VIM3L - Opening Up New Possibilities for DIY-HTPC Enthusiasts

So I was directed there to ask about shipping, since I didn’t get any news yet except the twitter message 10 days ago suggesting they were about to be shipped. No emergency but I’d prefer to know if it’s normal or if something got lost on its way! My order # was 11726. Thanks for any update.

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Hi willy,

The VIM3L and VIM3L HTPC both shipped out, I will send you the tracking number by PM, please note.

Thank you for your support.

Best regards,
Kingsley

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Thanks for this fast response Kingsley, much appreciated!

I cannot wait to play with this board.
Mine arrived at JFK airport a week ago. I think our postal service is the slowest on the planet.
Support from Khadas seems very fast and friendly.
I plan to switch OS once I have it. Android has more support than any other.

Can we run the OS on the NVMe SSD?

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Hi @griff_consortium
Thanks for the support!

All Khadas SBCs cannot boot directly from the SSD. However if the bootloader is pre-installed into the SPI-Flash or eMMC, it can load the OS from SSD.

When @hyphop completes KRescue, installing or switching your OS will be much easier then.

Have fun!

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Now received, thank you guys! The board is smaller than what it looks like on photos, that’s great. In addition, I like the very small box, I suspect it can serve as a temporary enclosure to carry the board anywhere and quickly open it.

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@tsangyoujun is our photographer :smile:

Need a banana for scale: :upside_down_face:

@Gouwa @tsangyoujun, received the VIM3L two days back, but there’s a bug in firmware - internal hard drives connected to the USB3 port before the board’s boot do not get recognized. If the same drive is connected after boot, it’s recognized! Could you please fix this?

Also, have you fixed Automatic Frame Rate switching? The tests done by cnx-software found AFR to be broken.

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I just received mine today, the packaging and the build quality are very good. But you mount mine “top cover” in the wrong side (the removable part for the GPIO is upon the USB/Ethernet/HDMI) side :laughing:
Do you know some ideas to remove the screw without the appropriate screwdrivers ? :stuck_out_tongue: What is the size of the screw ?

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Use a flat head screw driver. It works.

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Thank you very much it works
Luckily I have the good one :stuck_out_tongue:

Mine just arrived. Little heads up - as you may be confused as me, when ordered thermal pad for the bootom.

In the package comes two termal pads (one bottom, and one on the top I assume). The box itself doesnt have bottom installed, but it HAS installed the top one under heatsink. So its not needed to remove heatsink and check, if there are thermal pad or not as I need to do (because two termal pads in the package confused me and I dont wanna risk anything).

Now I will wait for stable CoreELEC release for these little beuties…

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Yeah, I ordered the pad as well, and found two. Looks like we have to break open the bottom part of the acrylic case to slap the pad on (same as VIM2, but not sure if the aperture was already in place).

Contrary to claims, the board tends to get quite warm. I used four tall adhesive rubber feet to provide some clearance for the heat dissipation. Will decide over time if I need to break the bottom part of the acrylic just above the heatsink.

@Gouwa, @tsangyoujun, would appreciate an answer on this. How does being silent help?

Hello Dear,
As it is weekend in China. They should be able to b reply to you on Monday.

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@hoodafukisalice if you are running android, it should not get warm at all (similar to a VIM1). If running Linux, it will get warm. If dissipating heat via the metal plate, then it has to come into contact with a cold conducting surface. I’m not sure about the hdd / afr issues - maybe @Gouwa can comment.

@Ticc0 did yours come with the 3705 cooling fan? Maybe our guy decided to flip the cover orientation as stated in this blog post. https://www.khadas.com/post/assembling-a-diy-case-3705-cooling-fan

@JimmyS we decided to include 2 thermal pads (one thick, the other thin), as we realized the thick pad shrinks height-wise over time. This is likely due to moisture evaporation, and can’t be prevented. So if you find your thick pad shrinking, just stack the thin one on top - that does the trick. :smile:

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Thanks @tsangyoujun. However, I bought the HTPC version, and the board becomes quite warm even with CoreElec itself!

@Gouwa, kindly fix the hard drive issue and AFR switching.

Fellow customers, check the review in point - https://www.cnx-software.com/2019/10/23/khadas-vim3l-sbc-review-with-android-9-firmware/

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> Contrary to claims, the board tends to get quite warm
Very surprized as it does not match my experience. I can leave my thumb forever on the SoC and just feel it’s slightly warm. It’s easier to feel while compiling but overall that’s still very bearable. Are you sure you don’t have a CPU hog running on it or anything that could max out CPU and RAM bandwidth maybe ? Or maybe the GPU is responsible for a part of the heat (I don’t use it, saw the frame buffer, OK it works, then unplugged) ?

I’ve just finished some thermal tests, measuring the S905D3 SoC’s surface temperature using a thermal probe, on my VIM3L using the version of CoreELEC that was sent out in the HTPC kits.

No Heatsink:

  • Ambient: 27C
  • 10 Minutes Idle: 48C
  • 10 Minute 4K .mov Video: 56C

@RRZC777’s Passive Heatsink:

  • Ambient: 27C
  • 10 Minutes Idle: 42C
  • 10 Minute 4K .mov Video: 49C

DIY Case, 3705 Cooling Fan, New VIM’s Heatsink:

  • Ambient: 26C
  • 10 Minutes Idle: 33C
  • 10 Minute 4K .mov Video: 35C

So it seems that even with a bare board, the temperatures on CoreELEC are not alarmingly high. Granted that my test was concluded within 10-15 minutes, if we assume that temperature continues to climb gradually, we could expect a bare board to have a max-temperature of 65 to 70C.

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