Review on 🌀 Efficient Cooling Solution: Argon Fan HAT for Raspberry Pi 4 Model B and Raspberry Pi 3 Model B – 40mm Fan with Power Button & Software Control by Brandon Mcvey

Got my first Pi a bit back, read that these Pi4 models can get a little warm. So I took the LAFVIN acrylic case that came with the Pi fan and assembled everything. Before I plugged in the fan, but after I updated and booted the system, I monitored the CPU and GPU temperatures using a command line script and found that the temperature had reached around 58 degrees Celsius. I then connected the fan to supply it with 5V and the temperature quickly cooled down to 30 degrees C. After several hours of setup and installation, I came to the conclusion that the Pi fan was probably working when it wasn't needed, and not only is it making more noise than necessary, but it's also using more power than necessary. Neither of these things were a big deal, so I waited a bit before finding this on Revain. I finally decided to buy it and overall I'm more happy with this variable speed fan than my always on little pi fan fan. Installation was pretty easy and I experimented a bit with temporary breakpoints. I kept adding more and more breakpoints and finally decided to download Stressberry to give it some work to prove that some breakpoints actually work, and they did. Some reviews mentioned that they couldn't get more than 3 speed breakpoints to work. I was able to use the included configuration executable to generate 5 fan temp/speed pairs and then I went into the argononed.conf file (located in ./etc) and edited the file directly to add even more items and it was clear that everything you worked. Now my fan is set to 14 temp/speed! Looking at the python script it seems like there is no hard coded limit. The script uses configuration data such that it finds the maximum temperature in the configuration list that is less than or equal to the current CPU temperature and uses the appropriate fan duty cycle for that temperature. It does NOT interpolate duty cycles between time values in the list. However, since the number of configuration pairs is unlimited, you can make the fan speed change as smooth as you like! That's why I used up so many points - I can get this fan just about anywhere to keep the CPU warm. I want that, and without a noticeable change in speed. As you can see from the attached Stressberry chart, the CPU temperature peaks at around 45 degrees Celsius, and at this temperature the fan is only running at 5%. For those who mentioned that this fan is noisy, try to set some points where you run the fan even at 1%. When the Pi is idle, as it usually is now while I'm typing this, the fan will cycle on and off briefly, and I can see the CPU temp reading between 38 and 40 degrees C. In fact, I can't hear the fan running at all, although the LED and spinning fan indicate it's working; it's much quieter than my laptop, which is on my other side. I've played around with it a bit and learned a few things that might help some newbies in the future, and this applies to the Fan Hat product, not the Argon One case. The hat itself uses some of the pins in the GPIO header to communicate with the Pi. Using this hat may conflict with other hats that also use the same pins. GPIO4 is used for sure, pins for I2C are used too, although I'm not sure what, and that's probably all. The power button on the hat is NOT connected to the Pi's power supply; It's used solely to tell the Pi to turn off, and you still need some other way to actually turn off the power. The power button on the hat is not a substitute for the real power button. The biggest downside for me is that the gender of the GPIO connector isn't changed, and in fact on my Pi case, raising that heading to the top is very welcome. . I'll end up adding some spacers and replacing the body screws to make the stack a little higher so the layers stay flat. Currently the layers on top of the cap are a little crooked, but some proper padding should fix that. The biggest downside I have is that the fan board covers the camera and displayport connectors on the Pi. Since the cooling is efficient as it is, I might try removing the big 40mm fan in that hat, plugging the JST header into a 30mm Pi fan, and a smaller fan with the original case cover to try. Or I can change the original opening in the case cover and leave the 40mm fan as is, but using a smaller fan will likely allow access to the camera port on the Pi, and the performance of the 40mm fan shines to point out that this is an exaggeration. So the fan cools the RPI4 VERY well and you can set the fan very quiet if you take a minute or two to set it up. However, the hat is a bit large and used as is, which prevents connection to the camera connector and displayport connector, and probably also prevents connection to the 4-pin POE pins. If these things don't bother you then I would say this is the perfect RPi4 fan and definitely a great value for the money. Would like more documentation on the hat itself in relation to its interface to the RPi and perhaps a diagram showing that interface. I'm adding the argononed.conf file I created and am happy with. Note that changing the configuration file also requires a restart of the argone fans service to take effect: =139=141=245=550=1052=1554=2056=3058=4060=6062=7064=8065=100