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Rev B assembly & bring-up

A project log for ZeroCool

An active cooling solution for the Orange Pi Zero

chris-slothouberChris Slothouber 05/24/2018 at 17:360 Comments

Although the error-corrected version of my project was delivered by OSH Park a couple months ago, life intervened and delayed progress.

Following the typical order of operation for assembling a small board such as the ZeroCool, I first soldered the smallest devices to the PCB. This includes the passives, the FET, and then the opto. After I salvaging the MCU from the test Rev A board, the micro and the solderless terminals were affixed using hot air.

With an early version of the Rev A firmware still resident on the micro controller, I connected the temperature sensor and fan to the board via their respective terminals. 5V was then applied to the board. Expected behavior was observed; adjusting the bias trimpot resulted in a fan speed change.

Next steps: reprogram the MCU with a more recent firmware that corrects an audible fan whine by moving the PWM frequency outside the audible range.

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