Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 Industrial Cluster

Clusberry 9500-CM4
(Image credit: TECHBASE Group Sp. z o.o.)

With around 50% of the total Raspberry Pi sales, over 17 million units, going to the industrial sector, it is clear that there is a demand for the disruptive single board computer. The Compute Module range was developed to meet the needs of the industrial sector and embedded platform by offering an embeddable version of the Pi in a common form factor. The ClusBerry 9500-CM4, from Techbase, is the latest industrial-focused product that sees up to eight of the latest Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 squeezed inside a DIN-Rail housing, common to industrial applications.

The ClusBerry 9500-CM4 is a customizable platform that enables the end-user to adapt their units to serve their needs via a series of modules. For example, there are modules for a SATA-based file server, LAN / WAN router, and extra USB 3 ports.  If reliability is important to your use case, then a power management module sees a backup power supply in the form of a Li-ION battery and a supercap. This high-capacity capacitor charges quickly and can be used to power devices in the event of power loss.

With up to eight Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 in use, things will get a little warm. The Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 uses a very similar System on Chip (SoC) to the Raspberry Pi 4, and they both require cooling for best performance. The ClusBerry 9500-CM4 uses a shared heatsink with pipes shunting the waste heat into a single heatsink. It would be interesting to see how effective that is! 

Right now, Techbase is working on the first prototypes, with an expected delivery time of two months, depending on your configuration options. There is no word as yet on price; typically, products such as this will be tailor-made for the customer, which means prices can vary.   

Les Pounder

Les Pounder is an associate editor at Tom's Hardware. He is a creative technologist and for seven years has created projects to educate and inspire minds both young and old. He has worked with the Raspberry Pi Foundation to write and deliver their teacher training program "Picademy".

  • rbf072858
    Yeah... Go to the company web site. It's vaporware. Cool if they ever actually make it, but for now...

    meh
    Reply
  • Why_Me
    Never heard of a Raspberry Pi until I came back to this site last month after a 10 year hiatus. Still don't know what they are but I see it on the home page everyday. :)
    Reply
  • CooliPi
    Why_Me said:
    Never heard of a Raspberry Pi until I came back to this site last month after a 10 year hiatus. Still don't know what they are but I see it on the home page everyday. :)

    Originally cheap single board computers for children education, nowadays almost PC-like (circa 2000-2008 era) ARM based PCs with opensource OS. Plethora of models went by, but some are still manufactured, which is what industrial customers like. Longevity.

    They also keep the OS universal across all models. With the 4GB and 8GB models, they've made an experimental 64bit version of the OS, but it has 32bit userland programs on top of a 64bit kernel. I use Ubuntu for ARM, 64bit kernel and 64bit userland. Feels like a PC, I use it as a main computer. Overclocked to 2350MHz from the stock 1500MHz in my (CooliPi) case.
    Reply
  • allstarspfunk
    Why_Me said:
    Never heard of a Raspberry Pi until I came back to this site last month after a 10 year hiatus. Still don't know what they are but I see it on the home page everyday. :)
    Got one last year, installed PI-HOLE on it to remove ads from all devices on my home network, and it's been running 24/7 for almost a year now... definitely recommend.
    Reply
  • SonoraTechnical
    Why_Me said:
    Never heard of a Raspberry Pi until I came back to this site last month after a 10 year hiatus. Still don't know what they are but I see it on the home page everyday. :)

    Raspberry PI is an inexpensive linux like miniature PC that has I/O and other remote I/O capabilities so that it can be used for real-time control if wanted...

    I use a Raspberry Pi 4B w/ 4GB of Ram to run 4 fish tanks... ph,temp control, orp, do monitoring, level control... all via a graphical interface (node-red).

    I've attached digital i/o boards, relay boards, and water quality sensors/probes via the i2c bus (think of something like a RS485 or MODBUS or HART or Profibus, but very short distance...)

    Check the NodeRED.org forums under my user name... I have a build thread on it..
    Reply