My Custom EBM PAPST Laptop Cooler

There has been a lot of demand for a good laptop cooler as noted by the number of threads about it. I would like to spend a few minutes to show you what a real laptop cooler is.

First off a laptop cooler is composed of fans, and some sort of chassis.
The type of fan used and the chassis makes the biggest difference with laptop coolers.
For any tubeaxial fan to be effective in any circumstance, you need to have a large intake and a large exhaust area.
If you block the intake or exhaust, the air will create turbulence rendering the fan basically useless. Many of you can see this with your laptop coolers, or any fan in general. I have learned over the years, than any high performance fan will need at least 4" of unobstructed area on either side to gain maximum efficiency.
With every conventional laptop cooler, the fan is sandwiched between the desk and the laptop base. This completely kills the efficiency of a fan. I have seen lots of air coolers, and whether its a $5 one or the near $80 zalman ones, they all suffer from the same problem.
You need to get air into the fan for the fan to operate correctly. If this doesn't happen, you are restricting airflow, and consequently cause turbulence from within the air, and thus extra noise, by essentially choking it.
Knowing this, you will see that different laptop cooler designs can be proven to be more efficient than others.
The actual distance of intake and exhaust area should normally be about 3-4x as thick as the actual fan. With the higher air pressure fans, you may need more.
For example, the fans used in my project need at least 12" of clean unobstructed air intake. This is because the fans move a lot of air volume. If I was to obstruct the intake, you would hear it immediately and notice the drop in air volume.
The higher the air pressure though, the closer the fan can be on the exhaust side to an object. In my case, their is a 3/4" gap between my laptop and the fans. This is only possible by using a material which allows a lot of air to pass through and diverge easily. Many if not all laptop coolers come with a perforated plastic or metal chassis, with very small exhaust fan holes. This is a bad move because for one the actual chassis blocks most of the air flow, and the air moving through will generate turbulence off all of the small holes.
To resolve this, you need to use a material which can easily divert the air without blocking air flow.

In my project my laptop cooler is composed of a 1/4" thick 18" x 20" aluminum sheet. Their are three 172mm holes cut into it to direct the airflow at the prime areas my laptop needs. All three fans are manufactured by EBM PAPST in Germany. They are model DV6224. (172mm x 51mm round fans)
Here is the data sheet EBM industries provides:
http://www.ebmpapst.us/allpdfs/DV6200%2EPDF

The actual fans can be bought directly through EBM PAPST for $125 each. They are also sold on Mouser Electronics for about the same price
http://www.mouser.com/Search/ProductDetail.aspx?qs=sGAEpiMZZMvuXzJ9NcThavzCYjsQ%252bSmiyB4PhE5%252buEU%3d

The physical chassis is much different from a normal cooler. The cooler is actually built into my desk.
I have two of these. One cooler in my desk in my dorm room, and another at my desk in the architecture building.
The hole in the desk is 16" x 18" which is large enough for any laptop I have.
The actual grating is made out of the plastics bread crates are made out of.
The one in my project was a Weston Bakeries crate. They are pretty universal, cause George Weston owns Entenmanns, Thomas, Arnold, Freihoffers, and so forth. The holes are about 3/4" square, and they are clean and rounded on each side allowing easy air diverging.

The power supply used is a Delta power supply 6V at 10 amps. It is used to power all three 24V fans.
If I ran all three fans at full 24V, the cooler would be much too loud. Each fan is rated at 63DB at 4300rpm. They are very quiet at 6V. I would say they are running at about 800-1000 rpm at 6V.

Notice in these images, the placement of these fans, their positing in relation to the desk, and the laptop.

This is the final image of the cooler:


Looking under the plastic grate you will see the fans:




Here is an image of the fan/cooler in retrospect to the desk:


Here is a video of the cooler in action:
<embed width='448' height='361' type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" src="http://i207.photobucket.com/player.swf?file=http://vid207.photobucket.com/albums/bb109/bigdogtrucker/EBMPAPSTPOWEREDCUSTOMLAPTOPCOOLER.flv">


This project was completed in September of 2008.

I hope you enjoyed,

This has been a production of
K-TRON Computing Corporation™

K-TRON

 

while fricken expensive, NICE!
Octitron will enjoy it

also, did you actually get a trademark on K-TRON Computing Corporation

 

Nothing like spending more on 3 fans below the laptop than the actual laptop is worth

 

jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeez... does it also work as a hover craft when you turn it over?
id be interested in what are those fans actually designed for? at $125 each they godda be something pretty special.

on a side note, are your fingernails painted orange or is it just the camera? lol!

 

@aan310, the Octitron will not need an additional cooling system, it has its own internal EBM Papst fans

@Nizzy1115, dont be jealous, I got my E1505 for free
Its reliabilty is worth a lot to me, so the fans will just keep it running longer.

@roosta, I figured someone would notice. Yeah my nails were painted orange. I have an Orange pants Friday, and well you know my Residence Advisor (who is female) thought it would be a great idea to paint my nails to match my pants. So yeah, kinda strange but whatever.

