Question Peltier

Carl2

Distinguished
Jan 31, 2010
39
1
18,545
I have spent quite a bit of time working with Peltier coolers, during that time I've made cooper chambers with attached the Peltier element attached and changed from 6 amp units to 9 amp units. It seems like a good idea to use 40 F degree water to cool the CPU and not air at 70 F. I went the conventional route and used two water loops one for cooling the Peltier and one loop for cooling the CPU. I was able to learn quite a bit about the Peltiers and modified the system as I went along, I moved from a plastic tank with a cooper bottom where the Peltier was held to a full copper tank for more strength. I decided to reduce the size of the tank to decrease the cooling time and also found a higher current Peltier. In the back of my mind I had the idea of connecting the Peltier directly to the CPU and now at this time rather than make more smaller tanks I believe I'll work on connecting to the CPU. I'll use a cooper plate with a pin head sized thermister to control the temp, the small size is necessary for a quick response time. I can see a lot of advantages to using this method and removing one water loop and the associated losses in that loop.
 

RealBeast

Titan
Moderator
Are you planning on sub-ambient cooling? If so, condensation is a big issue.
They are fun to play with but use a lot of power, particularly if used sub-ambient so should have their own power supply.
Are you removing the heat from the hot side with a water cooler loop?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Mtop

rubix_1011

Contributing Writer
Moderator
For the money, I would just go the route of getting a window A/C unit and setting up to chill a cooler of glycol like I do for my beer fermentation tanks. Then pump the chilled coolant through your loop.

Window air conditioners can be found for about $99 or even cheaper at used appliance stores.

Igloo cooler is like $15. Just need some coolant that won't freeze....don't try water, it makes a giant ice block.

j295FIV.jpg
 

The prime mediocre

Distinguished
I made a thread well over a year ago asking about the Phononic Hex 2.0 Peltier cooler. I, mercifully, did not receive any responses in the form of a Linus Tech Tips video.

Can you post photos of your project as you go? It might be more of a build log than a cooling question, but still, I'd love to see more of this.
 

rubix_1011

Contributing Writer
Moderator
One of our members, 4ryan6, once had a very thorough build that was very similar to what is being described here. However, he has since left our forums and moved onward and his thread no longer has the images that it once did.

It covered most of the same concept - using Peltiers independently, although cooled by large air coolers rather than cooling loops - while chilled water was pumped through and super cooled.
 

Carl2

Distinguished
Jan 31, 2010
39
1
18,545
A lot more replies than I thought I'd receive, Thank you. Condensation has been solved ages ago by isolating the Peltier from surrounding air using a foam around the thickness of the Peltier with a square hole cut in the middle for the Peltier to sit in. I've used this for some time without problems. As far as being inefficient they have a job to do and that would be to cool one side and put heat on the other side and that takes power, since there inefficiencies we try to keep them as low as possible. I've built many tanks of different sizes and found the less water that is cooled the quicker it gets to a low temp. But the objective is to get the CPU to a lower temp, so why cool water and pump this water through tubing causing the water to warm up, lots of losses there, instead connect the Peltier to the CPU. As far as using an air conditioner for cooling my main objection is the size, also I'd worked in electronics and air conditioners are mechanical.
I take Linus with a grain of salt, he seems to be an closely related ads. As for pics I have quite a few in the computer from the past. I really need a computer with a CPU to test out the latest version but in the meantime I can use another source of heat.
Insert Image is not working for me at this time
 

Karadjgne

Titan
Ambassador
The issue I see with direct mounting the peltier ti the cpu is fitment. It's currently surrounded by foam to prevent dew population. You'd end up removing most, if not all the cold side foam just to get the peltier close enough to the socket.

Could instead use an older stock cooler as a spacer, one with a copper core would be a better choice. That'd also give the option of actually mounting the peltier to the socket.

You can find old P4 systems very cheap on eBay, perfect for use as a hot-plate test bench.
 

Carl2

Distinguished
Jan 31, 2010
39
1
18,545
Yes the insulation method was not explained in detail very well, In front of me I have a Peltier on a water block, both the Peltier and water block are 42 mm. We want 1/4 to 3/8 inches of foam on each side or about 6 mm extra on each side for a total of 54 mm. We use 2 flat square cooper plates 54 x 54 mm on each side of the Peltier that hold the Peltier and foam in place.
There is cooper on the hot side attached to the water block and copper on the cold side that will be attached to the CPU. On the cold side copper is a small thermistor used to control the temp of the plate using transistors. I had used this method when attaching a Peltier to the water tank to cool water and the cooled water was pumped to a water block to be mounted to the CPU.
There is not a problem with excess foam , the foam is between two pieces of copper. I'm a bit confused by "mounting the Peltier to the socket" to me a socket is use for electrical connections.
For now I'll probably just play around with cooling a cooper piece that I can heat up and see how that goes. The computer I'm using is fairly old and I'll see what a replacement CPU costs.
 

Carl2

Distinguished
Jan 31, 2010
39
1
18,545
Not much done on the project lately, rather cold here and the kitchen gets colder than the rest of the house so there is another thermostat in the kitchen but I don't use it much because of cost. A new CPU for the older HP is $175 that I'd rather not spend, guess I could try it out and if the CPU goes bad replace it while using the six core computer. Gives me time to think and the kitchen table needs to be cleaned to set up the cooling loop which would then have to be moved to this computer.