Hi All
I have a few questions about Raspberry Pi 4s and would really appreciate your input.
I work in an environment where, amongst other things, we use Raspberry Pi to run certain devices and instruments. Currently we have more than 200 Raspberry Pi units rolled out across the country and these are mostly made up of Raspberry Pi 3 and 3B's.
At one stage, about 2 years ago, we were looking at moving over to Raspberry Pi 4 units as we were told that the Pi3s were going off the market, and later due to Covid, Pi3 units were more difficult to get. Problem we faced then was that apparently the Pi4 ran much hotter than the Pi3. Thus either a very good fan was needed (Ice fan) if you're using standard plastic case or we had to get a special aluminum case (Flirc) which also acted as a heatsink and no fan was needed.
Our Raspberry Pi 3 units run 24/7/365 and due to the environment, it's not advisable to use fans as it is quite dusty or the Pi units are hidden behind these instruments. We are now revisiting the idea of using the Pi 4 again and need to start development with the Pi 4.
My question for those running Raspberry Pi 4 devices are as follows:
1) Are you experiencing any heat issues running the Pi4?
2) If you have, how have you overcome these issues?
3) Are you running your Pi 4 24/7.
4) Are you using a normal standard Pi case or other plastic case with or without a fan?
5) When I did my research at that time, Flirc cases were not readily availabale in SA so we had to import a few and was limited to 5 per order. Are there any other Flirc type case that you can recommend which dissipates heat easily without the need for a fan?
After a while Pi3/3B stock became more readily available again so we kept using them but due to technical changes we need more powerful units hence the Pi 4.
Your input is very much appreciated.
Thank you.