Flirc case review install#

The overclocked Raspberry Pi (inside the Flirc case) idled at 41 ☌, and running our five-minute stress test took it up to 67 ☌. We took the CPU clock speed up to 1.75GHz. This time it idled at a mere 28 ☌ and our five-minute stress test took it up to a mere 46 ☌.īecause this is comfortably below the threshold, it opens up a world of overclocking (something that has been reintroduced on Raspberry Pi 4). Next, we put a Raspberry Pi into the Flirc Raspberry Pi 4 case and ran the same test. Unsurprisingly, the Raspberry Pi with no heat sink attached quickly went up to 79 ☌ and hovered at that level for the rest of the test, nudging up against (but not pushing over) the level where Raspbian starts to throttle the CPU. Warning! Don’t do this at home without doing your research first. For each test, we left the Raspberry Pi to run for five minutes. This puts all four cores of Raspberry Pi 4 under stress.

Flirc case review install#

We used stress (apt install stress) and the following script from Core Electronics to test our Raspberry Pi 4 while measuring temperature: while true do vcgencmd measure_clock arm vcgencmd measure_temp sleep 10 done& stress -c 4 -t 300s Watch your Raspberry Pi and restart afterwards.

WARNING!: Stress testing should only be done for short periods. We stress-tested a Raspberry Pi 4 board on its own vs a Raspberry Pi 4 inside the Flirc case to see what temperatures it reported. However, for many of us, GPIO pins are the very essence of Raspberry Pi. If you plan to use Raspberry Pi as a desktop computer, then this might be a valid trade-off. But it’s an ungainly addition to such a lovely looking case. To Flirc’s credit, it has addressed this issue via a small gap on the underneath of the Flirc Raspberry Pi 4 case, which could be used with a breakout I/O cable. Unlike the official case, the lid cannot be quickly removed to provide access to the pins. One downside to the sealed approach is that the GPIO pins are hidden away inside the case. The microSD card slot is easily accessible, and a small cut-out on the enclosure enables the LEDs to shine through. Everything is neatly constructed from high-quality materials and there’s considerable charm to the heat sink. Putting together the case is ludicrously simple: you simply drop a Raspberry Pi in the bottom half, attach the thermal paste, squidge down the lid, and use four screws to hold everything together.įlirc claims that this is “the most beautifully crafted Raspberry Pi 4 case” and it’s not a wholly unwarranted claim. You use this to squidge the Raspberry Pi to the heat sink.

Inside the pack is a square thermal pad (similar in substance to Blu Tack). This turns the whole of the aluminium case into a giant heat sink, cooling down your Raspberry Pi 4. I like it so much I'm considering one for an ODROID C1+ : with that board, important to note at time of writing this is theoretical rather than having been actually validated however the USBs, Ethernet, HDMI and USB OTG ports should all be accessible - although the 2.5mm power jack (not a factor if you use the USB OTG) & IR receiver will be obscured and the memory card would not be accessible externally.Here’s where things get clever: inside the case is a protruding heat sink that reaches down to Raspberry Pi 4’s CPU. To that end, the box has a metal 'pillar' inside the casting, which couples to the processor via a supplied thermal heat pad.ĭefinitely worthy of a 5-star rating for style and performance at an amazing price. The added bonus over a plastic case - beyond its mere aesthetic value - is that it provides a significant heatsink to the Pi2 Processor, especially valuable if you plan to run your device overclocked. It is a nicely made box and all the openings for the interfaces line up perfectly with Pi2. It somewhat resembles my Intel NUC case which has a very similar design, albeit the Pi is smaller of course and without the black mirror finish employed by the lid of the NUC, the matte finish of the Flirc actually being a bonus in avoiding those fingerprints! The first thing that attracted me to the Flirc Pi2 case was simply the aesthetics and in that regard upon receipt it did not disappoint.