The Best Raspberry Pi Cases

Status
Not open for further replies.
Nov 12, 2020
1
0
10
Looking at the exploded views of the Argon One case, which is initially very attractive, on online seller sites, none of them showed how the USB-C power port on the RPi board was connected to the power port on the back panel of the case. It turns out that the short answer to this seems to be that it isn't.
A German reviewer of the Argon One, Bengt Steinhauser, on an Amazon seller site pointed out the following in his review:
"To power your Raspberry Pi 4 the power connector connects using the GPIO pins and not by connecting to the USB-C port. The USB-C port remains unused inside the case. This approach has a fatal drawback: If you planned on establishing an ethernet connection via USB-C, it can‘t be done anymore. The data is not transferred via GPIO.

For me this breaks a crucial feature of the Raspberry Pi 4."

Would you regard this as 'fatal' as Bengt says? Or could you do a simple work-around by using a male-female short extension USB-C cord from the RPi board to the power port hole in the case, after unsoldering the Argon One port?
 
Jun 29, 2021
1
0
10
I really like the Argon 40 cases, although I don't have a Neo (your #1 pick)> I have a really old Argon 1 (model V.1, I think) Looks like an M.3 only shorter, and has micro HDMI jacks. I also have an Argon One M.2, complete with a new SSD. This has become my main RP system, complete with an 8GB pi. The other plus with the M.2 (and most of their newer cases) is full-sized HDMI sockets. I'v ruined one pi 4 by somehow munging up one on the micro-HDMI sockets. Now its a candidate for "headless server land".
 

SiberianHamster

Commendable
Apr 5, 2022
3
1
1,515
I have to take issue with your write ups of both the Argon M2 and Pimoroni Aluminium Heatsink Cases. On the M2 you state the CSI port access is through the top. This is untrue, the small gap seen is for exhaust from the fan, you cannot route a CSI cable past the fan without bending it at 90° and having it fail prematurely. Additionally you say 'yes' to µSD card access when in fact you have to remove the base. Conversely the Pimoroni case you state 'CSI and DSI not accessible after case on' but there are cut-outs for both.
Personally these are my two favourite cases, the Pimoroni if I'm using a camera or the M2 with the SATA port.
 
  • Like
Reactions: bit_user
Aug 31, 2022
1
0
10
One that I have finally decided on is the PI52 case. While it is a little higher prices, for SURE it is deinitely one of the ones that REALLY COOLS. Here is the url from amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/ElectroCooki...p&keywords=rasp+pi+case&qid=1661966753&sr=8-8
I have changed from the Aragons to this one. You can get some fans that will also fit in the case for the best cooling.
The url for the fans are here:
https://www.amazon.com/GeeekPi-Rasp...&keywords=rasp+pi+case&qid=1661967111&sr=8-21

So far, these are amazing cases and fans.
 

bit_user

Titan
Ambassador
My wish for 2023 would be some ARM boards in a standard form-factor. It's unfortunate that the 3rd party case market is mostly limited to the Raspberry Pi, when there are so many other (and often better) SBCs out there! And although the Pi has become something of a de facto standard form factor, its port layout is far from ideal for a mini-desktop.

Let's see some nano-ITX and mini-STX boards!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.