Request: “deep dive” blog post on module adapter design

I’m interested in learning more about the process of designing a new adapter (such as the CM4 or RK3588 adapters), starting from the documentation and the adapter KiCAD template. I suspect that it wouldn’t be too difficult, although for a complete amateur like myself it feels daunting. I’m sure there are some undocumented best practices that come with hands-on experience, and I wouldn’t want to make a novice mistake and damage my system.

Ideally this could act as a teaching tool for people learning more about PCB design. Module adapters don’t seem that complicated, so they would a good way to learn basic routing, component placement, and manufacturing.

Documenting this process more fully could motivate others to contribute their own adapters, and it could even serve as a form of marketing if picked up by media outlets in the maker community. A step-by-step guide would make it even more obvious how flexible and customizable these systems are, which doesn’t always seem to get through to people who skim an article about MNT.

I know there isn’t much time for this sort of work, but I just wanted to make the suggestion in case it seems helpful. Alternatively, a curated selection of howto links, with brief commentary, might be sufficient.

Edit to add: this sort of thing would be a great candidate for a wiki article, since someone just mentioned wikis in another post.

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i love this idea

i personally have pretty much zero experience with stuff too, and am a novice myself, but my hope is to one day make a Raspberry Pi CM5 adapter module because i really think that’d be cool. if and when i do, i’d totally share it on github. gonna follow this topic in case someone makes a guide for things like this or even just a “hey, here’s a wiki full of links”