So I had some free time this vacation and this is basically what happens when I have free time: a new project and a thread about it 
. This one dealt with the high temps coming from my 7800GTX and the overall higher temps in the laptop and the lack of airflow within it.
The concept:
The result:
Basically:
It's a laptop dock with a cooling fans and it can all be powered by the laptop. The base 1/8" thick aluminum (2" and 1/2" L-shaped). The laptop prop is 2 1/4" PVC piping. The metal was primed twice with oil-based white prime and then coated 4-5 times with black, "hammered" texture rustoleum paint. The PVC pipe was painted with the same black paint. The fan on the left is an 80x80x15mm 5V fan and the fan on the right is a 60x60x25mm 12V fan (more on that later). The fans were wired to be rub of USB 5V power.
The Work Log -
The fans, sleeving, and heatshrink wrap were all ordered from www.jab-tech.com (they moved out to oklahoma, they used to be right next to me
). I then took a skip down to the Home Depot (local gigrundous hardware/home improvement warehouse) and got the aluminum, screws, nuts, countersink, primer, paint, zip ties, no-slip stick pads, etc. Here's the goods:
I then got to it downstairs and started cutting the aluminum. I chose aluminum due to its light weight while retaining its strength. Also, it doesn't rust, so no worries about chips
. Here's the measured and marked aluminum:
After trying to fasten the first two pieces of aluminum together, I realized that it was hard as a bitch to get the screws in. Also, they wouldn't even go in the whole way. I asked my Dad and he said "get a tap," so off to True Value we went. The screws used are 5mmx12mm. Since Home Depot only had 12 in the entire store, when I stripped the first two, more were needed. We found 5mmx16mm at the store, which were a little too long, so we bought cap nuts for them too. The tap we bought was a 5mm carbide pimpstick
. Then we swung over to radioshack and picked up a ColdHeat solder gun (very awesome, more on that later). Here's my Dad trying out the new tap:
After we got the tap, things went very smoothly. The basic procedure was square the corners, clamp it, drill and countersink one hole, tap it, put the screw in and into the wood, drill and countersink the other hole, tap it, put the screw partially in, unscrew the other screw partially, screw both screws through, put the washers and nuts on them, and then finally tighten both screws. Here I am squaring the corner and here's another pic of how the clamping was done:
Here's a pic of me measuring out the spacing for the middle piece. The two PVC joints were the original concept, but I realized later on that it'd be too difficult to cut them the way I would need them, so the idea was scrapped.
Here's the middle piece clamped while the last four screws go in:
And the base is done:
I then sanded the entire base with some "fine" grain "metal" sand paper. It was actually damn course in my book (from someone used to polishing heatsinks and cars with 1500grit) at 180grit. I then wiped the base down with 91% isoprophly alcohol and applied the first coat of prime:
Here's the painting set up (occurred in the root cellar of the house, used mainly to store pool supplies and what not):
Basically it went in a coat, dry, coat, dry fashion. The space heater is on the low power 750watt setting as to dry the paint but not mess it up due to intense heat. Sanding was done between coats as needed.
In between coats, the fans were prepared
. I first cut the 3 pin heads off them and then cut off the RPM wire (yellow) close to the base. I then cut that wire in half and used it as an extension on the ground and power wires to make sure they'd reach the back of the laptop. The second pic is of the USB head. I got them from this Walmart pack of USB heads for an interchangeable travel USB kit. The pic basically illustrates how damn small it is (it sucks to have big hands on these kind of things 
). The third pic is of the whittling process.
Here I am soldering the wires to the USB pins:
The wires were soldered, then the flex sleeving was fit over, then the heat shrink wrap, then the pins were finally put into and anchored into the USB head. Then I positioned the heatshrink wrap and cooked it over our wood stove. Also while the was going on, I cut the PVC pipe (had some in the shed) and rough sanded it and applied ~3 coats of paint.
After the base was finished being painted, I added some no-slip pads to the base to keep it stable and anchored while allowing room for the zip-ties. I then added the fan grills to the fans and ziptied them to the base as well as the wiring to the back. I also added some smaller no-slip pads to the front to hold the front of the laptop. There were also two pads in the back to keep the PVC pipe positioned.
The final product:
A good $100 went into this project, but it was fun as heck and that made it worth it. First of all, kudos to my Dad for his expertise as well as providing an extra set of hands . As far as functionality goes, it's great. The raised laptop is perfect for my hands now and typing is more comfortable, even after a few hours. The fans run perfectly off of USB and they lower temps significantly. I ended up pulling out the PCMCIA slot and mechanism to totally unrestrict airflow. The HDD stays at room temperature now, even under load (instead of 36-40C). GPU temps were lowered in FEAR 4-6C and CPU temps are down 2-3C. DIMM/northbridge temps are also down 8-10C. Very good results I think and I'm quite happy. Hope you guys enjoyed the log. Lemme know if you want any other photos or if you have any suggestions .
