This is why Peltier coolers have not received much attention. The last cooler we reviewed with this technology was the Cooler Master ML360 Sub Zero , which we rated three stars, criticizing its cooling performance and power consumption. The cooler achieved inferior multi-core performance to regular AIOs while consuming nearly 200 watts on its own.
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Aaron Klotz is a contributing writer for Tom\u2019s Hardware, covering news related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards. ","collapsible":{"enabled":true,"maxHeight":250,"readMoreText":"Read more","readLessText":"Read less"}}), "https://slice.vanilla.futurecdn.net/13-4-22/js/authorBio.js"); } else { console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); } Aaron Klotz Social Links Navigation Contributing Writer Aaron Klotz is a contributing writer for Tom’s Hardware, covering news related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.
chaos215bar2 Well, yes. This is why it's helpful to do the research before committing to a project that never could have worked as envisioned. But the effort is certainly commendable! Reply
bit_user I think the best way to integrate peltier coolers into a water cooling setup is to split the system into two stages. In the first stage, you have a conventional radiator reduce the warm water temperature naturally. Then, the second stage should integrate a peltier device at low power, in order to further reduce the water temperature. I think the key point is that you don't want all of your cooling to go through the peltier device. In a 2-stage setup, you do sacrifice some peak performance but it should have much less power draw. Reply
chaos215bar2 bit_user said: I think the best way to integrate peltier coolers into a water cooling setup is to split the system into two stages. In the first stage, you have a conventional radiator reduce the warm water temperature naturally. Then, the second stage should integrate a peltier device at low power, in order to further reduce the water temperature. I think the key point is that you don't want all of your cooling to go through the peltier device. In a 2-stage setup, you do sacrifice some peak performance but it should have much less power draw. I think the key problem is that Peltier devices are just really low efficiency, low capacity cooling devices. If they made any sense to use in a cooling loop where mechanical options were available, we'r see them used in commercial coolers. Sure, what you describe will technically work and at least won't hurt the situation, but I would expect the actual benefit to be negligible. Reply
IntelUser2000 I'm disappointed. The article said "scratch". I thought someone made the peltier device itself from scratch, with materials. chaos215bar2 said: I think the key problem is that Peltier devices are just really low efficiency, low capacity cooling devices. If they made any sense to use in a cooling loop where mechanical options were available, we'r see them used in commercial coolers. I looked into Peltier devices in general. I bought those mini peltier cooled cosmetic fridges just so I can experiment and play with them. The issue with Peltier is that it's basically an electronic heat pump but the efficiency being really low. And because the thing is so thin the hot from the hot side gets transferred to the cold side. I looked briefly into even creating my own, to make a thicker version. I haven't found a way yet. So an ideally Peltier material would be a high thermal insulation material that also has low electrical resistance while having high Peltier effect number(don't know the term) all at the same time. So to make the cold side cold you need to reduce the hot side temperature to be as low as possible. So ideally you want cold/colder because hot on hot side will turn into hot/warm. Since the best you can do on the cold side is ambient temperature(or water temperature) it requires extreme amounts of cooling to get it anywhere near ambient. And the cooling required on the hot side is not just the rated power of the device. It's rated power plus the actual heat transferred. 60W rated module would then need 100W cooling. Reply
chaos215bar2 IntelUser2000 said: So an ideally Peltier material would be a high thermal insulation material that also has low electrical resistance while having high Peltier effect number(don't know the term) all at the same time. The trouble is, a Peltier device is literally just a large thermocouple, i.e. a junction between two dissimilar conductors. And conductors tend to conduct heat as well as electricity. So, in theory, you could come up with some thermally insulating material to make the thing out of. But then it's likely going to have really poor efficiency due to electrical resistance and the device won't actually be that great at transferring heat. I'm certainly not an expert in the relevant physics or engineering, but it seems like it would take a pretty big breakthrough in material science to design a Peltier device that actually both cooled/heated and transferred heat to/from surrounding materials effectively. Reply
