Powering a low powered TEC
 

OK - What I want to know is, is it possible to run a low power tec (no more than 100W) off the 12V line on my PSU to be used in a water chiller to drop the temps of the water to a few degrees below ambient. (not enough to be a condensation problem).

THe power supply I have is an Enhance one with 28A on the 12V line (http://www.enhanceusa.com/documents/ENS-0246.PDF )

Will this be possible as I don't want to use another powersupply.

I don't know how many components run off the 12V line, and what their rating is. I have a lite-on DVD, asus A7N266-e, barra IV, 512MB Kingmax PC2700 and an XP1800+.

I would also like to be able to run a couple of cold cathodes and a few case fans.

Any help would be great

8Ball

that will be fine, the 80w pelts dden carries draws 8a at 16v, if you run it at 12v it will be around 6a or so. You could run 2 80w pelts on that psu without any problems, bearing in mind your configuration

You may find that your water chiller doesn't do anything. I don't know why but people just don't seem to get results with them.

Edward

because water needs a huge amount of energy to change temperature. 4200 Joules / C / litre

Yes so running at say 300l/h (75gph) you get a temp drop from an 80W TEC of:
0.083l water/sec
80J/sec cooling
Gives 80 / (4200*0.083) degrees, or 0.23C. Not much cooling really ;)

I never thought about it really but the maths is right. Guess I'd be putting myself through a lot of pain (££££) for very little gain.

Might just scrap the idea and put an extra rad in the loop in parallel.

Thanks alot guys

8Ball

never knew how to do the maths, but yeah that sounds about right. You'd need some serious peltage to get to 0C watertemp (or something decent)

I use my chiller in a recirculating setup and it keeps the water at about 10-15 degrees below ambient.

remember it's the same water thats come's back... the amount of water in system just slows tempmovments down....

and, if the water get's below abient, then the radiator starts to warm the water... something people often forgets....

but as long as water temp is over abient, a chiller works like an other radiator....

to get watertemp under abient, the chiller has to move more energy than the cpu puts into the system at the certain delta T, and a 80w pelt doesn't do this on a xp1700+....


just theory, dunno if it same in reality.... :p... :)