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.
