Look what I just found !

[diachi]

Ok, well my sister just arrived back from work, and kindly shouted up to notify me that there was a "thing" outside with fans and stuff in it.

So I went out to take a look, and on closer inspection realized it was a mini fridge ! a quick look around the back revealed that it had "something" like a TEC in it, attached to two whopping great heat sinks.

So I took a look around to make sure no one was looking and carried it inside !

I'll take more pictures later and post about my findings, until then, have a look at these horrible quality images. I am going now to get my hands COVERED in thermal paste.

-Adam

 

[diachi]

Re: Look what I jsut found !

2

 

[diachi]

Re: Look what I jsut found !

Ok, well I took it apart, and between the heat sinks is a nice big TEC ( 4cmx4cm ) and in one heat sink there is also a large thermistor, probably for temperature control.

I'm going to power up the TEC and see what happens.

-Adam

 

[maxkillz]

Re: Look what I jsut found !

nice find, hope it works for whatever you want to do with it

 

[brtaman]

Re: Look what I jsut found !

I can tell you what will happen Depending on the power, quite a hefty sum of frost crystals will start gathering on the cold side (provided the hot is adequately heatsinked), TEC's are great fun.

Nice find

 

[diachi]

Re: Look what I jsut found !

Quick question, what votlage / current should I run it at ? It does work .

-Adam

 

[diachi]

Re: Look what I jsut found !

I can tell you what will happen Depending on the power, quite a hefty sum of frost crystals will start gathering on the cold side (provided the hot is adequately heatsinked), TEC's are great fun.

Nice find

It has a whopping great heatsink ( 10x12 cm ). and a smaller fatter one for the cold side and thermistor.

-Adam

 

[MarioMaster]

Re: Look what I jsut found !

usually mini fridges like that run around 12v and 2 amps - the tecs are quite fun to play with although fairly on the small side as far as tecs go (you can find 320 watt monsters on ebay)

but since usually we're only cooling a diode that's using something like 1 watt total - these small tecs have no problem cooling them below freezing

 

[diachi]

I'm going to put it to 2A just now, which is nearly the max which my PSU can handle anyway.

-Adam

 

[brtaman]

Yeah like mariomaster said in the 12v 2-3A area, for fridge TECs, but who knows could be more. An old computer PC PSU would work great with it.

 

[diachi]

Correction 1.8A and then it has trouble ( the current display has flashing dots on it ... )

 

[thesk8nmidget]

stick your tongue to it and take a picture

 

[john_lawson]

hey put some insects on it then try to bring them back to life after they thaw

 

[Ace82]

I had one of those exact fridges many years ago!  it is powered by 12V @ 3amps Cool stuff, yeah, try what John Lawson said

 

[diachi]

hey put some insects on it then try to bring them back to life after they thaw

;D

Nice idea.

I also just found a fan that has thermal control on it, and gets faster when the thermistor gets too hot, I'm going to mount it on the hot side of the heatsink later.

-Adam

 

[diachi]

I had one of those exact fridges many years ago! it is powered by 12V @ 3amps Cool stuff, yeah, try what John Lawson said

I've got 2A ( @ 7.45V )going into the TEC now, i found gradually increasing my voltage allowed me to get higher current.

-Adam