The Mini fridge, powered by USB, is a plastic box with a cool circle/ring shaped plate at the bottom, attached to what looks to be a heat sync with a fan. The ONLY thing this fridge will keep cool is a CANNED drink, nothing else. The fridge is designed to take away heat from only the bottom of the can. And even then, the drink does not stay very cool at all.
It's very easy to use. All you do is plug in the USB in any USB drive.
The best thing to do is have a coke or 7up (or whatever) in a regular sized fridge until it's cold. Then you can take it out and keep it cool for maybe an hour in the mini fridge, so you need to drink it pretty fast.
And the blue LED light is not bright at all.
If you're contemplating whether or not to get this product, I would say DO NOT get it. If you're looking for a mini fridge, spend a bit of extra money on something that will actually work.
Well it's initial cooling ability is pretty weak. It will keep a pre-chilled can of soda cool for a while but has a hard time cooling down a warm can. It will, but after over a day. With a few simple modifications, I was able to double it's capability for almost nothing.
Trick one was to add a larger and more powerful fan to the heat sink. The cooling element(and yes it is actually a cooling element, not just a heatsink) works on the property of dissipation, so adding a fan means it directly cools better. Trick number two, and the biggest help, was insulating it properly. Any refrigerator needs insulation to cool worth a crap, and this unit is just thin plastic. I added some thin bubble wrap/foil ducting insulation inside the box and a piece of foam covered in the same insulation in the hollow door. After these two very simple mods, the cooling got miles better and it actually manages to chill a room temp can pretty well. This thing is a great basis for a fun project, but isn't a great product on its own. They could have put more effort into it.
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While it looks nice on your desk and makes people wonder what it is (and then be in awe when they actually see that it is a fridge) it doesn't cool much. Took more than 4 hours to cool a room temperature can of coke.
The real use though is to keep your beverage cool, not actually cool it.
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Had to try it. Now I know. Unit pulled 4 watts according to my Kill-A-Watt meter (meter highly recommended btw,P3 International P4400 Kill A Watt Electricity Usage Monitor, actually measures kwh usage over time)through a 110v, one amp wall-wart usb output. Fan was running, disc inside immediately became cool to touch, Peltier thermoelectric cooling IS effective, and rather intriguing, but I wrapped some good insulation around the unit, making sure to not obstruct the vents front and back, and left it overnight with a room temp can of Squirt, and a small thermometer inside. Ten hours later, the Squirt and Thermometer were at no more than 3 deg F cooler than the room. Bummer. A+ for concept, one star for lack of significant performance. "Experiment Sccessful", now I know one thing that DOES NOT WORK.
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If you spend any time sitting in front of a computer, the idea of USB powered mini fridge probably has some appeal to you, especially if you are far from a regular refrigerator and a plug-in-the-wall Mini Fridge is for some reason not an option for you. No doubt the thirst-suffering keyboard-slave inventors of this little item thought they had an instant winner on their hands, but they were done in by cheap materials and science.
The science problem is worth dwelling upon; the sad truth is that hot plates will ALWAYS work MUCH better than cooling plates for a reason in addition to the fact that hot plates can make use of the waste heat from electrical resistance (either directly or as a byproduct of the Peltier effect) while cooling plates must dissipate it:
convection.
Hotter fluids rise and colder fluids fall, thus a container of any liquid placed upon a hot plate will quickly become uniformly heated while a similar container of liquid placed upon a cooling plate will get as cold as it is ever going to get at the bottom while the upper layers won't cool much at all. That's why the instructions for this item say to use 8 ounce soda pop cans even though the product was obviously originally designed for 12 ounce soda pop cans; doing so removes what will always be the warmest 1/3rd of a 12 ounce soda pop can.
It is no accident in my opinion that later (?) models of this product Portable USB Cooler and Warmer 2-in-1 come with a switch so it can be used as a hot plate as well, which function can at least be presumed to work.
There ARE ways to fight this, but doing so would require spending more on materials. aries2110, one of the top reviewers of this version of the product shows what might have been by installing a stronger fan (for dissipating waste heat) and taping some insulation to the inside, reporting a significant increase in cooling. The less handy can try setting it in front of a desk fan and putting a can insulator upside down on the can. I also noted some additional cooling but nothing approaching "refrigerator cold".
Basically, about all it is good for IMHO is SLOWING the warming up of a previously refrigerated can of soda pop more than just setting it on your desk will. I picked mine up on clearance, and I suggest you do the same,...
if you even want to bother with it.
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