Re: Raspberry Pi handheld VN console build.
Posted: Fri May 12, 2017 5:25 pm
I spent a while last night tinkering and discovered that even under low load, the Pi 3 gets HOT, as in ~80 degrees celcius hot. Now, accoding to the tech specs, this little thing will HALVE the processor speed to 600Mhz if it exceeds 82.7 degrees.
So my priority now, is to work out how best to keep this thing around 30 - 40 degrees, without adding a ridiculously oversized heatsink + fan combo.
This research led me to discover the recently released, Asus Tinkerboard:
Now, the Tinkerboard is somewhat more pricey than the Raspberry Pi (probably not made in communist China) but it has the advantage of 2gb of RAM (meaning most of the heavier Ren'Py games should work on it) and a 1.8Ghz quad core CPU.
Along with this, it includes an upgrade-able WiFi antennae and natively supports 4k UHD via HDMI. There is no mono audio with composite video, but there is stereo 192Khz 24bit Hyperaudio support and a microphone jack in its place.
The mSD card slot is also UHS 1 compliant. The ethernet port is gigabit, opposed to the Pi's 10/100Mbit
The rest of its features and specs (including shape, placement and form factor) are identical to the Raspberry Pi 3, except the lack of composite video.
https://www.asus.com/au/Motherboards/Tinker-Board/
I'll look into this board more, but I think, for the sake of my original goal, the Pi 3 will do very nicely.
For now, I'm off to buy some Arctic Silver (or whatever the best thermal grease I can get is) and some sort of aluminium or copper heatsink. Copper would be best, but its pricey.
Also, I know I said I wanted to make sure others could replicate the same thing I build, and I've gone ahead and used a repurposed battery.
Well, I took a look, and you can get a really decent Lithium battery pack for around 30 bucks(AUD) from element14. The dimensions are about the same as the Raspberry Pi, so it'd be a good fit.
http://au.element14.com/skross/1-302168 ... dp/2671706
E: After some more research, I think making this thing handheld is going to be a challenge.
So some thoughts on design are probably going to have to be rethought out.
For now, I've added a plastic shielding strip, some thermal grease and a salvaged aluminium heatsink from a dead BD player. To further help cool the Pi, I added an old 50mm fan that works great at 5v. I plugged this directly into pins 4 and 6 (4 is positive) and placed it at one end of the Pi (instead of above it)
This allows greater dissipation of heat, but also keeps space required to a minimum.
The setup brings the Pi down from ~80℃ to ~32℃. This is a major improvement of more than 50% and will ensure the CPU never throttles down to 600Mhz.
Here's a shot of it while turned on.
So my priority now, is to work out how best to keep this thing around 30 - 40 degrees, without adding a ridiculously oversized heatsink + fan combo.
This research led me to discover the recently released, Asus Tinkerboard:
Now, the Tinkerboard is somewhat more pricey than the Raspberry Pi (probably not made in communist China) but it has the advantage of 2gb of RAM (meaning most of the heavier Ren'Py games should work on it) and a 1.8Ghz quad core CPU.
Along with this, it includes an upgrade-able WiFi antennae and natively supports 4k UHD via HDMI. There is no mono audio with composite video, but there is stereo 192Khz 24bit Hyperaudio support and a microphone jack in its place.
The mSD card slot is also UHS 1 compliant. The ethernet port is gigabit, opposed to the Pi's 10/100Mbit
The rest of its features and specs (including shape, placement and form factor) are identical to the Raspberry Pi 3, except the lack of composite video.
https://www.asus.com/au/Motherboards/Tinker-Board/
I'll look into this board more, but I think, for the sake of my original goal, the Pi 3 will do very nicely.
For now, I'm off to buy some Arctic Silver (or whatever the best thermal grease I can get is) and some sort of aluminium or copper heatsink. Copper would be best, but its pricey.
Also, I know I said I wanted to make sure others could replicate the same thing I build, and I've gone ahead and used a repurposed battery.
Well, I took a look, and you can get a really decent Lithium battery pack for around 30 bucks(AUD) from element14. The dimensions are about the same as the Raspberry Pi, so it'd be a good fit.
http://au.element14.com/skross/1-302168 ... dp/2671706
E: After some more research, I think making this thing handheld is going to be a challenge.
So some thoughts on design are probably going to have to be rethought out.
For now, I've added a plastic shielding strip, some thermal grease and a salvaged aluminium heatsink from a dead BD player. To further help cool the Pi, I added an old 50mm fan that works great at 5v. I plugged this directly into pins 4 and 6 (4 is positive) and placed it at one end of the Pi (instead of above it)
This allows greater dissipation of heat, but also keeps space required to a minimum.
The setup brings the Pi down from ~80℃ to ~32℃. This is a major improvement of more than 50% and will ensure the CPU never throttles down to 600Mhz.
Here's a shot of it while turned on.