Showing posts with label convert. Show all posts
Showing posts with label convert. Show all posts

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Raspberry Pi Model B to Model A Conversion Cleanup - Part 2

Be sure to see part 1. A lot of the components on the board are now redundant as they are no longer used/connected, so for cosmetic reasons we can now remove these from the board. The easiest way to remove them is to load a soldering iron tip with solder and flood the SMD components. They should just flow away and join with the solder lump on the tip and leave a nice clean finish.

Firstly on the top, you will want to remove the components in the spaces marked red. You can also remove the RJ45 connector if you wish.

First Raspberry Pi Model A 512MB Off The (Re-)Production Line - Part 1

Who wants to wait (or pay highly inflated prices for pre-production run) for the Raspberry Pi Model A, when you can have it now for a low price of $36AUD complete with a 512 MB RAM update?

Cosmetically and functionally the Model A has removed the LAN9512 IC, Ethernet port and the secondary USB port. Under the hood, they have also designed the PCB to accommodate both Model A and B configurations, depending on the placement of a couple of components. In this series, I will be converting the Raspberry Pi Model B to a Model A with 512MB RAM.

Let's first compare the two boards by eye. On this page they have nice pictures of the Model A board. Looking at these pictures and our current board, we essentially want to remove the extra components from the Model B to match the Model A.