Early in Nov 2024, I was asked to design a custom Raspberry CM5 carrier board. As CM5 had several newer features, it took more time than I needed to design a carrier board for Raspberry CM4.
Challenges
Creating custom schematic symbols
CM5 has backward-compatible pinout as CM4, but not all the pins remain the same way. I first started creating a custom schematics components to not mess up with myself.
Power supply design
The Raspberry Pi CM4 was power-hungry, and CM5 is even more. To supply enough power for CM5, Display panel, and USB dongles, I had to design a stable 5V 5A power supply circuit. I used After playing around TI’s WebBench online power design tool, I ended up with LMR51450 step-down DC/DC converter IC.
Fitting inside the given vertical space
As this board is intended to be put in a tablet-like thin enclosure, I had to care about the total board height with components. The tallest components were DC barrel jack and power filtering capacitors. I picked a DC barrel jack that sits inside PCB cutout. For power filtering capacitors, Panasonic offered a wide range of low-profile capacitors. I picked Panasonic’s polymer Aluminum solid capacitors.
Key Features
- 2 x 100p Hirose connectors for Raspberry Pi CM5
- I/O ports
- 1 x 40p FPC connector for Waveshare 70H-1024600 HDMI display
- 1 x HDMI connector
- 1 x M.2 M-key PCIe for SSD
- 4 x USB 2.0 ports for SDR dongles, Wi-Fi dongle, and LCD Touch screen controller
- 4 x user LEDs
- Sensors
- UBlox M9N GPS module
- MICS-5524 gas sensor
- ICM-20948 accelerometer
- BMP388 pressure and temperature sensor
- Power supply
- 5V 5A power supply from 6~28V DC input
- 3s (12V) Li-Po battery pack for UPS function
- Power button (new feature of Raspberry CM5) switch
- UPS enabling/disabling button switch
PCB Design
- Designed in EasyEDA Pro
- Prototyping in progress by JLCPCB
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Hi Hotte S.
Can you tell me more about the issues you might have found in your design? Have you already tested it? Did you look at Ethernet-related issues? I am considering the option of creating my own board, but I have never worked with CM modules. Can you share more info about the design, if possible, the PCB at EasyEDA?
I wish you the best of luck.
Regards
Hi Andre R.
All the Raspberry Pi CM5 carrier board designs on this website are prototyped and tested.
Ethernet is also working well. I had some trouble with Raspberry CM4 Ethernet when I was first designing it back in 2022.
Most of Ethernet issues are related to incorrect impedance matching and wrong placement of EMI protection diodes.
Most of the designs are done in EasyEDA Pro.
Though I got commisions from my clients to publish the basic information on my website like this post, I don’t have right to share the design source files in public.
If you’re willing to build your own or order your own design from me, we can discuss further on Fiverr.
I’m mostly available on Fiverr for instant chatting except weekends and holidays.
Also, if you have an idea of creating an open-source Raspberry Pi CM5 carrier board design, please share.
However, the official CM4/CM5 IO board designs are already open-sourced by Raspberry Foundation.
So, I am not well sure whether it would be worth to create yet another open source CM4/CM5 carrier board design in EasyEDA Pro.
Best regards,
Hotte