Argon 1 Review



Recently I setup my own NAS server using a Raspberry Pi 4. So far it has been working nicely, however one thing that has been annoying me is the case.

When I chose the pi 4 (USB 3.0, better performance, etc) I was worried that it would suffer heat issues, since it ran a lot hotter than the Pi 3. Therefore i decided to buy a case which could include a fan. However at the time, Pi4 cases were not common, and the case I chose, although cheap, was not ideal.

The case had a fan which could be included in the case and ran continually. Unfortunately only after a few month the fan now creates an annoying rattle, which the more i hear it, the more it becomes annoying, to the point I have had to disconnect the fan.

Although it has turned out the Pi4 in this application runs less hot than I was expecting, I still wanted some head room, in case I added extra functions which increased performance requirements. Therefore I decided to look for another case. This is where I came across the Argon 1 review. Compared to most Pi cases, this looked robust and neat. Best of all it provided a power button and fan control out of the box, plus a heat sink for both the CPU and memory.

Yes it was a tad expensive, but I decided to go for it. I actually struggled to source one, and had to get it from Germany in the end.

The review


The box itself is actually quite small. The upper part is metal, and feels very sturdy, while the bottom is black plastic. It comes with vert clear documentation on installation and configuration.

The clever part is a small daughter board that plugs into the audio jack and 2 HMI ports and brings out to the front of the case. The USB-C is also brought out, meaning all the interfaces are at the front of the case in a neat package. The Pi itself is inserted into a GPIO pin female socket which presumably connects to the external USB-C slot. A fan is included in the top of the case, put is only turned on when a certain temperature is reached. Initial installation was quite quick, the trickiest part was lining up the  GPIO pins, and it requires a bit of a shove to get it all in. It was only when I had put the Pi, I discovered the cases neatest trick.

Neat Easter Egg


 A panel can be removed from the top of the case, held by two magnetic catches that provide total access to the GPIO pins, which is really neat touch.

Problems, Problems


However it wasn't total plain sailing. It was only when I re-installed the Pi on the NAS server I discovered a a number of issues. My 1st problem was installing the SD card. The case provides a slot in the back, but you can only install the card once the bottom of the case was on. However there is enough of a gap between the SD slot and the case for the card to slip into the case, requiring you to remove the bottom to access it

My 2nd problem was when i re-installed it on the NAS, it would not turn on.  Actually it was hard to know what it was doing, because I could not work out whether I could see the Pi status LED's or not.

In the end it appeared that the case has slightly higher power requirements that the standard Pi, and since it was being powered via a USB hub, clearly there was not enough. Once the Pi got enough power, I could see you could see the LED's through the translucent cover, but I would of preferred if  they had been brought out of the case via light pipes.

However I would recommend that the case bottom is not screwed in until, you are sure everything is working.

Once sorted, things went smoothly and I am very pleased by both the look and function of the case. If I was looking at creating a General purpose Pi computer, I would definitely choose this box.






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