Pi-factor cases

[Igor_K]

@tkaiser my Nanopi Neo boards use 2mm thermal pad. It just works.  

[tkaiser]

23 minutes ago, Igor_K said:

my Nanopi Neo boards use 2mm thermal pad. It just works.  

 

I know: https://forum.armbian.com/topic/1580-nanopi-neo-air/?do=findComment&comment=14045

 

But the situation is different. On the NanoPi the thermal pad will be used on the PCB side where the SoC is so it mostly transfers heat directly from SoC to their large heatsink. I'm talking about boards where the SoC is on the wrong side (upper) and such a 2mm thermal pad can only be used to try to transfer the heat away from the whole PCB. So the effect is quite different especially with load peaks.

 

Talking about NanoPi. Their heatsink is somewhat efficient (especially without an enclosure!) but an aluminium enclosure design using just a thin thermal pad or even thermal paste to connect the SoC to the enclosure will work way more efficient dissipating heat away from the SoC.

 

[Igor_K]

@tkaiser It is a fair point.  

[TonyMac32]

4 hours ago, tkaiser said:

but an aluminium enclosure design using just a thin thermal pad or even thermal paste to connect the SoC to the enclosure will work way more efficient dissipating heat away from the SoC.

 

Because I like sometimes to do the ridiculous thing simply because I can, I have a NanoPi air thermal epoxied to a Pentium 3 north bridge heat sink.  It never gets warm.  ;-).

[tkaiser]

Since we already trashed the whole thread with all this thermal babbling... Pi 3 B+ without heatspreader: https://youtu.be/4LtL9e7JqxE?t=3m10s

 

[TonyMac32]

32 minutes ago, tkaiser said:

Since we already trashed the whole thread with all this thermal babbling... Pi 3 B+ without heatspreader: https://youtu.be/4LtL9e7JqxE?t=3m10s

 

Firstly, why on earth pull the heat spreader off?

 

Secondly, Yeah, I agree we wrecked the thread, but cases only serve the functions of "protect sensitive parts" "facilitate operation" and "look good"  The last one is preference, the other two important.  For me I like the solid aluminum ones with the SoC contact best, but they are impossible to find for every board, so talking thermal is a good place to go.

[TonyMac32]

On 3/22/2018 at 12:45 PM, chwe said:

Did someone ever test such stuff for cooling? (http://www.versarien-technologies.co.uk)

I bought a couple for testing, could be useful 

[TonyMac32]

Now, also a terrible idea for thermal, but possibly fun for the kids (and so able to be downclocked):

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01E10IXRQ

 

 

 

The brick studs work quite well, and the board fit is perfect. As it turns out the other colors are all cheaper than black, which I think is... odd.  This will go nicely with the lego-studded motors I got a while back.

[guidol]

35 minutes ago, TonyMac32 said:

The brick studs work quite well, and the board fit is perfect. As it turns out the other colors are all cheaper than black, which I think is... odd. 

2 years ago I ordered a blue, red and yellow of these LEGO-cases along with (at this time) 3 new RPi3.

But if you want to change the board its hard to realese it out of the case and some part can break.

For underclocked RPis (and children) its a nice case.

[Moklev]

On 25/3/2018 at 8:28 PM, TonyMac32 said:

Firstly, why on earth pull the heat spreader off?

 

To replace it with a higher efficiency one, without "toothpaste". See the latest intel cpus (without welding).

[Tido]

On 28.3.2018 at 10:10 PM, TonyMac32 said:

a couple for testing

hmm, these thingies have no fins - how does convection work here or does it need contact/touch the housing?

 

I read on their website: Often passive cooling is not enough to ensure the temperature of components stay within operating limits. http://www.versarien-technologies.co.uk/passive-heat-sinks

This sounds to me, for short peaks or little load = fine ;  for more continous heat not. So I stay with fins.

[TonyMac32]

hmm, these thingies have no fins - how does convection work here or does it need contact/touch the housing?
 
I read on their website: Often passive cooling is not enough to ensure the temperature of components stay within operating limits. http://www.versarien-technologies.co.uk/passive-heat-sinks
This sounds to me, for short peaks or little load = fine ;  for more continous heat not. So I stay with fins.

It's an open-cell metal foam, so it has increased surface area. That said, I'm looking at how well it works, not necessarily whether it's perfect for this application. For something like the s905x, I'm betting this is good enough for a "normal" operation. For an RK3288 or RK3399, not a chance.

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

[Igor_K]

I've just tested my new case. Here is my preliminary review.  

 

TLDR: It is not good. 

 

 1) It does not fit perfectly, there is air between microchips and a case. I hope a thin thermal pad (0.5~1.0 mm) can help here.  (As you can see in a photo there are almost no marks from a thermal paste on a chip)

 

2) Surfaces are not perfectly flat, they need be processed by a file tool or something. 

