super cheap passive laptop cooler

I think I heard this off of instructables and it seems to work quite well.

All you have to do is to find some terracotta tiles of the size you want (1 foot tiles are easy to come by) and soak them in some water for a minutes or so, then take them out and wipe them down with a rag or something so they are dry to touch (we don't want to short anything out). What will have happened is that the tile will have absorbed a whole load of water and is storing it in its pores.

All you need to do now is to put your tiles down on your desk or whatever surface you are using and place your laptop on it. Phase change takes care of the rest. All you need to do is to rehydrate the tiles when they dry out and you are set.

In some circumstances, this is even more affective than a fan cooled pad, i.e. a very hot very dry day and they cost so much less and are compleetly free to run (if you rule out the miniscule cost of the water). If you have dry air in your house it will also help with that.

Some people have even gone so far as to get a tupperware box, cut a hole in the lid and put a wick through it. Then they fill it with water and put the tiles on the wick (you need more than one wick for multiple tiles) and then you don't even need to re-soak them because the water is wicked up from the tupperware box and transfered into the tile. Depending on the size of you tiles, it may also be necessary to have multipl wicks per tile.

Depending on the conditions around you, this might make a significant difference to your load temperature, and anyway it hardly costs anything so what's the harm in trying?


If you are the creator of this ingenious idea then please say so and I'll edit my post to include you

 

Moisture and electronics? Hmm. Definitely would cool a computer down though. I just build myself a stand out of Knex

 

Yeah, I'm thinking about getting the Dell studio xps 16 but was a bit hesistant at first because of the immense heat it kicks out. I also can't really be bothered to get a propper cooling pad nor can I tolerate the noise they can make.

I think the studio xps 16 could really benefiet from this

 

My philosophy is that if a laptop needs additional cooling devices of any sort to remain within reasonable temperatures, it's rather poorly designed.

 

true dat yo

 

So is the theory to cool the notebook with moisture?

 

Im good with a cooling pad/raised caps method.

 

i just put a cigarette pack under the rear part of my laptop when gaming and wow, it helps))) It'll be a tad sad seeing your laptop die of corrosion in about half a year) So, thanx for this stellar idea, but i prefer not to try it=))

 

What happens is that for water to change from a liquid to a gas, it takes a lot of energy. This energy comes from the air and the air is then cooled because of it.

It's crude but effective, a simple way to demonstrate it is to make your hand wet and go outside on a breezy day.

 

I use a glass chopping board under my notebook , glass is 4x better at dissipating heat than my wooden table, so with cooler air being sucked in the fan stays on a shorter time.


It cost my £1.99 and it`s a perfect fit.

 

That could short circuit your system with condensation...

 

Not really, air can only carry so much water. Because the air that is coming in underneath is cool then the humidity in the air doesn't rise too much. It's like using your laptop on a hot day after a rainfall, you wouldn't think twice... well with this you might but in reality there is very little to worry about.

If per small chance you happen to get some condensation on the inside then you will be blessed to know that there won't be any scale in the water and that you can simply let it evaporate. Although this isn't compleetly risk proof, the chance of anything going wrong is trivialy slim