Argon ONE V2 Aluminum Case for Raspberry Pi 4 | with Power Button and Fan

Very easy to install and everything lined up perfectly. The aluminum build feels solid and premium. It does a great job keeping the Raspberry Pi cool, even under load. Clean look, good airflow, and no issues so far. Would definitely recommend.

I don't usually write reviews, however I was so impressed with this enclosure that I felt it was appropriate. I purchased one of these enclosures for testing, as I am building a cluster of Pi's for my homelab and wanted something that would look elegant in my server rack. This is the only case I found that I consider nearly perfect. (More on the "nearly" part later). I was immediately surprised at the size and heft of this case. It is quite a bit smaller than I thought, and also much heavier. Upon picking it up, it instills an immediate feeling of quality. The screws go in smooth as can be, and the tolerances are very tight making everything fit exactly as it should. The labeled and color coded extension of the GPIO pins is incredibly useful and easy to access with the magnetic cover which doubles as the intake for the fan. As for the installation, it couldn't have been smoother. It took about 2 minutes and was as straightforward as can be. I spent longer looking for my screwdriver set than I did actually assembling everything. The instruction manual is printed in high quality full color with detailed instructions, and in fluent English. I did have some trouble getting video output at first, but I eventually found this to be the fault of my Micro HDMI adapters not sticking out far enough to make contact with the connector, not a fault of the enclosure. A quick job of cutting the rubber covering on the adapter back about 0.5mm with a razor fixed this problem. Once booted, I installed the power button/fan control software and it worked perfectly right away. The power button functions exactly as stated in the manual, and it is more useful than you might think. One unexpected thing about the enclosure that I liked is that the indicator lights on the Pi are able to shine through the acrylic on the front of the enclosure for a quick status check. My absolute favorite thing about this case is that it routes all of the connections to the back using an extension board. This makes for an extremely clean setup and easy cable management, and makes it look like a real desktop similar to an Intel NUC. Now for that "nearly perfect" part I mentioned earlier. I do wish Argon40 would've taken the opportunity to convert the micro HDMI to full HDMI internally, eliminating the need for adapters. Even if this came at the small expense of size and cost, the convenience would've been well worth it. My other suggestion would've been to eliminate the USB-C power delivery issue that has plagued the Pi4, since it is powering through GPIO instead of the integrated USB-C connector on the Pi. As far as I can tell, the issue still exists and will not power up with "e-marked" USB-C power adapters, or at least not with the power adapter for my Lenovo X1 Carbon. Not a big deal considering the official Raspberry Pi adapters are relatively cheap, but I feel it is a missed opportunity as type C chargers become more ubiquitous. There may be a technical reason for this that I'm not aware of, so I am not knocking any points. My only real complaint? As of this writing on 10/18/19, this case can only be purchased on Amazon as a bundle with a power adapter or with a Pi 4 whereas I bought it on its own without any accessories. I plan to buy a few more of these, but I already have Pi's and power adapters and would rather save a few bucks by buying the case only. TL;DR This case is amazing and you should definitely buy it. In fact, I'll go as far to say that it is the ONLY Pi 4 case you should consider if you don't need to use hat's. I know I'll be picking up a few more.

Effectively everything about the chassis is top marks. Casting is fantastic, supplied board/fan interface- works great (allows I2C speed control over fan). Even in Arizona summer heat, where ambient is 85-90F, the CPU reads < 110 with the fan at 33% or less. In cooler air, I expect the fan wouldnt need to run unless the RPI was under heavy graphical load etc. I dont know how much impact the case has on internal WiFi/BT, since I under wired ethernet and an external Skyconnect module, but the base of the case is quality plastic- and I expect that for typical orientations, signal is fine. There is one sort of frustrating problem. The system uses a breakout board to allow reorientation of the inputs vs headers pins. Its not at all obvious if the pins are mirrored. Example, if you have a daughtercard- RaspbeeII for example where that sits on the left side (SD card side, not USB side) oriented inwards. But because of the way the top clamshell of the chassis is designed, you have access to the pins via a breakout, and you dont know if the board mentioned remains on the left point inwards, which could cause all sorts of problems with case grounding if the board bottom touched the aluminum housing, or if it connects on the right side rotated 180... Maybe I missed a sticker, or maybe this is commonly known, but given the way the cap for the header area works, its implied this is not mirrored and the boards retain the same orientation relative to the chassis as they did relative to the RPI. So, do some checking on pin IDs or voltage before you short something out. Other gripe is that the fan is WAY out of balance to the point it is probably a fatigue problem for the PCB/RPI. This may not be a QA test- but it should be. No reason a small fan should be so far out of balance it shakes a chassis 100x its mass. Easy fix- replace with a new fan- maybe support would send one- mine may be the one in 10000 that slipped through the cracks. Very effective as a cooling platform, and more elegant to have on a bench or desk etc than most...

