DIY Banana Pi Fan Cooling System from PC Parts

Why Stay Cool?

I know some of you would rather be hot, but lets face the fact, hotness breaks stuff, degrades the SoC, and lowers overall performance and stability. If you are running your Banana Pi 24/7/365 with some decent task load, then you should considering DIYing yourself a cooler.

This Things is a Click Away

I know heat sink are selling for a cheap price on the internet. But I didn't really feel like I will be needing it, so I just made this cooling system for fun from my DIY laptop cooler two years ago. 

Steps - Easy

Just tape your fan to the back of a Banana Pi case. The acrylic case has air vents, but the plastic one does not, so just take the case off when it comes to that. 

Connect the two wires to 12V electricity. Just wire batteries in a series if you just want to see it for fun. Otherwise, solder it onto a 4 pin connector and connect computer power supply to it. 

Testing

nano /sys/devices/platform/sunxi-i2c.0/i2c-0/0-0034/temp1_input

This shows you the temperature sensor on the Banana Pi, M1 at least. It is not the actual SoC temperature, but it is a somewhat less reliable way to see how cool your Banana Pi is. We are trying to cool everything, not just the SoC in this case.

Divide by 1000 to get degrees Celsius.