NEW ROCK PI 4 M.2 v1.4 Extension board available NOW!!

One of the outstanding features of the ROCK PI 4 is the M.2 connector (M-key PCIe gen2.1 x4), a super fast interface.

The M.2 can be used to connect a variety of accessories, where at the moment the most common use case is connecting a M.2 NVME SSD.

After the review of Christopher @ "EXPLAINING COMPUTERS" channel on youtube, quite some viewers wrote comments about things which should be improved on the M.2 extension board.

Their feedback was implemented into the new version.

Improvements:

Cut out of the board above the GPIO pins 

Make use of the GPIO pins while having the board mounted on top of the ROCK PI 4

Reduced length of the M.2 extension board 

The new version is still a little bit longer than the ROCK PI 4 PCB, but is not longer than the board and the protruding (I hope this is the correct word ;-)) connectors.

 Mounting of the FPC connector on the bottom of the board

One positive side effect of reducing the length of the board was the necessity to move the FPC connector to the bottom of the board. Having mounted the FPC connector on the bottom of the M.2 extension board supports the assembly of the ROCK PI 4 and the M.2 board inside of a housing with a small form factor. 

    Here some brand new pictures to get an idea how the board will look like and how it could be mounted on the ROCK PI 4.

    Mounted M.2 v1.4

    When will it be available?

    The boards are under production already and should be available around the 15th of April. (update 14.4.2019 we are unfortunately behind the production plan, it might take some more days - we are very sorry for the delay! UPDATE 18.4.2019 we are preparing for shipment now, good will latest be shipped out on Monday, the M.2 Extension board is no open for pre order! UPDATE 22.4.2019 we are shipping today as promised, stock levels are ok now!)

    10 comments

    Leave a comment