See The Radioactive World With This Peltier Cloud Chamber

January 13, 2019 by 17 Comments

Remember when a homemade cloud chamber was a science fair staple? We haven’t participated for decades, but it seemed like every year someone would put a hunk of dry ice in a fish tank, add a little alcohol, and with the lighting just right – which it never was in the gymnasium – you might be lucky enough to see a few contrails in the supersaturated vapor as the occasional stray bit of background radiation whizzed through the apparatus.

Done right, the classic cloud chamber is a great demonstration, but stocking enough dry ice to keep the fun going is a bit of a drag. That’s where this Peltier-cooled cloud chamber comes into its own. [mosivers] spares no expense at making a more permanent, turn-key cloud chamber, which is perched atop a laser-cut acrylic case. Inside that is an ATX power supply which runs a Peltier thermoelectric cooling module. Coupled with a CPU cooler, the TEC is able to drive the chamber temperature down to a chilly -42°C, with a strip of white LEDs providing the required side-lighting. The video below gives a tour of the machine and shows a few traces from a chunk of pitchblende; it’s all pretty tame until [mosivers] turns on his special modification – a high-voltage grid powered by a scrapped electronic fly swatter. That really kicks up the action, and even lets thoriated TIG welding electrodes be used as a decent source of alpha particles.

It’s been a while since we’ve seen a Peltier cloud chamber build around here, which is too bad because they’re great tools for engaging young minds as well as for discovery. And if you use one right, it just might make you as famous as your mother.

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Peltier Mini-Fridge Preserves Chip Quik, Marriage

April 3, 2014 by 48 Comments

[Charles] uses Chip Quik to solder his SMD parts, and that stuff can keep for more than six months if it’s kept cool. His wife banned all non-food items from their refrigerator, so he had to think fast and came up with this Peltier effect Chip Quik cooler.

He first looked into that man cave essential, the mini-fridge, but they’re too expensive and use too much power. [Charles] got a nice wooden box from a hobby store and some reflective insulation from Lowe’s. He first tried using a couple of heat sinks but they weren’t going to cool things down enough. Once he got a Peltier cooling kit, he was in business. The temperature in his workshop averages 80°F, and he says the box gets down to 58°F. This is cold enough to keep his paste fresh.

[Charles] plans to use a PC power supply in the future rather than his bench supply. He estimates that his Peltier cooler uses 25-50% of the power that a mini-fridge would, and now his wife won’t overheat. Many great things can be accomplished with the Peltier effect from air conditioning to sous-vide cooking to LED rings. What have you used it for?

Energy Harvesting Peltier Ring

December 2, 2013 by 51 Comments

[Sean] is by no means an electrical engineer, but when he discovered the magic of Peltier plates he knew he had to make a project with them. This is his Energy Harvesting Peltier Ring.

The effect he is harnessing is called the SeeBeck Effect — the process of generating electricity through temperature differentials. He has shown how peltier plates work to many people, and, as you can guess, most people think they are amazing (free energy wow!). Unfortunately, most peltier plates are rather large and bulky, so [Sean] decided he wanted to try to design something small enough that could fit on a ring. Just a proof of concept, to light a tiny SMD LED.

The tiny Peltier plate he found generates about 0.3V with a temperature differential of about 20C — not bad, but it won’t light up any standard LEDs at that voltage! He started looking into voltage steppers and discovered Linear Technology’s 3108 Ultralow Voltage Step-up converter and Power Manager — a surface mount chip capable of scaling 0.3V to 5V. The only problem? [Sean’s] never done surface mount soldering.

His first circuit was built on a prototyping board, and after it worked successfully, he designed a PCB using Fritzing. Another success! Prototyping complete, it was now time to try to downsize the PCB even more to fit on a ring. Realizing there was no way he was going to fit it on a single ring, he decided to make a double ring out of CNC machined aluminum. He made use of his school’s CNC shop and the ring came out great. It works too! The room has to be fairly cool for the LED to light, but [Sean] definitely proved his concept. Now to make it even smaller!

Peltier Joule Thief Power Supply

November 12, 2013 by 20 Comments

[Steven] manages to power an LED for 15 minutes using hot and cold water as a battery. He does this using the thermoelectric effect also known as the Seebeck effect, Peltier effect or Thomson effect. This isn’t particularly new; in fact there are commercial products that you can use to charge a cell phone using a small campfire or internal burner that works on the same principle.

