You're looking at another 10 bucks for your build though.

[@deadlym.g.m8570]

I'm waiting for PART 2 ! Learn a lot with your vid, thx.

[@fizzicist7678]

And because of this video I just bought several of them, and gonna have to wait until they get delivered. Gonna follow along as I too want a computer dedicated for calculation, lab measurements etc.

[@DavidKenny64]

Maybe you dismissed the idea of changing the pin header too quickly? A couple custom heat shields for the top and bottom and a solder rework station should make it very easy to swap the originals out.

[@XRedbat57X]

Im really excited for this series, i hope you have motivation and time to finish it, really hyped

[@l3p3]

Good work. What about socketing those 90 deg sockets again? That way, you COULD plug in the modules vertically... ;) And that way, we do not need any holes. But you know, guys love holes.

[@EEVblog]

Increases the height profile.

[@TinBryn]

and if they were double socketed, you could reverse them and put a Raspberry in there

[@userPrehistoricman]

Increases height by what? 4mm? Big deal

[@DennisXiloj]

The idea is to make it really easy, no ethernet cable, no power cable, just plug it in.

[@l3p3]

Dennis Xiloj Where is the problem with that?

[@NotSleepy]

Love your videos, and all that you do.. Great to see a "project" that we can all noodle the design.. thanks.

[@luisdanielmesa]

Could you place the modules (and therefore the slots) orthogonally to your original plan? I mean, to avoid the routing-around-the-slot issues, you could have 2 or 3 on that space on one side and 2 or 3 on the other side, and the airflow would be better if you decide to do the slide-in case idea.

[@DrTune]

Armbian is the absolute first choice linux distro for any Allwinner-based board - I've used it on a number of different boards and it's superb.

[@humidbeing]

Oh boy! Been waiting for this!

[@Vinster411]

Fun project, doing it is the fun part. esp. if you have this bits lying around and not doing anything with them. looking forward to Part 2

[@edwardmclean9051]

Dave, here's a thought, please tell me why it won't work: the SPI pins are not shared with the flipped Raspberry Pi configuration and the other pins are GPIO, ground and power. Both the power and ground are doubled up elsewhere in the pins. Why not have a three way jumper for the 10 SPI pins (5 SPI pins for the Orange and 5 for the Raspberry configurations) connecting to the Ethernet chip? You'll be able to swap between both boards with one design. Thanks for the great vids.

[@Jilocasindragon]

Nice one, Dave. Really love these custom project videos canc can't wait to see the next part! :D

[@jschroedl983]

But can it play Global Thermonuclear War? and Tic Tac Toe?

[@MattExzy]

Wouldn't you prefer a nice game of chess...

[@michaelhawthorne8696]

Fine !

[@gorillaau]

Michael Hawthorne The only way to win is not to play.

[@stupidystu]

I've seen so many people make these Raspberry Pi Supercomputers and do (as you would say) BUGGER ALL with them. S E T I, Nice one Dave.

[@ian-c.01]

Don't you think it's just awesome to be able to make one ? They are not about practicality or 'real-world' applications, there are plenty of off-the-shelf solutions for every application. This is about design and problem solving, just for the heck of it, you can always design a program for it to run and even output to a monitor or Internet feed. What I like about this project is the number of people who post their own suggestions and ideas for it, this shows that it gets people thinking and offering contributions. That's what makes it fun and interesting, if you don't see that you entirely missed the point. What suggestions would you make to add to the project ?

[@Seegalgalguntijak]

It just hasn't got enough power to mine Bitcoins ;)

[@BrackenDawson]

Put a small interfacing board on each pi, takes the IO, includes the ethernet adapter chip and uses a SATA connector to plug into the motherboard. Then you can plug in any of the small computers in a mix, each has its own interface board. You can use a different ethernet adapter IC if you need to for some odd board. You'd need the magnetic isolators back on the main board to do hot swap, but this would be a cool small computer bladecenter. Also no more slots routed in your board.

[@Bartosh.S]

Finally , Dave doing project.

