Banana Pi BPI-R4 opensource Wifi7 Router product design
Banana Pi Opensource Wifi7 Router base on BPI-R4, new case and Heat sink sheet inside. will comming soon, are you want one??
Stop releasing flawed products. The Wi-Fi 7 BE14’s signal issues are not caused by thermal problems in the first place. Simply changing the case and continuing to mislead customers is unacceptable.
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Sorry, but I would prefer the other case presented. Compact is all well and good, but not always helpful. I’d rather wait for the other case with integrated power supply…
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→ It would be nice to see some pictures from the inside (“new case and heat sink sheet”).
How about cooling for the SFP? And how do you get the heat out of the box?
In general, why do you need a bigger case? → I didn’t see a concept for “ventilation slots.” Sucking air in from one side and pushing it out the other would be great. But I would actually prefer sucking it in from the bottom and releasing it at the top.
I’d like to have a full-metal case (for shielding and cooling simultaneously). What do you think about that?
I’d prefer the OpenWrt One style since you can keep the body unchanged and just replace the back panel to support both 1 SFP POE and 2 SFP layers.
Pushing air from the sides seems a good solution though. I wonder if brass pipes to remove heat couldn’t double also as noise attenuator.
To be honest, the available cases for the R4 don’t meet my basic expectations.
Most router cases are made of plastic because of the effective internal shielding.
So, a modular case made of acrylic or a flame-retardant plastic would be a reasonable option.
Trapping heat inside is definitely not a good idea…
I have a reason for my opinion:
For every 10 °C increase in temperature, the lifetime of electronic components is roughly halved.
For example:
- At 40 °C, the expected lifetime might be around 10 years.
- At 50 °C, the lifetime drops to about 5 years.
- At 60 °C, the lifetime is reduced to approximately 2.5 years.
That’s why I’m not convinced by these metal enclosures.
When I first saw the front panel, I also supported the idea — but it turns out it’s more about recycling an old case than properly addressing shielding and cooling.
It’s really disappointing to see this 
I’m not sure where you got those numbers, but I’ve had an MT7986 device at 65-70C for almost 3 years now with no issue. Suggesting that all chips conform to this would not be accurate imo. It will greatly vary from chip to chip, process to process.
This was just an example!
Sure, if this board lasts 20 years, the numbers will look different 
The “10 °C rule” is an engineering rule of thumb — not an exact law, but a widely accepted approximation based on empirical data.
If you’re planning to sell a product, you need to perform proper reliability testing. For semiconductors, there are established standards like JEDEC or MIL-STD that define test procedures a product must successfully pass.
So, various stress tests are required — and the product must pass them reliably.
I hope you can understand and accept that…
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Metal is an heat conductor and this kind of cases dissipate heat better than plastic ones that I know.
If you like plastic cases usually acrylic ones are also available for few Euros (or you can even 3D print them from scratch in a couple of hours if inclined to that, like I did for the F3).
I do not have yet an R4 so I couldn’t experiment directly and see. The R4R3-mini case works fairly decently for me, but it is dissipating heat to a metal structure where it is so I understand that the mileage may vary.
@sinovoip Really? Do you think that main problem is a case? I think it is not honest to sell be14 with wifi power probems. Make wifi worksl
“Metal is an heat conductor and this kind of cases dissipate heat better than plastic ones that I know.”
Please keep in mind: you have to look at this from different perspectives :
Cooling ↔ Shielding
I. Non-metallic
The acrylic case (AliExpress) is for people who want something nice-looking and cheap — mainly to prevent accidental touching. The 3D-printed case I saw for the R4 on the Banana Pi forum can also provide some cooling (touch protection + cooling).
But there is no shielding! You should only use this if you’ve already shielded the main parts of the board.
II. Metallic
Yes — metal is a good thermal conductor. But air is not! The standard R4 metal case is designed more for shielding (against external interference) than for heat dissipation (except for the BE14 thermal pad solution).
Because of the CPU fan, the air is mixed… so the metal case surface can still provide some heat exchange.
However — you also need to shield the individual Wi-Fi chips from each other. This case doesn’t do that.
So, this case is mainly for:
- Touch protection
- Shielding against outside signals
- Passive cooling via the case
Usually, shielding is placed directly over the chips:
- To protect against external interference
- To shield them from each other (very important)
If that’s in place, you can use a plastic case with plenty of ventilation holes 
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I see two possible solutions:
a) A big heatsink without cans, but with electrically conductive foam to make a GND connection and form a Faraday cage:
The heat-generating components are connected thermally with a thermal pad (reduces mechanical stress from temperature changes).
b) Cans with ventilation holes, electrically conductive foam between the cans and the heatsink, plus thermal pads:
“I do not have yet an R4 so I couldn’t experiment directly and see. The R4-mini case works fairly decently for me, but it is dissipating heat to a metal structure where it is so I understand that the mileage may vary.”
You mean the R3-mini, right?
Maybe it’s also for the BE19 — but there are no pictures of the inside.
What is this router board in the photo?
Yes, I made a typo 
Picked up a $50 aluminum ITX case with ventilation on all sides — sleek, compact, and excellent airflow. No more problematic Wi-Fi . Also added Two RTL8126 5GbE NICs for bypass use.
“No more problematic Wi-Fi”
→ shielding is for noise reduction …
→ cooling
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You can get mostly all pictures from https://fccid.io/
first one is W1700K an second is asus (do not remember …)
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But this is also only “outer” shilding like the bpi-case,or am i wrong? So only better cooling because of ventilation holes.
How does the itx case fix the wifi issues?
Where are the antennas and how are the antenna cables routed?
Or does ‘no more problematic wifi’ mean not using it?
Yes, it was a bit too short answer 
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It is “just” shielding from the outside (not on the PCB).
But hey, it’s better than plastic
I think he wanted to underline that he has no heat issues with the Wi-Fi BE14 ?
I’m just a layman on this topic. But even R3 has separate shielding possibilities for 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz.
This is why I’m a bit astonished about the BE14 shielding possibilities…
…surely, the shielding “king” is the BE19.