Review for the ameriDroid Rock 5B metal case

#1

First I have to thank ameridroid, especially Marika for the friendly and professional service around the delivery for the SBC and the case.

But with the case comes a caveat. And in my case, it destroyed the whole project on which I spent nearly 400€ (180€ plus 50€ toll&tax plus accessories) due to missing screws to attach the SBC to the holding plate of the case. I used the smallest screws I had and they were still too big. Due to my failing eyesight I managed to realize too late that the screw was clipping (probably) vital parts very close to the mounting screw hole near the ethernet port. So, thank you for saving yourself 2ct of screw costs, whoever at ameriDroid is responsible for that oversight. And thank you for killing my intent to keep myself mentally fit by picking a challenge that can be easily stopped by a combination of the SBC board design (these fragile parts have no place so close to the hole mounting) and the missing screws from the case plus my bad eyesight. I guess this is my “happy holidays” moment for this year.

I tried to put that into a case review, but nothing happens when I press the “submit review” button on the shop-page for the case. Maybe you/someone can put that into constructive criticism towards the department whose responsibility it was not to put fitting screws to attach the Rock5b to the mounting plate. Or put up a one star review with the above text for the case at https://ameridroid.com/products/rock-5b-metal-case up for me.

attached picture of the mess and literal screw-up

IMG_20221223_122214_313b
IMG_20221223_122214_313b.jpg1625×1578 248 KB

2 Likes
#2

Seems like your incompetence in selecting proper screws ruined your project rather than the case itself.

1 Like
#3

I have the metal case for rock5b and no screws are used to hold sbc in the case. You slide it in from the side and plastic with latches holds it in place.

No worries. Happens to best of us.

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#4

Thanks for both of your answers. One “blame” and one “shit happens” balance out perfectly when it comes to the reasons I at least tried to do it. Well, at least its confirmed people are doing better than me now.

#5

This case does come with screws to attached the board to the bottom plate, not sure how you are using it…

#6

This case looks great and that may be its only great feature.

If you need to access anything its a massive hassle.

Temps running Linux are fine and I have done many build from source things and not once had an issue, when on Linux…
Android on the other hand has unacceptable temp performance out of the box on both official and some community images. I have seen temps reach 75 over the course of maybe 1 or 2 hours just sitting idle on the home screen, it just slowly builds up, I have applied better thermal pads/past and that did help a little, I have copper heat syncs on both RAM modules, I did have a fan externally but disliked that and have modded a small fan to fit inside the case for some kind of airflow and that has helped, I have rigged up a cable to run off the 3.3v GPIO as the fan just redlines due to no control.

I’m confident that with time the android images will get better and we will eventually have fan control in android which would be amazing.

@anon91153334 I too felt super bummed out at the state of the board, the “accessories” that don’t really work, and the project in general, but have started to enjoy the board, so dont give up, for example I purchased 2x official PD65 chargers (they straight up dont work correctly) and an A2 Wifi module (before A8 was available from allnet, and cant get that to work correctly), I have the A8 Wifi module (everything works in Android, Wifi in Linux but for the life of me cant get Bluetooth to work in amrbian), The official Debian image is not great, the official android images are not great, etc etc etc.

There is a great community being developed around this board and I am keen to see the Rock5 be unlocked to its full potential, we already have some excellent community images and to those that spend countless hours working on them, Thank you. :slight_smile:

If ameriDroid or Radxa are reading this, maybe someone can help old mate here with a replacement board? It’s Christmas after all…

2 Likes
#7

@el_sattchmo Armbian bluetooth with Realtek 8852BE (the A8 wifi module):

echo blacklist btusb | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-btusb.conf

then reboot, or without a reboot:

sudo rmmod btusb
sudo rmmod rtk_btusb
sudo modprobe rtk_btusb
#8

I called Ameridroid (where I got my Rock 5B from) and asked them about the mounting screws and was told some had them and some didn’t-hit or miss in other words. I didn’t attempt to find some screws and just used the case without them-after reading about this guy’s experience I’m damn glad I didn’t!

#9

I’d advise you to write to support@radxa.com to report your issue and ask them for the schema/list of components you accidentally damaged, and maybe they could be able to ship you those SMD elements. Worse case scenario you could buy those on Aliexpress. Once you acquire them, you could take them with the board to a cellphone service to replace them… Good luck and don’t give up…

#10

Board still can be easily repaired by local professional with microscope and common/accessible parts.
Comparing to my board missing are one capacitor and one resistor, maybe one more is damaged. This is nothing that is impossible to repair even if pads are broken. If it’s too big problem - just sell board at half of it’s price and get another one.
Mistake is obvious, and many boards have electronic components near screw holes. Always worth to be extra careful and use right tools and screws.

#11

If worse comes to worse I have a second 16GB model, in its box…

#12

Thanks for the help, but I still cannot get it to work, armbian needs nothing for the wifi to work (its actually registering 2 devices)
I have added bluetooth support via armbian-config
i have black listed all the things
I am on struggle street with the level of frustration to get such a simple element working…
any help would be greatly appreciated :slight_smile: