NanoPC-T4 Fan interface

[alotje]

I've bought a fan to experiment with the NanoPC-T4. The connector is the same as the one shown in the image below:


Unfortunately, although already quite small the connector is way to big to fit the NanoPC-T4:




What kind of fan connector should I be looking for?
Second question: does the NanoPC-T4 support RPM control (i.e. low temp = no fan spinning, temp above X degrees = fan spinning)?

[Patrick]

I ended up just going with this Fan. The price was good and it's really super quiet. It's not running off the T4 as intended, but it does keep things cool.

[NicoD]

You can use this fan if you use jumber wires.
The black wire is negative, and the middle wire is positive.
Then connect negative wire to ground, and the positive to a 5V pin.

Like this.

[Darkcast]

Wish the specified the type of connector like a micro or nano JST or something

[NicoD]

Wish the specified the type of connector like a micro or nano JST or something

They do on the wiki.
It's a BM03B-GHS-TBT connector.
http://wiki.friendlyarm.com/wiki/index.php/NanoPC-T4
Check at the pin-out of the fan connector.

[Darkcast]

Wish the specified the type of connector like a micro or nano JST or something

They do on the wiki.
It's a BM03B-GHS-TBT connector.
http://wiki.friendlyarm.com/wiki/index.php/NanoPC-T4
Check at the pin-out of the fan connector.

awesome man you the best
btw I never seen that connector in my life, do you know where I can get a fan with that type of connector ?

[NicoD]

awesome man you the best
btw I never seen that connector in my life, do you know where I can get a fan with that type of connector ?

I think this is it. But I'm not completely sure. I can't see the connector well enough. It is a pwm fan at 12v, so if it doesn't fit you could always put the right connector on it.

Don't buy it, shipping isn't good at all. I'm looking for another one. Can't find much.
https://wholesaler.alibaba.com/product- ... 1e7at5aPV8

[NicoD]

awesome man you the best
btw I never seen that connector in my life, do you know where I can get a fan with that type of connector ?

I think this is it. But I'm not completely sure. I can't see the connector well enough. It is a pwm fan at 12v, so if it doesn't fit you could always put the right connector on it.

Don't buy it, shipping isn't good at all. I'm looking for another one. Can't find much.
https://wholesaler.alibaba.com/product- ... 1e7at5aPV8

Maybe best to buy a 5V fan and power it with the gpio's. I need the name of the female connector, but almost no information can be found on it.

[Darkcast]

awesome man you the best
btw I never seen that connector in my life, do you know where I can get a fan with that type of connector ?

I think this is it. But I'm not completely sure. I can't see the connector well enough. It is a pwm fan at 12v, so if it doesn't fit you could always put the right connector on it.

Don't buy it, shipping isn't good at all. I'm looking for another one. Can't find much.
https://wholesaler.alibaba.com/product- ... 1e7at5aPV8

Maybe best to buy a 5V fan and power it with the gpio's. I need the name of the female connector, but almost no information can be found on it.

That's my whole problem, they put the strangest connector in the world which fans are not made with and now I have to buy a fan and the connector to make them myself.. Why they didn't just use a normal fan connector.

[NicoD]

That's my whole problem, they put the strangest connector in the world which fans are not made with and now I have to buy a fan and the connector to make them myself.. Why they didn't just use a normal fan connector.

I think the BM03B-GHS-TBT male connectors were at a discount because nobody else buys these things.
Maybe afterwards they found out that nobody makes the female connectors for them so `t sell fans with it. I only found the male, I searched for the female to be able to compare.

I don`t know.

A 5V fan with the 5V gpio and GND does the job too.

[v8dave]

The mating connector is a JST part number GHR-03V-S and stocked by Digikey along with crimp pins although I would suggest getting the jumper leads and using those by soldering onto existing wires as the tooling for the crimps is likely to be expensive.

https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/ ... -ND/807815

If you want the crimp tool, it's here but check the price.

https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/ ... ND/5052067

[Tinderbox (UK)]

On a side note.