What is interesting about [Steven’s] device is that he uses a salvaged Peltier device not meant for generating electricity, coupled with a home built joule thief circuit. In the video he describes how the joule thief functions and powers the LED using the small voltage generated by the Peltier device. The energy for the thermoelectric effect is conducted from a hot water bath through aluminum plates, through the positive and negative sides of the Peltier device, through more aluminum plates and finally into a cold water bath. As the heat energy transfers through the Peltier device a small electric current is generated and flows in two small wires coming out the side of the device.  The energy generated by the Peltier device is stored in the joule thief and periodically dumped at a voltage high enough to forward bias the LED “on” for a brief moment. Technically the LED is flashing but at a frequency too high for our eyes to see. As the hot water bath cools, the LED goes from very bright, to dim, to off in about 15 minutes.

Not a very practical power supply but still quite the parlor trick. He wraps up the tutorial specifying that a TEG thermoelectric generator would be a much better choice for generating power and can handle much higher temperatures. You can watch the video after the break.

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Peltier Campfire Generator Put Out 14W (kind Of)

January 10, 2013 by 47 Comments

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This is the control and monitoring hardware which [Jack] built for his campfire electricity generator. He’s done an amazing job to get this far. You can see he’s pulling 1 Amp at 14.2 Volts off of the system. But there one gotcha that’s still plaguing him.

The rig uses a big metal plate as a heat sink over the campfire (which is simulated by a cooking stove for testing). On the back of that plate is an array of Peltier coolers which generate electricity based on the temperature difference from one side to the other — it’s the same theory behind candle generators. The cold side has a heat sink with water running through it. What you see above are three relays which switch between using the Peltiers in series or in parallel based on their voltage output. You can’t really make it out there but there’s a radiator and recirculating pump to the right which are used to cool the water. The gotcha we mentioned is that the radiator can’t quite keep up with the heat of the fire. To get the results seen above [Jack] is running cold water from the tap through the radiator. But maybe if this were used in the winter the water could be circulated through a big box full of snow. Just keep shoveling it in to keep up the electrical potential!

After the break we’ve embedded part four of the project video as it shows off the array of peltier coolers quite well. You will also see part five (radiator and recirculating pump testing) from which this image was taken.

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Peltier Powered Sous-vide Rig Gets It Right Every Time

August 3, 2011 by 13 Comments

diy_sous_vide_refrigerator_cooker

It seems that sous-vide cooking is becoming increasingly popular lately. [Meseta] caught the sous-vide bug and wanted to try his hand at it, though he did not have enough money for a premade sous-vide cooker. After seeing a good handful of lackluster DIY sous-vide rigs online, he decided that he would design and build a sous-vide cooker of his own.

He already had a Forebrain microcontroller at his disposal to use as a PID controller, but what he really needed was a cooking vessel. Rather than use an old crock pot or similar device, he purchased a small personal refrigerator that could be used for cooling or heating. The unit ran off a Peltier cooler that could be switched between modes, making it quite easy for him to control.

In his blog, he discusses the modification from beginning to end, and even shows off the results of his cooking endeavors. He hasn’t posted code as of yet, but he says that he is more than happy to share it with anyone who might be interested in building their own sous-vide cooker.

poor_mans_peltier_air_conditioner

Poor Man’s Peltier Air Conditioner

July 2, 2011 by 68 Comments

It’s summer in Germany, and [Valentin’s] room was getting hotter than he could handle. Tired of suffering through the heat, and with his always-on PC not helping matters any, he decided that he must do something to supplement his home’s air conditioner. The result of his labor is the single room poor man’s A/C unit you see above.

He had a spare Peltier cooler sitting around, so he put it to good use as the basis for his air conditioning unit. He sandwiched it between a pair of CPU heatsinks before cramming his makeshift heat pump into a shoe box. Warm air is drawn into the box and across the cold side of the Peltier before being blown back into the room. On the hot side of the box air is also pulled in by a fan, drawing heat away from the unit before being exhausted outdoors through his window.

While he hasn’t quantified the machine’s cooling power, he seems quite happy with the results. We have a spare Peltier kicking around here somewhere, perhaps we should try building one just for grins.