Cool your jets
I had an idea for a laptop screen holder. I like to keep my high performance laptop on my desk with the lid closed and hooked up to an external monitor when I am not traveling. The problem with this is the thermals on the laptop are not great and it overheats if left on for any real duration with the lid closed. If I try to prop the lid up slightly, the hinge wants to bring the screen down within a certain angle (between just below 35 degrees). If the screen if lifted beyond 45 degrees it turns becomes active and now I have a dual screen situation which I don’t need. I need something to hold the screen up slightly and maybe even slightly elevate the bottom of the laptop for better air circulation underneath. Hmmm, sounds like a build opportunity!
Measure twice, cut once
Using a digital caliper I measured the thickness of the laptop base (minus the screen). Then I measured distance between the top of the laptop base to the screen at the angle desired. This gave me a rough idea on how high to make it. For good measure I tilted the whole laptop up from the front and measured a few millimeters from table to bottom of laptop. I wanted to create a small ‘foot’ that would go under the laptop to prop it up. This would provide a some air circulation below as well.
TinkerCad Design
Due to the simplicity of the design I decided to create the object in TinkerCAD. This was my first design in TinkerCAD.
The assembly process was a combination of various rectangle solids and holes to achieve the cutouts I wanted. The top of the object was beveled to lesson the stress point on where it made contact with the laptop screen. For a 15″ laptop screen I decided on a 75 mm wide object. The ‘foot’ of the ventilator was 6 mm high to prop up the laptop base just enough to provide a bit of air circulation as well.
The print
It was completed with no issues due to the simplicity of the design and no supports were required. The printer used was a Creality CR-10S printed at 0.2 mm. The object works well and the laptop now remains much cooler. Fans do not spin as much, the temps remain lower and no more auto-shutoff.