[@Tomasu82]

I could swear I saw right angle pin header adapters. But even if they don't exist I think they could be made fairly cheaply no? no need for routing holes, just have an adapter between the pi and the motherboard.

[@Tomasu82]

Like either have some pins or a socket mounted flush on the motherboard, and the adapter plugs into the pi first, then the whole thing just attaches to the motherboard vertically.

[@sej7278]

yeah like those old right angle PCI adaptors for low-profile desktop PC's, much better than holes in the board lol. also not really a supercomputer or cluster if they're not communicating in parallel, its just a power/ethernet distribution board for separate computers.

[@simonfitch1120]

Yep - this. It would cost more, probably, but board insertion would be easier, and the absence of huge slots would make the motherboard so much stronger. Power and signal routing would be much easier, especially considering that you don't need to connect all Pi pins down to the motherboard, and you may leave gaps for large traces.

[@guni82]

Nice project! If you stay with your idea routing slots into the board, maybe you could make them wide enough to fit either a raspberry from the top or a orange though the slot from the bottom.

[@MD_Builds]

For the header situation why not just have a right angle converter header? And have that plugging down into the mother board? That way you dont have to worry about sliding the pi in from the side, that would allow to have more density. While this would add another connection, and a possible point of failure. I feel that its pretty unlikely to actually cause an issue.

[@zsoltkohler7096]

If you route big enough slots, one can connect the Rpi from below. That would be an universal mobo.

[@OneBiOzZ]

run an i2c line between them and use the local IP address to address them you can use this to bring up consoles easily, get errors easily or have them talk or whatnot

[@joea3728]

this would be an interesting project using the (Raspberry Pi Compute Module). A much smaller board whose form factor fits In a laptop memory slot. None of the extras that are not needed on this application. And there's a new version heading this way, using the raspberry Pi 3 processor. what do you think. Joe.

[@b2gills]

You mentioned dip switches, or tieing io between them to set name/address/id. Aren't all ethernet devices supposed to have a unique MAC address anyway? At that point you can use one of them as a DHCP server, router, and main controller. Just have it oriented so that the built-in ethernet connector of that one is accessible.

[@amciaapple1654]

Dave, The OrangePi website was improved significantly since the last time you've reviewed it.

[@FelixNielsen]

This is right up my alley. Always wanted to make something like this. Only problem, I have to wait for the continuation! Edit: While of course you have enough to do at the moment, I'm sure, just today I read about a peltier cooled CMOS sensor, and of course the purpose of this setup is to reduce noise. Having thought about it a bit, it might actually be something I'd like to do myself, once I get a hold on a used Sony A7s at a reasonable price, which among other things will be used for astrophotography, thus the noise levels are rather important. I thought perhaps that this was an interesting enough project that you might also want do a video on it, testing if it actually makes a significant difference and such. Anyway, I thought it'd be interesting and I'm sure you've got a couple of old cameras lying around. Personally I haven't got a clue about temperature control, and as for condensation, the best I can think of is simply keeping the temperature high enough, which sort of defeats the purpose. Here a link for the product I read about. It's very expensive, and it really shouldn't be that hard to do yourself, but maybe I'm mistaken. www.primalucelab.com/astronomy/d5500a-cooled-camera.html In any case, it would be interesting to see your take on it.

[@JosefdeJoanelli]

Also, since you don't need any cabling, you could alternate the rotation of the OrangePis on the motherboard so that the RJ45s interlock. So you have pairs of boards facing each other, with the pairs back to back with other pairs.

[@GeorgeStyles]

Hi... love all your videos, but especially this one... cant wait for part 2... from a viewer in the old dart...

[@WobblycogsUk]

If you could bend those connectors on the board over to 45 degrees I bet you would't need the slots. Bet that's not an off the shelf part though.

[@rizzlar]

Rather than sink the boards into the PCB and use the right-angled sockets, you could always make an adapter board with a right-angled header on one edge and a normal socket on the other. It does mean another assembly and board is needed, but it would allow you to have various adapter boards so you can use both the RasPi and the OrangePi etc. Obviously it will add some mechanical design complexities to hold the boards firmly etc.

