Good work Brendan. It looks like the best deltaT you were getting was about 30
°C. This will give about -5
°C on a hot Australian summer night which is fine but I would like to have more spare cooling capacity (I like to overdesign things
).
How heavy is your heatsink/fan?
Few thoughts:
- The Cam86 uses PWM to control the TEC. Optimally we don't want to run the cooling at full power (I would guess 40-80% PWM would be the optimum) meaning that deltaT will be less than in your tests.
- PWM may not be compatible all fans, depending on the fan type. We may not be able to run the fan at the same voltage as the TEC.
- Performance is probably what we should have expected. Firstly, the manufacturers like to overestimate the performance and also take measurements in optimum conditions. Secondly, the stated max deltaT of 67°C is with no heat load.
I am thinking getting one of the double-stacked Peltier from ebay and doing some testing. Should have done it straight away as now I have to wait for delivery. I have uploaded a list of candidates to GD. ATM my favourite is:
TEC2-19003
dT max = 83°C
Imax = 3A, Vmax = 12V (or 16V???)
Qcmax △T=0(W) = 15W
30x30x6.5mm
(5.78V gives dT=65°C)
for about $20 on ebay or $15 on aliexpress.
Hmm... what do you think?