ANTENNA MOD:
I modded some u.FL to SMA connectors so they’d fit in the limited case space. I also slapped some aluminum tape and polyamide/kapton tape on them to help shield the RF & Ground.
You have to line the holes up in this area so they’re inline with the gap in between battery and motherboard. Technically the folding metal stand still fits in the closed position (if you line the flat side of the SMA nuts parallel with the stand). But the Antenna’s also act as a stand themselves, I’m no longer using the stand. Both antennas are made for 4G/LTE bands, but as-is, give me a ~70% signal strength on WiFi from a router 25ft behind two walls. I’ll get a dedicated antenna for WiFi soon. The cellular antenna has doubled the signal I get from place to place (though I’m running into software issues with actually connecting for internet. I made a thread for it, help!).
COOLING MOD:
3mm thick, 8mm wide, 80mm long heat-pipes, thermally glued to the case in a pattern that spans to cover the A-06 below it. I tried to source pipes to fill the whole back cover area, but this was the cheap vs efficient option i had available (already had the heat pipes). The stock thermal pad is ~5mm thick. With the the offset of 3mm on the pipes, I cut out a square of 2mm thermal pad to interface with the heat pipes.
While it’s still passive cooling, I find I get ~5C cooler temps running all cores on heavy tasks, and overall get ~5-8C cooler temps doing light work. And the time heat drops after a sudden increase in heavy processing/heat, is much quicker.
I have half a mind to add proper heat sink with fins on the back (maybe cutting a slot for it, so it’s no longer using the case to dissipate heat), but this set up works for how I use the uConsole so far. I also am looking at slapping a USB 2.0 Hub on the backside to extend the singular port on the side. But, if the 4G module continues to give me headaches, I may look into that alternate USB expansion board someone else produced.