[@MrOffizier]

Actually I think the overall idea of you making projects is quite compelling. Like structure your projects into design, circuit/board layout(maybe some timelaps or tips for circuit board layouting) and testing (+ eventually software/firmware and setup). As I write this another idea came to my mind. Why not make a project together with your viewers: Like put everything on github or similar and make video updates when a project meets milestones or when there's a mayor decision regarding it.(I think elektor has something similar). I do see that this would require at least some form of controlling(not everyone can design the pcb simultaneously), but I think it would be worth a try. That would be pretty cool, right?

[@kuipersam]

Use one pcb with the slots you designed. Then parallel below that use another pcb with the network and power. Use connectors between the boards that also function as spacers. It solves trace space shortage. Other thoughts are to plug the boards in at an angle of 30', like PC memory. Are you considering a network boot, avoiding multiple sd cards?

[@imie6567]

Dave, please read about capacitance coupling in differential pairs. To overcome magnetics, you can use capacitors as long as you have connections on your board only (as you said).

[@mattsains]

project videos are my favourite!

[@BajatecnologiaNetdiy]

Hi Dave! I don't think this cluster could be of much use for me, but I'm really looking forward for you to complete the project in terms of power management, heat transfer and communications over ethernet. I think it would be very didactic.

[@ShawnGuertin]

I have an Orange Pi One running Einstein@Home and here are the issues I got: -I got throttling using a small heatsink, it stood at 80C and it was not pulling as much power as it could have. Removing it from the case helped and I also put a bigger heatsink to get 60C at 1.2MHz 100% -512MB of ram is not enough for 4 tasks of this Einstein, at some point Boinc will decide to cancel one task and run on 3 threads. It depends on the project, I don't know about SETI.

[@101blog]

One thing to note Dave you can only buy the Pi Zero individually and therefore you need to factor this in to the price. In the UK that was around £3 ea so when you can get them they are no cheaper than the Cheapest Orange PI

[@gineer]

Dave, I can not wait to see the system design aspects of this project. Just don't give up halfway through... Still waiting for the rest of your μSupply project ;-)

[@EdwinNoorlander]

Even if you don't build this, it's still a nice project and we can learn a lot of it. For instance the design of a pcb. Nice project. Better than a solar road. 😜

[@skyhawk77]

Well this looks more fun than the last couple of snooze fest multi-meter video's I didn't see the aim of ha ha :-D

[@EEVblog]

If you didn't like those multimeter design videos then I'd suggest you are on the wrong channel.

[@VikasVJois]

A "Raspberry Pi compute module" would be perfect for this kind of stacked application. It has the same processor as the Pi Zero but has card edge connectors

[@EEVblog]

And 5 times the price.

[@KF7IJZ]

EEVblog PI 3 compute modules coming this winter at better pricing supposedly

[@valajbeg]

Obviously they intentionally control production and cost.. no reason for pi module not to be 5$ if it was bit more marketed and had LTS guaranteed. Good idea but not well presented and not well accepted.. I have the one with dev platform, but i was afraid to use it in my projects...

[@milhousevh]

See the recent NEC Displays announcement - LTS won't be an issue, and future generations of compute module are guaranteed to be electrically compatible. If density is the goal here, then CM3 compute modules are the best option, subject to pricing and availability.

[@Pieh0]

Nice seeing the orange pi's and all, but where are the *Raspberry Pi's* you have in the title of the video and thumbnail?

[@mmorena2787]

Love this project! I'll buy one

[@mortrek]

some people have been working with USB OTG networking to get clusters linked together

[@mortrek]

Not that I know of, but here's a blog post: blog.alexellis.io/pizero-otg-swarm/

[@kfishy]

If you want the most compact RPi cluster, then the Compute Module probably makes more sense, it already has a high speed SODIMM connector with all the pins broken out.

