heat

44 Articles

Tear Your IMac’s Insides Out

September 25, 2009 by 28 Comments

imac1_external_hdd_ mod

Saying that [Ian] had some overheating issues with his iMac G5 would be an understatement. After losing three hard drives due to heat he decided to do something about it. The first step was replacing the thermal paste with Arctic Silver. The solution for the hard drive was a little more unorthodox.

[Ian] picked up a 320GB Western Digital Caviar Blue drive because of its very low noise rating. He used rubber grommets to mount it outside the case and ran SATA data and power extension cables through a quarter inch hole to the motherboard. He mentioned to us that the cutout seen above the drive is from a previous mod.

This certainly will fix an overheating problem but it doesn’t do much for the sexy style we’re accustomed to with Apple hardware.

Color Changing Paint Display

September 15, 2009 by 47 Comments

heat_actuated_display

We’ve seen several creative projects from [Sprite_tm] and this one sets a new bar. He got his hands on some paint that changes color with temperature. By covering a circuit board with the paint then heating the circuits he’s created a heat actuated 7-segment display (his post is in Dutch). Three seconds at about 1 amp is enough to turn the black paint white. When the segment has been disconnected for about one minute the paint fades back to black. Now that we’ve seen his concept, leave a comment and tell us how you’d use it.