Will it support Raspberry Pi CM4?

CM4 seems really powerful. On the other hand, it’s also said to emit a lot of heat. Its interface is also different from CM3. There seems to be some adapters, such as https://www.gumstix.com/manufacturer/raspberry-pi/cm4-uprev.html, but this one seems much wider than a CM3.
Will CM4 be supported in the future?

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Welcome to the community. Lots of people have been asking about it. I think they might because the DevTerm has a fan so it might be possible.

Both the clockwork A-0602 and A-0604 have a cortex A72, which is what the Raspberry Pi 4 has; just the raspberry Pi is clocked at 1.5GHz and the Clockwork Pi is clocked at 1.8GHz.

The clockwork pi also has an arguably more powerful quad core Mali T864/T860 MP4 GPU, compared to the raspberry pi’s videocore VI. From memory the die is smaller on the t864 (28nm) compared to the videocore VI’s (40nm) which should in theory be cooler.

I may have overlooked something, but statistic wise, the Clockwork Pi high end offering seems to be the better choice, and comparable in price.

I’m not sure exactly how having a fan would immediately mean that a raspberry Pi 4 will work, seeing as due to its configuration of overheating components, it would need a specifically made/targetted heat sink that conducts heat away from the hot spots.

I’d be weary of anyone who says that the raspberry Pi 4 would be compatible, without any anecdotal evidence. Currently, all evidence points to it not being compatible.

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what if we overclock the CPi?

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There 100% WILL be people who are doing it. In which case, I know a certain “maker” on this forum who might come up with a very nice modified case with a larger form factor to cater for potential larger HSF setups. :wink:
That said, the flagship unit sounds it sounds like it might possibly be the same specs as the rpi4; just clocked 300MHz higher, in which case it might come overclocked by default.

Before we start a war, this is reminding me of this thread from the gameshell.

I resonate with @Godzil’s words.

It sounds like it’s already going to be plenty powerful.

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There is a CM4 to CM3 board available by Gumstix.

If it works and how well it works is TBD. Will it even fit? Maybe?

Something worth testing however.

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Will it fit? the answer is I’m quite sure no, unless you make a new back for the DevTerm, which is probably going to be a problem, even with a 3D printer, the DT is not that small

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sounds like a job for a dremel.

also… thoughts on dovetailing as a means to 3D print in parts and then connect.

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I think 3D printing a back cover should be fine, depending on your printer. I have a budget end Creatlity Ender 3 max which has a 300mm print bed. I’m pretty sure its smaller than that. I think the STL files are on the Internet somewhere - will find them and print the back off as a test. If that works ok then the world is your oyster regarding case modifications.

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you think dovetailing is viable on printers that are smaller?

Its 263 mm wide in its entirety. However just the back is a little narrower than that. I think if your 3D printer is smaller then you you are going to need to split it up into sections, which if you are designing yourself would probably be ok.

If your printer is less than 200mm you might want to think about getting a 3rd party to print on demand for you, I would imagine it would cost about £50 (or less).

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i dont have one… yet

Happy to print for you if you are in the UK

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oceans between us, unfortunatly

maybe i should consider a resin printer… optically clear is a sweet option

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Gonna take forever to print :smiley:

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well… when you opt for quality over speed… that IS the trade off you make

Hi…Where did you peruse that the CM4 is quicker? As you note, it’s a similar SoC as the PI4B, so the speed is something very similar.

CMs are, by and large talking, for mechanical and installed applications. While you can simply plunk a CM4 on the IO board- - and you’re correct that it’s greater, however it additionally has highlights that a Pi4B doesn’t - the typical course is for an organization to plan and carry out a transporter board with just the highlights they really need in their item, and is- - along these lines - liable to be fairly more modest.

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The cm4 is incompatible without an adapter board. Some of The A0*modules have two extra cores.
Welcome @BabbRust

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zombie thread, rise from your grave!

“Support” may be a bit much, but some functionality is possible if you’re willing to deal with some functionality gaps and have an HDMI monitor.

I’m using a CM4 lite with the Geekworm adapter board in a DevTerm, but so far haven’t gotten the screen working. ClockworkOS doesn’t support CM4 so I had to use another distribution to get it to boot. Also the difference in number of GPIOs means at least some features won’t work with this adapter (it connects CM4 GPIOs to the same spot as the corresponding CM3 GPIO where they exist, which means higher numbered ones simply are not connected), and unfortunately fan control is one of the GPIO’s that doesn’t exist.

I’m using the unmodified original case and it does get toasty after a few hours of moderate use. The extra thickness of the adapter board means there is not much space inside the case for airflow, and since the fan isn’t running you’re basically stuck with passive cooling.

Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB ports, HDMI, and built-in keyboard/mini-trackpad all work.

I have not tried game controller buttons yet. I tried very briefly to get the printer working but didn’t succeed yet. Battery/charging status is not working, and I don’t know yet whether it can. I haven’t actually checked to see which of these bits rely on not-actually-connected GPIO lines though.

I suspect that with a custom adapter board it could all work pretty well, other than thermal issues perhaps (Pi4 runs hotter than PI3 even under ideal conditions I believe). A custom adapter in conjunction with modified software could likely work around the missing GPIO’s just fine. A modified case to leave more room for air circulation could likely improve things further. An additional heatsink and/or fan could do wonders too.

Magic for config.txt to get USB (kb, trackball, ports) is dtoverlay=dwc2,dr_mode=host and regular raspberry pi os distro is more or less working with external display. Ubuntu works well too. CM4 lite defaults to not being a USB host if you boot it from microSD. Also be aware that in the default ubuntu config.txt there is another conflicting dtoverlay=dwc2 line you need to comment out so the usb-enabling one will take effect.

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