170watt peltier

[mogie]

Hi everyone,

Just bought a peltier from virtual village for 8 bones.
http://www.virtualvillage.com/170w-thermoelectric-cooler-peltier-plate-001540-008.html

i got it modded to a psu on the 12v rail. the hot side is well cooled and the cool side has a nice heatsink on it. the psi is bit around 300 so it's well sealed. now, at 12v the thing gets super hot super fast and the cold side eventually turns hot as well as the peltier law applies.

At 5v it gets cold but not cold enough.

I want to be able to put it on the 12v rail but lower the voltage to 10v. I need to know what resistors to buy at radioshack? the specs of the peltier in case you can't click the link are:

•Cooling power: 130 - 170W
•Voltage: 0 - 15V DC
•Ampere: 0 - 10 Amps
•Temperature Range: -60°C to 180°C
•Dimensions: 50 x 50 x 3.6mm [1.97 x 1.97 x 0.16"]
•Wire lengths: 11.5cm [4.5"]
•Weight: 37g
•Type: TEC1-127 15
•Fully sealed for protection against moisture

thanks!!

[Bobnova]

The cold side will only get hot if the hot side isn't cooled well enough.
Keep the hot side cool and the cold side will stay cold indefinitely.

[mogie]

it is but the 12v is just too much. it gets severly cold andseverly hot, not really what i wanted. the 5v is nice and cool and not so hot but still a bit more would be nice, hence the request to go from 12v to 10v OR even up the 5v to 8v....

[tinymouse2]

V=IR
12 = 10Rplate (Rplate = resistance of the plate)
Rplate = 1.2 ohms

V=IR
2 = 10R (so 2V = 10 Amps x Resistance needed to drop 2V)

But that gives you 0.2Ohms and that seems WAAAY to low.

Having said all that it does seem like you will need a 0.2 Omnom resistor in series with the cooler.

That is assuming that the 10Amp is correct. Just out of curiosity why not run it at 12V? It says it's good from 0-15V

[mogie]

thanks for replying, well at 12v the thing is a heater behind words, the cold side is nice but then the heat eventually transfers over. the heatsink on the hot side is a huge copper xenon heatsink with a tornado on it and still it's waaay hot. i have a feeling that 10v is going to be just right.
so you're saying a .2 ohm resistor on the yellow cable from the psu? btw i replaced the power cabling coming from the psu with real copper cabling u use for home wiring since the thing gets so hot it'll melt the regular molex cabling. thanks for the info and if you could link what you think i need from radio shack that would be great!! been awhile

[Bobnova]

That's going to be one hell of a resistor, just FYI.
Expect a lot of heat from it!

The hot side needs a larger heatsink, you have a pretty beastly pelt there after all.
I found that an AMD OEM heatpipe heatsink can keep my pelt nice and cool (roughly the same wattage as yours at 12v).

Are you using thermal paste between the pelt and the heatsink? It's important to do so.

I personally would focus on improving cooling rather then lowering volts.



What are you cooling with this, anyway?

[tinymouse2]

Yeh something's gone wrong with my maths and/or physics hasn't it.
200mOhm does sound waaay to low to drop 2 Ohms at 10Amps.

Bleh looks like you (mogie) will have to get better cooling unless someone with apparnetlt better physics than me steps in here.

It does seem that a resistor wouldn't do the job though since it would use a LOT of power. You would need some serious voltage regulation.

Basically more effort than it's worth!

[tinymouse2]

OK so I've been thinking about this a bit more and I've drawn the conclusion to run it at 10V you really need a voltage regulator.

http://www.national.com/mpf/LM/LM117.html#Overview

I would only do this if you know what you're doing though.

[mogie]

OK so I've been thinking about this a bit more and I've drawn the conclusion to run it at 10V you really need a voltage regulator.

http://www.national.com/mpf/LM/LM117.html#Overview

I would only do this if you know what you're doing though.

Thanks for all the replies guys. I was thinking of using an lm117 but just didn't want to get the potentiometer out and remember how to even use it. I do use an amd stock heatsink but on the cooling side because the surface area of my pelt is so large it doesn't make complete contact on it. and, of course, the pelt hot side needs to be completely in contact with a heatsink. the hot side has a great heatsink. I'll post pics of what i have so far.

