USB Drink Cooler

To try out the CoolIT USB Beverage Chiller we plugged it into the Dell M1710 Gaming Laptop and had it working in seconds. The chiller is powered by a five foot long USB cable and works on both USB 1.1 and 2.0 devices. The USB Chiller requires at least 1.2 Amps to operate and pulls about 5W of power, so some the original USB ports found on older systems might not have enough power for it to operate correctly. Most USB ports will provide sufficient amperage for the Chiller to operate and we couldn't find one that didn't.

When it came to chilling a warm can of soda the USB Beverage Chiller fell flat on its face, but that's not what it's supposed to do. The intended use of the USB Beverage Chiller is to keep a cold drink cold. We then opened two cans of soda and sure enough after 10-15 minutes the Pepsi that was on the chiller was without a doubt colder than the one on the coaster. When it came to plastic bottles the chiller didn't work too well, but it seemed to chill glass bottles and containers well.

The CoolIT USB Beverage Chiller might be improved by having a better base as the cold plate is flat and the bottom of the soda can is not. Due to this, only a tiny amount of surface material from the soda can actually touches the cold plate. It would be interesting to see if they could make a cold plate that was molded the same shape as a can for increased contact.

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