Electronics Peltier/TEC passive cooling

For a temperature difference of about 10°C, is it ok to cool a Peltier using a standard CPU heatsink (no fan)?

Cheers,
mottl3y

 

Depends. Its like asking how long is a peice of string. If the load on the TEC is only 1W then yes it would be fine. If however its a 125W TEC on a 100W CPU then no.

Basically whats the load on the TEC and how powerfull is the TEC?

 

All other things being equal, you'll need a better HSF with a Peltier than without -- you've got to get rid of the Peltier's waste heat as well as heat from whatever it's strapped to.

http://www.overclockers.com/tips45/

Take the fan away and CPU heat-sinks are fairly poor performance compared to the passive heatsinks used in power amplifiers or TEC minifridges. The fins are too thin and too close together for good natural convection cooling.

 

Ah. I see. you can probably tell i havent done a whole bunch of googling.

All im after is a quiet form of cooling. I dont overclock, and dont run it to extremes particularly often. do you think a passive cooled TEC (with a phat heatsink) is a suitable solution? How about on the GPU?

Thanks for the help, ill get investigating

 

i think you'd probably cause more problems than you solve...
you'd need a HS the size of a lounge radiator to get ridd of all the heat from the cpu AND the heat the TEC creates itself.
the best quiet cooling is water with a phat rad and a very quiet pump

 

but wheres the fun in water cooling : (

i didnt realise the TEC produced heat of it's own which needs to be dissipated.

i'm still keen on using TEC's, so i'll keep investigating, but i might have to go with boring old water cooling. Any ideas on how i estimate the heat output of my CPU/GPU?

thanks for your help. any other suggestions, please let me know.
mottl3y

 

quistion: What is a TEC?

 

Thermoelectric Cooler
link
aka pelt or peltier
one side gets hot and the other cold when electricity is passed through it.
Commonly used in electric mini-fridges or drink cooler/warmers.
Find more info via the link, google, or

 

Thanx for the answer

 

Have you looked at any of the cooling solutions offered by Zalman? They have some very nice very quiet coolers including HUGE passive heatsinks.

What proc are you cooling and how much airflow do you get through your case?

 

its an AMD 3200+. video is winfast PX6600 GT TDH Extreme (nvidia). 1Gb ddr. 1 SATA HDD.

i haven't looked into Zalman stuff, i was only aware they did fans.

the case will be home-design, so i can design it for specific flow of air, but will be focussed on aesthetics, so will have very limited intakes/out-holes. im looking for ultra quiet, so i was hoping to have no fans if possible (and just use convection - anyone else done this?), or one 120mm slowly pulling air around. the psu will most likely have to have a fan anyway, so perhaps i'll just bite the bullet and incorporate one 120mm to cool the psu and the rest of the case. im looking at the shuttle PC50 for it's size and quiteness.

what do you reckon?

all feedback is most appreciated,
mottl3y

 

convection only WILL NOT WORK with an AMD 3200+.
try one of these for your CPU and one of these power supplies along with maybe some of these fans. They also have vga coolers.

Hope that helps.

Have a nice day.

 

thanks for the links DreamTheEndless. Some of those fanless VGA coolers certainly look interesting. the main reason im looking at the shuttle psu is for its size. i would like this case to be fairly compact (not shuttle sized, but as small as possible).

do you think convection wouldn't work, even if i were using a TEC with a real big heatsink - from a transformer or the like?

is it possible to buy heatpipes and put them where i want? i saw a page where someone made their own, but i think thats a bit heavy for me.

Sorry for dragging this out.
mottl3y

 

if you really want to have fun and be extreme, dont use TECs, set up a chilled water setup for around -20 C temps under load

all for around $300-$400 total (includes watercooling and AC to mod)

 

im not really after extreme. i dont overclock and i rarely play games, so its as much for fun as anything else (ill be looking to make controllers for any fans/TECs/pumps amongst other things). so the only requirements i really have are: quietness, size and lastly fun factor/originality

 

The big Zalman flowers aren't the quietest heatsinks in the world. The fans are not much quieter than a stock CPU fan. I would suggest an XP-120 (Or SI-120) with a Papst 120mm fan.