Peltiers for Solar Power Cooling - Solid State Heat Pumps, Quick Look!
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- Опубліковано 12 вер 2024
- 🟢 {10K subs! Thanks for your support!} A quick look at Peltier elements for solar powered cooling applications. Peltier modules are fascinating pieces of technology which can move existing heat out of a space. This means air conditioning and refrigeration applications are relevant and possible. Direct DC solar power is ideal for driving peltier modules under the right conditions. I am currently researching several different applications for Peltier modules including air conditioning and refrigeration. Below are some links to existing videos I have produces on solar powered refrigeration and air conditioning.
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🟢 Solar Powered Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Series
Part 1 - • Direct DC Solar Air Co...
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🟢 Solar Powered Direct DC Air Conditioner / heat pump
• #DIY Direct Solar Air ...
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🟢 Increasing air conditioner efficiency with a misting pump - Experiment
• Misting Pump to Increa...
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Music credits: by TuneTank, Pixabay
Debunking Peltier myths! Myth #1: Peltiers are 5% efficient
Not true when moving heat. As one who has first-hand experience using peltiers "at scale" , I find they can be 20-30% efficient at "moving heat" (their true purpose)
I am testing air conditioning setups with as many as 14-26 individual elements driven by 1200w of solar panels. It works!
Myth #2: Peltiers are "not efficient" (general statement without specifics)
This is caused by a misunderstanding and narrow view of efficiency.
Microwave ovens are "not efficient", but they are in wide use and very effective. Same with peltiers.
Those who dismiss them tend to not have any truly applicable real world hands on experience, and rely on popular accounts.
Efficiency can be other things such as:
No Compressor, No Refrigerant
Fewer moving parts
DIY Friendly / Low Cost
Cheaper to Maintain / Repair
Simple air/water heat exchange
No Inverter, Minimal Electronics
Common Off the Shelf Components
Direct DC Solar Power operation
I'll post more here if I think of anything. Any questions, please ask.
-Dave
Thanks Dave. I am also doing several Direct DC Solar Power (I call it "pv direct"). PV to domestic hot water, PV to uninsulated hot water tank to heat house(shifts heat to from day to night) PV to electrical resistance ( kitchen oven) to heat house, PV to DC centrifugal water irrigation pump, PV to treadmill motor to air compressor, PV to heat pump( Hotspot). All work well for many of your myth #2 reasons. I am considering peltier refrigeration/freezer.
If I use a typical @40 VOC solar panel can I connect 5+ (safety margin) 12 Vdc peltier devices in series direct to the solar panel? Does this scale up to 4 series PV panels(160vdc) to 20 peltier in series? Am I missing something about peltiers in series? The peltiers would be sandwiched between water chill blocks, hot side to a water ground source loop, cold side to antifreeze loop in a freezer.
@dellmerlin6328 Hi, that's all excellent stuff. I appreciate those who see the value in direct solar power :)
1. Peltier Freezers - I wish the video stream could keep up with my research! I have already made a solar Peltier freezer (not just a fridge) and it made ice and worked surprisingly well. I think too many people are negative on Peltiers due to lack of hands-on real world experience. I find they perform quite well when properly treated! In (freezer/fridge) I decided to avoid serial connection, hopefully I can explain that better on video...
2. These past few months, I've been quietly testing solar direct drive serial Peltiers at high power levels (for air conditioning) exceeding 600w (not exceeding nominal 48v for safety, Moisture, high DC voltage, not "cool" for me anyway.)
My thought is to not 100% answer your question until I have more and better hands-on experience running multiple serial peltiers. Can they run in series? sure, but I am still learning the ins and outs. Hope to expand on those thoughts asap.
3. Water blocks are what I am using currently, pure water (not good for winter but otherwise no problem for summer)
I started messing around with these years ago, but never had the time to do much with them. This is excellent information for when I get time to work with them again. Thank you again for another great video.
@colin8532 Welcome sir. I hope you have a chance to try them again. Peltiers are a bit tedious but I believe they have major potential. If I can just get the videos done, I will share my freezer and AC projects.
