Is there a case for visionfive2 for sale?
Update: Allnet has a case for the VF2
Just by accident I got the acrylic “case” for the VisionFive (1).
It’s basically two acrylic sheets with standoffs. So it means the sides are open.
It’s a bit strange Allnet China stopped selling them (I can’t find it on their website anymore). Perhaps they don’t know it also fits the VisionFive 2. If interested, you might want to send them an email and ask if they are still available (although you probably won’t get a quick answer because of the holidays).
I also have the Radxa Rock 5B, so I know most of the holes on the board are in the same position. So you can also consider the acrylic “case” for the Radxa Rock 5B. Rock5 B Acrylic protector – ALLNET China
Although I wouldn’t use the heat sink and fan, as the pins might block the M.2 slot on the other side. You can probably use a simple heat sink and attach it with a thermal pad.
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It will fit in an odsyee case from seed studio
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If all you need is an acrylic sandwich then you can also DIY it with acrylic sheet, just cut it to size and drill some holes for the mounting posts. My concern would be the heat from the CPU, you definitely want to leave provision for airflow and and heatsink.
One thing you could do if you’re going with the sandwich arrangement is to use something like my hillbilly heatsink in the cooling thread to move the heat from the CPU to above the sandwich and then strap a finned heatsink onto the top of that, sitting above the sandwich. It’ll look a bit ugly but should give decent passive cooling.
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You are slowly convincing me that “hillbilly” means intelligent 
It’s borrowed from the military, where the term hillbilly armor arose around 15 years ago:
The humorists of the front call their makeshift shielding hillbilly armor.
I liked the term hillbilly heatsink because of the alliteration.
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I received my VisionFive 2 today.
If there is any desire, I can custom design an acrylic case similar to other types used on original VisionFive board. I operate out of USA. Have various colors of acrylic and standoffs on hand. Can customize for different fan sizes and personalize (engrave names, etc)
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I have ordered the enclosure, but i cannot recommend the device.
The main problem is that the cutout in the top panel does not match the position of the heatsink. So you can not mount it. The holes for mounting otherwise fit.
The bottom panel has grooves, which is a very good idea, but unfortunately they do not match the location of the NVMe.
The “case” comes with a heat sink, which fits, too, and includes termal pads. Its fasteners get along with the NVMe.
Overall i like the design very much, @LivingLinux, thank you for pointing this out. At least i got a matching heat sink this way and i feel it was worth trying.
Since you can also buy custom made for a reasonable price, e.g. from https://www.plattenzuschnitt24.de/, i consider this, now. But this needs of course precise geometry of the board, which i did not find in the documention. Has anyone seen a dimensioned illustration?
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I am planning to 3D print a case I saw here: Printables
I like how it has options for vented/non-vented, fan/no fan, etc.
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Hmm, please have a look at the picture https://shop.allnetchina.cn/products/rock5-b-acrylic-protector?variant=39877626396774.
At least this heat sink would not fit into the enclosure you plan to print. I suggest not print a case as long as you have not run the board under the load you want to use it later. For me, running a kernel compilation is a measure.
I have a 4GB version of the board and no swap space installed, yet, and just running my first kernel compilation on it one core, which takes quite a while. Not sure, whether i’ll better prefer a make -j (using all cores), later.
That is a valid concern. I am using a small heatsink/fan that is about the same height as the USB ports, so I think it will be OK. But the nice thing is the model files can be modified to add clearance for any cooling solution you’d like to use. I might eventually customize it to add an LCD display on the top… 
I tried the large passive heat sink now compiling the kernel with make -j8, i.e. using all cores for slightly over half a hour. Temperature was continuously rising through the process but was at a maximum of +63.1°C. Thus for passive cooling a large heat sink is positively needed imo.
I have no plans to recode videos on the device, which would additionally activate the floating point processors for an extend time, say days. Only in such cases, an active cooling appears to be needed, which i try to avoid since i’m scared of the noise they could possibly make.
Even such heavy loads could be handled well by passive cooling, like e.g. cirrus 7 - fanless PCs, by combining heat sinks and enclosures.
Protection against dust and mechanical damage is more or less equal in both cases, i think. The advantage of the transparent case is, that one might see the dust more easily.
The 3D print certainly has the advantange of really enclosing the board, which in particular is nice, if you want to hide its interior. But i for one more like to expose it, to emphasize the technical nature of the board, sort of. 
