Technical Editor Margery Conner's PowerSource streams the latest developments in electronic power design and related technologies.
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Blog
Monday, August 11, 2008
Laptop cooling pad: Another instance of USB as a pure power source
Aug 11 2008 11:50AM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (5) |
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I saw this cooling pad for laptops at Costco recently (from Belkin, $20), and picked it up to see how it’s powered: It runs off power from the USB port. It’s becoming increasingly common to see the USB port used purely as power source even when no data exchange takes place. While many battery charger circuits relay on USB for power, this laptop pad is an example of USB used only for direct dc power. And now that the Chinese are standardizing on USB as an alternative to wall warts for dc power, this trend will only accelerate.
The cooling pad is simply a mounting pad for a laptop that provides a gap between the bottom of the laptop and the top of the pad, allowing thepad’s fan to blow up onto the laptop and force hot air out at the sides. According to this review, the pad dropped the average temperature of the bottom of the laptop from 93°F down to 86°F, and the bottom of the pad – the part that comes in contact with your lap – dropped down to 81°F. 12 degrees is enough of a change to make a laptop comfortable on a warm day, but it would be much nicer if the laptop was more power-efficient its cooling designed so that no pad was necessary in the first place.
USB-to-5V cable.
Related entries in: Power Supplies |
Reader Comments
at 8/11/2008 1:42:09 PM, Rick Racinskas said:
I think a thermal converter to recharge the battery with the heat is a cooler idea. GM said today they will save gas on future Suburbans with that idea. I can't wait!
at 8/11/2008 9:56:26 PM, Peter G. said:
Yeah, well... no. The waste heat from a laptop is what a thermodynamicist would call "low quality" heat. Converting any of it back to electricity would be so inefficient that it simply wouldn''t be worth doing.
at 8/19/2008 1:36:54 PM, Rick Smith said:
how much quicker will this deplete the battery?
at 8/21/2008 2:28:46 AM, Sujit Liddle said:
"many battery charger circuits relay on USB for power" Looks like the 'spell check' let you down here. ;) You meant to say 'rely'. A laptop design is always a compromise between computing power on one hand and power consumption, space, cost and similar constraints. Making laptops more efficient would enable manufacturers to put even more computing power inside, so you'll be right back where you started. We already have desktops with triple SLI graphics adapters - laptops have a lot of catching up to do if they could.
at 8/21/2008 10:05:17 PM, Anonymous said:
i like the added option of two or more USB ports camera memory card readers and storage compartments seen in some models of laptop coolers. i brought my laptop hard drive tempurature down from 52°C to 32°C by simply raising it up on two small strips of wood (about 1cm high) and pointing a small (USB powered)3-6V fan at its existing fan.
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