Barney Laptop?
 

With laptops being used more in the field - what are you using to muffle/silence them when the fan kicks in?

Blimp & Blarney
 

I would NOT recomend ever blocking the fans of a laptop. Small enclosed object, producing alot of heat. Depends alot on the kind of laptop though, with smaller notebooks (i.e. Apple 12" models,Sony Vaio) It might not be as much as a problem, due to the less power produced. Larger, (Dell, Apple 14" etc) have larger components, will overheat easily. I had a laptop custom built for me, for use with a FP33. It was a stock Dell Lattitiude, beastly large object. I removed the LCD (broken) video card, I/O mostly, except USB, Firewire, and S-Video. There isnt any VGA, RJ45/11 IO. I had 6 chan XLR and 1/4" I/O installed, sound cards, and an NP-1 Basket. The total end of the project cost me a little more than buying an a new mixer and DAT unit. But it is very cool. Pro tools runs on it, and the FP33 connects with it, and there are no fans because it's liquid cooled. Heavy, but cool.

But on the subject, you might be able to get away with blimping the unit, from shot to shot as long as you give it time to cool down between shots, but not all day. Good luck.

Hey Daniel , welcome to the board; sounds like you have a beast of a machine there.

Just got back from the hardware store and picked up an alu case and some eggcrate style acoustic foam tiles.

My plan is to leave a 2" air gap around the laptop and the tiles will absorb the noise. I am hoping the thermal insulating aspect of the tiles will be offset by the alu case which will act as a heat sink with over a sq yard of surface area.

Initial tests sounding great.

John

As long as you are going the DIY route, consider leaving room for some of those re-freezable gel packs ("Blue Ice" or equilivant) in the bottom of your foam - they stay frozen for a couple of hours and quite cook and will drop the ambient temp enough to do what you need.

You could also stick a beer in there in case the shoot is not going well ;-)