Raspberry Pi Forums

Is there a possibility to get a run of Model A (or even a Model B) that does not have the tall components populated? I'm interested in doing a custom fitment into an old netbook (with the LVDS board that's out there), and I would like to have as much room as possible. (This initially came from wanting to stick this in the Motorola Lapdock, under the keyboard.) This would allow people to solder wires for the stuff they need.

I'm aware that one could desolder a lot of the stuff, but some do not posses the skill to do this without destroying chips/components. However, they have the ability to solder a wire without issue. Having a run of the board without tall components on the board would open the door to a lot of custom installs.

As for the lone cap in the corner, could it be included, but not soldered? A person could solder short wires in order to lay it flat.

-Bryan

To justify a custom run you would need to order a large quantity, probably at least 10000 units. You would probably also need to pay extra.

The manufacturing plants are not able to keep up with demand for the standard model. The manufacturers would need a very good incentive to take on the extra cost of a custom run. BOM would need to change, pick-and-place would need to be reprogrammed, QC would need to change, etc. These are all costly for a manufacturer.

I would suggest buying regular boards and then having a local electronics shop remove the components you wish to remove as this may be expensive but not any where near as expensive as trying to get a custom run, the Foundation has lots of connections and I would expect that there alpha and beta runs were extremely expensive in the small batches they got them in.
I believe I read that broadcom actually paid for the alpha boards to help the Foundation for them because of this expense but I may be wrong.

Anyone doing a custom install should be able to de-solder the tall components. If they can't de-solder a few bits and pieces their chances of successfully installing a Pi in a laptop shell are low.

I can't see the Foundation doing any custom runs as 99% of them will be no benefit to their stated objectives.