A bunch of pictures

[Binky]

Will a heatsink in a mostly sealed case dissipate or remove heat enough without a way to move air out of the case to prevent damage?

Will be fine as a heatsync - somewhere to dump all that heat away from the delicate silicon.

What it won't really do, however, is be a heat dissipater. The heat will just make the metal and air in the case hotter.

Hot air in a plastic box won't cool down very quickly

In other words, it will deal with brief power spikes, but not sustained loads.

Edit: This applies to really high-power chips. Not the SOC to be used in the Pyra.

 

[rygD]

Will a heatsink in a mostly sealed case dissipate or remove heat enough without a way to move air out of the case to prevent damage?

Will be fine as a heatsync - somewhere to dump all that heat away from the delicate silicon.

What it won't really do, however, is be a heat dissipater. The heat will just make the metal and air in the case hotter.

Hot air in a plastic box won't cool down very quickly

In other words, it will deal with brief power spikes, but not sustained loads.

So is this how it is supposed to work in the Pyra?  Will we be able to use it fully (similar to EDs demos) without causing too much heat?

 

[EvilDragon]

I've already done some tests and it seems we don't need much of a heatsink. For heat distribution, we can use multiple layers of copper within the PCB and connect that to some heatsink outside of the sandwich if need be.


More tests and results following soon.

 

[rygD]

Thanks for letting us know, ED.

Would it be possible or plausible to have a metal plate, or something of the sort, to help transfer heat outside of the case for those who push the Pyra hard?  I don't mean for this to be shipped this way, but maybe as something users can do themselves to help with sustained high level performance.  I am not fond of a fan and vent solution.

 

[TrashyMG]

I'm already planning a mod for my devboard got a heat-sink picked out already.

Spoiler

 

[rygD]

That is kinda awesome.

 

[comradekingu]

Thanks for letting us know, ED.

Would it be possible or plausible to have a metal plate, or something of the sort, to help transfer heat outside of the case for those who push the Pyra hard?  I don't mean for this to be shipped this way, but maybe as something users can do themselves to help with sustained high level performance.  I am not fond of a fan and vent solution.

Ambient heat exchange can already take care of the transfer. The problem could potentially be local heat-buildup. If you want to put into play a measure to prevent that, add a copper shim to the SoC with thermal glue (supermetalglue and cooling paste mixed) and then tape off the topside of the copper against the mainboard so that it doesnt short anything.

Easy enough to bend into shapes if you want to get fancy.

If you use doublesided tape, then you can use normal thermalpaste. Dont know if there is much space to play with though.

Its a lot of work though, and probably most worth it if you enjoy the thrills of overclocking.

A really nice mod would be to draw the heat through the backside of moduleboard down into the aluminium case   Get one for the pandora and we can have that for the pyra.

 

[Grench]

Make the base piece out of aluminum - the rest in plastic.

Aluminum transfers the dissipated heat from the SOC to the users hands.  The hands have blood pumping through them.

Liquid cooled Pyra.

 

[rygD]

thermal glue (supermetalglue and cooling paste mixed)

I didn't know about this.  Thanks for enlightening me.

Its a lot of work though, and probably most worth it if you enjoy the thrills of overclocking.

This is what I had in mind.  I am not one of the people who overclocks for the sake of overclocking, but I have found it useful at times, especially with my Pandora since it is so easy.

A really nice mod would be to draw the heat through the backside of moduleboard down into the aluminium case   Get one for the pandora and we can have that for the pyra.

I agree, everyone who might want one for the Pyra should invest in the Pandora one.  I think someone also mentioned in that thread the potential for getting that money back by selling the Al-cased Pandora since it will be even more rare.

Make the base piece out of aluminum - the rest in plastic.

Aluminum transfers the dissipated heat from the SOC to the users hands.  The hands have blood pumping through them.

Liquid cooled Pyra.

If they are hypothermic it would help even more.  

 

[the_marshal]

I am really exited about the Pyra... if everything work out as intended it is going to be epic !

I would really like it to have 4gb of ram unless it is really unreasonable in term of price. That would make it very close to a real laptop.

 

[Grench]

It could be as simple as having a thin copper or aluminum layer sandwiched between the boards that extends through the case sides and down to wrap back around to the edge of the battery compartment.  The left & right edges become radiant surfaces - or contact transfer if you have the device in-hand.

Another option is to make the keyboard surround & hinge base piece aluminum - but then how to pipe the heat from the CPU 4 layers down to the surround?  (surround, keymat, main board, SoC daughter board).

