Waveshare CM4-NANO and Radxa CM5

[O635789]

It took me over a month to get this far. I really hope Radxa get their documentation less puzzling. I bought 4 different carriers, Radax CM5 IO board, Raspberry Pi CM4 IO board, Waveshare Mini Base Board A, and Waveshare Nano Base Board A for validation purpose.

I want something like CM5 size capable of running LLMs. Waveshare CM4-NANO-A isn’t ideal for me, but it’s a good start. Since it doesn’t have video output or network connection, I need another board to set up CM5 module. I chose Waveshare Mini Base Board A, hoping it would make the transition to Nano Base Board easier. But it did not.

I need WiFi and Bluetooth, I bought an outdated Edimax EW-7611ULB V2, compiled the driver and worked fine on Mini Base Board A. After I moved the CM5 to Nano Base Board A, CM5 refused to boot, and turned too hot to touch within a few seconds.

I know the Nano Base Board is OK, it runs nicely with Raspberry Pi CM4, the issue is only between the Base Board and Radxa CM5. However I don’t want to debug the combo at that temperature.

I guess I have to design my own base board. The combination of Waveshare CM4-NANO-A and Radxa CM5 is officially a no-go in my list.

[DarkevilPT]

I already said this… im gonna say it again… Radxa needs to make an nano board dedicated for the cm5. Period!

Update: The Cm4-Nano-B and C have video output.
You can see the images here and how I set it up:

Radxa Compute Module 5 with CM4-Nano

CM5 with CM4-Nano Board and FydeOS Setup Guide [91c110c0eaf4544a3845a9b866f215233316ac6a] Components and Costs ~ £104 - £128. Radxa CM5 CM4-Nano Board WiFi AC600 + BT USB Dongle SanDisk MicroSD Card USB Hub CM5 Cooling Heatsink JST 1.25mm Curved Pin Setup Process Boot Configuration Maskrom Button Handling: The CM4-Nano boot switch must be ON for maskrom mode. If connecting it to a computer it shuts it down connect the type c cable before turning on the laptop. The boot switch must be OFF t…

The new waveshare cm5-nano-b doesnt work on CM5 its only meant for rpi5 anyways.

[O635789]

I started planning my own carrier board, I found it’s hard to design a generic purpose board for the size. I have to drop some common features to fit my own requirements, e.g. I’ll completely depend on a dedicated power supply board to save space. I’ll drop the regular USB connectors, too. There is a chance I have to design multiple boards with CM5 footprint and stack them up. I’ll see how far I can go.