Peltier Chiller Tutorial
Equipment and Parts Needed:
Peltier aka Thermoelectric Cooler
12V PC cooling fan or other cooling fan
Large heatsink for the hot side
Small heatsink or waterblock for the cold side
12V to 19V power supply
Some wire
Thermal paste
Insulating material (like thin pieces of foam or cardboard)
Setup:
The first thing you will need to do is decide how you are going to chill the water, for me I am using a simple method, I put the chiller together and just set the whole thing into the hang on back filter on the back of my tank
The cold heatsink will need to be placed in the water outlet on the filter housing
Try to keep the peltier out of the water, the part of the heatsink that touches the peltier will have thermal paste on it, this is non-toxic in most cases but its best not to take chances!
Below you will find a picture of the chiller in the filter, it might be hard to see whats going on and I will try and get better pictures soon
To assemble the chiller you will need to do the following:
1. Set the small heatsink on your work bench or table with the open part of the fins facing down, the bottom of the heatsink should be facing up. The bottom will be a solid surface and the top will have open fins
2. You will need to apply thermal paste to the cold side of the peltier as well as the hot, for now though just do the cold side
3. Once you have applied a thin layer of thermal paste to the peltier set it in the center of the heatsink. The thermal paste will help it stay in place
4. Now add thermal paste to the hot side and place the larger heatsink on to the newly applied paste
5. Don’t worry too much about how centered it is at first, you will be able to move the heatsinks and the peltier around a bit to get them lined up. They also don’t have to be perfectly centered
6. You will want to cut up the cardboard or foam into pieces that will fit into the air gaps between the two heatsinks, this will greatly improve the efficiency and make sure your chiller works as well as possible. I j ust used cardboard from a cardboard box, it fit perfectly
7. Once it is all assembled you can use many different ways to hold the heatsinks together, I just used plastic zip ties.
8. After the heatsinks are secured you will then want to mount your fan, again I just used zip ties
9. Once everything is secured and not falling apart you will want to wire up your peltier and your fan to your power supply. I just used a 12 volt power supply as it will work for both the peltier and the fan, the peltiers are normally able to use anything from around 9 volts up to 19 volts (check your specs before connecting the power supply, make sure you are not using more than its max voltage). Red wire goes to the positive terminal and black wire goes to the negative terminal
10. Once everything ie wired up just drop the bottom heatsink, the cold and smaller heatsink into the water outlet on your hang on back filter, be sure that the open length of the fins follow the water flow
And that it!
I haven’t set up a water block yet, all you do is place the water block on the cold side of the peltier, it mounts and works the same way as a heat sink would. The primary difference is that you will need tubing to connect from the outflow of your pump or canister filter to one side of the water block, and more tubing to run from the outlet on the water block back into the tank.
I have not used a water block yet so I do not know how effective or efficient it is, I would imagine it would work better than the heatsink method though as you will get more water flow and with the smaller amount of metal to chill the water block should get colder than the heatsink… I think, lol
I will investigate the water block option once I get a pump and some tubing and another peltier
For the hot side heatink I am using a Dell PC Heatsink model 05R180
Here is an ebay link
For the cold side I am also using a Dell PC Heatsink, I dont have the model number handy but any sluminum heatsink should do, the shorter the better
Here is one I would recommend:
Model 1U581
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Genuine-OEM...028?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a241f2bc4
Here is the peltier I am using, it is a TEC1-12706 60 watt peltier
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1PCS-NEW-TE...628?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19d582d8f4