Cool Off Your Raspberry Pi 4 with Pimoroni’s Heatsink Case
The Raspberry Pi 4 packs a powerful Broadcom BCM2711 quad-core Cortex-A72 (Arm v8) 64-bit SoC, and as a result, runs hotter than previous Raspberry Pi boards, especially under load. The Foundation does offer a PoE (Power over Ethernet) HAT with built-in fan to cool things down, although it does run on the expensive side at $20. There are other options, such as iUniker’s Raspberry Pi 4 Case that is also outfitted with a fan to keep things cool, coming in at a cheaper $8.99; however using fans for cooling tend be on the noisy side.

Pimoroni’s anodized aluminum heatsink case is purported to decrease temps by 10°C to 15°C under load from passive cooling. (📷: Pimoroni)

Pimoroni has a solution to the noise problem by offering a passive solution with their aluminum heatsink case that the company states can lower temperatures by 10°C to 15°C while the Pi is operating under full load.

“This anodized aluminum heatsink case will protect your Raspberry Pi 4 and give you the best passive cooling we’ve seen in our extensive testing. It’s great for situations where you want completely silent cooling, like home media centers.”

The aluminum case comes with a top and bottom that is connected using a series of hex screws. (📷: Pimoroni)

The case features an anodized aluminum top and bottom that are connected using a set of hex screws, leaving cutouts for all the ports and I/O pins for easy access. It comes with a thermal pad as well that provides contact between the SoC and case to transfer heat loads. Pimoroni notes that you can use HATs with the case, but only if they are low profile without any bulky components underneath them. The Aluminum Heatsink Case is now available for about $15.
['Cabe Atwell']
['Technology', 'Pimoroni', 'Hardware', 'Raspberry Pi']