IntelUser2000 chaos215bar2 said: I'm certainly not an expert in the relevant physics or engineering, but it seems like it would take a pretty big breakthrough in material science to design a Peltier device that actually both cooled/heated and transferred heat to/from surrounding materials effectively. I actually looked at some research and they said surprisingly magnesium is a good material and you don't need exotic materials. Rather than looking up data about the seebeck effect some guys decided to just test it out and suprisingly, Magnium was a really good material. Actually it said it surpasses current combination by quite a bit. 2x output would go a long way to make it much more usable. I can see such a module for lot of the smaller refrigeration applications. The Amazon drink/cosmetic coolers do work, but takes a long time and for the price not too practical. 2x the cooling or even 1/2 the power use would make them lot more attractive. Proper circuitry would also make them more efficient, but it obviously won't work for these cheap Chinese fridges. With the low efficiency it's not fit for more than that anyway. Certain part of science relies a bit too much on paper work(not paperwork) rather than getting their hands dirty and just trying things out. Reply
IntelUser2000 Few ideas for a more efficient Peltier refrigerator. Electrical -As soon as power is off, the hot side heat transfers to the cold side. So when the desired temperature is reached, it should instead reach a low power mode where minimal amount of power is delivered to the module to prevent the transfer. -Rather than the cooler fan turning off as soon desired temperatures are reached, there should be a phase-delay where it would operate for certain time afterwards so the hot side heatsink would be lower temperature thus lowering the effect of #1. Let's say it runs for 30 seconds after it idles. -The fan should be a high-quality computer fan. Noctua NF12 for example only uses about 0.6W at maximum. A typical cheap fan can use 5W, almost 10x. Design -The radiator and it's fins need to be oriented in a way where it works with natural convection(heat rises). The mini fridge I have for testing forces it out the side. Even though there is forced air, making it work with natural convection increases effectiveness. Plus as soon as it's off it's all natural convection anyway. -The typical mini fridges based on Peltier transfers the "cool" by just mounting it to the plastic case. Plastic is a thermal insulator. Instead, it would be direct mounted to aluminum. -Ideally the internals would be entirely non-anodized aluminum. The Peltier would be directly mount onto it, thus slow transferring the cold to the entire aluminum body. -It MUST be a chest-freezer, top-access design. The side door designs are inefficient. -The outside would be light colored to reduce any chance of the outer case heating up. My months of rough testing with Peltier coolers made me conclude that using an internal fan to distribute the cold is a bad idea, both performance and reliability wise. Why? -If you mount the internal fan at the top like most designs, it means the fan is at the bottom. Moisture gathers on the heatsink and eventually falls into the fan, reaching the circuitry. I tried using IP67 rated fans but they fail too. Because while they are rated for moisture protection, they also freeze sometimes. Without the fan, there is no failure. The commercial ones are basically a toy and used for very rare camping trips. In actual refrigerator usage it will fail in a month or two. -The fan itself dissipates a little bit of heat. Zero is better. Reliability is a bigger issue though. My testing also suggests that the fan reduces the effectiveness of the cooling. Slow spread of the cool through passive method is superior. Reply
bit_user IntelUser2000 said: The issue with Peltier is that it's basically an electronic heat pump but the efficiency being really low. And because the thing is so thin the hot from the hot side gets transferred to the cold side. I looked briefly into even creating my own, to make a thicker version. I haven't found a way yet. So an ideally Peltier material would be a high thermal insulation material that also has low electrical resistance while having high Peltier effect number(don't know the term) all at the same time. I think stacking them can improve efficiency. It can certainly increase the temperature delta between the hot and cold sides. Someone I know used this trick to cool a CCD for astrophotograpy. Cooling them reduces the electrical noise, which is essential for doing long-duration exposures. Of course, cooling anything below ambient adds the problem of condensation, hence the need to put the who thing inside of a vacuum chamber (which also provides insulation). A water cooling loop with a large chiller was used to remove heat from the hot side of the peltier stack. Reply
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Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/liquid-cooling/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/liquid-cooling/enthusiast-creates-peltier-thermoelectric-cooler-from-scratch-impressive-rig-uses-two-360mm-aios-homemade-dc-controllers-and-a-custom-loop#main
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