Staying cool despite Kenya Power

Having procured the new power supply yesterday, I had the computer up and running again (using the PV solar system). The new power supply works like the old one – it is small and runs pretty hot (it did in UK). Here, in ambient temperatures of 30°C it gets untouchably hot. This almost definitely contributed to the demise of the original, and I don’t want a repeat. The question was, how to keep it cool when there was no power to run a fan?

My immediate thought was to construct a heatsink. Phase 1 one to strap the transformer tightly to the metal colander – I know from experience of draining pasta that it conducts heat far too well! And the holes should aid cooling.

With this set-up, the colander got hot quite quickly so I thought we needed something else, if only to raise the colander into the airflow more. So I placed the transformer and colander on an inverted sufuria (cooking pot),

Despite the sufuria not having a flat bottom (they are really designed for use on wood fires or charcoal jikos) it soon got quite warm, and the colander also was warm enough to know it was working as a heat sink.

I’m glad to report (a) that the power supply is still working well and (b) now that the laptop battery is fully charged and the power supply is just ticking over, heat is less of a problem.

So now, back to my various web projects….