What is the thickness of the thermal pad that comes with the T4, I bought an "Innovation Cooling LLC IC Graphite Thermal Pad" but it`s too thin and fell out before i even powered up with the stock heatsink screws tight, I thought of doubling it up but it`s really slippery and will not stay in place.

I suppose i would have to buy a copper shim if i wanted to use thermal paste.

Thanks

John.

[starman345]

A new design heatsink and fan combo is available for the NanoPC-T4 from Friendlyarm
https://www.friendlyarm.com/index.php?r ... uct_id=263

I've had it ordered for about 3 weeks now, still waiting for delivery

[Tinderbox (UK)]

I ordered one of these fan/heatsinks (waiting for delivery only been 5 day`s) as well, I have the steel case and the temp are hitting 70/80c

Looks like it only has the two power wires, No fan speed wire or fan speed adjust wire.

I just hope the fan is quiet.

[v8dave]

Looks like it only has the two power wires, No fan speed wire or fan speed adjust wire.

You only need 2 wires for speed control with PWM. The 3rd wire is usually a pulse output from the fan that is used to determine the fan speed.

[Tinderbox (UK)]

Fingers crossed you are right and the fan speed can be adjusted, Though a fan that speeds up and down can be more noisy than a constant speed one as you get use to the sound.

Will have to wait and see how noisy it is.

[crsp]

Have you got a fan working using Armbian Bionic?

[WZ9V]

I tried using the WiringPi package from the NanoPC-T4 wiki on Armbian and I could not get the fan to start. The wiki says GPIO4_C6 which I assumed was actually GPIO1_C6 in gpio readall. gpio mode 4 pwm won't enable PWM on that pin so I instead set it to output but neither 0 nor 1 make the fan turn on.

I found some commands in Armbian forum that could be run as root that actually did make it run

# export the PWM1-pin
$ echo 0 > /sys/class/pwm/pwmchip1/export

# setup PWM (5% duty-cycle)
$ echo normal > /sys/class/pwm/pwmchip1/pwm0/polarity
$ echo 100000 > /sys/class/pwm/pwmchip1/pwm0/period
$ echo 5000 > /sys/class/pwm/pwmchip1/pwm0/duty_cycle

# enable the PWM output
$ echo 1 > /sys/class/pwm/pwmchip1/pwm0/enable

[Tinderbox (UK)]

I just received the "Cooling Set for NanoPC-T4" i had ordered, It took 18 days to the UK.

I installed it, the heat-sink is a lot beefier that the included one and comes with a 1mm thermal pad.

It installed without any problems, I booted they T4 and the fan started spinning for a second and then stopped, I wonder what was going on, I found out the fan only activates when the soc gets hot, that`s approx 50c or 122F

Nearly forgot, I am running Android v8.1 - Hopefully the fan control is in the bios and is interdependent of the OS.

The Fan is silent at least mine is.

John.

[igorp]

is in the bios

There is no BIOS on those little ARM boards.

[WZ9V]

Is the pin used for the fan exposed to the WiringPi library on the website? I've been trying to control it that way because it would be easy. If not can someone point me to to example of how I should approach it from python or C?

[v8dave]

Is the pin used for the fan exposed to the WiringPi library on the website? I've been trying to control it that way because it would be easy. If not can someone point me to to example of how I should approach it from python or C?

Not sure about the software support but looking at the schematic for the T4, the following is used for the fan.

GPIO4_C6 is the PWM output. This drives the base of a transistor to switch the +12V to the fan under PWM control. Of source, a fixed output will just turn the fan on at full speed.

GPIO2_A6 is the TACH input from the fan, if it supports this output.

[WZ9V]

Yeah that's what they have in the Wiki. Doing some digging I've since learned that WiringPi tends to only expose the pins on the GPIO header. So rather than doing it easy peasy with that I have to figure out how to get directly to the fan pin. I found a couple of examples of how to do it with kernel calls that I can experiment with once I figure out the names.

[v8dave]

This link about GPIO on rhe RK3399 and the kernel might help you.

http://wiki.t-firefly.com/en/AIO-3399J/driver_gpio.html