CAD Models

Designing the Case of the Cooler

There were many things to take into consider when designing the body of the laptop cooling pad. I had to make many tradeoffs in order to patch the flaws in my design, and each part had multiple generations before I was able to get it to work. Here are some of the more important criteria I had to take into account when designing my laptop cooler:

I. Space

Having enough space to include all necessary parts while also trying to minimize the overall size of the cooler was a large problem that resulted in a redesign of the 3D printed parts. Originally, the cooler was too small and the fans were preventing the top from closing completely. I was able to solve this by increasing the angle that the top piece sits, which is based on the height difference between the front and the back. When I did this, everything was able to fit as compact as possible.

II. Airflow

Ensuring proper airflow was crucial to the design of my cooler. I included vents on the right side and the back of the cooler so that it could take in cool air from the environment, as well as vents on the top piece to allow this air to be delivered to the laptop. The laptop sits on the temperature sensors which creates distance between it and the top piece, this allows the hot air to escape from the sides.

III. Usability

I had to make sure that the laptop cooler wasn't too much of a bother to use. If the angle of the top piece was too high or the front sat too high off of the table, it could cause discomfort to the user. To solve this, I had to reduce the height of the cooler as well as the angle of the top piece as much as I could while also storing all of the parts.

IV. 3D Printing Logistics

All of the case parts were designed using SolidWorks and printed on my 3D printer. Instead of designing bigger parts, I had to cut each part into smaller pieces in order for it to fit on the printer. For example, the top piece was one part file, but I had to split it into four pieces so it could be printed out.

Bottom Pieces