I was suprised by the quality of the parts. The top of the case is aluminum which serves as a heatsink and comes with silicone thermal pads. There are two daughter boards that serve to reroute the GPIO and hdmi/audio which seem of very good quality. ( nice components, nice welds without burns or traces of flux ) Also included are four stick-on rubber feet. I had a very small fitment issue where the boards are off by a tiny bit but this doesn't interfere with the port openings it just meant i had to squeze a bit until i had put the screws in. I belive this is the cause for the second very small problem, that the case doesn't sit flush and has a slight wobble. These small issues aren't enough for me to remove a star from this product. 9.9/10 Would definitely reccomend.

I had in my mind that this case would be somewhat bigger than it actually is. Perfect well made little case and everything fitted together nicely. Just beware of the pins used by the case for the power button and fan control as the power button uses the same GPIO as the default 1-Wire GPIO pin and the fan uses the I2C bus. The 1-Wire pin can be changed in the Pi’s boot configuration and the I2C bus supports multiple devices so it wasn’t a deal breaker. The Pi runs much cooler now due to the heatsink being integrated into the case which makes for a larger cooling area and I find it is running some 8-10 degrees cooler even without the fan running. Beats any of those stick on heat sinks hands down. My setup is running Docker with Portainer that is running multiple containers of Node-Red and Grafana. It’s yet to break a sweat and have the fan kick in which starts at a default setting of 50C.

Çok memnunun. Öneririm.

Ho un piccolo server acceso 24/7 su un raspberry pi 4, da quando l'ho installato in questo case ho risolto tutti i miei problemi di temperatura! Il case in se dissipa tutto il calore passivamente e la ventolina aiuta nei momenti di maggior carico!

Vorteile: - Einzigartiges, sehr gut durchdachtes Konzept. - Sehr gute Verarbeitung der Metallteile. - Einfache Montage trotz aufwändigem Innenleben (u.a. separate Platine für die Umlenkung der Ausgänge, siehe Produktfoto mit Explosionszeichnung). - Gute Kühlung (für den Pi4 wichtig!) mit mehrstufig frei konfigurierbarem Lüfterverhalten (bei Normalbetrieb reicht die Wärmeabgabe über den Aluminiumdeckel meistens aus). - Alle Anschlüsse an die Rückseite geführt. - Das Gehäuse schützt den Pi perfekt, ist auch sehr gut transportabel. - GPIOs trotzdem vollständig zugänglich (und auf dem Gehäuse super beschriftet). - Bei Nichtgebrauch deckt die magnetische Klappe die GPIOs staubfrei ab, ist aber mit einem Griff wieder entfernt. - Sieht sehr gut und wertig aus. Hübscher Ersatz für einen Desktop-Rechner (wenn man im Leistungsrahmen des Pi4 bleibt) Relative Nachteile: - Größer als die Pi-Platine selbst (unumgänglich wegen des Konzepts, alle Anschlüsse auf der Rückseite zu vereinen), deshalb (für einen Pi) recht "wuchtig" ;-) - Spaltmaß der Kunststoff-Basisplatte nicht perfekt. Diese ist sicher auch nicht ganz so robust wie das Oberteil aus Metall. Hier wäre ein Aluminiumteil konsequenter gewesen. - Preis (relativ) hoch, aber Konzept und Ausführung aufwändig - in meinen Augen insgesamt gutes Preis/Leistungs-Verhältnis Weitere Bemerkungen: - Ich habe keine Probleme mit dem WiFi-Empfang über zwei Stockwerke, aber manche Leute haben wohl bei schwachem WiFi geringeren Empfang als mit Kunststoffgehäusen