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Maker Creates Raspberry Pi CM5 While Waiting for Official Release
The Raspberry Pi 5 launched last month and makers are still waiting for news about a CM5 board. Not wanting to play the waiting game, maker and developer Arturo182 created a CM5 from scratch (sort of). This custom PCB has the form factor of the Raspberry Pi CM4 but is capable of supporting the power of the Pi 5.
First, let's make it clear that this is not actually a CM5, nor is this board available for sale. In fact, it’s not even an SBC but more of a carrier board that enables the Pi 5 to interact with things that are compatible with the CM4. Arturo182 shares an example of the board interfacing with a CM4 maker board from Cytron Tech.
The PCB connects to various interfaces on the Pi 5 like the PCIe slot and USB interfaces. In the demo Arturo182 shared to X (formerly Twitter), the board is shown running an OS using an M.2 NVMe SSD with the PCIe slot rather than microSD. However, the microSD slot is also ported over if you’d prefer to use an SD card.
The only way to make this configuration work is with the help of many flex cables and various adapters. The CM5 board sits underneath the Pi 5, which connects to it using these flex cables to extend its support to the board below. This enables devices to interact with the Pi 5 through the CM4 interface.
The PCB provides complete access to the GPIO which makes it easy to plug into compatible boards. Users can also access the PCIe slot, HDMI ports, CSI slots, DSI slots, and more through the top of the board.
If you want to get a closer look at this Raspberry Pi project, check out the details shared to X (formerly Twitter) by Arturo182. Be sure to follow him for more cool creations as well as any updates to this one.
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Ash Hill is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware with a wealth of experience in the hobby electronics, 3D printing and PCs. She manages the Pi projects of the month and much of our daily Raspberry Pi reporting while also finding the best coupons and deals on all tech.
