Peltier cooling

[Mike40]

Hi, has anybody done a CPU cooling project with Peltier cells? I want to try one and would like some suggestions.

[BobVonBob]

They work, the issue with peltier cooling is it's incredibly inefficient, so you'll likely need much more cooling than the CPU alone would require. Here is a topic about it on the forum from a few months back

 

[Mira Yurizaki]

10 minutes ago, Mike40 said:

Hi, has anybody done a CPU cooling project with Peltier cells? I want to try one and would like some suggestions.

Peltier cooling was dabbled with in the mid to late 2000s, but abandoned afterwards. The problem is that the cold side can get cold enough to drop the ambient temperature below the dew point and thus create a condensation hazard while the hot side would get so hot you'd need a beefy cooling system. At which point, just use the beefy cooling system. No condensation hazard and effective cooling.

[Mike40]

18 minutes ago, BobVonBob said:

They work, the issue with peltier cooling is it's incredibly inefficient, so you'll likely need much more cooling than the CPU alone would require. Here is a topic about it on the forum from a few months back

 

Thank you, I think I have a solution for the condensation, I'm going to try it out today at home, I think that by controlling the number of volts applied to the Peltier cell I can achieve higher temps so it does not condensate. 

[SolarNova]

TEC's are very inefficent, they are ok for some fun experimentation but not recommended for a proper cooling solution.

 

As others have mentioned they go below ambient, and even below zero. You would need to controll condensation, or use a indirect cooling solution , such a TEC cooled water loop, where u controll loop temperature by controlling the TEC's votlage and on/off state to keep liquid temps above the dew point. Trying to do the same using a direct TEC to CPU cooling solution would be near impossible.

 

Additionaly if u choose to use a TEC to go below the dew point u would need ot either create a chillbox to lower ambient temps, which would require a bunch of TEC in and of itself, or create a dry air environment in a sealed case, likely using a inert dry gas like Nitrogen.

 

Long story short, they really are not worth it.

 

If you want sub ambient cooling, build a proper chiller, or buy one. If you want high powered ambient cooling, build a external rad system that sits outside the PC case, like 4x 420mm rads.

[manikyath]

2 hours ago, Mike40 said:

Thank you, I think I have a solution for the condensation, I'm going to try it out today at home, I think that by controlling the number of volts applied to the Peltier cell I can achieve higher temps so it does not condensate. 

with the amount of power you'll be pushing into a peltier to sufficently cool the cpu.. you'll have a hard time finding a decent quality controller for any sort of acceptable price. (not to mention the extra losses in that thing.. requiring even more cooling)

 

in short, peltiers are not magic. in fact they are more flawed than they are functional. the only benefit of a peltier, is that the element itself is pretty cheap.

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(long winded brabbling about peltiers below)

i'm still debating on watercooling or peltier for my 3D printer's print head, because for some materials i need to print with a very high ambient temperature, and the cold side of the print head needs to stay at temperatures which come close to "ambient" at that point.. in cases like this, with thermal output being quite low anyways, a peltier can win a few extra degrees, but it is still one hell of a bodge compared to just getting more surface area for cooling. all a peltier does is consume power to move thermal energy, and doing so at pretty close to a 1:1 ratio (one watt consumed for one watt moved). for the thermal output power of a CPU you're presumably overclocking, this is such a ridiculous amount of power draw it's becoming economically viable to buy a propper airconditioning unit and modify it to make a chiller that'll be several factors more powerful than your peltier, for a relatively low increase in power draw.