Peltier's for heating/cooling?

[AndyL]

Hey folks,

Just curious - search doesn't reveal much... I haven't seen hardly any discussion on the peltier heating/cooling elements...

In the 4x4 world we DIY 6pack coolers with them (the ARB fridge/cooler uses them commercially). I've used them for cooling fish tanks... Nice thing about them is they are natively 12vdc components.

Anyone tried/built a bigger fridge/cooler for a tear using one? The nice thing is while one side cools, the other heats - thus i'm thinking... Hot water tank?

Anyone have some thoughts on how to build one?

[mikeschn]

You could take apart the coleman thermoelectric cooler and build your own... However, you might not like the energy consumption... see this thread...

http://tnttt.com/viewto ... highlight=

Mike...

P.S. Also look at this thread...

http://tnttt.com/viewto ... moelectric

Hey folks,

Just curious - search doesn't reveal much... I haven't seen hardly any discussion on the peltier heating/cooling elements...

In the 4x4 world we DIY 6pack coolers with them (the ARB fridge/cooler uses them commercially). I've used them for cooling fish tanks... Nice thing about them is they are natively 12vdc components.

Anyone tried/built a bigger fridge/cooler for a tear using one? The nice thing is while one side cools, the other heats - thus i'm thinking... Hot water tank?

Anyone have some thoughts on how to build one?

[rasp]

they use a lot of power for what little you get out of them.

[AndyL]

Question becomes - is it the peltiers themselves or the design of the coleman products the problem?

I had a hard time getting the aquarium cooler peltier to work right, but that was due to homebuilt design (block of ice on the titanium heatsink I was using resulted in little useful net cooling - bit of a redesign of the heatsinks + water flow around and it was just right).

I know the ARB fridge/cooler works absolutely fabulously; a friend has a 40L, we know it pulls ~3amp when first turned on, usually much less.

[madjack]

...after owning several, my opinion is they are ABSOLUTELY USELESS, unless you have access to mas power...either AC or DC...plus they will only cool to 40* below ambient...save your money and frustration and buy a good 5day cooler(or build your own extreme version) and lotssa ice...over the time this board has been around, there have been many who just had to use 'em...both for food and some who even tried to adapt them for cabin AC...they have all faced the same frustration brought about by the limitations of the peltier based coolers........
madjack

[jeep_bluetj]

What they all said.. peltier is not energy effecient at all. The problem is the peltier, not the design of the products.

The ARB fridges ARE, because they're not peltiers. There's a compressor in there.