June 20, 2015
It has been very hot here lately. Very humid actually and I noticed something really strange. When my dad kept trying to print while on the wireless network. The printer was not found. I noticed this every time. I then checked my computer and I had no problem printing. I logged into the router and found nothing out of the ordinary. After blaming the OS and thinking it was that and even after the software re-install because I was having other issues, it kept doing the same thing when printing. I then just turned off the router for a bit and turned it back on one day and bam, it started working again. I know I don't have anything special set up here, so I had to look into this a bit more. I decided to try and get one of those usb fans, but they ranged from 5 to 15 bucks. I have made some usb ports before, and I also have a few fans laying around. I thought I check out what the cheap usb fan was about at the local fry's. It turns out it's cheap and well, it probably wouldn't work since the blades were plastic and it just looked cheap. I saw a couple of the more expensive ones and noticed the plugs were just the regular type. Nothing special so I figure, what the heck, I'll make my own but I'll test it on the UPS usb port first of course. I don't want to fry anything. Been there than that too but it's not impossible to do if you're very careful. So here's what I did. I have the parts anyway so why not.
This is just a dual hard drive fan and a usb cable I had cut and used the other end for a different project a while back.
You need to start cutting the extra wires. You only need the power and ground for this project.
I staggered the green and white wires to make sure they didn't short out. I also trimmed the ground shield across all the wires by cutting them and cutting down the rest of the shielding near the wires to make sure they did not short either.
I added some heat shrink before soldering to make sure they didn't short out later. I then tested this on my ups usb ports before covering the wires to make sure it was working. Be careful here as you can short the wires when you test if you're not careful to separate them.
Here's everything heat covered and finished.
I was thinking of making some type of mount but just decided to use a few pieces of heavy duty double sided tape on the top and bottom edge. The fans are on top of the heat sink. I did notice this was very hot before I put the fans on here, so it worked out perfectly. Well at least they stay in place and this side feels much better now. So air is going into the router and not just the heat sink. So I hope nothing gets dropped from the wireless from heat now since it feel much cooler. The router does not have any fans so this should take care of this problem. The fans are also very quiet and the reason I just went with them. Of course the only problem may be some dust, but I know to clean that every now and then. Aside from this extra wire, it's back to normal. I should note I only notice the problem on very very hot days, and it's been about 90 percent humid so it's been hot.
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