I have the Picar-X with battery and would like to upgrade to an M.2 adapter and SSD. Is there a better choice for compatibility with the Robot Hat? Thanks!
Guy
Theoretically, it can work with M.2 adapter and SSD.
However, M.2 adapter and SSD cannot be assembled and fixed on picar-x. You need to find a way to perfectly assemble M.2 adapter and SSD with picar-x.
We have not verified it and cannot give you guidance.
Anyone else out there have a suggestion which SSD adapter to use with the Picar-X? Obviously battery life would be impacted with the additional card.
Thanks for any ideas.
Guy
If you insist on using an SSD with picar-x products, it is recommended that you connect the SSD through the Raspberry Pi’s USB port.
Also consider your Raspberry Pi model:
If you are using PI5, it is recommended to choose an M.2 NVMe SSD; if you are using PI4, it is recommended to use a SATA SSD.
I have the same requirement as @oakguy. Would you please take a look at the following bottom mount offering from 52Pi. Specifcally note the presspins that connect to the bottom of the GPIO header.
Would this interfere with the PiCarX board’s use of the GPIO header or would it still be compatible. Also NOTE: it connects to the Pi5 using the PCIE connector which is open on the PiCarX. Thanks in advance.
I just purchased this adapter, which I have not installed yet, since does not contact teh GPIO pins.
thanks
Guy
I purchased the other one. I will let you know my results. (I needed a bottom mount version) Thanks Guy!
csturmer The adapter you provided may be installed on picar-x because it is installed on the bottom of PI5.
However, we dare not say that it is 100% compatible because we have not tried it.
You can try to install it to see if it will affect the use of picar-x products.
Just to close my side out. Guy will jump in on his since ours are different products. I purchased a bottom mount NVME hat from 52Pi:
Bottom mount NVME card from 52Pi: $18.60
52Pi N07 PCIe M.2 M-key NVMe SSD PCIe Peripheral Bottom Board for Raspberry Pi 5, Support M.2 KEY-M NVMe SSD 2230/2242/2260/2280 × 1
And added a 1TB NVME drive to it:
1TB NVME Drive: $84.99
SABRENT Rocket 2230 NVMe 4.0 1TB High Performance PCIe 4.0 M.2 2230 SSD [SB-2130-1TB]
I also purchased some plastic standoffs (a variety kit) because the NVME hat does not have the proper standoffs for the PiCarX setup.
Plastic stadoffs: $15.99
Raspberry Pi Nylon Standoff Kit M2.5 Screws Nuts Spacers Standoffs 210pcs for DIY Building of Raspberry Pi 4 Pi 3 Pi Zero FPV RC Quadcopter Drone PC Mods
I installed everything this morning and it is all working correctly and booting from the NVME (without an SD card installed).
NOTE: the instructions in the NVME hat about editing the config.txt file point to the wrong location for the RPi5. It should read edit /boot/firmware/config.txt. ALSO note that this edit is initially to the SD card’s config.txt file and you need to make the same edit to the same file on the NVME drive once it is mounted and verified with ‘lsblk’.
Hope this helps anyone trying to do the same thing.
–Carl–
Oh, sorry, one more thing. Before mounting the NVME hat and drive I placed the NVME drive in a UGreen NVME enclosure and attached it via USB to the RPi and used SD Card Copier utility on the RPi to make sure the contents of my SD card were on the NVME drive before mounting and reassembling the whole thing. This makes the NVME drive bootable and makes sure all the needed PiCarX software is in place. After fully reassembled I then tested the PiCarX functionality and all tests were successful.
Yes, same here. Everything works fine for me as well. Keep in mind that battery performance will be degraded. However, the performance boost for working with thr Pi Desktop is wonderful.
Guy
I agree with Guy that battery performance will degrade, and I also agree that the increase in disk performance speed is immediately apparent.