External Peltier cooling?

[Veranol]

Ok, I've got an Idea I'd like to get some comments on.

How about doing away with the radiator in a water cooling system, and using a pelter w/waterblock and a large conventional heatsink on the hot side of the pelter?

I mention this becaues I have one of those thermoelectric coolers, and it's got a gigantic heatsink on top, and the inside plate of the peltier gets icy cold.

Granted, this would not give you the same cooling power as mounting the peltier directly on the die, but it lets you avoid having to insulate the Motherboard, AND it removes the large and bulky radiator. I would like something a tad better than ambient cooling, which is all that a mundane water cooling setup can provide, but I also want to keep the install as small as possible. (I'm considering installing this setup on a mini PC)

Comments? Suggestions?

BTW, Nice board here. :)

[illmatik]

You'd need a considerable amount of tec wattage to cool enough water to do away w/ the radiator. Check out the following thread for a solid state chiller (676W of tec chilling to be exact). A chiller like this would require condensation proofing as the water temps will easily approach 0C

http://www.liquidninjas.com/bbs/showthread.php?s=&threadid=3631

[Farabomb]

:beerm8s: Welcome Veranol :beerm8s:

Can it be done? Yes. Is it worth the hassle? probally not. Ask Player0 about that one. ;)

You will still have to insulate everything that goes below ambient temp. The block still needs to be insulated as well as the board.

[Player0]

Modern CPUs requre at least 150w of cooling power. You can use a 156w, 172w peltier, but most use the 226w unit these days. This is using a direct-CPU mount pelt with cold block which is the most efficient. Chilling the water will cause a HUGE efficiency loss.

I have done a lot of experimentation with air cooled peltiers. It's difficult at best, and requires A LOT of fan power. Say you use two 156w peltiers (more efficient than a single 226) at 12v, which will give you about 220-240w of cooling power (which is about the minimum you need to overcome the efficiency loss of cooling a CPU through a water system), each 156w peltier is going to need at least a 100 sq mm heatsink and a 92mm or better fan. You will probably get 50-60c hotside temperatures and 20-30c cold side temperatures. Water temperatures will be 30-40c and your CPU will be 40-50c. See where the efficiency is all lost?

A radiator will simply work better, cost less to run, and be much quieter. You can buy 80mm radiators these days. There wouldnt be much point in it really.

[Player0]

But welcome to the forums :)

[Veranol]

Looks kind of like swiftech has considered this though...

http://www.swiftnets.com/store/product_details.asp?ProdID=252



Also, I found an alternative source for power supplies.

I just sent them an email asking about shipping costs to the U.S.

Near as I can tell, the US to AU conversion puts these things at about 65 bucks!

http://www.computronics.com.au/meanwell/s-320/


Like I mentioned before, I would like to put all this good stuff in a Mini PC. Probably a shuttle.

I think the CPU w/ pelter would fit, but I'm not so sure about the video.

Thanks for the welcome!:)

[Player0]

Well now your talking about something different. That swifty product (not a very good CPU chiller btw) is meant for dual-loop applications, where you have two pumps, two resevoirs, and it still requires a radiator, not another form of air cooling.

[Player0]

Thats a good price for the powersupply. However there are dozens and dozens of Meanwell vendors here in the US. If you consider the HUGE shipping cost from AU, the deal isn't great. Plus AU is 210v with weird plugs, and youd have to make sure that meanwell will be okay for 110 60hz.

[illmatik]

If you were to chill cpu and gpu, you might look into the 1/2hp version of this puppy.

I was visiting a client who has a big *** reef tank right on their trading floor, and I asked to look behind the scenes to see what was goin on pump and chiller wise. They had one of these and a lytron as a backup (dont ask me why thats the backup.)

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2381970805&category=20758

I was considering one of these, but decided against it. A mach I is only a couple bucks more and my mcw50t can be reused ;)

[Veranol]

:eek:

Holy smokes!

That's a lot bigger than I want.

The more I look at it, the more I'm zooming in on using 2 of the power supplies, mounted to ether side of the case, a top mounted radiator (dual or triple; whatever will fit), and peltier blocks on the GPU and CPU. I'll leave some slow fans in the case just to keep the air flowing.

Perhaps I could use a slightly lower power peltier on the GPU, say 160 watt range, and then add a small peltier, say 60 or so watts, on the NB.

Of course, I've also been looking at converting standard ATX power supplies; they come in spiffy colors with widows and lights now adays, and don't cost much more (if any more) than that Meanwell.

Which brings up another point about peltiers... Most of them indicate a maximum of 16 volts. It seems that even the model that swiftech is using fits that description.

However, they (swiftech) recomends using only 12 volts.

Would it be worth my while to invest in the s-320-13.5 or even the s-320-15, and turn the voltage down on these supplies a hair to get more cooling power? What are the odds this will fry a swiftech peltier? Would this also fry a conventional "off the shelf" peltier rated for "16 volts max?" Or is this a longevity thing?