I’ve started using my 12th gen for a bit more CPU intensive tasks and naturally it will heat up the CPU quite a lot.
So I was thinking of getting a cooling pad, preferably with silent Noctua fans.
Has anybody made experience with this or even this yet? Or rolling his/her own solution?
Let me know!
I’ve just started designing something. No progress to speak of, but I’ve got a thermal sensor and a couple other items on the way, while I poke around in CAD this evening. I want the feet to fit “inside” the thing, so it doesn’t try to move around at all. I’ll post stuff as I make progress…
Awesome, let us know when you have more progress!
I was thinking about whether to allow movement or not and settled with “just make it static”. I didnt find a good reason not to.
Curious about your design. And also the size of your fans and arrangements.
General thoughts: Initially, USB2 powered with a pair of 92mm Noctua 14mm fans. Pretty straight forward. That’s doable in the next week. Got the parts ordered, CAD’ing tomorrow evening. Phase 2 (out a few weeks, probably): Make a new USB 2.0 expansion card that has one of these on the bottom: DIY Magnetic Connector - Right Angle Four Contact Pins : ID 5358 : $6.50 : Adafruit Industries, Unique & fun DIY electronics and kits so it just clicks on and powers up. Maybe add a thermal or sound sensor to detect when the machine is getting hotter or the internal fans are running, and speed up/slow down the cooling pad accordingly (gotta find a use for a few RP2040’s I’ve got laying around!). And RGB LED’s, because RGB makes things cooler, right?
I remembered these posts, they might interest you.
Ps love that you use privacy respecting front ends when sharing links!
Someone just stuck fans on with sticky tape 
The Noctua’s come with ‘speed limiters’ that should keep me solidly below 500mA until I have the time for the full PWM controlled thing. Once I have that, I’m planning on using a USB3 power negotiating controller to make sure I have sufficient power to drive the fans and any RGB led’s I might have laying around. It’s always an interesting balancing act to see how much power I can draw while staying well within the 900mA (or 500mA: lower would be better). I occasionally make keyboards so I’m unfortunately aware of the power limitations of USB 
After 1 that sort of worked, then 5 prints of small pieces to get the feet cutouts in just the right place, I have a nicely functioning cooling tray!
https://www.printables.com/model/439753-framework-13-cooling-tray
That’s awesome, especially
Two questions though:
I’m thinking about actually printing this pad …
I didn’t benchmark anything because I spent twenty years working on compilers, so I don’t believe benchmarks 
(My goal was comfortable lap, not faster device)
I do plan on changing the routing of the cables from the fans to the back so they’re the same length, then shrink tubing them together. Probably won’t do it for a couple weeks, but if you want that and aren’t comfortable in CAD, I’ll update this post when it’s done.
