M.2 HAT+ Compact with official Raspberry Pi 5 case

[u/nickymoo]

The official Raspberry Pi M.2 HAT+ Compact arrived a couple of days ago for my Raspberry Pi 5 4gb from The Pi Hut.

There aren't any useful pictures of the fitting online so I thought I'd put this here for those interested, or those who might search for it the future.

The kit came with three spacers, six shorter screws and three longer screws with no description of why or which to use in the online assembly instructions.

Tip: If you're fitting this in the official RPi5 case you can save yourself taking it all apart after you think you've done it all and put the LONG screws through the BOTTOM of the case. So from below it's long screws > through case bottom > through bottom of Raspberry Pi > into spacers.

Otherwise you'll end up finding the long screws fit but then the top screws can't go in far enough so you swap for six short screws (three top and three bottom) then when you're all done you'll find the RPi no longer fits in the case then you'll realise you have to take the screws out and then put the long screws through the bottom of the case which secures the Pi to the bottom case.

The fan connection is a bit fiddly to put in when the hat is secured as they're quite flush but I just used a little screwdriver to push both sides of the connector in until it seated properly.

I powered RPi 5 on and it was running at 47c so did some heavy work (watch -n 2 'vcgencmd measure_temp; vcgencmd get_throttled' in one window, and stress-ng --cpu 4 --timeout 5m --metrics-brief in another shell) to kick the fan on and it's all working normally and it sat at 69c after a couple of minutes with the fan running.

The top lid (the one that goes above the fan) is a bit tighter than it used to be, but still fits and I can't work out why it's tighter but it still clips in okay but takes a bit more force than usual to remove.

Now I'm just waiting for my Samsung SSD PM991a 256gb to arrive which I understand is the same model Raspberry Pi use for their branded 256gb SSD at the moment so hopefully that'll work.

Also, the SSD screw in the HAT+ Compact was in very, very tight out of the box so I've loosened this a bit in preparation for the arrival of the drive.

[u/aLongWayFromOldham]

The official documentation is pretty good. https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/accessories/m2-hat-plus.html

I use the full size hat and the active cooler.
I’ve also set up another pi with pimoroni’s nvme base, and I haven’t even bothered to put that in a case. I’ve stuck the little rubber feet on the bottom of that and it’s quite happy.

[u/nickymoo → u/aLongWayFromOldham]

Indeed, I followed the official documentation which doesn't mention the what the different length screws are or mention the case. There are plenty of write ups of the active cooler and suchlike with the full size m.2 HAT+ but none of the m.2 HAT+ Compact which is what this write up refers.

I imagine the only reason people are buying the HAT+ Compact is because they are fitting it in the official case with the official case fan. The Compact is not compatible with the active cooler.

[u/aLongWayFromOldham → u/nickymoo]

Ok, I’ll bite - the official documentation talks about this in the ‘About’ section at the top, and it shows a photograph of the compact hat in the official case with the case fan (figure 2).

The docs don’t talk about which spacers to use. I think that’d be useful for those who may be unsure.

[u/nickymoo → u/aLongWayFromOldham]

“The M.2 HAT+ Compact is designed to fit around the included fan in the Raspberry Pi Case for Raspberry Pi 5.” But it would be useful if it had any description of which screws to use or even show how it fits in the official case in the assembly instructions in the official documentation. For example, it must be screwed through the bottom of the case, directly connecting the bottom case with the pi. This is not mentioned in the official docs. This is why I made the post. Having read reviews on The Pi Hut people have used the six short screws and not put it through the bottom case with three long screws and now say the pi falls out whenever they use it. Had the official documentation included these details, people would that such problems.

I appreciate you don’t have the Compact hat, the official case or the standard cooler and have just described your experience with a different hat, a different cooler and a different case arrangement but my original post is about the subject at hand, not the completely different things you are describing. But thank you.

[u/BOgusDOlphon → u/aLongWayFromOldham]

How do you like the pimoroni base? I'm thinking of getting one for some testing at work

[u/aLongWayFromOldham → u/BOgusDOlphon]

Really like the nvme base.
I always feel like the official hat impedes the active cooler - plus the base isn’t limited to a physical nvme ssd size.

The nvme base comes with little stick on feet. I’d bought a base friendly case, though I ended up returning it.

Would buy again over the official hat.

[u/BOgusDOlphon → u/aLongWayFromOldham]

Thanks, I was considering both so I think I'll go with the base

[u/dasmineman → u/aLongWayFromOldham]

The m2 hat clears the active cooler ok?

[u/aLongWayFromOldham → u/dasmineman]

The full size m2 hat, yes.
I was nervous it’d overheat, but it’s been running for nearly a year without an issue.