Peltier chiller

P

PC_trashser

n00b
Joined
Nov 17, 2010
Messages
5
I have been thinking of building a water chiller, using 3 Koolance HHD water blocks, HD-60, sandwich two layers of six peltiers per layer, total 12 peltiers, connect in series of two peltiers, see rough patchwork below.
photo.php


I have a Meanwell PSU, 15V 40A (600W), which I plan to use on this setup.

The idea is: 136W peltiers - each pair of peltiers connect in series will use half power of one peltier, which is 68W. 6 pairs use total of 408W, fall within 68% of the Meanwell's 600W. See rough drawing here...
photo.php


Power will be continuously on, as long as the PC is on, to chill coolant, preferably with a reservoir. It could also be controlled by a digital household thermostat – those that control our heating and A/C in the home – via a heavy duty relay.

The coolant then will be pumped to CPU and GPU through 2 quick disconnection fittings. The coolant tubing can either go to CPU then GPU in series or split T fittings, to distribute coolant simultaneously to CPU and GPU. Chipset, NB and SB could share in the cold flow.

I am also interest in using Danger Den's External 3X360 Box to house my project, with three 360 radiators to pump out heat from the peltiers. Or just build a plain wooden box?

Does anyone had other suggestions on this mad idea? What is the chance of it actually work?
 
Boy, I wish I could see the pictures. Isn't the problem that there is still only going to be one peltier touching the CPU core, so you are limited by the capacity/performance of that peltier? I'm a little rusty on my peltier knowledge - have people been using them in the past 5 years - seems like they dropped off the radar.
 
First, I think you need to post some pictures of your idea because I have no idea what you are trying to do, other than create a chiller. Second, I think you need to do a lot of reading, TECs produce a very large amount of heat, while at best hard drives produce maybe a few watts. Your blocks also need to be able to tolerate high compression force about 150PSI min. Also the biggest issue, the power you see listed, I'm presuming ebay TECs by the 136w value, is the amount of power they consume not the amount they move. So a 136w TEC actually moves about 89w in what we call Qmax, maximum wattage moved at Vmax, 15.2v in this case I believe. So that's just some food for thought. I would suggest searching on overclock.net and xtremesystems for some TEC information. Also find some other sources of information. You'd be surprised at how many people have either tried or done the same thing that you want. Anyways I wish you the best of luck with your chiller.
 
It's not quite clear what you want to do, but here is the rundown on TEC-chillers:

- Stacked TECs will not work - too much power consumption, too low efficiency, etc... You must run them in parallel (not necessarily electrically parallel, but physically next to each other in one layer of depth). Because you have a 15v PSU, 7.5V will likely be your operating voltage, and if you have some adjustment (maybe down to 6V), then even better, because 7.5V is about the max I'd recommend for some TECs.
- TEC's will run most optimally at lower voltage (generally 20-35% of max voltage). The Delta-Temperature will be lower, but you can still achieve a 20-30C delta with a COP competitive with or better than phase-change. If you want temperatures below sub-zero, then Phase-change is your solution.
- PWM-controllers work well with TECs, and some form of voltage control would be nice to have.

- Noting all of this: It's generally best to use multiple high Qmax TECs at lower voltage for higher efficiency. The TECs you've chosen are too small to be worthwhile.


http://www.overclock.net/peltiers-tec/249758-ultrasonic2s-tec-calculator.html - Here is Ultrasonic2's (muffy's) TEC-calculator. Play around with it, and you'll learn, more realistically, what can be done.

This is an expensive and involved project requiring many hours of design work and consideration... you may be better off just modifying a cheaper A/C unit into a chiller (which still isn't all that easy).
 
Last edited:
I have the pictures and thought I already embed with the thread. I could not figure out how to include my pictures from my PC, so I posted the pictures in Facebook then tried to link them to my thread. Still no pictures to see. Wish there is an easier way, like copy and paste! Any idea?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top