Cheers,
Mr. K6
. This one dealt with the high temps coming from my 7800GTX and the overall higher temps in the laptop and the lack of airflow within it.The concept:
The result:
Basically:
It's a laptop dock with a cooling fans and it can all be powered by the laptop. The base 1/8" thick aluminum (2" and 1/2" L-shaped). The laptop prop is 2 1/4" PVC piping. The metal was primed twice with oil-based white prime and then coated 4-5 times with black, "hammered" texture rustoleum paint. The PVC pipe was painted with the same black paint. The fan on the left is an 80x80x15mm 5V fan and the fan on the right is a 60x60x25mm 12V fan (more on that later). The fans were wired to be rub of USB 5V power.
The Work Log -
The fans, sleeving, and heatshrink wrap were all ordered from www.jab-tech.com (they moved out to oklahoma, they used to be right next to me
). I then took a skip down to the Home Depot (local gigrundous hardware/home improvement warehouse) and got the aluminum, screws, nuts, countersink, primer, paint, zip ties, no-slip stick pads, etc. Here's the goods:
I then got to it downstairs and started cutting the aluminum. I chose aluminum due to its light weight while retaining its strength. Also, it doesn't rust, so no worries about chips
. Here's the measured and marked aluminum:
After trying to fasten the first two pieces of aluminum together, I realized that it was hard as a bitch to get the screws in. Also, they wouldn't even go in the whole way. I asked my Dad and he said "get a tap," so off to True Value we went. The screws used are 5mmx12mm. Since Home Depot only had 12 in the entire store, when I stripped the first two, more were needed. We found 5mmx16mm at the store, which were a little too long, so we bought cap nuts for them too. The tap we bought was a 5mm carbide pimpstick
. Then we swung over to radioshack and picked up a ColdHeat solder gun (very awesome, more on that later). Here's my Dad trying out the new tap:
After we got the tap, things went very smoothly. The basic procedure was square the corners, clamp it, drill and countersink one hole, tap it, put the screw in and into the wood, drill and countersink the other hole, tap it, put the screw partially in, unscrew the other screw partially, screw both screws through, put the washers and nuts on them, and then finally tighten both screws. Here I am squaring the corner and here's another pic of how the clamping was done:
Here's a pic of me measuring out the spacing for the middle piece. The two PVC joints were the original concept, but I realized later on that it'd be too difficult to cut them the way I would need them, so the idea was scrapped.
Here's the middle piece clamped while the last four screws go in:
And the base is done
:
I then sanded the entire base with some "fine" grain "metal" sand paper. It was actually damn course in my book (from someone used to polishing heatsinks and cars with 1500grit
) at 180grit. I then wiped the base down with 91% isoprophly alcohol and applied the first coat of prime:
Here's the painting set up (occurred in the root cellar of the house, used mainly to store pool supplies and what not):
Basically it went in a coat, dry, coat, dry fashion. The space heater is on the low power 750watt setting as to dry the paint but not mess it up due to intense heat. Sanding was done between coats as needed.
In between coats, the fans were prepared
. I first cut the 3 pin heads off them and then cut off the RPM wire (yellow) close to the base. I then cut that wire in half and used it as an extension on the ground and power wires to make sure they'd reach the back of the laptop. The second pic is of the USB head. I got them from this Walmart pack of USB heads for an interchangeable travel USB kit. The pic basically illustrates how damn small it is (it sucks to have big hands on these kind of things ). The third pic is of the whittling process.
Here I am soldering the wires to the USB pins:
The wires were soldered, then the flex sleeving was fit over, then the heat shrink wrap, then the pins were finally put into and anchored into the USB head. Then I positioned the heatshrink wrap and cooked it over our wood stove
. Also while the was going on, I cut the PVC pipe (had some in the shed) and rough sanded it and applied ~3 coats of paint.After the base was finished being painted, I added some no-slip pads to the base to keep it stable and anchored while allowing room for the zip-ties. I then added the fan grills to the fans and ziptied them to the base as well as the wiring to the back. I also added some smaller no-slip pads to the front to hold the front of the laptop. There were also two pads in the back to keep the PVC pipe positioned.
The final product:
A good $100 went into this project, but it was fun as heck and that made it worth it
. First of all, kudos to my Dad for his expertise as well as providing an extra set of hands . As far as functionality goes, it's great. The raised laptop is perfect for my hands now and typing is more comfortable, even after a few hours. The fans run perfectly off of USB and they lower temps significantly. I ended up pulling out the PCMCIA slot and mechanism to totally unrestrict airflow. The HDD stays at room temperature now, even under load (instead of 36-40C). GPU temps were lowered in FEAR 4-6C and CPU temps are down 2-3C. DIMM/northbridge temps are also down 8-10C. Very good results I think and I'm quite happy. Hope you guys enjoyed the log. Lemme know if you want any other photos or if you have any suggestions .Cheers,
Mr. K6
