So close to greatness.

I've dabbled in this and the one thing that absolutely has to be included is a seal on the edges between the laptop and the stand like so:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/126317216434

Otherwise the air will escape to the sides.

For my home project I used foam tape, but any seal will do.

Regarding cooling I wholeheartedly recommend one Framework 16 owner's journey in making his device maintain 80°C with the CPU going full throttle (aside from other mods):

https://community.frame.work/t/all-the-modifications-ive-mad...

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vintagedave 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> Otherwise the air will escape to the sides.

Don't you want it to do that? The air goes upwards, hits the laptop surface, and travels outwards carrying the heat?

If it's sealed, I imagine you would get a very turbulent situation, possibly far noisier, but also one where I can't intuitively picture the airflow and expected cooling flow. I should note I am very, very far from an expert here ;)

	▲	Tade0 7 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		There's a lot going on here, but the gist is that even a magnesium alloy laptop chassis is a rather poor conductor of heat (for a metal) and you really have to push that air through the machine to get it out.