To address user needs, we have developed breakout boards and cables to easily create PCIe daisy chains of Mixtile Blade 3 boards. (More details in our previous update.)

The board breaks the U.2 pins out into three connectors: a 12 VDC input power connector, a pair of (SFF-8643) PCIe connectors, and a SATA socket. To connect two breakout boards, a custom 15-cm SFF-8643 cable is available separately. Using this cable, you can connect one breakout board’s PCIe A port to another breakout board’s PCIe B port to build a simple cluster with Mixtile Blade 3. Below is an example of a four-board cluster. For data packets to pass through the two interfaces, you will then need to configure a network bridge on every system.

Although our campaign did not reach the stretch goal to give away breakout boards and cables with Blade 3, we have nonetheless made them available for purchase.

New Enclosure Under Development

Additionally, we are developing a Mixtile Blade 3 customized aluminum CNC case that can better protect the Blade 3 board and be placed in a bag, office, or home as a portable small computer. We will announce separately when the enclosure is available.

This exclusive shell enables users to access all the Blade 3 ports, including two HDMI ports, two USB-C ports, two RJ45 network ports, 30Pin GPIO ports, and CSI interfaces.

Moreover, Blade 3’s housing comes with an M.2 slot interface board, which can convert Blade 3’s U.2 interface to an M.2 M-Key interface, which provides PCIe 3.0 4X support, and can support M.2 NVMe SSD. It comes with a removable baffle for SSD replacement, and it can also be used to cool SSDs for stable performance. Again, we’ll make a separate announcement when the new enclosure is available. Stay tuned!