Hot Plate

by bo3bo3

138K279206

Intro: Hot Plate

This is a very easy and cool project to do with a dead CPU.

A CPU is a very beautiful piece of a computer that you won’t through away even if it was dead. Among many other things, simply, you can drill a hole in it and use it as your key chain.

This project will show you how to make a hot plate for your Mug from a dead CPU.

STEP 1: Tools and Materials

1. A dead CPU.

(Ofcourse you can use a working one but it won’t be feasible.)

2. A USB cable

3. A Fan grill with screws.

4. Any box (I used a wooden tie box cover)

5. A rotary Tool (the best tool ever invented)

6. Epoxy

7. A creative artistic mind.

STEP 2: The Idea

A CPU will still have some working electronic circuits even if it stopped functioning probably. And this project will use the heat generated by running some Volts in the CPU through a USB cable.

First things first.

Be Very Careful.

Connecting a malfunctioning CPU to your computer may and will damage your computer’s ports or even worse. If you don’t have enough knowledge and experience in electronics... don’t do it.


STEP 3: The Steps

First, prepare the base.

You have to find a thin box or a box cover to use as the base of the plate. I used a tie box cover made of wood because it has the same thickness as my laptop.

Now put the CPU over the base you picked and mark a square to drill with your rotary device. The square must be a little bit bigger than the CPU. The reason behind the bigger hole is to make sure the hot CPU won’t touch the wooden surface of the base. It’s not going to put it into flames, but it will produce a nasty burning smell.

Then, using the fan grill as your ruler, drill four holes in the body of the base and Screw the grill down to it.

Make another hole on one side of the base. That’s where the USB wire is going through.

STEP 4: Preparing the Hot Plate

locate the ground pins in your CPU and that can be done by reviewing the CPU data sheet or simply by the devastating trial and error.

Cut the USB wire and pass it through the hole you made previously in the base.

Strip the USB cable and locate the black and red weirs (black wire = ground, Red wire = +5V). You can cut out the white and green data weirs for more space.

Now connect the black wire to the ground pins and the red wire to voltage pins.

The best way to attach the weirs to the pins of the CPU is to cut the wires without striping them and then slide the pins inside.

Finally, you have to attach the CPU to the grill by Epoxy

Enjoy.

204 Comments

rrzz 3 years ago

is somebody know what pins are they in a intel pentium 4 2.40GHZ ? I haven't got the work sheet

shinshin_1 5 years ago

"locate the ground pins in your CPU and that can be done by reviewing the CPU data sheet or simply by the devastating trial and error."

OK.. Define in layman's, Pretty Please?

Pial Biswas 7 years ago

I have a intel pentium 3 processor...
can I do with it? and what should be used as heat plate?

arpitj10 8 years ago

please tell me the pins to connect on my intel p4 478 pins ftp://download.intel.com/support/processors/pentium4/sb/24988703.pdf

arpitj10 8 years ago

please tell me the pins to connect on my intel p4 478 pins ftp://download.intel.com/support/processors/pentium4/sb/24988703.pdf

LarsB3 8 years ago

This thing WORKS! cool! thanks for the Instructable.

soupaboy 9 years ago

Hi guys. i have been trying this for some time now and cant get anything to heat up.

i am using a intel pentium 4 2.8ghz. could someone point out the +ve pins and the -ve pins for me?

how long should it make to heat up?

marcuspeh99 9 years ago

Anyone can help me find the voltage and ground pin for intel Celeron 326

jamster545 13 years ago

I think he means he hooked it to a different power supply. That would blow that processor pretty quick, i'd think.

TK175672 9 years ago

i have run mine from 30V 2A for about 20 min and it worked fine!

TK175672 9 years ago

For those wanting the datasheet: sometimes it is better to search the pin-out of the socket it came from (mine was a socket 7) since (i believe) all CPU's going in socket 7 will have the same pin-out.

kohlait 10 years ago

I have AMD CPU Duron Model3. This is datasheet. http://pdf.datasheetarchive.com/indexerfiles/Datasheets-IS63/DSAH0061630.pdf I read 47p. where is Voltage pin and GND pin?

Finger44 9 years ago

hi kohlait

that type of socket you have for your amd?it will be easier to find the configuration if you have the reference socket

kohlait 9 years ago

I have AMD CPU Product number is D800AUT1B. maybe soket type is socket A. teach me connect wire to pin.Do you have any tips on when to make with a different CPU? THX.

umerji1000 11 years ago

could someone please help me find the voltage and ground pins on my cpu.
here is the dash sheet: http://download.intel.com/design/celeron/datashts/30235305.pdf

DragonDon 10 years ago

Read page 15, then look at page 37.

AgentSplurge 11 years ago

Nice tut!

I found the datasheet for a CPU that I'm looking at on eBay. It states "For clean on-chip power distribution, the Celeron processor on 0.13 micron process has 85 VCC (power) and 181 VSS (ground) input", does that mean I can solder the power wire to any one of these 85 VCC pins, and the ground wire to any one of the 181 VSS pins? Or will mine have a specific one that needs wiring to? Or maybe I'm not undeerstanding the statement correctly?

Also, when done would I be able to plug this into something such as an iPhone charger, I believe they are 5v?

John_Edward 13 years ago

....Okay.
Lets get these things straight.

First, a CPUs SAFE temperature range is, depending of the CPU, between 30 and 55.
The MAXIMUM temperature (exceeding this usually means the computer shuts down forcefully) is between 60 and 100, depending of the CPU.
You do not, under any circumstances, want to run your CPU at those temperatures, as they will get damaged over time.
Source : http://www.pantherproducts.co.uk/Articles/CPU/CPU%20Temperatures.shtml

Second, the voltages of CPUs vary, a lot.
Old Pentium 1 runs at 5v. my Core 2 Duo runs between 0.85 and 1.5 volts.
So, if you use an old pentium 1 processor, it will work perfectly.
Stick a C2D, and it will fry and you will get very nasty smoke.
Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Core_2_microprocessors

Third, for this project, the USB port will give 5volts at 100mA, as that is the maximum power for a single device.
A smart device, like an external HDD, can REQUEST the computer to give it more power, by asking to take additional places in the USB bus, to the max of 5 devices, or 500mA.
Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Serial_Bus#Power


Fourth, power is always proportional to voltage and current.
At 5v and 100mA, power is 0.5 watts.
A CPU can use over 130watts in normal use, so you will not be getting the +100c temperatures here because of how the heat is released normally.
It is because the transistors and such act as resistors, resisting the 0.5watt power and turning it to (some) heat.

Source(s) : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watt%27s_law and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_CPU_power_dissipation

Unless you use an older CPU that can handle the 5volts, you will fry your CPU.
So try to find a Pentium 1 or such, do not try this with a C2D :)

schumi23 11 years ago

I would suggest to first try hooking it up to a plain 5volt power source.
Also, I would guess that older CPUs (which you are likly to be using) are much less power efficient and use much less power - so it would probably work.

The ideal for this would be to connect it to anold ATX power supply 5V output (and ther are many guides o, reusing them on here)

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