to much heat on wires

i have a 226w peltier and it is running off a 550 watt psu.
the only other thing the psu is running is a 120 mm ran with 12 Vdc, 1.2 amp required. the connection from the red wire of the psu gets so hot that i think it might be melting some thing.
every once and a while the peltier becomes disconnected from the wire it is connected to. the 2 wires seem to be getting shorter every time this happenes. they sliver stuff that is normaly on the red of the wire coming off the peltier is gone. it could have melted or some thing but i dont know what is going on. i really need help with this. because i am going to run out of wire from the peltier very soon. . why is this happening ???????

It is happening because you are using wire that is too thin for the 20 Amp current draw of the pelt. And you are not making good connections between the pelt and the PSU.

You should cut the leads of the pelt back to about an inch, and solder 12 Gauge wire to the pelt leads, and attach the 12 Gauge wires to your power supply directly. You may also get a substantial increasing in cooling because a higher voltage will be applied to the pelt.

If you don't want to open up your power supply to connect the 12 gauge wire directly, then you should cut off two Molex connectors and solder the 12V and ground wires of both drive leads to the 12 Gauge pelt wire.

The silver stuff that is dissappearing is solder. Your wires are getting so hot that the solder is melting and wicking inside the insulation of the wire.

Since87 said:

It is happening because you are using wire that is too thin for the 20 Amp current draw of the pelt. And you are not making good connections between the pelt and the PSU.

You should cut the leads of the pelt back to about an inch, and solder 12 Gauge wire to the pelt leads, and attach the 12 Gauge wires to your power supply directly. You may also get a substantial increasing in cooling because a higher voltage will be applied to the pelt.

If you don't want to open up your power supply to connect the 12 gauge wire directly, then you should cut off two Molex connectors and solder the 12V and ground wires of both drive leads to the 12 Gauge pelt wire.

The silver stuff that is dissappearing is solder. Your wires are getting so hot that the solder is melting and wicking inside the insulation of the wire.

Click to expand...

'nuff said

You should not use ordinary HD / ATX connectors to connect a big TEC. Those flimsy connectors aren't meant to carry 20+A.
They are rated somewhere between 7 to 15 A MAX !!!
It all depends on manufacturer of the connector and which material in the pins/sleeves he chose.
The connector could be heating up the wire, or adding to the heat already developing in the cable...

You must also provide enough cooling to the hotside of TEC.
Some manufacturers of TECs chose deliberatly a low-temp melting tin (melts around 80C) for safety reasons. It might just save your TEC this time. When and if you solder the cable back you should use the same (low melting) tin, otherwize you might desolder the TECs pellets inside, and your TEC will be ruined forever.

"solder the 12V and ground wires of both drive leads to the 12 Gauge pelt wire."
im only using one molex connecters right now so are are just saying that i should use 2 of them. if thats it i should use 2 molex connecters off differerent strings right.
as for the 12 gauge wire do i just rip out the wires to the molex connecter and replace them with the 12 gauge wires.

ikari899 said:

im only using one molex connecters right now so are are just saying that i should use 2 of them. if thats it i should use 2 molex connecters off differerent strings right.
as for the 12 gauge wire do i just rip out the wires to the molex connecter and replace them with the 12 gauge wires.

Click to expand...

Ideal would be to open up the PSU that is powering the pelt, unsolder the wires that connect to the molex connectors, and solder the 12 gauge wires directly into the the now empty holes.

If you don't want to open up the PSU, then you should:

1. Cut the Molex connector off two drive power cables.

2. Strip the insulation from the end of both (connectorless) yellow wires and solder both of the yellow wires to the end of one 12 gauge wire.

3. Strip the the insulation from two of the black wires and solder both of the black wires to a second 12 gauge wire.

4. Solder the other ends of the two 12 gauge wires to the pelt leads. (Be sure to get the polarity right.) As Paxmax said, pelts are made with low temperature solder. You need to make sure that when you solder to the pelt leads, enough heat doesn't travel down the pelt leads to melt the low temp solder.

For the amount of current draw of that peltier you really should think about getting another dedicated PSU...

L337 M33P said:

For the amount of current draw of that peltier you really should think about getting another dedicated PSU...

Click to expand...

Very first post:

ikari899 said:

i have a 226w peltier and it is running off a 550 watt psu.
the only other thing the psu is running is a 120 mm ran with 12 Vdc, 1.2 amp required.

Click to expand...

yea i dont think that the fan is really taking that much more from the psu to force me to get another psu.

Oops I mean a NON-PC PSU. With a 550W PC PSU about half of that rating is taken up with the +3.3V and +5V rails, leaving precious little headroom for that peltier. The specs for that PSU are 24A for the 12V rail but max total load on the +3.3, 5 and 12V of 530W.

A switchmode PSU that supplies only a 12V rail is what I was trying to say but failed miserably. Such a PSU will have terminals that you can attach the hefty 12 Gauge wire to, so you needn't ruin a perfectly good 550W antec PSU to try and get a peltier to run off it.

cut three yellow wires and three black from off from molex's and twist those together and then solder to the pelt leads... thats what i did on my 550w truepower when i powered my 226w tec becasue only one lead caused extreme heat on the single lines

i like what qwerty57 said, it's the best idea.