HackerGadgets Upgrade Kit — NVMe, Gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.0
Three boards that replace the stock adapter and battery board: PCIe NVMe storage, RJ45 Gigabit Ethernet and USB 3.0 (CM5), plus a PWM fan header.
What it takes
- Disassembly
- Purchase required
Difficulty 2 of 3 — moderate.
Details
vileer's kit is the most-liked hardware thread on the forum. The adapter board exposes the CM4/CM5's PCIe lane to the NVMe battery board (2230–2280 drives), adds a USB-C port for flashing eMMC modules, a USB 3.0 header (CM5 only), a PWM fan connector, a CSI2 camera connector with the Pi 5 pinout, an RTC battery connector for the CM5 and an untested RPITX header on GPIO4. The RJ45 & USB 3.0 expansion board plugs into the expansion slot; Ethernet is routed over pins that were unused in the stock design.
The kit is configured at checkout: adapter only ($23), with the NVMe battery board in 18650, dual-21700 or LiPo form, and with or without the RJ45/USB 3.0 board or an AIO v2. A Radxa CM5 variant of the adapter fixes that module's HDMI output. Rex's EEPROM thread explains the boot changes a CM5 Lite needs to use NVMe; lulu's manual and the Trixie NVMe-boot thread cover the software side.
Links
Open at Forum threadRelated mods
lululvlv's $20 adapter board plus expansion card: the first NVMe option for the uConsole, with a USB 3.0 A and a USB-C port.
The all-in-one expansion card: RTL-SDR, SX1262 LoRa, GNSS, RTC and a USB hub with internal USB-C; the adapter board adds USB 3.0 and Gigabit Ethernet.
The 2024 original: an RTL-SDR (R820T2), USB hub and real-time clock on one expansion card — the board that started the AIO line.
10/100 Ethernet from a Microchip LAN9500A USB bridge, plus a USB-C port, on an expansion card.
A four-port USB 2.0 hub inside the case, two external USB ports, an RJ45 network dongle and SMA connectors for two Wi-Fi radios.
Plug-and-play KVM: HDMI capture in and USB HID out, so the console becomes a portable crash cart for headless machines.