Hi Folks, does anyone have any cooling recommendations for the Pi4 in a PiCade? The HAT obstructs any additional active cooling on the PCB - so anyone else gotten to the bottom to this one?
Mark
You may have to modify the case. And add a fan that blows air across the Pi, between it and the hat.
Yeah, there a lot of 5V fan out there. Noctua Make a 5V version of there 40mm fan that quiet.
Or go with something less expensive like this:
Thanks folks - had thought about a fan - only thing that concerns me is the power draw impact as I am already running a screen from the PI - could a fan tip it over the edge of its budget?
You won’t know until you try. Just keep an eye out for the undervolt warning icon on your monitor.
On the plus side, the Pi 4 power supply is rated for 3A so you in theory have an extra half amp to play with.
According to this the Pi 4 only draws 100ma more than the 3B+ does “at idle”.
https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/faqs/#pi-power
How they compare under load I don’t know?
Regarding cooling on a Pi4, there’s a chap on the Explaining Computers channel on YouTube who carried out tests on cooling a Raspberry Pi4 with various heatsink (and) fan combos. Also reviewed is the Pimoroni fan shim
I have a Fan Shim on my Pi 4, I just let the fan run continuous. My temps pretty well hover right around 40c when I put it to work. 30 something when idle.
I don’t have anything mounted on top of it though. I’m thinking a Hat right on top is going to reduce its effectiveness. Put a booster header in between the Fan Shim and you hat and it should be fine. You’ll need some more stand offs though something like this so you can skrew two together.
I’m using an Enviro+ so the GPIO connector is occupied. I need power for a fan. Is it possible to get 5V and ground from the PoE connector? I can’t find out much about it. TIA.
EDIT: There are 5V and Ground solder pads on the Enviro +. Right along the bottom. You could solder a male header on those and connect you fan there.
No, thats power into the POE Hat, from the ethernet Jack. The POE Hat then sends 5V to the Pi via the GPIO +5V pin.
What you could do is mount a Proto Zero on a stacking header between your Pi and ribbon cable / Hat
Use the 11mm header.
If its not a Pi Zero use a Perma Proto instead.
If you solder a right angle male header on the Proto board you can then just plug your fan in.
Something like this.
There is a Pi A+ under that and a Sense hat plugs in on top.
Thanks, I realized my mistake about POE after I posted. I put header pins on the Enviro+ and pull the 5V and gnd off that. Klunky but it works.
If you soldered the header in so the pins extend out the back it shouldn’t be too bad. Other than wires going here and there.
I’ve got all the bits ready to build a Pi4 based Picade.
I ordered this case for the Pi4 to aid cooling:
Will that be any good/enough? It’s quite minimal, so I assume it will fit (the first post has me a little worried about space)?
Thanks.
Does the Picade X board come with a Booster header? If not, its likely not going plug into the Pi without its bottom side touching, and maybe shorting out on, the heatsink / case top cover.
And adding a booster header may affect how the Picade X hat lines up in the picade case with the cutouts.
PiShim is working fine here, even with the Pi4 overclocked (somewhere) above 2K. Needed higher standoffs and a lifted 40pin header. Plenty of room. Of all my cooling solutions the PiShim consistently yielded the lowest temperatures. The much vaulted Flirc case became too hot to handle during stress tests and wouldn’t work here anyway as a hat can’t be mounted.