My dad's given me a LARGE peltier cooler and I think I'm going to try to put it in our cooler to keep the sandwiches/ sodas cool for the trip home. We'll probably start tackling this in a few hours.
Any ideas? It has a large heatsink on the back to dissipate the heat from the other side. Can I just cut a hole in the cooler, put some expandable foam around it to keep it in place, and attach a 12V cigarette lighter plug to it? (it is 12volt)
I recently purchased a cooler with a peltier unit built in it. I haven't taken it apart so I don't know how large the peltier is but it draws about 5 amps. These coolers have a problem with melting down the cigarette lighter plug on the end of their power cord. Mine melted down after about 3 weeks of use and some friends of mine also melted theirs. They claim to cool the contents 40-44 degrees below ambient temp. I would estimate they do actually cool that well. If I keep mine inside the air conditioned truck the contents stays very cold. One time I actually found a very thin layer of ice on top of a bottle where the condensation had dripped from the cooler unit. You may need a fan on the hot side of the peltier also. Mine has fans on both sides.
Cool, I'm done with it, been testing it at work this week. I have a blow in and blow out on the hot side, I think I also need one to draw the cool air off of the cool side, it that what you have?
I bought a chest cooler a few months ago and curious to find out what "cooled" the chest, I took it appart. That's when I first learned about Peltiers. I fiddled around with the module and by reading forums such as this one I decided to run the peltier directly over the processor and a water block to dissipate the heat from the peltier's "hot" side. The peltier and the water cooler were powered by an adjacent computer system and a wall outlet respectively. This ensured that the cooling started before powering up the PC. I was able to achieve temperatures in the 11-20 Celcius range at full load. I currently run my P4 2.53 Ghz @ 3.0 stable. Given the fact that you can get a $60 watercooling system nowadays and a peltier for about $25 I concluded that even for non-OC'd PC's, the system I put together is worth every penny. I took care of the condensation problem by sealing the components under the processor and around the socket with waterproof silicone. I also coated the socket pinholes with Vaseline and made a sleeve that keeps air away from the socket area. Cooling the water with an additional peltier has also helped keep the water at an efficient temperature. Chest coolers are great!! I got mine for $25 at Pep Boys. Hope my experience helped at least some of you and I'm open to suggestions and critisism.
Dang, someone dun gone and took my idea and run wif it! Cool! Glad to see that all my ideas aren't as dumb as I look, or sound, or the Army's best testing indicates
Not that I'm the only person that thought of using the peltier out of a portable cooler.....
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