The kit is set up, and it says that the cooling unit draws about 6 amps at 12 volts. There are also some 12v and .3 amp fans. I bought a thermostat module off eBay for $5 to control it and a 12v 6 amp laptop charger with a little adapter to power it. When it was all hooked up, I found that the module was faulty as it powered on but didn't send power out. I got a refund and ordered another one. I also noticed that the peltier unit wouldn't power on with the laptop charger directly, but individual fans would. When I tried to power through whole unit, the charger led flashed instead of staying solid. Therefore, I used a car trickle charger at 12v 6a and it powered the peltier unit fully, and everything on that worked. When I used the trickle charger with the thermostat unit, the display didn't come on. It blinked and immediately went out, came on, went out, and repeated. I have a computer power supply unit that I could cut up, but I don't know what that will do. Am I doing something wrong and how should I move setting this up? Thanks.

 

Welcome to the forums.

Those Peltier units are power hungry. It doesn't have to be a regulated power supply but it needs to provide at LEAST six amps of power. That laptop supply you bought.... regardless of the label.... is probably not a full 6A. If it is.... the units current draw is too close to it's maximum output and shutting it down.

When I'm not in the vehicle I run my cooler on a 10A 12vdc supply.

The battery charger isn't working satisfactorily because it's passing too much AC. There is no filter in it to give you clean DC power. Usually the battery is the filter.

 

Thanks man. Should a cheap 8 v or 10v work? AC DC Power Supply Adapter Transformer 12V 2/3/5/6/8/10A for 5050 3528 LED Strip is where I got the charger. In the zoomed in picture witht he blue and white label, that's the PC psu. Could I use a wire from the 3 wire yellow power out put for ~6 amps? That output is rated at 12v 16a across 3 wires but idk electricity.

 

We have to know the specification of peltier you ordered to be sure.
There is nothing wrong with using computer power supply as long as it meets your peltier's demands.

What you mean by ?
Do you mean 3 yellow wires from the power supply? On your power supply you will get 12V between yellow and black or brown and black.
All yellow wires are connected to the same place and all brown wires are connected to the same place. The computer power supply uses multiple wires on single connector because the connector cannot handle high current through a single pin. Wires on the computer power supply are usually 16 AWG (some really cheap ones use 18 or even 24) and just using a single wire will be enough to handle your peltier. Easiest way to tell will be if the wires attached to the peltier is smaller or same size as wires from the power supply, it should be ok.

Your power supply has 2 12V power rails (yellow and brown) and each can put out 16A, but combined output of two is 270W and combined output of all power rails is 280W.
This means if you put 16A load on one rail, only 6.5A is available on the other. Even less in reality because power supplies are often over rated.

 

DIY Thermoelectric Peltier Refrigeration Cooler Fan Cooling System TEC1-12706 this is that peltier unit. Whats the best power supply method for it? I've seen a lot of scary review about power supplies melting down, but I need something. I'm not too sure of the best and/or most affordable power supply. do you think my psu could be used? the battery charger? Thanks

 

There is no way for us to know. We would need to know the wattage of your power supply and the total load that is now on it. Note wattage ratings of power supplies are often exaggerated by the manufacturer. If this is a factory built computer with the original power supply manufacturers usually use the smallest size power supply that will work with the factory configuration.

 

I was looking around at power supplies. Pretty expensive for something reliable.

I would try the computer supply and see how hot it runs. You need +80watts for the Peltier alone plus another 5 or so watts for each fan. Just use one of the yellow wires along with a black one.

 

A way around an "unclean" power supply is to use a small lead acid battery as a filter for a battery charger.
You just need to make sure the charger can supply more current than the load.

 

When I was into overclocking, PSUs made for PCs never survived very long and I ended up buying a DC power supply made for charging RC cars. Compared to a heavy-duty power supply, the Peltiers, fans and aluminum heatsinks are cheap, so if you want full performance from the cooler, expect to pay more to power it than you paid for the cooler. You might find something suitable in a power supply for slot cars or electric trains, just make sure it's DC with a max output of no more than 16.4V (according to the Peltier's data sheet). I just checked eBay and found generic 10-amp power supplies for ~$70 and up, but 10 amps is enough to power your own personal electric chair, so in the words of Robbie the Robot,...



DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!

This might sound a bit far-fetched but you might want to look into the causes of and precautions against condensation occurring in an active-cooled PC. It becomes a risk if any component that's exposed to air gets cooled to below the dew point (inside your house, which will be some lower than outside, except maybe in Phoenix). Just how much risk depends on how much Peltier power you're using and how high the humidity is. I don't have time write all this up at the moment but I did look at some relative humidity numbers and dew points. Quick'n'dirty, even if it were ridiculously humid (66% RH) inside of a 72°F house, I *think* you'd be in the clear so long as the cold-side heat sink didn't get any cooler than 60°F. An easy way to check would be to tape the remote sensor of an indoor-outdoor thermometer to the side of the cold-side heatsink (up high, near the Peltier) and check the temperature while the PC runs at idle for a substantial period of time.

The data sheet says your Peltier could use up to 6.4 amps at full suck, which, considering real-world resistances and efficiencies, probably would take about an 8-amp PSU (which is why I mentioned the 10A PSUs earlier). If you're only going to use some dinky 3-4A PSU, I doubt the cold-side heat sink would even get to room temp.

But if you really want optimal performance from that cooler, throw on at least a 6 amp PSU and deal with the consequences. :-)

Condensation in an active-cooled PC

 

I was under the impression that this was being used in a cooler.
This is being used to cool a CPU chip ?

I wouldn't consider any power supply under 10A. I'm seeing 10A power supplies at eBay for $5. Someone is lying. $5 does not buy a 10A power supply.

 

PJmax:

Oops. Maybe I spoke too soon. From all the other PC components he's using, I assumed, and you know that what'll get you.

 

Thanks everyone for all the responses. To clarify, the psu is leftover from when I upgraded the one in a pc to support a more powerful graphics card. It is a currently unused, stock psu that I would dedicate to the cooling system. It has a label(I included a picture in the original post) that states that the yellow cabling provides 12volt, 16 amp energy with the black being return. My concern if I use this cabling would be that I could overwork the peltier unit. Is that a possibility with that or would it regulate its power consumption. I dont fully undertand that aspect of the dillemma and I am wondering if the psu would work, before spending $$$ on a rc charger,as mentioned.

 

A device only draws the amps it is designed to draw. A 60 watt light bulb draws less than one amp but is commonly used on a 15 amp circuit.