So a transparent, acrylic enclosing like the one above is more suiting for my taste. Additionally, they have left the IO pin expansion header available.
Adding a LCD display would be a nice use of the MIPI. Do you have any particular display in mind? Hmm, air flow could become an issue, it the display is mounted on top. So something like https://www.amazon.de/Freenove-Touchscreen-Raspberry-Capacitive-Driver-Free/dp/B0B455LDKH could be a possible construction.
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The SoC will easily maintain very low temperatures with even the smallest amount of airflow - no heatsink is required. I max out ~48C with a quiet 12V 80mm fan running at 5V.
For my acrylic case I plan on having 80mm and 60mm fan variants. I can also do LCD display variants if I have dimensions for mounting, or just keep it empty and the end user can mount it. I’ll try to have a prototype up by next weekend.
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Very interesting. The Rock 5 B case came with M2.5x6+6 screws for the lower plate, which works, but is a bit too tight at the nvme for my taste. I did not replace them, yet, though I have longer screws at hand. Perhaps, because i do not yet know about the temperature of the nvme.
As i wrote, they made a dozen short ventilation slots or so in bottom plate, basically covering the region where the nvme sits. Not sure if this really helps the airflow.
Perhaps i overestimate the noise produced by a fan. I also have the second variant of the Rock 5 B, that with a small fan (4x4x1cm) here, which is to be mounted on board. If you or anyone else want, i can try that too, and report about the temperature and noise produced. (This variant does not match the board geometry, too, btw. meaning the hole for the fan is misplaced by 1 cm or so when used with the VF2).
Hmm, 6 or even 8 cm means, the fan can not be mounted on board, but must be fixed on the upper plate? I for one am very interested in your solution and look forward for your prototype.
Not realy.It only fits on one screwing,and you can´t access the SD Card Slot.
But does the job.
2 screws work. diagonal. And i was able to access SD fine, but you do have to pull the cover i agree, but its magnetic, its not like that is a huge ordeal … But if you dont like that, there are tons of SD extenders with ribbon cable.
If only having 2 screws bothers you ( i had 2 standoffs as well and im fine with that, its stable and tied down ) its trivial to drill 2 more holes.
If it helps, here are the 2 mount points i used. The other 2 were just spacers.
I plan on using m2.5x9 spacers for the bottom plate. Should give enough room for NVMe. I don’t expect high end use of NVMe on this platform so this space should provide enough cooling for drive use. For aesthetics, I was not planning on slots. If slots are desired, this can be an option.
Re: fan, a 40mm fan will likely have a more prominent sound signature than a larger fan running at low RPM. The 80mm fan I am using is inaudible running at such low speed.
Yes, exactly. Using an 80mm fan will make the assembly quite thick, but that also makes it more stable if kept upright. This large of a fan also makes using the GPIO more difficult, but it is possible to position the fan to still allow access to the boot jumpers and UART IO. 60mm fan will allow full use of GPIO. For people OK with passive cooling, the overall mount will be thinner and allow for ~18mm total height heatsink.
Do you plan to mount the fan below or above the upper plate?
The plan was to allow mounting either way:
- if above, then fan should have fan grille mounted
- if below, then bracket would be >40mm away from board. this would “hide” the fan as compared to mounting above and would likely look more aesthetically pleasing
60mm fan would be similar, as it’s still too large WxL to easily fit. I would like to offset it over the ports to allow use of the GPIO header.
By the way, i found an instrument to actually measure the nvme temperature:
# apt-get install nvme-cli
# nvme nvme smart-log /dev/nvme0
...
temperature : 47°C (320 Kelvin)
...
I repeated building the kernel with make -j8 and monitored the temperatures using a script:
#!/bin/bash
while true; do
T_CPUS=`sensors | grep temp | sed 's/^.*://'`
T_NVME=`nvme smart-log /dev/nvme0 | grep temp | sed 's/^.*://'`
echo `date --rfc-3339=seconds` :: cpus: $T_CPUS nvme: $T_NVME
sleep 60
done
Main result is, that the temperature of the nvme follows that of the cpus under load by an offset of approximately 10°C. As maximum, i got: cpus: +63.4°C nvme: 54°C.
This is in a passive cooling construction with does not allow much (if any real) airflow for the nvme. Idle temperatures are about: cpus: +48.8°C nvme: 47°C.
Thus nvme temperature appears to absolutely uncritical under this load. I think, the nvme’s temperature is more driven by the cpu’s one, since both components are spatially connected.
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