Rock 5B accessory

#62

We’ve received more photos from Radxa and have updated our page: https://ameridroid.com/products/rock-5b-metal-case

1 Like
#63

does it mean we can’t plug non-nvme (e.g. sata) SSD in this slot?

#64

you can plug it in and it wouldnt damage anything but it wont work

#65

that’s what I meant of course, will place order for NVMe btw.

#66

this solution seems to me the most appropriate given it is an arm chip and has low power consumption,
(when I think apple managed to passively cool their M1 in MBA, I’m still amazed)

we think that with a giant heatsink/case

some thing like this for instance (without the fan) ? :slight_smile:

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Yesterday looked for a DIY cooling solution for my board I just received,
and thought this model could be interesting given it is very reasonably priced and maybe could be adapted to rock5b with some customizations?

#67

the case from ameridroid i a passiveley cool heatsink: https://ameridroid.com/products/rock-5b-metal-case

#68

ah ok it’s already available, thought they were still on prototype design.
doesn’t seems like massive to me but good point using enclosure as heatsink.
the stuff I posted above can be made passive, removing the fan on top, but such bulkier ^^

from description

The first iteration of this case is available with green end panels.

meaning there would be other version coming? I’m not a big fan of green plastic sides

#69

You have a heatsink capable of dispating 120watt TDP on a soc with a supposed max of 12watt.

Also the M1 Macbook air wasn’t that great as there are plenty of vids showing how to make it better

The standard blue passive heatsink does a great job and its only after long periods of sustained high load it causes the SoC to throttle.
The fan heatsink I haven’t tried but have found the PWM output not all that geat at controlling a voltage controllable 2 pin fan.
Problem is it needs a fairly fast 55% pwm to get past stall and the curve quickly becomes 100% and not very speed stable.

There are also far more components than the soc that will and can produce heat from buck regulators, ram chips to addons such as nvme or wifi.
The board is a really great layout and likely you could get away with a much smaller passive on the rk3588 with some active assitance from a fan that blows across its width and exits at the other side.
Maybe even a push/pull of one at each side coming on at say 10c over ambient and then maybe 100% 10c before throttle would be more than enough but also cool all the components as you can blow above and below the board.

I would love a case that just has an extra 10mm each side and vent holes with prob 2x 30mm fans with 1/3rd under the board and 2/3rds above.

For most thought the current passive or active fan does the job.

pymum did a great repo here for software

Someone has also done a fork where the settings are in a /etc/ conf file and forgot the url :slight_smile:
A relatively small flow of air over a small heat sink can make it the equivalent of quite a large passive.
Likely somewhere in the middle of the current active and passive might do a better job as for idle/lite jobs will never need the fan, still stay silent for shorter moderate durations and then high load/long stop any throttling.
Also as above rather than top down only on the soc blow right across the whole width with x1/2 fans.

#70

yep I’ve seen that hack for MBA, I did not open mine yet though :wink:
might resell it later when some alternatives in PC’s world are coming.

you could get away with a much smaller passive on the rk3588 with some active assitance from a fan that blows across its width and exits at the other side

edit: you probably spoke about huge fan from above, yeah this is overkill but I thought of customizing it by removing huge heat sink and fan on top and just putting heat pipes in contact with a metal enclosure.

As someone posted previously, the “RPI armour heatsink” also looks nice (though it is more heatsink than enclosure), as all components are directly in the air environment.

Likely somewhere in the middle of the current active and passive might do a better job as for idle/lite jobs will never need the fan

yeah small fan if quiet, can be a compromise between fully passive or active solution. but from MBA/MBP example I tend to believe a passively cooled system could be nearly as efficient.

I’m still thinking about building my own cooling exotic solution, by including board in a desk shelf I’m building which will have a huge aluminium surface but just an idea for now.