I shouldn’t write this annoyed, so I’ll apologize for the tone at the outset. But I really want to know who approved the NVME base duo’s cable design? Blocking the sdcard is a brilliant piece of engineering, as is making the cable so short as to preclude any access at all.
I understand that the Pi’s own design was a limiting factor. The single NVME base has a clever angled cable that makes it quite obvious that a U-shaped design would be eminently possible.
I am now in the position where on my first day with my new toy I have to replace the NVME Base Duo because having to attach and detach the cable to access that sd card has now left the tiny fragile plastic ribbon cable clip broken. And the entire base is worthless without that tiny clip.
I have never seen such a clever design impeded by such a terrible cable decision. I really hope you re-engineer that ribbon, and then put a slot in the case so that an extension can be run out of it.
I agree to an extent. I have an NVME Base (not the Duo), and found SD Card access to be an issue. It’s not as blocked as it is with the DUO, but still a bit of a pain. I installed Pi OS to the SD Card, booted from it, and then installed to the NVME Base from the Pi. Then removed the SD Card and booted from the NVME. I was nervous about breaking something in the process of removing the SD Card.
Once up and running though I wasn’t accessing the SD Card. which I believe is the intended use scenario. And on my last reinstall, I was able to do a network install. No SD Card needed at all.
You can mount the NVME Base on top of the Pi 5, not sure about the DUO. There are advantages and disadvantages. SD Card access is good but GPIO access isn’t.
You can get longer cables, that will give you more room / options.
But any manipulation of the boards requires a surgeon’s touch now.
Fair enough for you. But I think it is not an assumption that should have been made by the developer. That’s akin to selling a hard drive controller with a cable that covers the optical drive tray on the assumption who needs it once you have a hard drive? Setting the NVME to boot last and using the SD card as a boot override is a very valid use case, and one I assumed I’d be able to do. They shouldn’t be taking away capabilities on the assumption I don’t want them any more.
Two solutions come to mind:
As originally suggested, a U-shaped cable that exposes the SD card slot, or a much longer cable option that allows one to route it along one side. TBH, this just seems like a no-brainer. Given how much attention to detail was spent in every other aspect, I can’t see why this wasn’t explored.
For extra points, build an intrinsic SD-card extender into the base. Put the card slot on the bottom of the base with access through an exposed corner on the bottom of the case and use an SD-card extender cable. Then both cables can run in conjunction from Pi to base. This wouldn’t add much to the manufacturing cost, as it doesn’t have to add any traces to the board itself. It could be a completely exterior cable and assembly surface attached to the board. Extenders run $5CAD retail.
I got excited when I saw that, but unfortunately the cable is only 19mm longer. By my best estimate I need an extra 4 or 5cm at least to make the necessary bends and still have a correct orientation. Maybe if I switch from the straight to the pipe, which has some bend built in. It’s out of stock, though. But I still need to dremel my case for a slot to run my sd card extender through. sigh
It is all about compromises. PCIe was never designed for use with flex cables. If you add too much length, you loose signal integrity. The net is full of reports from users that have problems even with the short cable.
Although the duo works, for me it seems like a hammer-for-a-screw type of solution.
