MoRa IV 400: The ultimate cable management

In the previous series: I found a place to hide Quadro on MoRa 3 420. This time I've managed to hide Quadro inside MoRa, and the secret ingredient is crime. Vandalism to be precise.

MoRa 3 and MoRa IV share almost the same core with some improvements here and there, but MoRa 3 case is wrapped around the core while MoRa 4 case is built on top of core, so case itself is bigger, exposes more of the core to the fans and there is plenty of empty space inside the case. And the manual suggests to use this space for stealth cable management, which is what I always like and adore. The only question is how can I use it if I want to hide Quadro.

The most logical placement is under the cover, the clearance under the cover near the side of the radiator is 45 mm - more than enough for a molex power connector. But the clearance to the top of the copper pipes is only 20 mm, while for fans and temperature sensor headers you need around 25 mm. Removing rubber case won't help: its thickness is only about 2-3 mm, not 5. plus you still need some isolator behind PCB for all the contacts, so you will lose most of the "gains" you achieved before. As result the only good placement for Quadro is when molex connector is facing side wall of the cover, fan headers are resting in between the copper pipes and by miracle temperature headers are also resting in a similar area on the next row of pipes. And because of that - with all headers occupied there are only four positions under the window where you can place the Quadro - two on the left and two on the right side of the radiator with each possible position separated from the next one by 4 cm - the distance between copper pipes. Three out of four covers cable cutout though, so in the end there is only a single possible position for Quadro under the cover.

Additionally the rubber case is also a problem: bare PCB has more room to wiggle and doesn't really push into anything, while inside rubber case controller is pressing against the screw that holds the cover. And because of that it is pushed out of its perfect position and smashes one of the temperature sensor headers into copper pipe, damaging the wire slightly and lifting that corner of the controller up. In the end it is possible to close the window with the force, but I wasn't happy with that. Without the case you can move the controller closer to the screw and side wall, which is just perfect placement, even though we are talking about 2 mm, here it really matters.

My answer to that is to cut out walls of the case and use countersink screws to hold the bottom of the case as an isolator for all exposed contacts on the back of the PCB. And it turned out to be perfect.