Custom PC - UK (2020-02)

GARETH HALFACREE’S

Hobby tech

The latest tips, tricks and news in the world of computer hobbyism,

from Raspberry Pi, Arduino and Android to retro computing

A

rgon40’soriginalArgonOnecase

fortheRaspberryPi(reviewedin

Issue188)wasclever,butflawed.

Usinganaluminiumupperpartanda plastic

lowerpart,thecaseservedasbothhousing

andheatsink,whilea GPIOextensionboard

provideda smartpowerbuttonand

software-controlledcoolingfan.Therewas

evena daughterboardthatbroughtallthe

Pi’sconnectorsaroundtooneside,finally

solvingtheproblemofmessycabling.

TheArgonOnewasa greatdesign,

butfarfromperfect.Thecoolingfan

waslargelypointless,whilethesmart

powerboard– whichallowsthePitobe

safelypoweredofforresetif it becomes

unresponsive– drewenoughpoweronits

owntocausethe‘lightning-bolt’under-

voltagesymboltobedisplayedwith

annoyingregularity,unlessyousplashed

outonthehigher-power5.25VPSU.

TheArgon1 Pi4,whichalternates

betweenthatnameand‘ArgonOne’

dependingonwhichpartofthe

packagingyou’reviewing,is

Argon40’sattempttorightthe

wrongsoftheoriginaldesign.

Overall,it’shardtotellthetwo

apart.There’sstillanaluminium

upperpartandplasticlower

part,there’sstilla GPIObreakout

witha smartpowerbutton

andcoolingfan,andthere’sstilla

daughterboardtoshifttheaudioandvideo

ports.Thistime,though,thedaughterboard

includesthetwomicro-HDMIportsrequired

fortheRaspberryPi4 family.

A closerlookrevealssomesubtlerchanges.

Theundersideofthealuminiumuppersection

hastwopillarstomateit totheSoCandRAM,

shiftedtoaccommodatethenewlayoutof

theRaspberryPi4.Sadly,though,it’snot

joinedbya thirdpillartocoolthehot-running

powermanagementIC(PMIC)circuitryto

thebottomleftoftheboard.TheGPIOboard

is alsomodified,witha promisetobanish

undervoltagewarnings.

Installationis relativelystraightforward,

althoughfittingtheoversizedthermalpadsto

thepillarsis a littlefiddly.Onceassembled,the

controlsoftwareis downloadedandinstalled

ina singlecommand.Thistimeit alsocomes

witha shortcutonthedesktoptosetthe

REVIEW

Argon 1 Pi 4

CUSTOMISATION / HOBBY TECH

A magnetic cover hides a colour-coded and labelled

GPIO extension

A tweaked version of the Argon One for the

Raspberry Pi 3, the Argon 1 Pi 4 fixes a lot of its

predecessor’s issues