Quote:
Originally posted by Boli
Can Pelts even work off AC current?
I don;t know much about the specs of them but arn't they made up of diodes?
An LED is a type of Diode and that won't work if installed the wrong way wrong round and I'm prepared to bet they won;t work off AC.
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Boli, if you look at the first post, there's a mention of a "bridge rectifier".
A bridge rectifier is a set of 4 power diodes that turn the negative voltage of an AC wave into a positive one. If you've seen a sine wave, try to picture it, with the part that's under zero reversed to be positive, resulting in what looks like a mountain range.
Then, as ]JR[ correctly pointed, what you have left is a voltage that goes up and down, from (near) zero, up to 170+ volts (on a 110 Vac outlet), which is not unlike a switched signal. So to smooth out the curve, we add capacitors, which get charged at the wave's peak, and discharge at the wave's low point, to result in an almost flat DC output. TECs live longer with a true DC output.
Limitations are described accurately by ]JR[.