Laptop Cooler Design

[JJTortilla]

Hey guys,

 

So I didn't really know where to go with this, but my mind drifted here and so I figured I might as well ask. For a project for my heat transfer class we are designing a laptop cooler, you know, those gimmicky things with usb powered fans. I'm thinking, dumb dumb dumb, blah blah blah, but then the professor says don't worry about making it cheaply, you have to incorporate a heat pipe into the design. Now I'm excited, but I need some real world data, that is what I'm asking for. If anyone out there has a temp gun and Aida 64 that doesn't mind helping a guy out, I'm hoping to get locations of hot spots on the bottom of the laptop and how hot they get. We are designing to keep a 6x6in section of the bottom of the laptop at 60C (roughly, the design hasn't been flushed out yet but the contact pad with the bottom of the laptop is supposed to be in the center), but if most laptops have hot spots off to the sides then our design would be pointless. Also, my laptop has a nice flat bottom to get contact with barring the 4 rubber stand offs at the corners, but we did notice most laptops have strange uneven bottoms, or even grip strips going along the whole length of the bottom raising the whole laptop out of contact (dang it Dell!) I was wondering how common is this on 15.6" models (we are designing for 15.6" and smaller as we assumed an additional external cooling solution wouldn't help a 17")? I don't know if anyone will help out or even how to collect the data, I guess I'll just browse through the comments or maybe create a strawpoll or something later. Thanks to anyone that helps out! And if you have any ideas about better contacting a wider range of weirdly shaped laptops I'd love to hear it!

 

Here is a quick poll I made of the bottom shape question. Thanks for the help guys!

http://www.strawpoll.me/13418058

[Mira Yurizaki]

You can look at notebookcheck.com for various laptop models. They do a temperature test (using a FLIR too) for most of the reviews they do.

[JJTortilla]

Well thx M. Yurizaki. We sent it in today, looks kinda like an xbox 360. lolz. Anyways, I might build it anyways depending on the quote I get for the heat sinks as its pretty perfect for my Asus G501JW. I'll throw a picture of it with the shell and side panel hidden so you can see the basic design. Turned out pretty simple with just heat pipes out to heat sinks and a couple fans. Probably going to add some Reinforcement in the middle to bear the weight, but I can do that later. SUPER expensive, but we weren't supposed to make a cheap one. lolz