Ive wanted to try making an HRV for a super-insulated shed using peltiers to see if I could mostly solid state cool it except for the fans. Key being simple replacement parts.
@captainobvious9188 Interesting concept I think it's worth investigating. FYI I am building a high power peltier based air conditioner... just haven't been able to get the video done yet. It may work in conjunction with other cooling systems. Upload ASAP
Looking forward to seeing more experiments with Peltiers, hopefully this will lead to some sort of useful product by the end of it!
Solar plus Peltier! Totally sold state, quiet and reliable if done correctly!
If you sandwich a Peltier device or devices between two water blocks that pump both hot and cold water into two water tanks, you have a supply of hot water for a shower and cold water to cool down a small room on a hot day! The trick is to not run them at their rated voltage, in my opinion 6V per Peltier device is good! Two in series with a 12V source, they are slow depending on how much energy transfer you need so you might need quite a few of them to be of any kind of use.... Treat them like solar panels, just as you would get a voltage drop depending on load from a solar panel, so to is true for generating power from or getting heating or cooling from Peltier devices....
For power generation, I would series enough Peltier devices together to get an output voltage higher than 12V and then use an mppt charge controller to get a constant 12V output! (I'm well aware that you are not a big fan of complexity) But if you are going to try this for this purpose and get a useful product out of it, you might need some extra electronic help!
As for heating or cooling, there's a lot of videos out there that other people have done, I have seen a lot! But I have yet to see someone use a temperature controller to make it more efficient. My daughter got one of those little bench fridges that is Peltier cooled and it never turns off! A constant 60W draw!
Had they made it in the style of a chest freezer and placed the Peltier device on the top with a temperature controller instead of half way up the back which doesn't really cool anything above it while constantly consuming 60W, it could have been so much better as a product!
A Peltier device fridge or freezer doesn't produce an induction spike when it fire's up unlike a normal fridge... Running my 3kw inverter at 2kw and then the fridge decided to turn on, I saw a 6kw spike before the inverter shut down to protect itself!
Fridges and anything with a motor in it are horrible for an off grid solar system, I have since got a 6KW inverter because I got sick and tired of running out to the garage to reset the inverter.... Ahhh the things that we do! But it's getting better and there's no way that I'm going back! If I'm forced to go back to the grid! I'm going to war! I will fight this!
@PeterMilanovski Glad you're here! You understand what makes peltiers attractive. Even if they have lower COP than refrigerants. There must be a lot of applications waiting to be discovered.
1. Have a small freezer test rig working (it made ice). Will try to show the end product (they're just prototypes) as soon as possible.
2. Also researching the feasibility of peltier air conditioning. The last test was over 600 watts. Setting up the fourth test right now.
It takes so much time to get a decent video together! More ASAP
@@solarpoweredge fantastic 😍.
Looking forward to more Peltier device videos....
The biggest concern that I have been getting from people who have been talking about them is the cost it takes to run them, but when you are using solar energy, the running costs go out the window! It's no longer an issue!
So that leaves us to deal with the rest! Finding the best way to use them for a specific task is the challenge!
I have a box of over 40 Peltier devices which I'm planning on using for a variety of tasks!
One such idea is for my central gas heater, the exhaust gas is just wasted energy and I really feel like if I were to make an enclosure lined with Peltier devices to get some energy out of the waste heat, there could possibly be enough energy to charge a battery which power's an inverter that can run the central heaters fan which consumes around 600W... Effectively using the hot exhaust gas which is going to waste to make the heater more efficient! Not to mention that it will still run during a blackout!
I have a decent sized off grid system with 30kwh worth of battery and I'm slowly but surely converting the whole house in the middle of suburbia (Melbourne Australia) to run totally off grid!
In my house of which there are 4 of us living here, the wife and I plus two adult children, power consumption is high! 30kwh worth of battery storage is not enough!
I do have an enterprise grade server and a couple of 4 bay NAS along with router's and the rest of the home network running 24/7 from solar, recently got a heat pump boiler which I have learnt will consume around 800W at startup and climb up to 1kw before it shuts down at 60°c.... I run's for 2 and a half hours after one person taking a shower or doing a double sink load worth of dishes! Takes a fair chunk out of the batteries!
