I love your adapter solution, as it doesn’t add to the device’s height. Thanks for sharing it with us! Did you think about adding a usb port to the adapter board for charging, so the original case can be used? Once the system is fully set up, I wouldn’t care about access to the SD card.
EDIT: Sorry, I missed that charging is done via the USB-C port on the motherboard, as I am still waiting for mine.
i just started gathering my parts, but i can’t find a suitable raspberry pi zero 2w in the netherlands. they are all sold out, so i searched for alternatives, but then i came on the orange pi zero 2w, which has the option for 4 gb of ram, but i wanted to know if the orange pi could work with this project
this is the pinout for the orange pi, don’t really know if it is the same as the one from the raspberry pi
someone made a raspberry pi os image for this, but it is a bullseye version, so i don’t know if it will work…..
Most of the people looking for low profile Zero, on my side it is more like tower 
Tnx again for red pcb @michael_mayer
Hardware side (Pins) looks quite similar, only what Image are available for Orange Pi?
Maybe Armbian. I have in the future a look into Radxa Zero 3 W with Armbian, maybe the result could be a similar confiuration.
these are all the options for a os, i was thinking about raspberry pi os or kali linux, i think raspberry pi os works the best for this usecase
these are the third-party options, i will search for the official builds
these are the official options, but the raspberry pi os is a better choice i think, because that will be the easiest. and it is bullseye, so it will work with the bullseye tutorial from wasdwasd0105 i think
I hope it is not the fault of this forum that the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W is sold out.
BTW: there are still some on amazon.de
thanks! i will order them from amazon. they tend to be a bit more expensive, but thats my only option then
Find any Pi anywhere in the world, from a legit distributor at a fair price
thanks man! really helped me out! before this project, i started gathering parts and ordered a raspberry pi zero 2wh second hand from marketplace, but that one got lost in the mail, so now i needed to find a different one!
I feel you. I also lost a Radxa Zero 3 W in the mail.
just got my jlcpcb and jlc3dp order in the mail, which contain the pcb’s and the case and gpio cover. the 3d printed parts are printed in 8001 resin in transparent. it is a fingerprint magnet tho, so i will need to clean it very often
Managed to install LXDE and starting with startx
Some basic functionality is available even without of mouse, but it seems that no mouse no real fun 
If you are using (or can switch to) the Pi Zero 2W (wireless version) you should be able to use a Bluetooth mouse.
A question regarding PCBs, and a suggestion regarding GUI options…
Maybe it’s not practical, but has anyone considered selling the pre-soldered adapter board online (via Tindie or the like?) I’ve been interested in eventually upgrading my PicoCalc (or more likely, getting another) to install a Pi Zero 2. But a combination of laziness and lack of confidence in my own soldering skills will probably have me procrastinating forever on this. If there was an option to buy the adapter, ready to go, then I’d almost certainly buy it. Anyone else interested in such a thing? And anyone interested in providing it? 
Seems like one of the biggest challenges with using it is the small display. Someone built a custom launcher for the GameShell back in the day that might be worth considering. I’m not sure if it will work, or how well it will work on a Pi Zero 2 PicoCalc, but it might be worth trying. It was designed with the GameShell’s 320x240 display, but should be easy to modify for the 320x320 PicoCalc display. It’s not meant to be a full Linux windowing environment, and is designed to really only run one application at a time (at least for what’s putting a window on the screen), but it might be useful on the PicoCalc. It shows basic system status info as well, like battery and wifi connection, and has a section for settings. Might be a good starting point if someone wanted to build a more targeted launcher for the PicoCalc. That’s assuming it even works on the Pi Zero 2…
The height in the PicoCalc original case is not sufficient for the Rasperry Pi Zero to be connected with a pluggable connector.
If the adapter and the Zero still have to fit into the original PicoCalc case, soldering by the user is always necessary, unless the adapter board is sold together with a Rasperry Pi Zero that has already been soldered to the adapter.