As far as where this is going to go, i have a setup in the kitchen inside a cabinet corner I made a custom door on. The pc is in there and it gets a bit hot. I wanted to experiment with a pelt there. My main gaming rig is in an istarusa cage in a 3u rack case with an a/c duct pumping directly into it. :) If anyone wants to see pics lemme know.

I will try and get the lm117 today at radioshack andlet you guys know howi made out.

[tinymouse2]

I would love to see pics! Contemplating getting one myself :D
Probably just stick a low profile passive cooler on one side with a couple of small 80mm fans blowing across it and maybe put the intel stock heatsink on the other side to push cold air into the case. Somehow I don't think that will be enough though :(

[mogie]

well a stock amd heatsink and stock fan (reversed of course) on the cold side is waay cold when it blows forward. on the hot side you have to see it to understand. i'm making a youtube video right now of the progress so standby. i didn't get the lm117 today (was busy) but tomorrow afternoon i'm going to scoop it up.

[tinymouse2]

Wait...wha? It's to cold? I didn't even know there was such a thing :s

[bing]

That TEC is at 15 Amps at 15 V, and even at 10 Volt, I doubt it will be smaller or at least equal to 1.5 Amp.

Fyi, that LM 117 maxed out at 1.5 Amps which far too small imo.






.

[mogie]

Sorry for the late reply. here is the TEC cooler video as promised. it's only pics since i didn't have time to pull the video off the camera. will do soon.

here is the youtube video of pics
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjP_Dx_sD8c

in the video you have to imagine the copper heatsink sitting totally flush on the top of my case with the tornado fan on top. looks like it belongs there. the amd stock cooler sink sits inside the 80mm fan hole on the top of my case and you don't really see it. it pull the cold air into the case and circulates it pretty good. i originally put a tornado on the cold side as well but the stock amd fan pulls the cold air to the case well enough so i took that tornado off.

keeps the ambient temp at 72f, with the 5770 ati and the amd 955 oc'd at 3.93. not bad at all!! considering my ambient temps on this particular pc was around 55-60c!! this pc sits inside a caddy corner of a kitchen where i cut out a hole and put the pc inside. i ran the cables up to the counter inside the wall coming out of a standard low voltage wall plate and into the monitor and speakers. lemme know if u wanna see a pic of that as well ;)

[Bobnova]

Nice! Glad to hear it works.

I advise a larger hot side heatsink, see if you can find an OEM AMD heatpipe sink, i used one with my pelt (same rating at 12v as yours) and it keeps the hot side cool enough for 24/7 ice on the cold side :D

[mogie]

Nice! Glad to hear it works.

I advise a larger hot side heatsink, see if you can find an OEM AMD heatpipe sink, i used one with my pelt (same rating at 12v as yours) and it keeps the hot side cool enough for 24/7 ice on the cold side :D

the funny thing is, i have 2 amd heatpipe sinks and i attached them (one on both sides) and it didn't pull the heat off nearly as efficiently as this monster piece of copper does. I blame this on the fact that the amd oem heatsinks are not big enough (the flat slab of copper underneath) and it doesn't cover every mm of the pelt. the moment the pelt has nowhere to put the heat it transfers it to the other side. Wish I could run it on the 12v rail but it just gets waaaaay to hot no matter what i use. the 5v is good for pulling in the 59f temps i wanted. it's like building a pc with no sides or doors and letting the a/c of the house cool it :)

[mogie]

btw this is my other main unit oc'd at 3.93 atm. no need for a pelt here. note the a/c duct :)
http://tinypic.com/r/kccg7r/5

just reroute the a/c duct from your bathroom (who needs to pee when it's cold?) and move it into the room with your pc. well, in my case it's in a closet in a rack. nice rack huh? lol and notice the startrek stickers. full power to the shields scotty!!

and yes that rack houses my switch, where every room in the house has at least 2 nic ports cat 6 and every room has an mce pc. we all share files from my main pc (the one in the pic) and i stream all my movies (all 1600 of them) to every room using mymovies.dk.

yes i know, i'm the man......however, i'm replacing the pc's in the rooms with xbox 360's. those pull only about 8 bucks a month in electricity if used all the time as mce extenders as opposed to the whopping 150.00 a month all the pc's are pulling :(. next project: build solar panels all over my roof to power my creations. muahahaahahahahahah