Of course it's Australia and we are just coming out of the worst time of the year for solar! Which going by the June July period of performance, I need to get more panels up on my house roof! The double garage was the first to be completely covered in panels, this year I installed 12 panels on the house which made a big difference compared to last June July period but I will be putting up more! It's an ongoing process, once you catch the solar bug, there's no turning back!
I'm currently in the process of looking for a cheaper way of getting extra Peltier devices, I will be trying to get another 100 of them, I need to have a look at the Ali baba app to see if I can bulk order for a better price! Ali Express has them for around $3Au per device... If I can find a source that can bulk sell at a much better price point, that would be great!
Also, I'm working on an induction heated hot water system, I have an old boiler which has a tank that I can use for testing purposes, I got the idea from the heat pump boiler which before I connected the heat pump unit to the tank, I ran water from the tap to see how hot it will make the water which wasn't really hot! I could comfortably keep my hand at the output! So! I thought, if I can heat water at consumption but over a longer period of time, I just need more tank storage and a water heating device that at any time it runs, it doesn't put a huge instant load on the battery until the next day when the sun comes out again!
I have two 120W induction heaters which are extremely cheap at the moment, Ali Express has a winner sale on at the moment, not sure if this applies to America? Unless you guys get a summer sale? But I saw the same 120W circuit selling for $7Au which should be even less in American dollars!
The kit comes with a decent solid copper coil, I did a quick test and found that the coil also gets hot which explains why I saw the same coil looking black from the red colour it was in all the videos I have seen on it and there's plenty of them! So I ordered new coils made of copper pipes which I can run the water through the coils first and then loop the water around to pass it through the coil to, pre heat the water and gain some extra efficiency for water heating, I'm waiting on a few bits and pieces to get it to the prototype level to see if I have anything worth persuing, I will set it up with two induction heaters for a total capacity of 240W, I will test it with one at 120W at 12V, it will happily run at 5V which may even be able to run of a USB power bank! Might be great for camping? Or two circuits running from two USB power banks? For faster water heating? Who knows.... It's all out there for the testing! That's the main thing, someone somewhere is going to know the right things and see what no one else saw while exploring something and a new product is born!
You are doing something really special, I look forward to seeing your next findings with anticipation!
I wish I could afford to donate some money your way, unfortunately I'm unemployed and my projects are being funded by my family in the hopes that I will climb out of this depressed and anxious state I have been in for the last 7 years.... Every now and again I get the energy and motivation and begin working on things, it's winter here and this is also the worst time of the year for me so hopefully I will have all the bits and pieces I am going to need for all my projects so that when I begin to move, I keep going!
Thanks so much for your response, it really means a lot! Hopefully I can come up with something soon and have something to report about!
@PeterMilanovski I wish you the best in escaping such a challenging situation, and hope things improve.
The fact that you are open to new ideas and experiments is enough support already, so don't worry :)
Anyway, I do understand that peltiers are power hogs. But I don't mind adding 8 new solar panels to run an appliance, IF it works well enough. The important thing is DIY friendly, simple and robust construction, and affordability. Obviously in a grid down state we might not even have solar, and peltiers.... but for the moment. That's why I'm trying to make a true peltier split AC. Will it perform well enough to keep me interested... I don't know yet. Still working on it and recording notes as I go along. On the other hand, the peltier freezer experiment impressed me, got it on camera!!
PS microwave ovens use a lot of power too, but people love them apparently. Peltiers must have wider applications somewhere despite high power requirements. We just need to discover them and be open minded about what could be achieved.
PS #2 A few months back I made a video about solar induction that needs to be posted ASAP. Your experiments with induction sound very intriguing, keep up the good work and thinking! 👍
I have found the longevity of these is often not impressive and they are easy to destroy, when applying voltages / high heat to them. Of course the TEG modules work much better, but cost much more. Often used for wood stove fans.