[@sparkplug1018]

A possible board solution could be to build your mother board to 305x244MM which is the standard ATX form factor. Would allow it to be mounted in a standard PC case, which would have the fan mounts build in. Or even EATX (305x330MM) depending on board manufacturing costs of course.

[@Skwisgar2322]

you might look at the Odroid C2, It is more like Raspberry Pi 3 price. It runs Android and has a quad core 1.5GHz ARM, Mali - 450 GPU, 2GB RAM, and Gigabit Ethernet (perhaps you could connect them via a daughter board?) in the standard Raspberry Pi 2/3 form factor. It also supports high speed eMMC storage modules though they are pricey.

[@sharedinventions]

I'm pretty sure, that a "double row right angle female pin header" could be used as an adapter, that fits into a normal female pin header populated by the main board. Please confirm!

[@JWalterHawkes]

Hey Dave - this is really fascinating. I would love to see you complete each stage of this project... including seeing you do the design of the board itself in software. If you produced a few of these boards, I'd buy one for sure. For us Yanks and our 120V, it's just a matter of using a different power brick, yes? (Or using a selectable one, if those exist...)

[@OsmosisHD]

Yeah, I'd say let's build it! EEVblog could use some more creative diy building video's Plenty of teardowns/mailbags/repair vids

[@salunderscorepark]

To avoid making a slot in the board use a vertical pin header on the board and a really sort (say 10mm) cable to allow you to place the board at say 30 degrees. The only problem then is mechanical support.

[@samfedorka5629]

I would solder the edge mount connectors in diagonally to make mounting the orange PI on easier. This was a very common tactic for connecting a cable to a board internally (for example IBM keyboards)

[@ipullstuffapart]

As for the case, you should make it rack mountable, with access to the USB and Ethernet on the front for additional networking and comms.

[@pratherat]

If you made your own edge connector with a header socket, you could accommodate both raspberries and oranges and whatever else.

[@salunderscorepark]

The SPI->ethernet chip will have a unique MAC address on it, so you don’t need to worry about setting up any kind of unique id.

[@krisztianszirtes5414]

My biggest question that came up while watching this: If Ethernet and USB ports are a space concerns and you plan to integrate it into a motherboard... why do you even leave them on? Why not desolder them?

[@Seegalgalguntijak]

You could build a small version of the WOPR case for it that fits on your desk, and have the LEDs from the Pi's come out to the light panel of the WOPR case ;)

[@MrDAProgs]

Hi Dave, why not use a PCI type connector? You could then make little pcb adaptors with a straight 40pin female attached to your raspberries and allow you to have 2 types of adaptors for the reversed pinout and you could then "push" in each pie vertically into your motherboard. Love your videos :)

[@richfiles]

Would two motherboards have room to interleave boards together, with one board upside down, Pis facing down, and oriented the opposite direction, so the ethernet jacks are on opposite sides?

[@datamedic]

two comments: 1) If their communication needs are modest, what about using one computer for internet connection, and talking to all others over SPI? 2) Put in 9 slots, and 8 header layouts, symmetric spacing. You could put the right angle header in facing the right for Raspberry pi, and to the left for Orange pi.

[@JosefdeJoanelli]

If I was doing it, I would build some adapter PCAs with a vertical female header to mate with the OrangePi, and a right angled 90 deg Male header to mate with the motherboard. You could even reduce the number of pins going down to the motherboard to prevent overcrowding of your routing space perhaps 6 pins at either end for mechanical support and one connector wherever your SPI is.

[@RobinHilton22367]

Can't wait to see the next videos on this. Once you have designed the PCB and built it will you be open sourcing the designs or will you be making some available for sale?

[@joshsamuelson1793]

It's popular to just take off the ethernet and USB jacks on pi boards and it doesn't effect the functionality.

[@paulhoward4161]

I know I said he didn't want to do it, but I would spend the hour desoldering the headers and replacing with RA headers. It's going to make things so much easier. How often are you going to replace a board?

[@LeLyfa]

Very nice project!