Volt Cruelerz
Legions Developer
Well, I'm moving into a dorm in about a month, and it looks like I'll get stuck in a non-air conditioned room. There are two problems with that: my laptop and myself.
Now, my laptop is a quad core 17.3'' Toshiba Satellite. Something tells me that thing is going to be pumping out a lot of heat which will make itself (and me) uncomfortable. I'm looking into making a cooling pad for it, but I was just wondering if I should use USB ports or a 12V wall transformer. USB ports could work, but they don't give much juice whereas the wall wart is going to give more, but I'd be afraid it would give too much and cause other problems. The current plan is to use a CPU fan or two, possible in addition to a home-made heat sink. Suggestions as to how to improve this design would be appreciated.
Next comes me... I hate the outside. I'm allergic to everything out there and I hate the temperature it tends to be. I could move to Alaska and be fine. I like the cold. Unfortunately, sharing a room with another guy, two computers, my router, my external drive, the minifrig radiator, and any other electronics in the room is going to make that difficult without A/C. Beyond that, A/C units are expensive with the small ones typically going from 160-200. There are outliers, but they are rare and there is typically some caveat.
Since I'm not crazy enough to try building my own compression/expansion A/C unit, I am looking into peltier devices. I know how crazy inefficient they are. I'm already aware. However, I'm wondering how many 90W units it would actually take to cool an area. I've already designed the device to account for the heat produced by the wall warts it would require plus the water that will collect on the cool side. It wouldn't have to cool the entire room, just my desk area (which is where I'll be most of the time I'm in there if I'm not sleeping). Using two 90W peltiers, it would cost me about 60 bucks for the materials off amazon (plus another 30 in shipping) ending up at 87 bucks and some odd cents. Obviously, this is much cheaper, but it won't be nearly as powerful. I'm just wondering if anyone here has any idea how much two 90W things are actually going to do to cool me.
Just looking to see the knowledge of the others here on the subject(s).
Now, my laptop is a quad core 17.3'' Toshiba Satellite. Something tells me that thing is going to be pumping out a lot of heat which will make itself (and me) uncomfortable. I'm looking into making a cooling pad for it, but I was just wondering if I should use USB ports or a 12V wall transformer. USB ports could work, but they don't give much juice whereas the wall wart is going to give more, but I'd be afraid it would give too much and cause other problems. The current plan is to use a CPU fan or two, possible in addition to a home-made heat sink. Suggestions as to how to improve this design would be appreciated.
Next comes me... I hate the outside. I'm allergic to everything out there and I hate the temperature it tends to be. I could move to Alaska and be fine. I like the cold. Unfortunately, sharing a room with another guy, two computers, my router, my external drive, the minifrig radiator, and any other electronics in the room is going to make that difficult without A/C. Beyond that, A/C units are expensive with the small ones typically going from 160-200. There are outliers, but they are rare and there is typically some caveat.
Since I'm not crazy enough to try building my own compression/expansion A/C unit, I am looking into peltier devices. I know how crazy inefficient they are. I'm already aware. However, I'm wondering how many 90W units it would actually take to cool an area. I've already designed the device to account for the heat produced by the wall warts it would require plus the water that will collect on the cool side. It wouldn't have to cool the entire room, just my desk area (which is where I'll be most of the time I'm in there if I'm not sleeping). Using two 90W peltiers, it would cost me about 60 bucks for the materials off amazon (plus another 30 in shipping) ending up at 87 bucks and some odd cents. Obviously, this is much cheaper, but it won't be nearly as powerful. I'm just wondering if anyone here has any idea how much two 90W things are actually going to do to cool me.
Just looking to see the knowledge of the others here on the subject(s).
