All
I'm using the Pi Juice HAT and this case:?
The case is very well made -- but a tad expensive!
it has one critical flaw -- its thermal performance is awful -- until that is, I added a fan.
Having talked through the thermal performance with the seller here in the UK, he offered to laser cut me a new lid with fan fixings. I'm waiting for that to arrive shortly.
If I'm happy with the new lid, then he will make these fan lids an option with the case.
Having mocked up a lid with a fan, after some experimentation with fan placement, the Pi temperature (measured from the PiJUice HAT battery temp sensor) dropped from 70c to 24c -- which is very acceptable. The fan placement ensures air circulation around the critical Pi components? on the lower board -- as well as the battery on the PiJUice HAT.
One other mod you need to do to accept the PiJuice HAT is to remove the USB power socket from the board. All the connections are doubled up and I've added a pin header to connect power. (The USB connector protrudes beyond the board and this clashes with the fixings to case side dimensions.) I used a hot air tool to remove the USB socket. Be sure to cover the adjacent components in Kapton tape -- to prevent them flowing off the board when you apply heat! (Kapton tape is really cheap on eBay and being self adhesive is easy to use. It leaves no residue when removed)
This sounds daunting -- but its not. You do need a focussed nozzle on your hot air gun. Mine is about 8mm in diameter.
I've also included a really great buck converter inside the enclosure -- so my Pi can be fed with anything up to 18V. It also appears to be very RF quiet. I can't hear any interference under QRP conditions on my KX3 within the Amateur bands. I use:?
By the way, the stock PiJuice battery gives me about 5 hours operation of the Pi4b and takes a bit of load off my 20AH Solar generator setup.
So the nice metal case with its new lid and fan is fed from 12V (from my Solar generator) and being aluminium, should be robust for portable operations.
73
Bruce G4ABX
g4abx