Lars Brinkhoff continues to improve his VT100 simulator software. From one of his project logs:
I'm adding the use of OpenGL shaders to mimic a CRT. This includes effects such as characters built from smooth scanlines, a soft glow around text, and a subtle curvature as a CRT should have.
This stuff looks great! When I began using some of this new code I started seeing the dreaded temperature icon popping up.
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Using the GPU based shaders does increase the thermal load on the Pi, but this is no reflection on the code that Lars is writing. It does however show what a poor job that I did managing heat dissipation. I should have known better given the Raspberry Pi 4's reputation for running hot.
So I did a few things to mitigate this issue. First of all I added heat sinks to the major components.
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More importantly I redesigned the "caddy" I use to hold the Pi 4 in place to be more open and added a small 30 mm x 30 mm x 10 mm blower fan for good measure.
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The original in the upper left was trapping the heat in especially with the RS-232 hat attached. The fan on the new design is attached directly to +5V and GND GPIO pins on the Pi. It runs pretty quietly especially when the top panel is in place on the terminal body.
I have not seen the thermometer pop up since I have made these changes.
I have added the STL file for the Pi holder to GitHub. The fan I used is from Amazon: GDSTIME 3cm 30mm x 10mm 5V DC Brushless Small Blower Cooling Fan, with Dual Ball Bearings
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