DIY Case/Housing for VIMs

Hi, folks:
Here is one of the designs of the case for VIMs, kindly tell us your thought & suggestions :slight_smile:

Features:

  • Design with heatsink
  • Support cooling fan mounting
  • The GPIO part can be removed

Draft

10 Likes

Hello Gouwa, Looks very nice from here.
Buttons are a plus, but may want to consider downsizing the reset button to avoid accidental reboots.

All good.:+1:

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looking great! the lines somehow reminds me of nvidia shield and thats a complement

As planned, the hull material ?

I admit I am minimalist so the flashes and colour accents are not for me. (I do like the case my VIM2 came in!)

However as 1 objective is fan mounting & cooling, it is not clear what airflow is possible. Also would recommend rubber/soft feet to help reduce vibration/noise from the fan.

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Thanks for the feedback.

Very nice! Maybe a few LEDs could light those yellow stripes from behind? :slight_smile:

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Some updates

The final design effort

The mold are in developing



8 Likes

Looks groovy,
Looking forward to the final product…:nerd_face:

hello

my paypal is ready

Really cool!
But you have start thinking about a new one. Vim + Tone Board :wink:

Very nice. I will be waiting.

Will you open source these design files as well?

congratulations for the design. it is modern and very industrial. I love black and purple colors.

I would like to understand more about the dissipation of heat. even if you have already decided I would have proposed micro holes at the processor to help passive dissipation without heat sink.

I’m waiting for news and I hope you need beta testers to get the trial case for free, thanks

Usually the temperature of 905x is not going over 75 degrees even when watching 4k HEVC. By the amalogic whitepapers, this is in the range of normal working temperature for the chipset. Hard using of android only may need better coiling but based on my experience is not sure at all.

Thank you for your answer. I think that the situation does not change much with the new case.

I am very satisfied with its transparent acrylic case and I have never thought of a solution with a heatsink with or without a fan.

I think it’s Thermal Throttling and the heatsink only creates a thermal inertia and that’s why I did not put it.

now with an ambient temperature of 20 degrees the cpu works in idle at only 43 degrees.

I think I will buy the beautiful casekhadas

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I have catch VIM2 Max with android installed w/o any cooling solution at max 89 degrees after watching some movies where the ambiance temperature is approximately 24. This mean that the temperature of the CPU was even more when VIM played the movie!

With VIM1 is less than 85 in similar conditions.

Using Linux usually in idle it is less than 50 for both chipsets and fully loaded is approximately 70, max 75 playing “big” HEVC

I have a VIM2 MAX and running Ubuntu Mate I have
Standby 60 oC
Running video 75 oC

With little fan 25x25x7.5mm over CPU
Standby 42 oC
Running Video 55 oC :kissing_heart:

Clearly we need some kind of cooler, sink, fan or both.

Take care.

This is patently rubbish otherwise heatsink/fan combinations wouldn’t be used in any cases. The reality is that a decent heatsink and fan can reduce the full throttle temperatures of the chip by up to 20 degrees centigrade and hold it there for an indefinite period. If you are using the VIM for heavy lifting video decoding you will reach throttling temps and heat stress will likely shorten the life of the board considerably.

My VIM2 was running at a steady 55C before I added a heatsink and fan and this dropped to 35C when I added one. A modification which will mean that my VIM2 should work reliably for years. Heat stress is a killer to silicone and to ancillary capacitors.

The situation is likely considerably worse than these raw figure portray since localized core heating will means that parts of the die will reach much higher temperatures - placing even more stress of the silicone due to differential heating. The presence of a large inertial mass such as a heatsink will play a considerable roll in evening out the die temps. This is the likely explanation for why a chip which was designed to run its main cores at 2Ghz (as Amlogic advertised) was kernel throttled to 1.5Ghz to avoid premature failure.

Shoog

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75 is normal. Peak temp of 80-85 is not a problem at all. Long run on 85+ is not a good idea because of potential errors. 90 and over is a real problem.
I can’t understand you people. What is the point to keep 50 or 60 degree?! If 75 is a perfect load temperature for this chip including by specification as well.