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Proper cooling system of TV boxes.


balbes150

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Variants of alteration of the cooling system. For example, three models MVR9 (rk3328), MX10 (rk3328) x96mini (s905w).

In the body, above the radiator of the processor, a large hole is made and on the sides of the body a large hole is made for the free passage of air.

On x96mini had to add a new radiator.

 

Note need necessarily two holes, one for air intake, the second for exit. This is a very common mistake TV box manufacturers, they sometimes make only one type of holes, which is not enough for the normal operation of the cooling system. The air must pass freely through the body. The direction of air supply for TV boxes is optimal from the hole on the side surface, to the exit through the hole above the radiator. This allows the most heated air from the radiator to be immediately removed from the body. Then it doesn't heat the rest of the parts. If you do the opposite, to blow air down on the radiator and then output from the side vents, the heated (from the radiator), the air will simultaneously heat the remaining elements in the housing in its path. After this alteration and the addition of a USB fan, the system began to work stably in all modes for many hours. For anyone who uses their TV boxes as a full desktop, I strongly recommend to redesign the cooling system. Pay attention to the model x96mini, it has a default motherboard and radiator located at the bottom (upside down from the correct position). When using x96mini (and other TV boxes) be sure to turn them in the correct position - radiator up. This nonsense was invented by bad engineers who do not know the basic laws of physics. Such "engineers" think that the water can flow up the mountain.  :)

 

foto

 

https://yadi.sk/d/vQw9J81koxpuHg

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Where did you buy the heat sink you put on your x96 mini ? I actually have a awful blue tack pad which try to dissipate with an awful piece of iron. Funky chinese thing! :)

 

Can we use the heat sink set for raspberry on it ? Thanks.

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8 hours ago, Peyton said:

Where did you buy the heat sink you put on your x96 mini ? I actually have a awful blue tack pad which try to dissipate with an awful piece of iron. Funky chinese thing! :)

 

Can we use the heat sink set for raspberry on it ? Thanks.

I bought on aliexpress. You can use any options, but the larger the radiator, the better it removes heat.

 

https://ru.aliexpress.com/item/20x20x6mm-Aluminum-IC-LED-Cooling-Cooler-Heat-Sink-Heatsink-Radiator-10pcs-Free-Freight/32251373935.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.274233edpb0Hqw

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I just bought a USB cooling fan platform. Came to about $5 with the coupons which popped up.

 

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Router-fan-DIY-PC-Cooler-TV-Box-Wireless-Cooling-Silent-Quiet-DC-5V-USB-power-120mm/32965335172.html

 

It is about the size of the TV BOX. You Just put the A5X MAX on top of it. The A5X MAX has holes on the bottom of  the box. The fan pushes air into the box.  

I have not made any other holes in the A5X MAX box.

 

I tried, 3 tests

 

1. Idle.   Just running armbianmonitor-m.  The temps without the fan are 55-60C, with the fan about 41-45 C

2. mpv on the included Test.mkv fullscreen. The temp change is slow, so I ran the video about 3 times while running armbianmonitor -m.  I do not have the media-script. Temps were about 80C without the fan, and 60-62C with the fan.

3.  The youtube video Test.mkv running in firefox. 1080P stream, running fullscreen. This is the worst case for video. No media-script again.  Again ran  the video 3 times. Without the fan about 90C, with the fan about 71C 

 

I am running the box at 1296 Mhz max, with the temperature limits  set to (90C, 105C, 110C) in the dtb.

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I did this with things I had at home, I had a night of 12 leftovers, put to 5v and nothing is heard. And so I cooled an SSD which is where I have Armbian installed.
Cut with the dremel and I put a dust filter.
And this Q912 does not get too hot anymore (I think the metal housing acts as a heatsink), so it's cool.

IMG_20190217_193924.jpg

IMG_20190217_194004.jpg

IMG_20190217_194040.jpg

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1 hour ago, olivluca said:

And the noise (some comments say it's loud, some say it's quiet :unsure:)

 

It is definitely not silent, you can hear the fan.   I tried a sound meter on my phone from 1 foot  away, and it registered 38 db (whisper)

If it bothers you just run armbianmonitor and look at the temperature :lol:

 

The bigger problem is it runs even after the box is shutdown, but that is probably a problem with the A5X Max or the dtb I am using.

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So I got tired of my fan platform (see above) being always on even when I did not need the cooling, so I built a  simple controller using a USB relay module.

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/LCUS-type-1-USB-relay-module-USB-intelligent-switch-control-Z7A9/263383167245

 

I stripped off part of the USB cable for the fan platform, cut the red wire and connected it to the relay like this. The black wire is untouched. Connections to COM, and NO of the relay module (no soldering needed).

fancontrol.jpg.5016cccb92943e0f37430db93e894361.jpg

 

The USB->Serial adapter showed up in lsusb but not as /dev/ttyUSB0. I needed to enable CONFIG_USB_SERIAL_CH341=m based on this post.

I am running a version of 4.4.154 and luckily enabling this module worked.

 

Now I can turn the fan on and off using a script as described here.

I wrote a simple shell script wrapper around it which looks at the temperature from

/sys/devices/virtual/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp  in a loop and turns the fan on/off based on it. By trial and error I set the limits, I turn it on at 80C and wait for the temperature to fall below 70C to turn it off.

 

It does use an extra USB port (a USB port splitter might work) but works fine now.  Normally the fan is off. If I start the script, no fan, until I mpv the  "lubimaya lubimaya video" :) the temperature goes up and then the fan starts and stays on until I close mpv.  Would be good if I could tie it to the temperature trip points in the dtb, but I don't know how.

 

 

 

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