Best Thermoelectric cooler for cooling a phone? For a DIY phone cooler

[Newblesse Obblige]

I want to make a DIY phone cooler like those Blackshark Funcooler and Razer Phone Cooler Chroma as a small past time project. 

 

Ill be using an active cooling heatsink that is made for those old Northbridge chipset coolers(I found one that uses a 5v fan so I could power it with a phone charger), a Type-C charging module(rated for 5v 2A), a thermal pad and compund.

I wanted to use the TEC coolers that the popular phone coolers use but they are quite scarce and expensive and I don't know if the alternatives are cooled enough for the job. 

 

Any suggestions?

 

EDIT: I think people here dont know what I am trying to do. Here in the example.  Razer Phone Cooler Chroma. The cooler is power by a 10w charger and it cools the phone well.

It doesnt need to be a freezing temperature. 

[Somerandomtechyboi]

I dont think those low wattage ones even do much, you are prob better off just sticking the heatsink straight to the back of the phone

 

If you insist on tec then i suggest identifying where your phones heat source is and putting the tec there since i dont think youll get any benifit off a 5w tec, a 20w or more tec would be more benificial, though youll may need beefier cooling than an nb cooler since my p5q even with the nb heatsink cooled under a fan still burns to touch, though that would prob be more like 25w+ considering i run 1.56-1.58v on it

[HanZie82]

5V 2A is about 10Watts, im guessing just blowing on it has takes away more wattage of cooling then a TEC could.

Thats why heat-sinks are so popular, just increase the surface and put some wind over it is way more efficient. And thus space saving.

[Pandur]

The benefit of a TEC is that they literally pump the heat to the other side instead of having it passively spread through the cooler. The downside is that they add more heat to the hot side. Is it worth the added complexity? Absolutely not imho. Although it would be a fun project. If you want something a bit more usable, stick with heatsink, TIM and fan.

[Newblesse Obblige]

34 minutes ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

I dont think those low wattage ones even do much, you are prob better off just sticking the heatsink straight to the back of the phone

 

If you insist on tec then i suggest identifying where your phones heat source is and putting the tec there since i dont think youll get any benifit off a 5w tec, a 20w or more tec would be more benificial, though youll may need beefier cooling than an nb cooler since my p5q even with the nb heatsink cooled under a fan still burns to touch, though that would prob be more like 25w+ considering i run 1.56-1.58v on it

it wound be a 5w tec because the available tec coolers that I could easily found are these ones but Idk if these are enough to cool a phone.

 

[Newblesse Obblige]

27 minutes ago, HanZie82 said:

5V 2A is about 10Watts, im guessing just blowing on it has takes away more wattage of cooling then a TEC could.

Thats why heat-sinks are so popular, just increase the surface and put some wind over it is way more efficient. And thus space saving.

Then why are those TEC powered phone coolers I mentioned cool phones so well? The expensives ones can get to around 1 degree Celsius and the Razer one could low around 5 degress Celsius. I dont the cooler to freeze the phone, I just want it to cool it that condesation wont happen but cool enough not to thermal throttle and those coolers could do that. 

[HanZie82]

4 minutes ago, Newblesse Obblige said:

it wound be a 5w tec because the available tec coolers that I could easily found are these ones but Idk if these are enough to cool a phone.

 

Thats a 12Volt 4A (max) Peltier device.

Probably would cool a phone, but you need 2 kilograms of battery to use it for more then an hour.

Just now, Newblesse Obblige said:

Then why are those TEC powered phone coolers I mentioned cool phones so well? The expensives ones can get to around 1 degree Celsius and the Razer one could low around 5 degress Celsius. I dont the cooler to freeze the phone, I just want it to cool it that condesation wont happen but cool enough not to thermal throttle and those coolers could do that. 

Do you have link so i can check this out?
But im still highly skeptical, most of those things are just marketing lies.

I dont trust a single thing a manufacturer says, they just want your money. Unless an independent reviewer takes a look at it...

[Newblesse Obblige]

1 minute ago, HanZie82 said:

Thats a 12Volt 4A (max) Peltier device.

Probably would cool a phone, but you need 2 kilograms of battery to use it for more then an hour.

I wont be using a battery. I am fine running it on USB power like mose phone coolers out there

 

[HanZie82]

1 minute ago, Newblesse Obblige said:

I wont be using a battery. I am fine running it on USB power like mose phone coolers out there

 

Lol byebye phone battery.

12V 4A, whats not to understand?

 

Just FYI USB is 5V and only 2A max if you use a phone charger.
What comes out of a PC USB port is more like 250mA and from a phone even less.

[Newblesse Obblige]

Just now, HanZie82 said:

Lol byebye phone battery.

12V 4A, whats not to understand?

so that means the TEC cooler is too cold for cooling or too warm? 

[HanZie82]

Just now, Newblesse Obblige said:

so that means the TEC cooler is too cold for cooling or too warm? 

It means the USB from a phone is UNABLE to power it.
As in the TEC will run at 5% and will kill the phones battery.

