Need opinion on TEC water Chiller??

seross69

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Nov 8, 2012
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My idea is to build a 4 stage TEC cooled water chiller to use in my PC. I do not care how much power it draws and how inefficient it is the object is to cool the water to whatever temperature I want or can get it to hopefully at least 5 to 10 degrees C. This will be controlled so that I only use however many stages I need depending on the water temps. Something like above 5 degrees C stage one will be one, stage 2 will come on at 10 degrees C, and stage 3 will come on at 15 degrees C and stage 4 at 20 degrees C. This is just an example and will need to work out the temp settings depending on dew point and level of insulation I use.

What I plan on doing is like the Attached Drawing.
Each block will have 1 40x40 TEC like the below.

Imax (Amps) 15.5/ Qmax (Watts) 225/ Vmax (Volts) 24.0/ DTmax (°C) 64°C /Tmax (C) 125 C

So at 12 volts this will be about 8 to 9 amp draw I think. This will require testing to verify.

I will be using one of the below water blocks on each side of the TEC. The water blocks will be purchased from Custom Thermoelectric at http://www.shop.customthermoelectri...F7B015B96944CE536C66FF3FEE7CCE14.qscstrfrnt02


All copper water block Liquid exchanger to rapidly remove heat from the hot side of peltier TECs or TEGs. Most efficient method of removing heat from a thermoelectric TEC or TEG.
TECs and TEGs can be mounted to both sides thereby allowing heat removal from two 40x40mm TECs at the same time.

All copper construction allows for parts and components to be soldered to water block for maximum thermal conduction.

Measures: 1.62 x 1.62 x 0.55 inches

Inlet and Outlet on the same side.

Usable flat area of 1.62 x 1.62 inches (41 x 41 mm) per side

Inlet & outlet tapped 1/16" NPT: Comes with 2 pieces Nylon barbed tube fittings for 3/16" ID tubing.

Will accommodate per side;

Single TECs or TEGs up to 40 x 40mm
2, 3, or 4 TECs up to 20 x 20mm
CNC Machined from a solid billet of copper. Brazed together to a 100 psi rated watertight seal.

Minimum flow rate: 0.1 gpm. Maximum flow rate: 2.5 gpm


The drawing I have attached shows one block of TEC coolers each one a stage. The first one is first stage; the 2nd one is the 2nd stage and so on.

Cold side with will do the below
I am going to take a ½ inch tubing from the computer water blocks and go to a 5 way Koolance splitter that has 4 3/16 lines coming out of it going to TEC water blocks like on the drawing going to another 5 way Koolance splitter then coming out with 5 to 10 degree C water in a ½ inch tube to the computer water blocks.

Hot side will do the below.
½ tube from the radiators and go to a Koolance 5 way splitter that has 4 ½ lines coming out of it each going to a Koolance 5 way splitter, from this splitter will have 4 3/16 lines coming out of it to the hot side water blocks. This way I do not series the water through the hot side water blocks and making it hotter and hotter. It should only absorb 100 to 125 watts total and this should be no problem.

I work as a maintenance supervisor on a off shore drilling rig. And I have seen this in resal life like this. Have cooling water coming out of 4 engines joining a common pipe and the temperature of the water will be the average of the water coming out of each engine. I have seen this as we have temp sensors where the water leaves the engine and also where it goes into the radiator so only having to cool the average water temp of each engine. Just need a good flow rate and enough radiators to cool this final temp. You add the temps together to get final temp, I have seen and used this on several rigs just like this. We use big engines to turn generators to power our rig. So I do a lot of engineering and use fluid and thermal dynamics to cool a lot of items with water so this should work like I am showing. I will be doing experiments and testing outside of the PC using I will have 2 6” pieces of pipe with Tee on each end and in the center so that I can put a combination of immersion heaters in this to heat the water and simulate the computer components I want to cool. I will have a 100 watt, 250 watt, 375 watt, 500 watt and 1000 watt so I will be able to use different combinations to be able to heat the water like it is coming from the computer water blocks and these will be a TEC cooled cpu block, 2 GTX 680’s and mother board blocks. I will have 2 140x420 radiators, 2 140x140 radiators and 1 120x360 radiator in series to cool the water coming from the hot side water blocks and I think this is going to be over kill.

I need feedback and people to tell me if I am doing anything wrong if they think this will work or anything like this????? give me email and i will send you drawing....
 
I think this will work very well.

But will be inefficient and expensive as you stated in the OP. I would braze my own TEC blocks, but that's just me :)

What will you use to turn the stages on and off? You can get some cheap (20$ ish) thermister controlled relay boards.
 
I had a half tec and water system and found that the tec was causing more problem then helping. It created so much heat one end very little cooling on the other end. Cool idea but reality it was a flop.
 
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