Using thermoelectric coolers

[Hybrid fourdoor]

I see you guys trying to come up with weird ways to cool these chips (like oil encased chips ). And I was cruising around at Fry's the other day and saw these things. Thermoelectric coolers, act like a refrigerator getting cold on one side and hot on the other.



{From All-Electronics web site}

1.18" (30 mm) square X 0.15". These incredible miniature solid state heat pumps raise or lower temperature in a small area almost instantly. Utilizing the Peltier effect these modules perform the same cooling or heating functions as freon based refrigerators but they do it with no moving parts, and are very reliable. Current applied to the device will produce heat on one side and cold on the other side, up to 68 C difference between the two sides. Modules can be mounted in parallel to increase the heat transfer effect or can be stacked to achieve high differential temperatures. Operate on 3-12 Vdc. Requires a heat sink to prevent overheating.


$17.00 each

Looking at the package at Fry's it looked like they required some current though, as they said Imax was like 2 or 3 amps.

Also another thing that may be of interest for water cooling. Fuel rails seem to look like good canidates for this stuff.

Here you can see how the fuel would travel through rail. Now you could seal the holes on an OEM one like this...or fashion it some way so that chip sits over the injector hole and make direct contact with the water (insulated chips here ). If your gonna look at OEM...look at the inline 4 cylinders...they usually have this kind of fuel rail setup...Honda Civics from the 90's have a real good shape, with plenty of flat mounting area.



You can also buy Fuel rail as unmachine stock that is just the basic shape plus the internal passage. No injector holes. Which you can then mount the chip on the flat top part.



You can usually buy this stuff for like $10-$20 a foot from performance shops...hot rod/dragster shops more specifiecally. Then you can let the water do its convection magic.

[jleaman]

The problem with those are that you still need heat sinks. one on the hot side to dissipate all the hot to keep the cooler side cooler. and b they need a separate psu and they take up a lot of current. Not really worth it at all.

[jwb]

Right, a Peltier cooler makes one side slightly cooler, but it makes the other side a lot hotter. All it does is increase your cooling headache. The only use for them is if you simply cannot move heat out of the transistor fast enough, but for some reason you are able to cool the peltier sufficiently.

[jleaman]

My dad uses them for his lasers to keep them Cooler.. he has running right now a blue green and red. i like the blue personally but the green is the brightest.

[JOE DIRT®]

hybrid if you bothered to read previous posts hollow aluminun extrusion runs about 2.40 cents a pound and is a good concept for cooling

[S.C]

Will copper do better cooling?

[Oscar]

Originally posted by S.C
Will copper do better cooling?

Yes. Copper has better conductivity, hence it leads electricity as well as heat better than for instance aluminum.

[MWP]

Peltiers are really only useful if you want to get an IC below room temp.... and when you do, you need to start thinking about condensation problems.

Ive used these a lot before on cooling CPUs... i cant see how they could be applied to cooling amp ICs... ??

Although, it would be interesting to see if a cold amp IC sounds better.

[JOE DIRT®]

peltier pads do an excellent job but you still require a heatsink

[JOE DIRT®]

sorry Jason....I was ignorant and did not see your posts