Portable Insulin Pen/Bottle Cooler

Description

**Design Phase**
Those who know me personally know that I am a insulin dependent diabetic. For those who don't know me are probably at least aware that there are somewhere around a bazillion(don't quote me on that) other diabetic people who also require insulin. This can pose a problem for those of us who like to or have to travel.
Insulin is okay to be at room temperature(25C) for about a month before you can begin to worry about it effectiveness. After that amount of time it can start to weaken - the proteins break down. Usually the bottle or cartridge that is left out of the fridge for current use is gone before that time line, so for most people it isn't an issue. For someone like me, I take a very small amount of insulin, and this means that the cartridge that I use will last a lot longer for me and could be pushing the bounds of its life. I will be designing a number of different coolers for Pens, spare cartridges and Bottles to keep these items at an ideal temp

Project Logs

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The 3D Printed Case
Sean Hodgins • 01/21/2016 at 17:40 • 0 comments

I decided to order the case I designed from Shapeways, and it came in today. I'm very happy with the outcome.
The pressure fit for the heat sinks couldn't be better. Now I just need to make the circuit board, which should be really simple. Then see if it works. My concern right now is the fans may not be able to pull away enough heat. I won't be putting a battery in this. It will be USB powered.
Created the CAD housing today.
Sean Hodgins • 04/08/2015 at 20:51 • 0 comments

Put the housing together with the known size of the parts I'm using(Peltier, Fan, Heatsinks) and now have a board size I can work with.
Should be all dimensioned for a shapeways print in Nylon. I will throw together a really quick PCB since its only a couple components. Board can be 32x15 which is a good amount of room. There is also room for a small LiPo, but I believe I will have to have a much larger one put on the bottom for it to be any good, and keep cool.

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Discussions

ashwin.venkat wrote 08/17/2016 at 11:00

Amazing idea, I have some idea around insulation, can we work on this? together

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Gabriel wrote 04/15/2016 at 04:04

awesome project, a lot of people do need this. Especially in hot countries like mine.

You could make the heatsink tubular, copper and run it parallel to the glass vile, have the fan blow _through_ the tube heatsink

Larger mass, area, and better use of the fan! Possibly easier to integrate to the case as all you need are to holes.

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Sean Hodgins wrote 04/15/2016 at 20:13

I like the idea of the copper pipe, but actually for the cold side! It could surround the pen and more evenly distribute the heat absorption and make cooling easier.

On the hot side, it might be worth looking into. But there is also the factor of having the pins on my current copper heat sinks. The tube may have more surface area, but not able to shed the heat as well. This small fan may not be up to the challenge of cooling the heat sinks anyway, more testing required.

Thanks for your suggestion.

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Gabriel wrote 04/15/2016 at 20:32

puncture the tube inwards, to create air resistance like a cheese grate... like heat sink wrapped into itself.... or Screw bolts into the tube radially inward....basically create the heat sink pins inward.

I like your extension of the idea to the cold side! that would be better indeed!

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0xF wrote 04/08/2015 at 22:03

cool project, peltiers have always fascinated me!

I think the one important aspect you are missing in your current iteration (unless I'm missing something) is proper insulation, of which the battery life will evetually depend.

also, is the yellow part some kind of a fan? I didn't know they made them so tiny

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Sean Hodgins wrote 04/09/2015 at 00:21

Yeah insulation is something I will have to look into also. Right now to test the design, this case only costs about $20 from Shapeways, which is awesome. I'm thinking that on the assembled case a nice rubber sleeve or cover could do good things for insulation. I'm also thinking that some thermal mass like a chunk of aluminum on the cold side surrounding the pen would help also.

And yes, that fan is real... I love small electronics, and when I found them I ordered a couple. This will be the first project that I will use them for something. Really excited. The one in the CAD drawing is 15mm square, but I also have an 8mm one. Check out this picture I took on my Instagram.

https://instagram.com/p/x72CyiQ--3/?taken-by=idlehandsdev

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0xF wrote 04/09/2015 at 21:56

that is awesome!

also an observation: since the peltier heats up on the heatsink side, the whole case will likely heat up more on that side.

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Adam Fabio wrote 04/08/2015 at 05:56

Very cool project Sean! Cooling generally uses a lot of energy - but with such a small volume of liquid to keep cool, less "common" methods might work out - like pelter, etc.

Are you sure? yes | no

Sean Hodgins wrote 04/08/2015 at 14:00

Thanks! Yes I need to experiment to see how much energy is actually
going to be required for what temperature. Most peltiers are designed to
have quite a large temperature differential from ambient. Since insulin
only needs to be kept around 2C (generally ~20C Delta T) there should
hopefully be some energy savings in that regard as well. It could find
itself just being a plug in device if its too power hungry, but this
could still help many people who travel to hotels that don't have
fridges, or are on driving trips as they could plug the holder into the
vehicle.

Are you sure? yes | no

Portable Insulin Pen/Bottle Cooler

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The 3D Printed Case

Created the CAD housing today.

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