Ultimate Dual Fan for Pi3

Ecks

@petrorie said in Ultimate Dual Fan for Pi3:

@caver01 said in Ultimate Dual Fan for Pi3:

@livefastcyyoung Yes, not to mention the fact that if you are running emulators, or ROMs that push the limits of the Pi3, I noticed an immediate difference in just adding a heat sink. Any cooling, whether active or passive will be of benefit if attached correctly.

I had only once heating problems and that was during a hot summer day, I;ve took the top cover off. The thing I don't like is that these heatsinks are way too small because of the cases. You can use a 40mm 40mm heatsink with a fan but you have to "mutilate" your top cover.

You do know that most cases out there for the Pi tends to have cutouts for the GPIO and for the LED touch screen and for the camera and yes i know not all cases has it for all 3 of them but still proper ventilation and besides that.
Also when people buys a fan for any system they don't buy them for overclocking purposes they mainly get it cause one they like to have less than 60°C and two they read their manual before even setting up the system and found out going over 80°C voids the warranty which if there is a problem with the unit they would not be able to return it for that purpose.

dankcushions

@ecks said in Ultimate Dual Fan for Pi3:

they read their manual before even setting up the system and found out going over 80°C voids the warranty which if there is a problem with the unit they would not be able to return it for that purpose.

your pi will downclock before it goes over 80. so it's impossible to go over 80, basically.

A Former User

REGARDLESS, this fan serves more than just people who are overclocking. Definitely worth it in my opinion. A tad noisy, but it could also just be the shelf my Pi is sitting on. Far better than just using the dual heat sink set you see everywhere.

DD-Indeed

Btw, prices of this dual fan have rapidly gone up over recent weeks on Ebay, from 6-8 € up to 50 €!

A Former User

Went up $3 on Amazon. Was $12.59, now $15.59. Free shipping. Still not unreasonable.

DD-Indeed

@livefastcyyoung

Well strange thing is that the prices have gone up with chinese sellers. Bigger retailers still have then in in reasonable prices, allthou, they are varying.

Ecks

@dankcushions Actually there is people on YouTube that does temp tests for the Pi 2 and 3 in which has shown temps going over 80

dankcushions

@ecks my mistake, it throttles at 82 degrees C. my point stands - your warranty isn't voided. there's nothing in the manual to say that it does, either.

Ecks

@dankcushions Alot of products now a days doesn't really tell you what can or can not void a warranty from a manual it would mainly tell you on the main site or a dev on twitter will tell you instead because one system i own which is the Nvidia Shield TV has no where on the system and manual on it being voided if you open the system but on the main site they tell you there.

DD-Indeed

Finally the cooler arrived, I can put it in and do some benchmarks. I will use my current cooler first for the tests, then take it off and try again and then with the dual fan cooler.

dankcushions

@ecks said in Ultimate Dual Fan for Pi3:

@dankcushions Alot of products now a days doesn't really tell you what can or can not void a warranty from a manual it would mainly tell you on the main site or a dev on twitter will tell you instead

ok, so where on the raspberry site (or raspberry dev twitter) does it say that over 80 degrees will void your warranty?

DD-Indeed

Man, this is so cute, I put a lighter next to it to give some scale :D

alt text

The double sided tape that came with it was actually thermal tape with sticky sides, so it could actually be good. But nevertheless, I'll do the tests with other things first.

spruce_m00se

i like the non standard size lighter for scale :)

DD-Indeed

@spruce_m00se

The blades themselves are roughly the size of certain coins, so they're really small. I have some pessimistic feelings about this, since it is very small, but we know more later today. :)

spruce_m00se

it will probably sound like you have a swarm of angry mosquitos inside your case aswell :)

DD-Indeed

@spruce_m00se

That's also something I'm afraid. But, I can always use the 3.3V line instead of that 5V, to make them run a bit more quieter.

spruce_m00se

@dd-indeed a bit, I tried that with one, and it drove me MAD!

spruce_m00se

@dd-indeed I actually bought a cheapo android based KODI box because the PI got so hot running KODI and the fan was annoying me too much, so 30 USD for a kodi box and it seems more responsive anyway and has an IR remote, so happy days, stuck it on a laptop cooling pad and its all gravy

DD-Indeed

Now I actually ran into pretty foolish trouble: I can't find a single benchmark test, that could be used via command line of the Retropie. Only ones I've found require OS to boot.

Edit: Nevermind, found one simple Linux test to be used with this.

DD-Indeed

Raspberry Pi 3 - Ultimate Dual Fan-cooler Tests

Overclock settings:

arm_freq=1300
gpu_freq=525
core_freq=250
sdram_freq=500
over_voltage=4
v3d_freq=500
force_turbo=1
avoid_pwm_pll=1
disable_splash=1

Commands used to do CPU tests:

vcgencmd measure_temp
sysbench --test=cpu --num-threads=8 --cpu-max-prime=50000 run

I ran the test multiple times until I reached the max temp for each setup.

Temp results:

With my original customized chipset cooler with 40 mm 5V fan = around 50 C

Without cooler = Over 80 C, thermal throttling warning visible

Ultimate Dual Fan-cooler with included thermal adhesive tape = 77 C + thermal throttling

Ultmate Dual Fan-cooler with copper plates and thermal paste = 70 C, no thermal throttling thou.

So yea, this device is piece of crap with the thermal tape, absolutely useless. And, when you apply copper plates with thermal paste, the results improve slightly.
As a ''straight-out-of-the-box-and-bolt-on-device'', it's not good, nowhere near of good, and even with improvements, it's still crap.

Conclusion: I'm not recommending this at all. Waste of money and time.