Is there an effective way to use a mini fridge as a computer tower?
I have been thinking of taking a mini fridge and putting computer components in the small freezer area, I realize that I would need an enclosure for the mobo and components so they dont get wet and short out, but I have no idea how to start this project, or if it would even work. Any suggestions or ideas?
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Answer it!
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Well, you could gut the fridge, remove the insulation and refrigerant system, and maybe add fanned vents to the sides. Or because the back will be mostly empty, put a wall o' fans w/ intake and exhaust to facilitate cooling. Maybe add a hacked power supply to fuel all those fans.
Then you'd have a computer in an apparent fridge. Open the door for a looksee at the working components.
Add LEDs, cold cathode lights,and place behind a laser cut the front panel to make it wicked cool looking.
Add built in speakers to the freezer area using hacked apart computer speakers, use a wireless mouse and keyboard, and a monitor mounted on top, and you get a fully self-contained computer station.
Easy to add/ remove things like optical drives, RAM, Hard Drives, etc.
You might also think about putting a Modem in there to easily put everything in one box.
*Caution* When removing the refrigarent, be careful not to punture the closed circuit and take it to a hazmat reclamation center as soon as possible. You don't want that stuff in harm's way in a workshop.
Then you'd have a computer in an apparent fridge. Open the door for a looksee at the working components.
Add LEDs, cold cathode lights,and place behind a laser cut the front panel to make it wicked cool looking.
Add built in speakers to the freezer area using hacked apart computer speakers, use a wireless mouse and keyboard, and a monitor mounted on top, and you get a fully self-contained computer station.
Easy to add/ remove things like optical drives, RAM, Hard Drives, etc.
You might also think about putting a Modem in there to easily put everything in one box.
*Caution* When removing the refrigarent, be careful not to punture the closed circuit and take it to a hazmat reclamation center as soon as possible. You don't want that stuff in harm's way in a workshop.
Jul 23, 2009. 5:38 AMFocker (author)
says:
I didn't even think about the speakers, that is a really great idea! Thanks for the comment!
A mini fridge really wouldn't be able to handle the kind of heat output that even a small lower spec setup would give out. In fact I'm not even sure if the likes of a normal fridge or a freezer would handle it well. Two things, fridges only move heat away, and they can only do it so fast, computers make heat, a lot of it. Fridges are well insulated to keep heat from getting in, however it would also mean your computer would be in a well insulated place, making a lot of heat that a mini fridge couldn't hack. Now I suppose a big fridge might be capable of doing it, from a rough guess I'd say you'd need to have the capacity to move the same wattage of heat as wattage your computer uses. Though that doesn't mean that if your fridge uses 150W it removes it all, moving heat from cold to hot isn't very easy, so it takes energy to move the energy away... Hope that helped some, you could use the peltier system from a mini fridge to augment cooling in certain parts of the PC...
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