RE: POST 8 A case in point...Red Pitaya STEMlab 125-14 PRO Gen 2 Starter Kit

colporteur — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 23:57:30 GMT

I was going to ignore this anomaly but after opening the case once again today, I felt it was important to put pen to paper. I know the RoadTest didn't include a case so pointing out flaws in design could be consider outside the scope. I had hoped the alignment of the processor and the metal case heat sink tab was something I had done in assembly but it appears not.

I took the thermal conducting pad and place it squarely on the processor and secured the case with screws. The pad is sized to fit right to the edge of the processor. After opening the case I notice the thermal pad overhangs the metal heat sink tab. It does not sit squarely in the middle. At first I thought it was me and ignored the anomaly. When I re-positioned the pad to discover the same issue appeared again I took a closer look and noticed the alignment issue.

How much that misalignment reduces heat dissipation efficiency I'm not sure. Maybe with a position tweak to get better alignment the temperature drop does break ten degrees. Hopefully the vendor doesn't have a lot of cases with no labels sitting on the shelf. Fixing the alignment and printing some labels could be a two for one deal.

RE: POST 8 A case in point...Red Pitaya STEMlab 125-14 PRO Gen 2 Starter Kit

shabaz — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 00:13:33 GMT

I don't like the curvy edge where the RF connectors are. Makes no sense to me (just makes it harder to mate circuitry onto it, when they are at an angle. Difficult enough to screw things on right when they are properly at 90 degrees, and for this sort of board I can imagine some users would want to fit a PCB directly without cables in-between. Other high-speed hardware manages straight connectors, they could have too. Plus makes the enclosure need to also be an annoying shape, so it's a knock-on effect all round.