EBM Papst fans are industrial grade fans. They are precision engineered and are made of very heavy plastics and metals. The rotor is designed to channel air through the motor to increase motor life. The fans will last forever.
They are primarily used in large servers, automobiles, refrigerators, convection ovens, standalone cooling devices and so forth. They are not very known in the computer market, but I believe they are one of the largest fan manufacturers. Some of their fans surpass $1000 in price, but you really get a good fan.

K-TRON

 

Chris!

Nice custom build you did there!
You went all out on this one!

Cin

 

You will have a cool room in the summer .

 

I have said it before and i will say it again... you sir are a monster.

Thats is a REALLY cool computer cooling station. Makes my home made one look like it was made of legos and shoes string

I would rep you but i have to spread rep to 4,563,422 people over the next eleventeen years while sacrificing the blood of 47 virgin ostriches to yog shaggoth and dividing by zero the whole time

 

LOL 10 char

 

Nice fans you got there. All I know is there's nothing like waking up to the sound of papst fans in the morning. Especially coming from my quadcore AMD MINIFRIDGE

 

So let me get this straight. You're going to show us what a real laptop cooler is by basically homebuilding your own cooler with nearly $400 worth of fans installed in it. Sorry, but I am not impressed. That would be like me telling you that I am going to show you what a real laptop is by duct-taping two high end Voodoo notebooks together and sneering at everyone else who buys cheapo HP and Gateway machines.

 

You obviously didn't get to the meat and potatoes of what I mentioned. You can use any fan you want. The whole point was to inform the public that the design of the cooler really makes a difference. Having a restricted intake really kills the performance of any cooler.
It doesn't matter whether you buy a $5 fan or a high performance fan, the principle works the same for all tubeaxial fans.

Plus you really do not even know me. I do not go gloating about my Voodoo. I really do not even use it anymore because it is not reliable. And I do not go sneering about things here. I am helpful to anyone who has a laptop question regardless of the manufacturer

K-TRON

 

your orange nails remind me of my english teacher who had his nails painted pink, it was for halloween and i guess he just forgot to get it off and went to school and during his lectures he moved his hands a lot and i could not pay attention LOL!

awesome laptop cooling mechanism btw, DIY products FTW!

 

$375 worth of fans in a laptop cooler... I love it! I would prefer something quiet myself, but I bet the sound is amazing ( especially when you're trying to sleep)

The holes in the grill seem a bit big? I mean, I suppose you could be careful, but can't you actually like slice fingers with those Papst fans...? Don't they max out at some absurd RPM?

 

The sound is amazing. Very soft and subtle. Large fans running at low rpm sound really good. Especially when the fans have that perfect curved design to them.
Seriously, it is very quiet. It makes a beautiful continuous noise, which drowns the annoying sound my dorm refrigerator makes, which is about 16" underneath my laptop cooler.

Their is also another cool part about the cooler, but I may need a video to show it. It is something no other laptop cooler can do.

K-TRON

 

Well... I didn't see a fan controller on your cooler or a bank of extra USB ports if that's what you're insinuating. Wait... those are already offered on today's mainstream notebook coolers. What else could you possibly come up with?

 

Will it make me a sandwich? I am not impressed otherwise. Please build a sandwich building cooler. Thanks. I will pay you in wampum or any other ludicrous currency of your choosing.

 

Sick fans you got there. Reminds me of my air conditioner fans. . Awesome stuff

 

Nice, but isn't your old cooling system more powerful? I remember you mentioning it would levitate your 8 pound dell while your 27 pound voodoo seemed to be able to take the force.

Nice build nonetheless. Too bad my thinkpad doesn't really get hot, otherwise i would have to try to one up you haha.

 

The other laptop cooler was even more powerful, but it ran at full 24V, and was very loud. I think it ran 76db. You could literally hear it throughout the house, and even outside. The problem with that one was that the fans were located about 4" above the desk, so their was a tremendous amount of turbulence generated, which caused a lot more noise than it should have made. Those fans are being used elsewhere now since the new cooler is up.

Here is the specialty feature video of my laptop cooler:
<embed width='448' height='361' type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" src="http://i207.photobucket.com/player.swf?file=http://vid207.photobucket.com/albums/bb109/bigdogtrucker/SL730668.flv">

K-TRON

 

not a high end feature but differnt none the less lol im thinking about getting some tornado fans and measureing where my vents are under there and building one to ...

 

Boost 1kW of power into each of those fans and your table will fly..

 

Woah that's a pretty epic cooler. Nice job bro.

OT: um does everyone paint their nails orange at RPI? that would be VERY weird if you guys do.

 

No, not all guys wear nail polish at rpi. We had a hall event, and you know when girls are around, they like painting nails

Lunateck, I cant put 1000 watts into each fan, if I did my project would be destroyed. Each fan use a maximum of 40 watts, so 120 watts total. My powersupply can easily take the load, so I am not worried.

K-TRON