Peltier died

[Aeon Flux]

I think I killed my peltier, Im not sure. It just stopped working one day. Anyone have any ideas why and if I can fix it? It was being air cooled with an AMD heatsink. No connections are broken as far as I can tell.

 

[L337 M33P]

AMD stock heatsink??

MAN HOW HOT DID THAT THING GET?!

 

[Aeon Flux]

It wasnt a stock heatsink. I bough it for my last athlon. The Tec was only a 56 watt. The heatsink should have been more than suffecient.

 

[L337 M33P]

You probably can't repair it. It either died from thermal or mechanical stress, breaking the solder joints holding it together, I think.

 

[Borisw37]

You probably can't repair it. It either died from thermal or mechanical stress, breaking the solder joints holding it together, I think.

That is realy the only thing that can happen to peltier. There are no moving parts or electronic devices. Its just cubes of different metal connected with solder. So it either got too hot and solder melted at one spot, or it got too hot and one of the cubes of metal cracked.

 

[USAPGAPRO]

Man, Im sorry.

 

[Aeon Flux]

Its no biggie. Things happen. This weekend Im think Im going to slowly lap the ceramic off of the peltier and open it to get a real view of one. I have read about them a lot since mine has died and understand very well how they are made and built now. I would like to see exactly why it happenend. When I plug in the peltier now I can still feel it buzzing sort of when the elctricity runs through it. Its hard to explain. There is a very subtle difference in the tempature when it is plugged in. I think I might open it to see the real innards of one and tinker with it to learn some more about them. It's all ready dead so what can it hurt?

 

[Cyrix_2k]

Will you post some pics? Me like pics

 

[Paxmax]

Lap it off??

Seems like a tough job...

Why dont you just heat it up with a hot-air gun to 130C and just lift the lid off?

If you cool the other side slightly all pellets should stick to other side while you lift the lid.

Maybe you can repair it with heating it up, maybe the tin will reattach?

 

[Aeon Flux]

I might try and cut off the ceramic from the sides. Heating it up isnt such a bad idea but short of a lighter the only way I have to heat it up is the hair dryer and that doesnt conduct enough heat I would think to melt the solder again. Im not sure. What I will do is keep track of what I do and one way r another we will all learn something from it. And I'll try my best to post pictures. As for the quality I cant garuntee. I have a crappy digital camera. Ill let you guys know how it goes.

 

[Borisw37]

loosing one is not too bad. For my freshmen desing project in college we messed up and killed EIGHT of 75-80watt peltiers within 15 seconds of powering up the thing.

 

[Paxmax]

loosing one is not too bad. For my freshmen desing project in college we messed up and killed EIGHT of 75-80watt peltiers within 15 seconds of powering up the thing.

Poor Mr. Peltier !!! He must be writhing in agony in his grave!!

Anyway, I too don't think a hairdryer will cut it when it comes to heat up a TEC. I tried to get hotter air once, by restricting airflow through, but the darn internal temp safety sensor tripped and shut the hairdryer off...

 

[Evil_Eye]

How about popping the pelt into an oven?

It should create enough heat to lift the plate off.