ARK Just A Pi Packs a Pi CM5 Carrier Into 19.5 Grams

Nineteen and a Half Grams of Carrier Board

ARK Electronics has released Just A Pi, a Raspberry Pi CM5 carrier board built for the one application where every gram is argued over: things that fly. The board measures 55 x 40 x 13.1 mm and weighs 19.5 grams, and it still finds room for two Ethernet ports, two camera lanes and a PCIe connector.

Pricing starts at $335 for the carrier alone, or $475 for a bundle that includes a CM5 Lite with 2GB of RAM and a 64GB microSD card.

• 55 x 40 x 13.1 mm and 19.5 grams, supporting the Raspberry Pi CM5 fully and the CM4 with limitations
• Two 10/100 Mbps Ethernet ports behind a built-in switch, plus USB 3.0 Type-C dual-role and USB 2.0 on a JST connector
• Two 22-pin FPC camera connectors and a PCIe Gen2/Gen3 x1 lane on an FFC connector
• $335 for the board, $475 bundled with a CM5 Lite 2GB and a 64GB microSD card

Why Two Ethernet Ports on a Drone Board?

This is the design decision that gives the board away. Most compact carriers give you one network port, if any. Just A Pi puts two behind an onboard switch, which is exactly what you need when the flight controller, a payload sensor and the companion computer all want to sit on the same wired segment without a separate switch adding mass.

Ten and a hundred megabit is deliberately unambitious, and that is fine. Telemetry, MAVLink traffic and control messages do not need gigabit; they need determinism and low part count. The PCIe x1 lane on an FFC connector is where the bandwidth goes when a payload actually needs it.

The connector choice tells the same story. Four 6-pin JST-GH connectors carry UART, SPI and PWM — JST-GH being the standard in the drone world specifically because it latches and does not shake loose. There is a 4-pin JST-SH header for a fan and a 6-pin Molex input for 5V at 2A or better.

What Does NDAA-Compliant Mean Here?

It is a procurement category rather than a technical one. ARK builds the board in the United States, which lets it meet the sourcing requirements that US government and defence buyers apply to drone and robotics components. For most readers this is simply a note on the datasheet; for anyone selling airframes into that market, it is the difference between a board being eligible and not.

For everyone else, the more relevant consequence is supply stability. Domestically manufactured carriers in this niche have historically been priced well above $335, and having one at that number widens who can build with it.

Where It Fits Against Other CM5 Carriers

The Raspberry Pi CM5 has quietly become the default brain for small robots, and the carrier ecosystem around it now covers most shapes. We have covered the Sentinel Core putting a PCIe x16 slot on a CM5 at the desktop end, and the WeAct N006, a credit-card-sized Jetson Orin NX carrier for robots and drones on the higher-compute side.

Just A Pi occupies the space between them: less compute than a Jetson carrier, far less mass than a full-size CM5 board, and a connector set chosen by someone who has clearly wired an airframe before. If you are building anything in the mini computers and single-board computer space that has to leave the bench under its own power, that combination is rarer than it should be.

Sources: CNX Software — August 31, 2026; ARK Electronics product page — August 2026.