EDATEC launches two fanless cases for the Raspberry Pi 5 SBC

In my review of the Raspberry Pi 5 SBC I noted performance was much improved over the Raspberry Pi 4 but that the board required active cooling with the official solutions (active cooler and case with fan) for optimal performance under load and there weren’t any official fanless cases for the latest Raspberry Pi single board computer.

EDATEC aims to fill that gap with two fanless cases for the Raspberry Pi 5 SBC, namely the ED-Pi5Case-B with a low-profile, but closed design, and the ED-Pi5Case-O open case with two heatsinks placed on the top and bottom of the Raspberry Pi 5.

Both fanless cases are made of aluminum (CNC milled), available in silver or black, and provide easy access to all ports and most interfaces of the Raspberry Pi 5 including the GPIO header, MIPI connectors, PCIe FPC connector, and PoE header. However, the closed enclosure blocks the battery and UART connectors, and both block the fan connector, but it should not be an issue here…

EDATEC claims the ED-Pi5Case-B fanless case (178 grams) can reduce the temperature by 20 to 25°C, while the lighter ED-Pi5Case-O cooling solution (130 grams) can reduce it by up to 15°C, but they did not mention the reference point, so you should probably assume that’s the Raspberry Pi 5 without any heatsink or fan [Update: added temperature charts provided by the company, see end of the post]. Both come with three thermal pads to cover the Broadcom BCM2712 CPU, wireless module, and PMIC like for the Raspberry Pi 5 active cooler, and also add thermal conductive silicon on the bottom of the board.

We’ll also notice a small black plastic window on the top right above for wireless connectivity, and the company states that the case “benefits from strong WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity, enhanced by a semi-transparent wireless window, ensuring seamless communication with your devices” in their marketing material. That’s for the closed design, as the open case does not need that window. The orientation of the case may matter as the wireless signals will be partially blocked, but I’m not sure to what extent it would impact WiFi performance and Bluetooth stability.

EDATEC mostly caters to business customers and offers custom design services, but the company is also selling the ED-Pi5Case-B and ED-PiCase-O on Aliexpress for $18 and $10 respectively, but that’s without the shipping fee which adds close to $20 for the two countries I tried (USA and Thailand)… Further details may also be found on the product page. It’s not the only fanless case for the Raspberry Pi 5, as Flirc unveiled its own Raspberry Pi 5 Flirc case available for pre-order now for $16.95 and shipping by “early December”.

Update November 17. Upon our request, EDATEC ran “stress -c 4” on a naked Raspberry Pi 5, then in the ED-PiCase-O open case, and finally in the ED-Pi5Case-B enclosure and shared the CPU frequency and temperature charts below. All tests were performed at an ambient temperature of 30 degrees celsius.

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.

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