@davehimlin2374 So far so good here, haven't lost a single module. Using both overseas and domestic modules. I certainly don't abuse them at all, planning to operate all peltier modules "politely" and take good care of them - in hopes they will last a long time. 3 dollars a chip isn't bad, the question is how many years does that last...
That’s what sucks, the price difference between Chinese garbage and the next step up could be 3 dollars or it could be 50. No in between.
Perhaps "user abuse" is the wrong phrase but I do wonder how many of these failures have to do with not setting it up correctly. They label them 12v and 6a. My guess is most people assume that is what they are supposed to run at. But is it more than that? Are there people putting them in serial and parallel to get more like 4-6v and 1-2a max, plus use proper thermal transfer paste, plus proper heatsinks and airflow AND STILL these things fail after six months or a year? I just asked online, and it says 200,000 hours or almost 23 years for a typical peltier like a 12706. Thermal cycling and excess heat are the enemy. Given all this, I don't really see the point of using heat with them to try to make a few milliamps of power. The wood stove fans are pretty cool, no idea how long they last.
@orangezeroalpha The labels printed on peltiers seem rather humorous, I use them as a general guideline. My concern is not burning them out. My guess is people aren't reasonable with their expectations of the basic modules we have available. Maybe they don't cool them properly etc. and they fry.
I know peltiers can generate significant power at scale, but requires a bit more effort than we typically see. I was surprised at 100-200ma from one element that wasn't getting proper cooling and no paste applied. So despite the challenges, I may look into power generation at a later time. Right now I'm focusing on cooling stuff down...
Thanks for the video😊
@ww321 Welcome sir :D peltier freezer and large scale air conditioner coming up next, stay tuned! Editing takes too long...
Is there one particular peltier brand that seems to bettet than other
@Purinelz The USA-made Peltiers seem better but cost a lot. I mostly use the standard 12706 and 127** type modules that are everywhere, not as good but they still work - plus they are very cheap. I ordered some Peltiers from Nord (Swedish company) to evaluate as well.
My opinion is we should stick with common cheap Peltier elements for research and experiments, then buy expensive ones when interested in building something more permanent - that way we save money when making mistakes or burning out an element.
I wonder if you could generate power from the waste heat off the back of solar panels if you cooled the other side of the peltier
@codedGiraffe Brilliant, was thinking of that last few weeks :) unfortunately I don't have enough peltiers chips to cover the back of the solar panel, but when I do... it can happen!
This is how they work. Not super efficient though as cooling tends to be more energy intensive than the energy produced. Also like ac motors, while being used as a motor, it cannot generate electricity and vise versa.
@@solarpoweredgeWould love to see a video of it if you ever tried! Maybe you could construct heat sink on the back of the PV panel and get away with less peltier modules? If you used water cooling you could heat a water tank with the heat too. Seems pretty involved for probably little generation power but it’s an interesting concept. Thanks for the videos!
Welcome! All good ideas to try - just need to get some aluminum heat sinks
Hi. How about using the peltier combined with diodes to move warm away from them into some thermal battery? Remb the string of diodes that works almost like an MPPT?
@cgmarch2359 Hi, Good thinking, I should investigate the "heating" aspect of Peltiers, as they can work in the reverse direction. Combining them with diode strings/chains somehow could be very far out and fascinating. The plan is to keep working on the diode string heating "mppt-like" technology when the cold weather returns. And I will always make note of your ideas for future projects and investigation :)
PS The most recent test I conducted for air conditioning was over 600 watts and 14 peltier elements. After seeing their performance, I am working on a high power peltier split AC build now. Waiting for more parts to arrive in the mail :)
@@solarpoweredge A 10-20,000 BTU solar direct peltier mini split would be a very interesting video.
@dellmerlin6328 Well funny enough, that's exactly what I'm building :D only big enough to cool the "cabin" inside my workshop. 20k would freeze that little room into a block of ice!
@dellmerlin6328 PS in addition to the split peltier system... I have not given up on the "compressor based" split system, so 2 split AC systems are in the works - direct solar power of course
Use solar cells instead of solar panels and you'll have more control over your maximum DC generation for each project.
@Nova-m8d Creative thinking :)