YAPZH! (Yet Another Pi Zero Hub)

You’d think just about all the permutations of adding a hub to the Raspberry Pi Zero were done. But you’d be wrong. [Daniel’s] approach is to put the Zero inside the existing case for the hub. The LogiLink hub used is in a nice metal case with mounting flanges on the side. It looks robust and not much like a typical consumer hub. This hack would serve well where the Zero and hub might take a few wacks.

Wiring between Zero and Hub
Wiring between Zero and Hub

It took some fiddling with the hub components but he made it work. The easy part was wiring the the power and USB test points on the Zero to the hub.

More challenging were the mechanical aspects to physically fit the Zero into the case. Four LEDs were removed since their only purpose was indicating if a cables were plugged into the hub. There are four electrolytic capacitors standing upright that occupied the space needed by the Pi. [Daniel] repositioned them to lie horizontally to provide room for the Zero.

With the Zero able to fit inside the case the next steps are to create mounting holes in the USB board and cut holes in the case to access the HDMI and USB ports and the SD card holder. Some finicky work with a Dremel provided the holes and the cutouts. Fortunately, the mounting holes on the Zero aligned with some open spaces on the USB board. If they don’t, some glue and standoffs might be sufficient.

The only aspect [Daniel] left for you to hack is access to the GPIO port. That would require another cutout to bring out a ribbon cable for controlling your world. After such a nicely detailed writeup with a plethora of pictures, he had to leave something for other hackers to do.

22 thoughts on “YAPZH! (Yet Another Pi Zero Hub)

    1. That is certanily true if one is just going to walk into their local consumer electronics store and buy a hub off the shelf.

      I suspect that many HaD readers have hubs lying around not being used for anything else already. Maybe it’s something that they replaced when upgrading from USB 2 to 3. If not there is always eBay. I see one there right now that is $2.28 once shipping is added in. Banggood.com has this funky USB hub that looks like a fish for $0.99.

      Don’t get me wrong. I agree that it would be silly to buy a Zero if your goal is to buld a desktop computer. It might be the better choice for a very low traffic personal server or an IOT device though.

    1. It’s definitely a common theme among Pi Zero articles here and elsewhere. It seems like it would lend itself best to un-networked projects where size is a premium, like game portables and such.

  1. Not to undermine the work that went into this project, but why are people trying to turn their PiZero’s into a B+, or Pi2? I kinda thought the whole point of the Zero was for portability (at the obvious compromise of USB hubs, etc), not as an upgrade for the existing models. On the other hand, the RPi was designed for people to do with it what they will.

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