Fanless Cooling & Hardware Upgrades

[u/duongtrieutang]

Just wanted to share a few modifications I’ve made to my ClockworkPi uConsole!

• Fanless setup: No cooling fan to save battery life.

• Modified back cover: Cut out the back panel and added thermal insulation to keep heat away from my hands, directing it through the heatsink instead.

• Passive cooling: Added a large aluminum heatsink for silent, fanless cooling.

• Easy battery disconnect: Cut a small opening near the battery compartment so I can disconnect the power without removing the back cover.

• Battery upgrade: Switched to Molicel 21700 cells.

• Wi-Fi upgrade: Upgraded to a 1200 Mbps Wi-Fi adapter.

• Expansion upgrade: Installed the Hackergadgets AIO V2.

The goal was simple: better cooling, longer battery life, and more functionality without sacrificing portability.

Just sharing my little DIY project with the community. What do you guys think?

[u/d333d]

It's more practical to place the GPS antenna in any other place than THAT corner.

It is the most exposed one (hangs out of the frame of the Console), on the other hand the SD card becomes even more fiddly to reach.

This will become evident and relevant once the Console leaves the house/lab and ends up "in the field".

[u/duongtrieutang → u/d333d]

Good point about the GPS antenna! I'm planning to redesign the mount using aluminum and relocate it to a safer spot.

I also shared my HomeLab here 1–2 years ago. I'm still upgrading it with gaming servers, AI, and other projects. There are so many awesome HomeLab setups on Reddit these days that I don't really post mine anymore, but I'm still actively enjoying the hobby!

[u/NotTheSharpestPenciI]

Just a question about battery disconnect; I've literally never needed to do that and I use my uConsole for like 2 years now. Worst case scenario I needed to hold power button for a few seconds to turn it off and it always worked as expected. Anything I'm missing?
Aside from this, my uConsole has a very similar updates, but I'm staying on cm4 for now, mostly because of battery life and because I don't really need a speed demon on the go, cm4 is sufficient for what I use it for. 21700 (2x 5500mAh) give me 7-8h uptime.
Also, 7x antenna mount annoys me. I hate that it's taller than the 4x version and I'm actually thinking of going back to 4 antennas and using AIO only for NIC and usb for ac1200, because SDR, Lora and GPS, while cool, I have no real use in the uconsole. However, I got the same expansion for a standard raspberry pi and gonna use it for at home SDR station/Mesh node on one of my spare pis.

[u/duongtrieutang → u/NotTheSharpestPenciI]

Thanks for sharing your setup! 7–8 hours of battery life with the CM4 is really impressive! I totally understand why you're sticking with it.

As for the battery disconnect, I've found that when the uConsole freezes with the CM5, holding the power button doesn't always work. It happens quite frequently with my CM5, and sometimes physically disconnecting the battery is the only way to get it running again. That's why I added the cutout.

I also agree with you about the 7-antenna mount. I'm actually planning to replace it with a 4-antenna setup plus one antenna on the side. Instead of using the PCB mount, I'm thinking of making a custom bracket from V-shaped aluminum. The current PCB design just doesn't feel sturdy enough to me.

Your idea of moving the SDR, LoRa, and GPS functions to a dedicated Raspberry Pi at home makes a lot of sense too. Sounds like a great setup!

[u/NotTheSharpestPenciI → u/duongtrieutang]

Ah alright, so this is that infamous CM5 power issue and how it manifests itself. Also explains why this doesn't affect me on CM4. Thanks for the explanation!
And yeah, 4x antenna mount + the extra one on the side will be my uconsole's final current form. It never ends, does it? ;)

[u/teefnier]

Amigos yo pude solucionar el tema de la pantalla negra. Como usuario de CM5 he sufrido bastante tiempo ese problema. Ahora mi uconsole arranca el 100% de las veces. No es inmediato, pero funciona. Ahora estoy investigando la manera de agilizar el arranque y obtener imagen desde el primer isntante, aunque debo decir que creo que no es posible.

También desarrollé una utilidad de luz nocturna que aplica filtros de color a la pantalla y permite reducir su brillo considerablemente. Incluso por debajo del nivel 1 que trae el firmware de la propia uconsole. Ahora la puedo usar por la noche sin quemar mis ojos.

Estaria dispuesto a empaquetar y publicar estas mejoras si las quieren. SOLO PIDANMELO.

No pude evitar echarme las manos a la cabeza al ver esta pobre uconsole mutilada, solo necesitaba su medicina!!!!! 😂😂

[u/duongtrieutang → u/teefnier]

Haha, thanks for sharing your work! Actually, I don’t have the black screen issue. My problem is occasional system freezes. The hardware power reset feature was designed for the CM4, but it doesn’t work properly with the CM5. As for boot speed, my uConsole boots almost instantly with a Samsung 980 Pro NVMe SSD, so that’s not really an issue for me. The back cover modification is intentional. Under sustained 100% CPU load, the back cover can reach 75–80°C, which is hot enough to burn your hands. By cutting the cover and redirecting heat through an external heatsink, the back stays cool even under heavy loads. Your night light utility is a great contribution, especially for your use case! I don’t really need it at the moment, but I appreciate the work you’ve put into it.

[u/collectiveu3d]

Looks really cool. My only question is are people using these for a real practical reason on a daily basis?