Stueyb

Check out this loon who decided to see if you could cook breakfast on a CPU

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

Daft b*gger

I do, however, believe it should be possible to use waste heat from a working CPU to produce coffee. A modern high performance chip produces about 100W of heat, and water cooled heatsinks already exist - they're popular amongst overclockers and other coffee dependents. So with a fairly straightforward modification it should be possible to provide essential supplies for the nerd at the keyboard as well as keeping the processor cool.

Anyone fancy doing it as a project?

ajm

I've seen a PC hooked up and plumbed in to a heat exchanger to heat an aquarium somewhere. No idea if it actually worked, but quite an amusing idea!

Brendan Hughes

For coffee you'd have to heat 250ml of water to what, 90C? With 100W? You might have a chance. No chance with a rolling boil of 100C for a good cuppa char, though - I think the heat would escape faster than you could put it in.

If the water was sealed and under pressure, would that help keeping the heat in, or is pressure only good for allowing 100C+ temperatures?

Aquarium's probably only 25-30C, so a completely different kettle of fish.



(sorry!)

ajm

100W, 0.25 litres of water, from 20 degrees to 90 degrees, specific heat capacity of water 4200 J/kg

(0.25 x (90 - 20) x 4200)/100 = 735 seconds

= 12 mins (assuming no heat loss!)

Keeping it under pressure would prevent some heat loss due to reducing latent heat of evaporation at the surface of the water.

As for the various merits of boiling/not boiling for tea/coffee: no idea as I can't stand the stuff!

Scoobychick

iTrader: (1)

_Meridian_

iTrader: (1)

The joke in that article is rather wasted on people who don't remember how hot the old Cyrix chips used to get, especially when overclocked....


M

Brendan Hughes

And there certainly will be heat loss! But still, 15-20 minutes - suggests it's possible.

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

Indeed, it only really needs to be able to produce a coffee every hour or so to fuel the needs of an average geek. I'd postulate that geeks requiring more, probably run multiple CPUs anyway - or at least, work in an office with those who would have CPU coffee to spare.