I see from photos of the FriendlyElec metal case (without display) for the NanoPi M6 that there appear to be two holes for wifi antennas.

 

Does anyone know if the optional wifi card sold by FriendlyElec comes with antennas? If not, are they a standard size which I can buy somewhere else?

Edited February 27, 20251 yr by broodwich82

I see from:https://wiki.friendlyelec.com/wiki/index.php/NanoPi_M6

M.2 Connectors

    one M.2 M-Key connector with PCIe 2.1 x1 for SSDs
    one M.2 E-key connector with PCIe 2.1 x1 and USB2.0 Host for Wi-Fi&BT

So any E-Key WiFi 2230 sized card should work if it has the correct and needed signals. Of course there must be the correct kernel driver modules.

I have a NanoPi-R6C, sofar I only unscrewed the bottom plate to put a 2280 M-key NVMe SSD in it. But I might drill a hole somewhere for a GPIO 1-wire or so later this year.

Edited February 27, 20251 yr by eselarm

I'm asking specifically about the antennas, not the card.

 

There are holes in the metal case offered by FriendlyElec which appear to be for antennas. I'm asking what antennas, specifically, would be compatible with those holes.

I took a closer look at my R6C

https://wiki.friendlyelec.com/wiki/index.php/File:NanoPi_R6C_02.jpg

The round thing above the USB-C PD is plastic lid/cover that can be pulled out and that leaves a hole of about 5.85 mm, so 6 mm  I guess as I could not measure it well. So you can guess that one can stick a uFL connector through it.

 

I don't see how that can be used for R6C, but at least your question answers mine a bit as well as it seems that hole is good for some (random) GPIO wires as well.

 

Edited February 28, 20251 yr by eselarm

The pre drilled holes in the M6 casing are too close to the connectors at the rear side to be of use. Just think how big the antennas are and you'll see they cannot be used without blocking the rear connectors.

Modern connectors for wifi adapters are round (for MT7922, AX210 and RTL8822). Ancient small 2400Hz antennas are smaller and have one flat side. But they might not be suited for wifi6.

Holes can be drilled in the sides of the casing, one left, one right.

 

It will be a tight fit, but I managed to fit my wifi adapter with 2 antenna connectors with all connectors on the rear available.

On 3/6/2025 at 12:02 AM, specs said:

Modern connectors for wifi adapters are round (for MT7922, AX210 and RTL8822). Ancient small 2400Hz antennas are smaller and have one flat side.

The idea is, at least mine, that you do not use the hole to srcew/fix the antenne, but just use the hole to put a uFL connector pigtail wire from outside to inside the casing. How and what you do with that wire outside I see as trivial issue.

The main key point is that there is a no way to have whatever antenna inside the metal casing.

A good enough WiFi antenna is just a piece of PCB with the correct metal structures on a tiny coaxial wire with a uFL on the other end that you click on the (M.2 E-Key) WiFi card. Many plastic casings for N100 or so have that PCB just inside with a bit of hot glue. So for metal casing glue it outside somewhere.

It is not a matter of 'modern' or 'ancient', it is more that people let themselves fool in thinking that you need those 'modern' things. Indeed you can move the 3D spacial diversity position better in a consumer product, but that assumes that the end-users does better than (MIMO) algorithms in the chipset. There was a time that people only wanted a mobile phone with an 'antenna sticking out'. Even dummy plastic stick/extension worked for higher sales.

Edited March 8, 20251 yr by eselarm

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The pre drilled holes in the M6 casing are too close to the connectors at the rear side to be of use. Just think how big the antennas are and you'll see they cannot be used without blocking the rear connectors.

 

That's a very good point, I guess what I'm looking for will be a u.FL (or whatever connector on the 2230 card) to external dual-lead dual-band MIMO antenna... so, probably u.FL to RP-SMA, and a little 2x MIMO antenna with RP-SMA leads... which @eselarm had suggested, as it turns out.

 

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The main key point is that there is a way to have whatever antenna inside the metal casing.

 

Won't the signal be almost completely attenuated by the metal casing itself?

5 hours ago, broodwich82 said:

Won't the signal be almost completely attenuated by the metal casing itself?

I am sorry, there is a fatal typo in my sentence; the word 'no' is missing of course. It is like a Faraday cage of course; will edit the sentence 

@Eselarm, you are right. Compared to pcb antennas using monopoles is the ancient way to make an antenna.

 

When protruding antennas are likely to be damaged I'd say pcb's should be preferred (especially inside a plastic casing).

The monopoles are easier to make, but the connectors add to the costs. With a higher gain the production numbers might be more important then the structural efficiency.

That makes the choice between pcb and monopole higly dependent on the application (costs vs efficiency vs robustness).

 

Just to say, I'd still use monopoles.

 

PS For the record: the holes can only be drilled at one end of the casing since the inside is free above the rear panel. Above the cpu the casing is only partly cut away and you still find a thick block of aluminium on top.

When too close to the edge you will not be able to attach an antenna straight, though. That's why you need a stable drill. My M6 looks a little like the R5C with antennas although they could have been attached more straight.

I just put one together. The covers are in holes for the antenna sockets. there's plenty of room. I did have to enlarge the holes for the sockets I got. I ordered all of it as a package from friendly Electric. They have a nice page for ordering. I got the wifi/Bluetooth card the Emmc and the nano pi with screen.  I had to install the wifi card, antennas, the Emmc and my nvme drive.

 

The case is very well done. One of the best I've seen. Better than the aluminum vim3 case. I think better than the orange pi M5 plus case. This case is tight! Everything fit perfectly.