Thread: Diy automatic heating pad

Here's an idea, why not use a thermostat inline with your power supply, that way the computer will only get power once the desired cabin temp is reached. Remote start your truck five-10 mins before you leave......you have a warm vehicle waiting for you, and your comp is up and running awaiting your command.

And if your truck doesnt warm up that fast, get a block heater, that way your coolant is already warm and you'll have heat when remote started.

i thought about that, i might do that.... i guess a regular spring-type furnace thermostat would work for that, with a relay of course.

edit.

ok this is definitely not going to work. today again i tried to heat the mainboard up with this pad, and even with the jumpseat closed up it cannot build enough heat (10f outside right now).

further still, leaving the mainboard on in its 'stuck' state (powered up, fans spinning, no post) still wont generate enough heat on its own even with the heating pad behind it helping. i started the truck, and in 20min when the cabin is warm the mainboard will fire without issue, i am sure of it.

so, im either installing that 25w pad i originally bought, or putting the M2 on a thermostat. or both. again, the reason i like the heating pad is because keeping the mainboard warm should save a lot of stress on the components. its just not nice to freeze hardware to below zero then bring it up to 75deg every day.... not these desktop components anyway.

That's why you need at least a timer on the remote wire. So is it the mainboard or the HD that has trouble with the low temps? Bad solder joints sometimes crack and have a gap when they shrink, but generally electronics don't have much trouble. Electromechanical device are more succeptable. HD and CD/DVD drives and such. The life of the HD can be shortened quite a bit from harsh temp changes because the platters shrink and expand so quickly that the recalibration can't keep up, plus bearings go out, so one idea would be to try moving the heating pad to the HD.

i cant imagine it being the harddrive... the board wont even post.

who knows though, i cant get it to post for the life of me now. after the battery flattened last night, i was afraid of this happeneing and it has. its this intel mATX motherboard- the DG41TY, it is just over sensitive to variable conditions. its a fact, and i think im about done with intel boards for a good while. i bet if i had an asus board in there i would have had none of these stupid problems..

i even let my truck warm up for over an hour... it was hot inside the cabin... i even reset the cmos and unplugged everything from the board. no post. what junk to be honest. i didnt want to upgrade unless i put the money down for an athlon x4 setup, but i might just drop the $50 and get another 775 board... just not intel this time.

actually, i do have an asrock (asus) in my htpc inside the house. i could technically swap the two boards out. thing is, my htpc has been 100000% stable for 2 years now... i just cant bear to mess with it.

I love Intel boards. I've never had trouble with them, at least indoors. I wouldn't expect cheap components on them either, but the PCI/DIMM/AGP sockets are made of a different material than the card edges, so that would be the most likely to shrink/expand on the board. Whatever happened, it would be interesting to know what it was.

i think its just this specific model board. ive had 3 of them... only one that worked well but i fried that one like robert downey jr on cocaine. it had to do with metal laying underneath the caseless board shorting out many things at once, glowing red circuit chips, fried psu, cpu cooked... it was not a good night.

after that, i bought a new one to replace it while the fried one was being rma'd (i know, but i spend a lot of money with this store i bought from), that new one is the one in my car that wont even make post beeps if i remove the ram now, and the rma replacement board -even though brand new sealed- has a fried video chipset or something because it completely locks up on any 3d software. video, games... after a couple minutes the entire machine locks up and its not a heatsink issue anywhere (checked, rechecked and repasted).

edit. bought this board. was buying some parts for a bday present anyway, i figured why not

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-137-_-Product

it should be a bit better with the video, and overall a much better chipset version. it does have hdmi via a little addon card.... which is fine because i only need vga. also, the sound should be slightly clearer with this motherboard. and, its asus, so no problems. right.... i see the price went up like $30 too... i only paid $73 shipped

Originally Posted by tom04841

Here's an idea, why not use a thermostat inline with your power supply, that way the computer will only get power once the desired cabin temp is reached.

Do you have any more info on how to set something like this up? I am interested in getting some kind of thermostat power control and am not sure what parts and such would be needed for this. Would any type of household thermostat work?

any household thermostat should work, but you dont want a mercury type as those need to be level to work. a basic spring type should do, and just use the output leads to turn on a relay... the output is just a continuity connection... just wire it as a switch as thats basically what it is.

Here's another source of heating elements. Just a little different.
http://www.goldmine-elec-products.co...?number=G16346