Looking at the board pictures released so far - it almost has to conduct heat out the sides.  No place else to go without conflicting with other hardware.

 

[Grench]

I am really exited about the Pyra... if everything work out as intended it is going to be epic !

I would really like it to have 4gb of ram unless it is really unreasonable in term of price. That would make it very close to a real laptop.

The Pandora is already close to a real laptop.  In fact, it's a bit of a challenge to declare anything that a 'real Linux laptop' can do that the 512MB Pandora can't.

So, even if it ships with 2GB RAM, the Pyra will already be able to do laptop stuff.

Or did you have something in mind that the Pandora -can't- do that a $700 Linux laptop can?

 

[rygD]

I would really like it to have 4gb of ram unless it is really unreasonable in term of price.

I am with you.  Power is also a concern.  There is a thread about this somewhere, and it keeps coming up.  Supposedly 2GB is more than enough for most things.  Some additional good news is that if it isn't the RAM is on the CPU PCB, so it should be an easy upgrade.

 

[rygD]

Or did you have something in mind that the Pandora -can't- do that a $700 Linux laptop can?

Metasploit can probably be added to my list, although I haven't tried it.

 

[WizardStan]

I would really like it to have 4gb of ram unless it is really unreasonable in term of price.

I am with you.  Power is also a concern.  There is a thread about this somewhere, and it keeps coming up.  Supposedly 2GB is more than enough for most things.  Some additional good news is that if it isn't the RAM is on the CPU PCB, so it should be an easy upgrade.

ED recently mentioned in a different thread (in the Pyra General Talk section, I think) that RAM comes in 2GB chips, so upgrading to 4GB would require a second chip which requires more space and planning and there just isn't enough room on the board for it.

 

[Silent-Hunter]

I thought the RAM was part of the SoC.

 

[WizardStan]

On the Pandora it's a PoP, package on package, a RAM chip soldered to the top of the SoC.

The OMAP5 doesn't have this anymore, I'm not sure if any modern SoC does or not: instead it's got lines run out with all the others for external RAM modules.

edit: close enough, the OMAP5430 had PoP. The 5432 (which is the only thing we can get) does not, just BGA.

 

[thatgui]

I'm not sure if any modern SoC does or not

Just to shine with "pure techy wisdom": the hardkernel.com people state in the faq about their odroid-xu3 board that they are doing PoP with the Samsung Exynos5422 SoC.

 

[Askarus]

My suggestion for the heat issue:

The best and best way to bring heat outside the case would be the gap between Lid and Keyboard (between the hinges).

No one can touch it and you have quite some area to transport the heat outside the case.

How to do it?

The CPU is between Motherboard and CPU board.

Connect the CPU with the Motherboard.

Then on the motherboard make a metal bridge below the hinge.

It would only need to be soldered on the board twice (on its ends) and it's main body would be above the rumble motor and wonky chip everyone loves that much.

You know what I mean?

A metal bridge over the Parts on the front side which comes outside the Plastic part (keyboard) below the hinge.

Here it won't be a problem for anyone no matter how hot it gets.

Could this work?

I've already done some tests and it seems we don't need much of a heatsink.

I wouldn't rely on that.

Maybe we want to upgrade the CUP and then we might need a bigger heatsink.

Better make the heatsink as big as possible now.

 

[hns]

On the Pandora it's a PoP, package on package, a RAM chip soldered to the top of the SoC.

The OMAP5 doesn't have this anymore, I'm not sure if any modern SoC does or not: instead it's got lines run out with all the others for external RAM modules.

edit: close enough, the OMAP5430 had PoP. The 5432 (which is the only thing we can get) does not, just BGA.

Smartphone processors usually use PoP (Snapdragon, Exynos, Apple A7) while industrial&tablet&automitive SoC use external RAM because there is more room. OMAP5 was initially designed as a smartphone processor (jointly by Nokia&TI), hence the OMAP3530 with PoP. Same with the OMAP3430/3630 which appeared as OMAP3530 and 3730 in different packages (with and without PoP). After Nokia dropped out, the OMAP5430 wasn't finished (because TI lost its lead customer) and the "industrial" OMAP3532 remained (useable for the Pyra). The TI Keystone processors (http://www.ti.com/lsds/ti/arm/keystone/overview.page?paramCriteria=no) are focussed on industrial&automotive and therefore are also not PoP.