Balena Drops balenaFin Carrier Board for the Raspberry Computer Module 3/3+

Balena.io (formerly Resin.io) has officially released their balenaFin V.1.1 Carrier Board for the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3 and 3+, featuring several improvements over the previous version launched back in March of last year. Those upgrades were garnered from customer’s input from the earlier version, which includes dual-camera support, PoE, and more.

As far as hardware is concerned, the balenaFin V1.1 features a Silicon Labs BGM111 MCU (Arm Cortex-M4), up to 64Gb of industrial-grade eMMC 5.1 Flash, 10/100 Ethernet, and dual-band 802.11ac/a/b/g/n (2.4/5GHz) Wi-Fi + Bluetooth 4.0 for connection options. Expansion options include a Raspberry Pi color-coded 40-pin HAT header, mini PCI Express subset socket (USB, UART, I2C) with nano-SIM socket, HDMI port, RPi display connector, 2X RPi camera connectors, 2X USB 2.0 Type-A ports, micro USB port, and a USB 2.0 header.

Beyond the improvements mentioned earlier, the balenaFin is also equipped with extra mounting points (better vibration resistance), single cable flashing via micro USB port; dimmable RGB LED indicator, enhanced operating temperature range (-200C to +700C), and a uniquely identifiable data matrix printed on the board. The board is even backward compatible with the previous board’s application feature set and hardware and will maintain compatibility until at least 2024.

Balena offers the balenaFin in kit form, which consists of a modular DIN-rail case (with optional 15-position phoenix connector), a 12V (1.5A) internal PSU, micro USB to USB cable, and a Raspberry Compute Module 3+ Lite, all for $199. The board doesn’t come with an OS; however, you can easily flash the balenaFin with one of the company’s balenaOS 2.X variants to get everything up and running.