For last week’s Bilge Tank, we decided to have a little fun and tried to create what we dubbed the World’s Thinnest Raspberry Pi 3*, by removing all of the bulky pins and ports. The original intention was to try to do it in under 30 minutes, but we didn’t quite manage that, although we did do it in less than an hour.
Here’s a TL;DR of the Bilge Tank episode!
*not officially ratified by the Guinness Book of World Records
Isn’t that… a Pi Zero?
Well, it’s more or less that, quite literally. The Pi 3 has a much more capable quad core processor compared with the Pi Zero, especially handy if you’re planning to embed a Pi into a handheld games console, for example, which may require a bit more grunt.
Once stripped down, our Pi 3 is actually almost exactly the same thickness as a Pi Zero and, of course, we could have removed the micro-USB port as well, and supplied power by soldering wires to the GPIO (the Pi 3 is actually a hair thicker, since the micro-SD card slot is on the bottom unlike the Zero / W).
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Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Adafruit has the largest and best selection of Raspberry Pi accessories and all the code & tutorials to get you up and running in no time!