MNT Station: The Fanless Aluminum Box Where You Buy the Shell Once and Swap CPUs Forever

The MNT Station is what happens when the Reform's modular idea stops being a laptop and gets put in a box. It's a fanless, CNC-milled aluminum computer — 279 × 133 × 26 mm, about a liter of volume — built around MNT's Reform Mainboard 3.0 and its 200-pin processor-module connector. You buy the shell and mainboard once; when silicon evolves (or when you just want to try something weird), you swap the compute module instead of buying another whole box.

The Crowd Supply campaign has been live since Aug 20, and it's buyable right now with real prices — which clears the bar most "modular" announcements don't make it past.

The specifics (all verified on the live campaign page today)//

Thing	Price
MNT Station case (black / silver / petrol, includes electronic port cover)	$299
MNT Reform Mainboard 3.0	$429
MNT RCORE RK3588 V2 module (16 GB)	$899
MNT NXP LS1028A module, 16 GB	$675
Raspberry Pi CM4 (Lite / Wireless / 8 GB)	from $160
CM4 adapter + display adapter	$155

Plus the accessories: mPCIe-to-M.2 Key E adapter ($34), dual USB-C expansion ($125), Intel Gig+ Wi-Fi 6E module ($49), Kingston OM8SGP4 NVMe (512 GB $477 / 1 TB $818 — datacenter SSDs, which is a statement in itself), SMA antenna pigtails and blade antennas, and the battery-board bits. US shipping is free on most items; small accessories ship from $8 within the US, and worldwide rates start at $12 and run to $20 depending on product.

The campaign ends Sep 25, 2026, and MNT lists first shipments starting Jan 24, 2027. So this is a "back it in September, unbox it after the holidays" purchase — factor that into any impulse.

The module lineup (the actual point of the box)//

This is where the Station stops being an SBC and becomes a platform. CNX Software's spec rundown of what fits the 200-pin connector:

• MNT RCORE V2 — Rockchip RK3588, 8-core Cortex-A76/A55, up to 32 GB RAM, Mali G610
• NXP LS1028A — dual-core A72, fully open-hardware PCB design, and MNT's headline claim: it can run totally blob-free as a server/headless system (uses SATA on the M.2 connector)
• Raspberry Pi CM4 via adapter — the campaign sells an 8 GB unit ($160); Raspberry Pi also makes 2/4 GB variants
• Banana Pi CM4 variant with Amlogic A311D, 6-core A73/A53, 4 GB
• NXP i.MX8M Plus / i.MX8MQ — the classic Reform's SoCs (A53 cores)
• MNT RKX7 — a Kintex-7 FPGA running a RISC-V soft core (LiteX/Vexriscv) or your own custom gateware; sold separately through MNT's shop, not on this campaign page
• Quasar with Qualcomm Dragonwing QCS6490/QCS8550 — in development, not yet orderable

Note the naming: the RK3588 module is MNT's "RCORE V2." Third-party coverage sometimes writes "RK3588 V2" — same thing, but if you're ordering, use MNT's name. And don't count the modules from press headlines; CNX leads with "10+" because it counts adapter variants. The campaign page lists eight orderable options plus one in development.

How it actually works: the mainboard does the real work//

The module is just the SoC+RAM. Everything else lives on Mainboard 3.0, and it's a genuinely well-specced carrier board:

• I/O: 3× USB-A, full-size HDMI, GbE, TRRS audio (mic-capable), USB-C PD power input — with a built-in UART-to-USB serial console for the SoC and the system controller. For an ARM box that's going to live behind your TV or on a wall, having a hardware serial console without an extra adapter is the difference between "debug it" and "stare at it."
• Storage/expansion: M.2 Key M with up to 4× PCIe 3.0+ lanes for NVMe (hence those Kingston datacenter SSDs in the cart), plus mPCIe with a PCIe 2.0 lane — Wi-Fi, or a second drive via an adapter if you're feeling RAID-y.
• I2C header that's Qwiic-compatible — plug in sensors and displays directly to the main SoC. That's a homelab feature wearing a hobbyist costume.
• Electronic port cover: an ATTiny microcontroller behind the front panel with a power button and a bar of 10 LEDs controllable from Linux — CPU load, network activity, whatever you want rendered in ten pixels of status light. The mainboard also carries a dedicated USB-C port for flashing the LPC11U24 system controller, which runs open firmware.
• Battery/USV option: 8× LiFePO4 cells in series with monitoring and balancing, driven by an open-source Linux driver (reform2-lpc), needing cell holders and cables. That's not a "battery" — that's a built-in uninterruptible power supply for the whole box.

And the openness claim is real and checkable: all sources are public on MNT's GitLab (the Reform Operator Handbook links every KiCad project), case parts are 3D-printable or orderable, and MNT will say plainly what isn't open — the module SoCs are usually not open silicon. The LS1028A blob-free path and the RKX7 FPGA (run your own RISC-V soft core) are the two escapes from that reality, and both are on the compatibility list.

Mounting is VESA MIS-D (75/100 mm) plus keyhole wall slots; there are SMA panel-mount holes for external antennas — the campaign page literally suggests SDR use. The case is designed to stack with future battery/disk/GPU expansions, so "26 mm tall" is a starting condition, not a ceiling.

What it's for in a homelab//

The honest take//

• It's not cheap. Case + mainboard + RK3588 module is ~$1,627 before storage — more than a prebuilt mini PC with roughly similar compute. You're paying for modularity, openness, and the serial console that never lies to you. If those three words don't move you, buy a $400 NUC and sleep well.
• Shipping is January 2027. Backing it now doesn't mean having it now. If your use case has a deadline this quarter, this isn't the box for that deadline.
• The modules are still mostly ARM SBCs in better packaging — except where they aren't: the LS1028A blob-free path ($675) and the Kintex-7 FPGA module (sold separately via MNT's shop, €1,600–€2,600 by FPGA size) are the genuinely differentiating options, and both cost real money.
• It doesn't replace a desktop if you need GPU horsepower. The mPCIe slot is one PCIe 2.0 lane; the GPU expansion story is "future stacking," not "today."
• Who shouldn't buy: anyone who wants the fastest ARM box per dollar (a bare RK3588 dev board costs a fraction of this), and anyone allergic to waiting four months for hardware they backcrowd-funded.

If you've been following the ARM-on-the-edge angle — running real desktop Linux stacks on ARM without pretending it's x86 — the Station is what that becomes when you stop carrying it around: a permanent, fanless, swappable-silicon bench in aluminum.