 

And the ones that run on phone power never have enough power to actually cool.

[Newblesse Obblige]

9 minutes ago, HanZie82 said:

And the ones that run on phone power never have enough power to actually cool.

The phone wont be powering it tho, the wall adapter will. 

It will be like this

 

[Assimov]

TEC modules draw A LOT of current. Probably much more than you can get safely from a usb Charger.

The peltier module WILL draw more power from the charger than its rated for which will create a lot of heat and might end in a short circuit or a fire.

The limiting factor is probably the power supply you are using and the usb cable.

I've been using ATX power supplies in the past to run multiple TEC1-12706 and if i remember correctly they drew more than 70 W each.

[Newblesse Obblige]

13 hours ago, Assimov said:

TEC modules draw A LOT of current. Probably much more than you can get safely from a usb Charger.

The peltier module WILL draw more power from the charger than its rated for which will create a lot of heat and might end in a short circuit or a fire.

The limiting factor is probably the power supply you are using and the usb cable.

I've been using ATX power supplies in the past to run multiple TEC1-12706 and if i remember correctly they drew more than 70 W each.

Im going to use these TEC modules (TEC1-04905 or TEC1-07102) btw. I took apart a phone cooler that I mentioned and it uses a 5V and 2A and I have found one on Aliexpress so I don't need a 12v PSU for it. 

[Assimov]

The performances curves of TEC modules are confusing but it'll probably run from USB-C PD. Would still advise using a charger thats rated for more than 10 W.

Imax for TEC1-04905 is still 5V/5A tho and i couldnt find a USB-C fast charger thats rated for more than 3A on the 5V rail.

TEC1-07102 is probably the wiser choice for a usb powered device unless you want to use a buck converter to get 5A from 12V or 20V with PD.
The phone charger would need to be rated for 30 or 45 W though.

[Newblesse Obblige]

1 hour ago, Assimov said:

The performances curves of TEC modules are confusing but it'll probably run from USB-C PD. Would still advise using a charger thats rated for more than 10 W.

Imax for TEC1-04905 is still 5V/5A tho and i couldnt find a USB-C fast charger thats rated for more than 3A on the 5V rail.

TEC1-07102 is probably the wiser choice for a usb powered device unless you want to use a buck converter to get 5A from 12V or 20V with PD.
The phone charger would need to be rated for 30 or 45 W though.

Do you think QC 3.0 chargers will work or I should stick to USB-C PD? Most of QC 3.0 USB chargers are rated at 18W 

[Assimov]

i think QC 3.0 and USB-C PD are both viable. 18W might be enough but I'd go for at least like 25/27 W.

Also i'm not sure whether u need an extra component to draw voltages above 5V, i know there are usb-c pd breakout boards that let you set input voltage to 12 V or 20 V.

edit:
Remember that you would need a buck converter if you want to use higher voltage to regulate it back down to 6-8 V depensing on which module you get

[tkitch]

you'd be 100x better off doing what linus did to the steamdeck than trying to fuck with TECs.

 

I've done it, it's not a good plan.  

[Newblesse Obblige]

11 hours ago, tkitch said:

you'd be 100x better off doing what linus did to the steamdeck than trying to fuck with TECs.

 

I've done it, it's not a good plan.  

I wanted to that but it aint comfortable to hold on because the heatsink needs to be beside the camera where the SoC is and I need it to be removable. If the phone is going to be used like an  Android box where I would just leave it in one place, I would have done that already. 

[Newblesse Obblige]

14 hours ago, Assimov said:

i think QC 3.0 and USB-C PD are both viable. 18W might be enough but I'd go for at least like 25/27 W.

Also i'm not sure whether u need an extra component to draw voltages above 5V, i know there are usb-c pd breakout boards that let you set input voltage to 12 V or 20 V.

edit:
Remember that you would need a buck converter if you want to use higher voltage to regulate it back down to 6-8 V depensing on which module you get

I see. I will just stick to the 5V TEC coolers since it is more convenient for me than getting or using a 12V rail PSU or using a buck converter since I am planning the Cooler to be portable so I could just power it with USB phone charger or any 5V power adapter. The 12V TEC coolers might be too chilly for the phone as I just want it to be at most 0°C(32°F). 

[Assimov]

sounds like a fun project for sure. hope u dont end up literally blowing up the 5V power adapter from drawing too much current.

you're gonna have a great tool to permanently disable PC USB Ports
edit: google says pc usb ports just shut down if they draw too much power, wouldnt wanna test it on my Mainboard tho

[Newblesse Obblige]

5 hours ago, Assimov said:

sounds like a fun project for sure. hope u dont end up literally blowing up the 5V power adapter from drawing too much current.

you're gonna have a great tool to permanently disable PC USB Ports
edit: google says pc usb ports just shut down if they draw too much power, wouldnt wanna test it on my Mainboard tho

I won't be using my OC's USB ports to power it. Im going to use a phone charger.