"So, we chose to adhere to what we believed the spirit of the OneBank connector is. We populated the power, ground, and the two USB channels. The final product is a very functional industrial IoT platform."

"It’s outfitted with all the creature comforts of the original Raspberry Pi. But it also has a built in power supply that accepts 8-36 volts DC and breaks out all 56 GPIO of the CM."

"Here’s something we haven’t seen before... The industrial-targeted carrier provides -25 to 80°C support and an 8-36V input with screw terminal connector."

The Pi Compute Module is a powerful tool for custom electronics projects. But if your project requires industrial grade specifications, you’re currently out-of-luck. This is where Pi/104 comes in - with a wide temperature rating and a power supply that encompasses common industrial cabinet voltages. Pi/104 doesn’t try to do too much out of the box. Instead, it relies on an industry standard form factor for accessories, which allows people to build custom stacks to meet their goals in a cost effective way. It also means the base board is cheaper, bringing an industry-ready board to the hobby market.

But Why Do I Need This?

At its core this is a Raspberry Pi, great for all projects electronic. It breaks out the Pi Compute Module with several added value propositions compared to other boards:

Temp Spec

Pi/104’s industrial temp spec (-25° C to 80° C) means it stays stable longer in areas without temperature control. Where is this a benefit? In any of the following applications:

Industrial automation

Hydroponics/aquaponics

IoT/IIoT gateways in remote locations

Outdoor advertising displays

HVAC equipment

Ruggedized off-road equipment

Projects of high importance - just to be sure that if anything goes wrong environmentally, you're covered

Input Voltage

The 8-35 V power supply on the Pi/104 was sized for industrial cabinets. Two popular voltages in this setting are 12 and 24 volts. But what else runs on these voltages?

24 V some marine vessels

24 V older Heavy trucks

24 V souped up "Power Wheels"

24 V and 12 V solar and other renewables

12 V commercial automotive

12 V marine

12 V offroad vehicles

With a wide power supply range, the Pi/104 can be attached directly to many electrical systems without the need for any accessories or buying a new accessory because the voltage present changed.

Adaptability

Pi/104, and the PC/104 form factor, are small and sturdy. PC/104 has been around for a long time, and its proven itself to be great for embedded systems. You don’t need to have used PC/104 before to appreciate and utilize its benefits. It’s extendable through its stackable connectors, meaning one board doesn’t have to fit all purposes. Instead the "hard" computational stuff is handled by the main board so companies and individuals can focus on their project. In the past, the form factor has been notably used in:

Aviation electronics

Heavy industry vehicles

Military vehicles

Kiosks

Features & Specifications

Features

Based on the PC/104 format, compact, sturdy, and stackable.

Uses the “OneBank” connector leaving more PCB area and cheaper than a full PCIe/104 connector.

“OneBank” has 5/3.3 V and two USB channels allowing you to use USB-powered peripherals in the stack such as cellular modems, Wi-Fi cards, USB to SATA, FPGA, and serial connectors. (Note: PCIe pins in OneBank connector are not used.)

Flexible power. Board can be powered through the wire terminals (8 to 35 volts), OneBank connector (5 V and 3.3 V), or through the USB OTG connector.

USB OTG connector supports full range of functionality including OTG and USB boot.

Display flexibility with either HDMI or DSI support as well as a camera through the CSI port

IDE-style connectors for GPIO, making I/O ribbon cables easy to find. Connector closest to module is pin compatible with Raspberry Pi and has been successfully tested with several HATs. The other connector carries the rest of the compute module pins and some extra grounds.

Recessed Ethernet connector allows for a full size, standard ethernet cable to be used even in stack configuration.

On-board microSD card slot allows for use of Pi Compute 3 Lite modules.

Specifications

2 x USB A

1 x microUSB OTG

1 x HDMI

1 x 10/100 Ethernet

1 x microSD slot (CM3L only)

1 x CSI

1 x DSI

59 x GPIO in two IDE-style connectors

OneBank stacakble connector with 2 USB and 5/3.3 V

Wide power supply, 8-36 V

Temperature spec with Pi Compute Module, -25° C to 85° C

Temperature spec without Pi Compute Module, -40° C to 85° C

Does It Work With…

Here’s a breakdown of compatability with existing hardware:

PC/104 (ISA)

Not out of the box. Some work exists to convert USB to ISA and has even been tested on the Raspberry Pi, but that would require a daughtercard that pulls a channel of USB out of the Onebank connector, converts it to ISA and then has the PC/104 connector on the other side. It’s theoretically doable but not right this second.

PCI/104

Not supported. It just isn’t supported by the chipset and PCI is too closely tied to the processor to be emulated like ISA.

PCIE/104

The "OneBank" connector is a subset of this standard. It is pin-compatible and will mate with a standard PCIE/104 connector. The caveat of this support is like PCI, PCIE just isn’t supported by the chip and can’t be emulated. What we routed into the OneBank connector was two channels of USB, 5 volts, 3.3 volts and ground. So we support a subset of PCIE/104 and OneBank cards which only use the USB channels. The most interesting example of this support are cards which route the USB to mPCIe and m.2 connectors allowing the use of select Cellular Modems, wifi cards, SSDs and Serial cards.

Comparisons

Pi Foundation Development Kit Gumstix Development Board Gumstix USB-Ethernet Pi/104 Price $135 $50 $60 $130 GPIO 59 16 0 59 USB 1 1 2 4 USB OTG Yes Yes No Yes Display HDMI & DSI HDMI & DSI No HDMI & DSI Ethernet No No Yes Yes MicroSD Yes No No Yes Power Supply 5 V 5 V 5 V 8-35 V or 5 V Temp Spec Unspecified Unspecified Unspecified -25° C to 85° C Industry Standard Form Factor No No No Yes Extensible Format No No No Yes

Manufacturing Plan

Part acquisition will be from Mouser/Digi-Key and Samtec. PCB manufacturing will be done by a North American facility. Assembly will be handled by our partner production facility.

Shipping & Fulfillment

Production steps:

Milestone 1 - Order is placed with Samtec for "OneBank" connectors, these have significant lead time so best guess on production numbers will have to made and ordered. I expect to end up with some extra OneBank connectors.

Milestone 2 - As funds clear, orders are placed for PCB production and other parts are put on order

Milestone 3 - Estimated arrival of PCB and parts at assembly partner’s facility

Milestone 4 - Finished units are shipped to the fulfillment center

Milestone 5 - First units ship to backers

This entire process from 1-5 is estimated to take about two months, but we’ll provide regular updates during production.

At this point all shipments are planning to be shipped from the United States. Unfortunately, international shipping costs a lot so we ask that backers from other countries pay a bit more. To learn more about placing your order, please view the Crowd Supply Guide.

Risks & Challenges

There is very little risk with this project. The engineering is done and prototypes have come out perfect. All potential problems left are those inherent in manufacturing anything - unanticipated component shortages and shipping delays/issues. Large scale production (>500 units) would be challenging from a logistics standpoint. But none of this is insurmountable.

Copyright Notice

Raspberry Pi and the Raspberry Pi logo are copyright of the RASPBERRY PI FOUNDATION. Neither this project nor Parker Microsystems are associated with with the Raspberry Pi Foundation in any way. The unit pictured is a prototype unit not for sale. Actual units may differ visually.