The USB Beverage Chiller

Depending on where you live, you shouldn't have much problem keeping things cool about now — but if you're looking for yet another way to draw your USB current for something, um, "useful," the USB Beverage Chiller's coldplate supposedly drops all the way down to 45°F. How effective that 500mA of raw USB juice is when there's something placed on the coldplate, however, is another matter entirely.

[Via Mike's List]

[Brian @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

It hit 80 degrees in Phoenix on Thanksgiving Day. We had the air conditioning running in the house because it got way too hot with the oven cookin' the turkey. I put the lights up on the house last night outside in shorts and a t-shirt!

[artguy @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

How about plugging that thing into the xbox 360 and putting it under the power supply - that ought to do the trick of cooling that big hot sucker.

[adam @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

wow brian, thats not very fair, it was snowing here on thanksgiving day, and on black friday when i was out at best buy, it was below freezing, well, that was at 3 am, but it was still really freakin cold.

just for the record, this if fort wayne, in i'm talkin about.

[Adam @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

I totally invented this like my freshamn year of HS, but not with the USB.

[fogd00d @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

This might be a decent interim measure to keep your XBox 360 power-supply cool before Microsoft ships out replacements for the first few batches that had heat-related crashing problems.

I'm probably forgetting a semester worth of thermodynamics here, but would powering this cold plate from the 360 negate the cooling?

[fogd00d @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

#4 "Adam" -- then its high time you cashed in your patent!

Speaking of which, I really should find my high-school notes where I cooked up a version of String Theory completely on my own. Too late to get a Nobel Prize y'think?

[SoopahMan @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

So wait... this thing works on Peltier chips? They have a CPU cooler that looks just like it (how about a GPU cooler? My CPU's a joke to cool compared), and they say it uses Peltier chips and gets dramatic cooling performance - did they actually manage to up-convert heat to electricity with it?

[Adam @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

#6
I know, i showed my brother, because i told him this idea first, and he said that i shoulda patented that thing a long time ago. He said that this is pretty much how he pictured it. Damn!

[Jared @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

I think everyone's missing the big picture here... perhaps Microsoft didn't want everyone to go hungry while playing the new Xbox, and as such made the power supply hot enough to cook on - it's possible: http://www.hackaday.com/entry/1234000940069245/

[Revrant @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

#2. Ha, good one, good indeed.

#1. Thank god I'm not there, mostly for the shorts comment ;). No, I can't stand the heat, Michigan is all snowy right now, I love it, once it gets thick enough I intend to leap in and roll in it right in front of the highway, just to scare people.

[Doug @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

So long, ice cubes!

Seriously though, don't these guys remember high-school physics? There is a reason that when you buy cold food at the store, they tape the ice pack to the TOP of the pack, not the BOTTOM.

[Virtual1 @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

This is no doubt using a peltier. Peltiers of this size work well when powered with about 2 amps at 12 volts, and can generate up to a 45 degree (f) temp difference between the top and bottom side. Problem is, that means its sucking down 24 watts of power in addition to however much heat it's pumping away from the cold side, and that too has to be dumped on the hot side of the peltier, so they get quite warm and require a heat sink and often a fan. So the only way it could drop the cold side to 45 is if the fan can keep the hot side at under 90, after dumping 25 watts of heat into it. It's likely to rise to more like 110-120, so you're probably going to do around 75-85 degF.

Nice idea really, but until they find something more efficient than a peltier, the technology is no more than a novelty. And considering it's being powered by at most +5v (which I'd estimate draws up to 830mA) the peltier's ability to pump heat will be severely reduced. File this one in with the battery powered nose hair trimmer and electric tie christmas gift ideas.

[Hans Gadget @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

poster #2 .... you made my day! very funny posting

[Joe @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM]

Woohoo, my drink is icy cold, but now there's a hole burnt thru my desk :(