Welp, I don't know how I did it, but I managed to fix the issue. it really was the recalbox-user-config.txt. I made sure to delete all my userscripts, pasted in this code in the user config: dtoverlay=gpio-fan,gpiopin=14,temp=60000 and connected my resistor wire to the corresponding GPIO pin and now it works exactly how I want.

I started noticing the fan was actually starting and stopping while the box was on after moving everything to a new SD card. I don't think it was the card that fixed it as I copied everything in both the recalbox and share drives to the new image, overwriting everything with my configs. The only difference is I removed the bash and python scripts I was experimenting with in the userscripts folder. The user-config still had the previous line of code and actually started working.

I still had one problem as I was still using GPIO 3 instead of 14, and the fan would stay on if I quit recalbox through the menu instead of a hard power down by holding down the button. Switching to GPIO 14 like I originally wanted and updating the code to match the pin fixed this, thankfully. Now I have a properly functioning mini fan that came with the case.

Tl;Dr;

If you buy a Geekpi case for Raspberry Pi 5, buy a EZ fan2 for it with some extra wires. Install the 5v and ground wires into pins 4 and 6 like the Geekpi instructions say, and add your new resistor wire to pin 8 (GPIO 14).

654d39e7-7853-4b1a-bb9a-1af511f4bd58-image.png

Set up your recalbox as recommended, doing the first time boot and setup so it creates the needed files.

Open up your recalbox-user-config.txt located in the root of the RECALBOX drive either on your computer or via a network.

Paste in dtoverlay=gpio-fan,gpiopin=14,temp=60000 in a free line.

#Add a comment line above the code like this to write down it's the fan control code if you'd like

reboot

And that should work. I will experiment to see if why it didn't work for me before might have been because I wrote 55000 for the temp and that was too low or not, but I'm satisfied with 60 degrees as a trigger.

I will also quickly mention that the EZ fan2 does fit in the rather compact case. Just tuck it under the board with the wires in an "S" shape.

geekpi wiring.jpg

I still think it would be nice if there could be a GPIO fan control menu in emulationstation like Raspberry Pi OS has, but I managed to work around it.

Thanks for listening and hope this helps someone in the future.

Solve it!!!
Recalbox is not include in CASE MANAGEMENT the Hat Recalbox RGB Dual, so, the 4 options showed don´t work.
Why? because Recalbox RGB Dual use GPIO 26, it is not usual for Fans beacuse is not a PWM pin, so the fan works as ON/OFF, is not progressive, but better than fix the fan to 5 or 3.3v.

To do it you need to add this in recalbox-user-config.txt
dtoverlay=gpio-fan,gpiopin=26,temp=55000

May be the recalbox masters can add Recalbox RGB Dual Hat in CASE MANAGEMENT options in the next update 🙂

Thanks guys

@vandorian See if this helps:

@lax bah tu peux pas... Un .exe, c'est un exécutable Windows, et y'a pas d'émulateur Windows dans Recalbox.

fanshim nécessite le module apa102 qui s'installe facilement (ce n'est qu'un fichier py).

Par contre apa102 nécessite spidev que je n'arrive pas à installer :
https://github.com/doceme/py-spidev

Bonjour @MickLaBrique

merci pour ton retour, ce problème nous a été signalé. La team toujours encore sur Paris aujourd'hui, vont regarder à leur retour. 😉

Sujet verrouillé, dès que nous aurons un solution je reviendrai vers toi.

@IntegRa
if it can helsp, please find here below my specific XU4 setting to have XU4 fan running all the time according a smooth "curve".
May be possible to adjuted depending on your fan builtin quality.
Settingof S02fan :
0_1574527848120_2019-11-23-FAN-XU4.PNG

Graph :
0_1574527869579_2019-11-23-FAN-XU4-GP.PNG

Personnellement je me suis pas embêté, j'ai soudé le ventilo sur une prise USB. Comme ça, quand le Raspberry s'arrête, les ports USB ne sont plus alimentés, et donc le ventilateur ne tourne plus

@Sergio-Villanueva
If you have a fan that just switch on over a certain temperature, this fan will switch off automaticly by hard or soft shutdown. I just planned to set this up in the next days.

@leok I think 35 ºC is a "low" temperature for RPi. Here, with one fan running all the time, it keeps arround 48 ºC.

@davidwrightini yeah : add resistors 🙂 the pi just outputs TTL, not PWM. Or maybe plug it on 3.3V