3) Screws are thin and do not look reliable.

 

[Igor_K]

I'm surprised but it seems like it works.  The temperature drops 4-5 degrees

[chwe]

26 minutes ago, Igor_K said:

I'm surprised but it seems like it works.  The temperature drops 4-5 degrees

Idle, under high load? Absolut values might be interesting too... 

[guidol]

43 minutes ago, Igor_K said:

I'm surprised but it seems like it works.  The temperature drops 4-5 degrees

with the thermal pad?

[Igor_K]

3 hours ago, guidol said:

with the thermal pad?

No. I have got no pads yet. 

[Igor_K]

4 hours ago, chwe said:

Idle, under high load? Absolut values might be interesting too... 

It is a media player on OpenELEC so yes it is idle almost all the time.  Some details are below. 

 

It was about 64 °C now it is about 59 °C. 

 

Edited April 23, 2018 by Igor_K
add the temperature

[TonyMac32]

This looks like the same one I have (and sent 3 others to friend/family), mine seemed to fit a bit better than that, the case gets warm to the touch and the SoC stays cool.  I think the thin thermal pad should do the job.

[chrisf]

In theory a sealed aluminium case should work better than a sealed plastic case, offering better thermal conduction between the inside air and outside air.

[Igor_K]

5 hours ago, TonyMac32 said:

This looks like the same one I have (and sent 3 others to friend/family), mine seemed to fit a bit better than that, the case gets warm to the touch and the SoC stays cool.  I think the thin thermal pad should do the job.

I hope so. Will see. 

 

For the record, here is the previous setup (the old case was open all the time). 

[TonyMac32]

On 3/22/2018 at 12:45 PM, chwe said:

 

Did someone ever test such stuff for cooling? (http://www.versarien-technologies.co.uk)

 

Had a little time to test this today, as expected, it's junk.  Being copper it moves heat quickly, having no real fins or the like it simply has nowhere to move it to.  It can handle "smoothing out" the heavy thermal loads, but it simply can't move enough heat.

[Igor_K]

Just a small update. With thermal pads temperature dropped for 5 degrees. 
Finally, the case is not bad at all. The temperature was 69°C now it is about 53°C. 

[TonyMac32]

Cool.    I had similar results with mine, but I used thermal paste, must have had a closer to "nominal" casting.  The entire aluminum brick gets warm when running, which is a good sign (well, not so much for the RPi efficiency, but nice for the fact it's moving heat)

 

 

[Igor_K]

@TonyMac32 Yes same here the case gets warm.  It can be a good option for outdoor, it should be easy to make it water-resistant simply with a duct tape. 

[TonyMac32]

@guidol has a good looking case mentioned in the NanoPi K1+ thread:

 

 

 

 

[guidol]

19 minutes ago, TonyMac32 said:

@guidol has a good looking case mentioned in the NanoPi K1+ thread

but for the K1 Plus it will block the IR-Port and I dont know if the WiFi is useable inside the Aluminium-case.
The K1 Plus seem to run very cool (also without the case) because I got around 29 degree Celsius ambient temperature and I couldnt feel any heat in idle-mode, but armbianmonitor -m doesnt show the temperatur in this dev-image
( I knew its experimental/testing):
 

Linux npi-k1-plus 4.18.0-rc4-sunxi64 #214 SMP Fri Jul 13 00:03:19 UTC 2018 aarch64 GNU/Linux
root@npi-k1-plus(192.168.6.70):~# armbianmonitor -m
Stop monitoring using [ctrl]-[c]
Time      CPU n/a    load %cpu %sys %usr %nice %io %irq

23:41:17:   ---      0.00   0%   0%   0%   0%   0%   0%
23:41:22:   ---      0.00   0%   0%   0%   0%   0%   0%
23:41:27:   ---      0.00   0%   0%   0%   0%   0%   0%
23:41:32:   ---      0.08   0%   0%   0%   0%   0%   0%

 

[TonyMac32]

56 minutes ago, guidol said:

but for the K1 Plus it will block the IR-Port and I dont know if the WiFi is useable inside the Aluminium-case.

 

The aluminum brick on my RPi 3 doesn't block wifi completely, but I haven't tested how much it reduces the capabilities.  As far as the IR-port goes, I'm afraid that's universal, for any of those you will probably have to get out a drill.

[tkaiser]

Another one: https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=6288

 

 

What can be seen at the enclosure top is a L shaped rail to be combined with thermal pads to dissipate heat away from SoC (and DRAM most probably too?) to the enclosure top cover. I think on this prototype the height of the rail is not sufficient but hey... it's a prototype most probably to check position of this rail thing (if you check the post carefully you see that it's designed for more than one board  )

[TonyMac32]

Ah, nice, one that plugs up that 4the USB hole.