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Welcome to the 21st century. The age of conservation, renewable materials and Jolene Blalock. As we're urged to replace our gaming equipment on a weekly basis, many tonnes of silicon, lead, and copies of Daikatana make it into our planet's landfills.
At RabidHardware we strive to be environmentally sound (so says our lawyers). By re-using hardware we would have so hastily discarded in our youth, we can now give our dear Earth a new lease on life. Seeing how the Great White North is in the middle of one of the more colder winters as of late, and I'm on a budget (read: cheap bastard), I figure we could get two birds stoned at once with this latest project: A CPU-driven hotplate.
Enter the intrepid Cyrix(tm) Central Processing Unit. Instead of piling the landfills with these retired, non-biodegradable heathens (or donating them to NASA for shuttle heat shielding), we may as well put em to further use. So what do we do instead you ask? Well, there is only one thing a Cyrix CPU does well besides reflecting heat, and that is producing it.
To do this we'll be using 7 6x86 Cyrix CPUs ranging from 100mhz to 150mhz, dissipating an upwards of 20+ watts each. All chips will be supplied with 5v regardless of their original requirements, which I imagine will also improve the thermal output.
These be my materials:
- 7 Cyrix CPUs (1x PR120, 4x PR166s, 2x PR200s)
- Lexan sheet for CPU base
- aluminum/copper/cookie sheet for hotplate surface
- AT 250W power supply
- wire, solder, fixin's
- 7805 Voltage Regulator
After a quick look at this handy chart, I've decided to use pins A7 (core voltage) and B10 (ground) for our electrical connections.
Step 1 - Processors
First off, clean up the procs in question, as stuff like ancient heatsink compound or warranty stickers (that haven't already burned off of course) will impede heat transfer!
Most important thing we need to do is supply power to these little thermo-electric heaters of ours. All we need to do is run a 12v rail from the power supply into the voltage regulator (which will output +5v @ 1A) and connect the procs in parallel:
[click to enlarge]
I realize there may be a better way to do this but we don't have time for rational thought. After all, my bacon expires tomorrow and I am VERY hungry! I also realize we could just use the 5v rail directly off the power supply. The reason for the VRE though is to regulate the amperage available to our hotplate while adding an extra stop-gap to keep our high quality power supply from exploding (prematurely?). SAFETY FIRST!
my l337 soldering skillz
Feel free to remove the surrounding pins for easier soldering, sure as hell won't be needing them anymore!
Step 2 - Goop
Next off, we'll need to create our most excellent thermal interface. The Arctic Silver 3 which I've had in my toolkit for several years should do nicely, as it has a peak temperature of 180c. Feel free to don a piece of plastic or your favourite straight razor (preferably bloodless) to develop that sexy paper-thin layer of arctic goop, but I'm sort of in a rush.
large contact surface(tm)
You may have noticed we've also attached a heatsink to the regulator. Unfortunately, as Thermaltake or Alpha haven't made performance VRE heatsinks (yet), I had to go with a generic brand. Don't worry though, we'll make up for the performance loss later.
Once you've got your transfer medium installed, it's time to add the hotplate surface. I went with a generic piece of metal from a cookie sheet, but a aluminum or copper sheet would do better. I'm assuming you'll be lapping the side that the procs will be in contact with, right? Once it's ready, position your hotplate surface and press down to further spread around that silvery goodness.
Now is probably as good a time as any to mention: As with any of my projects, make sure you have a fire extinguisher and bomb squad nearby. Again, SAFETY FIRST!
At RabidHardware we're always in for any extra performance we can squeeze out of our projects. Since we've already over-powered these chips, I figured we should enhance the power supply as well! After all, it could only benefit the situation, eh?
sexy!
With our performance modifications complete, we can proceed to our last illustrious step...
Step 3 - COOK!
Of course now all we have to do is get some foodstuffs! I've chosen my favourite breakfast, spicy scrambly eggs with bacon and a 26er of Canadian Club:
cornerstones of any nutritious breakfast
For this job, my trusty discount pan is at my disposal. As most folks don't have the same cooking prowess as I do (my smoldering to raw ratio is quite balanced after all), you may need to consult the instruction manual that was supplied with your frying pan. Food preparation & troubleshooting is beyond the scope of this article, I'm afraid.
 currently not on fire! |  noble foodstuffs |
Cheers,
Doc