The Raspberry Pi Foundation just released the Raspberry Pi 3. It’s a full computer, as small as a credit card, and can be purchased from online sites including Element14 and RS Components. Its specs include 1.2GHz 64-bit quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 CPU, 802.11n Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth.
This tiny machine is, as mentioned, is a full running desktop PC. But can the Rasberry Pi overheat? It sure can. Any electronic device placed in a space with low air flow, or where the heat is not being moved off the chip will result in a situation where the junction temperature of the chip eventually exceeds its design limit. Overheating and system degradation soon follows.
But would the use cases for the Rasberrry Pi 3 put it into a situation like that? Yes! It is being used for everything from:
- Teaching coding
- Creating crazy hacks, such as turning this old Xbox controller turned into a gaming console.
- Real time process control monitoring to manage processes in a manufacturing plant
- Run Windows 10 Embedded and Build a small super computer
There is a host of things one can do with a little imagination and know-how with the Raspberry Pi. And since the computer is affordable, it’s a great system to really learn on and experiment with.
But let’s address the cooling question, the thermal management of this embedded little wonder. In the video, You-tube channel Explaining Computers runs a cpu and gpu testing on the Raspberry Pi3, then fitting a heat sink and testing again!
