Bitcoin Forum

Has anyone tried any Peltier Thermo-Electric Cooling in a rig?
Get those chips nice and frosty  :D

These look interesting

$34
Peltier Thermo-Electric Cooler Module+Heatsink Assembly - 12V 5A
PRODUCT ID: 1335
http://www.adafruit.com/products/1335?gclid=CjwKEAjwk_OhBRD06abu3qSoxlwSJACt7sZ7Va1tbe99RKdXVWfxXx_CUqK_SxlegP6W3D9iA84n_hoCGSPw_wcB (http://www.adafruit.com/products/1335?gclid=CjwKEAjwk_OhBRD06abu3qSoxlwSJACt7sZ7Va1tbe99RKdXVWfxXx_CUqK_SxlegP6W3D9iA84n_hoCGSPw_wcB)
The Peltier Module is 40mm x 40mm / 1.6" x 1.6"
The aluminum plate is 40mm x 60mm / 1.6" x 2.4"
The heat-sink is 90mm x 90mm / 3.5" x 3.5"
The whole assembly is approximately 78mm / 3.1" tall
Wire Length: 280mm / 11"
Weight: 455g

Found some 10 packs on ebay too. kinda cheap $24
http://www.ebay.com/itm/10Pcs-TEC1-12706-Thermoelectric-Cooler-Heat-Sink-Cooling-Peltier-Plate-Module-6A-/361055841312?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item54109aec20 (http://www.ebay.com/itm/10Pcs-TEC1-12706-Thermoelectric-Cooler-Heat-Sink-Cooling-Peltier-Plate-Module-6A-/361055841312?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item54109aec20)

Opinions?

The amount of consumed power is massive and by the way, peltiers don't really "cool"... think at them like moving the heat a few millimeters from the device. You still need a heatsink for the hot side and as the hot side gets hotter, the efficiency becomes even worse.
Granted, your chip will be cooler if you do the homework but with the cost of electricity for GPU mining already too high I'm afraid that will just be an nothing more than an interesting experiment.

I'm one of the lucky ones... My electric is not a factor. But I'm thinking about overclocking a bitman S2. They have an upgrade path coming soon anyway and they can gain another 20% speed already. 1.2/th instead of 1/th https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=629997.msg8291559#msg8291559 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=629997.msg8291559#msg8291559) Obviously I will need a larger power supply so I will go from the 1000watt to a 1300 or 1500 for the Rig. Then at 75w each for the Peltier x 10 or 1 per blade that's another 750watt, I would use another 850 I already have just for the peltiers.

that is good if you find something that does cooling then go for it.

This Peltiers vs WC (water cooling) vs AC (air cooling) discussion have been going on for as long as I can remember.
Each have their pros and cons:
Typical air cooling is the cheapest to install and the most inefficient, but consumes very little power.
WC is the most efficient, but also the most expensive to install, also requires very little power to run.
Peltiers are like the AC upgrade, that makes it more efficient at the cost of some Watts ;)

I have never used a Peltier before. Have you used them? Any performance info would be appreciated.

I had a small fridge that run on peltiers and considered using them for CPU.
The main difference between a typical heatsink and the one with peltier is that heat gets transfered faster from the source to the target (heatsink), so the cooled surface i.e. the chip reaches lower temperatures.
You still have to transfer the heat from the heatsink and out of the room. So Peltier acts a bit like cooling fluid in a WC loop.

Does it helps a lot? It does cost a lot.....

  you can check out on youtube on peltier and watch out for water after you turn off power.

Honestly it looks badly designed. I wouldnt' trust it.

The fans in the GPU are good enough.

  other way for cooling is use mineral oil.

 

If you're intention is to get the chips hashing as fast as possible, ignoring power costs, then a TEC (Thermo electric cooler) plus a massive heatsink (even better a water cooled head on the back of the TEC) is the way to go. You can get the temperature of the chip well below ambient, which means you can get it colder, while still moving heat away just as air or water. Next option is an oil bath, which unless you can get the oil temperature well below ambient, then it can only move the heat but not cool the chip to super lower levels because you can only cool it to ambient; unless of course you refrigerate the oil, or have some cascade of heat pumps.
 You can buy water-cooled TEC plates there! (http://www.customthermoelectric.com/Water_blocks.html)
 Oil cooled pc in a fish tank (http://hackedgadgets.com/2008/10/24/computer-cooled-using-a-mineral-oil-filled-fish-tank/)

If along with electricity you have free time on your hands you could build a ASIC dry ice pot. This is a large thick copper cylinder with one closed and one open end, the closed end sits on top of the chips and into the cylinder you very carefully place acetone and dry ice chunks and make a "slurry" and its super super cold! But you have to feed it dry ice for 24/7 so it doesn't overheat from evaporating the dry ice off. Some people even use liquid nitrogen in the pot.
Good picture of a dry ice pot  (http://www.techreaction.net/2009/09/20/just-a-little-fun-with-dry-ice/)

If you have a lot of free electricity, time, or money you could buy an entire AC unit for you asics, or build your own. This uses a "head" akin to a water cooling "head" that is placed on the chip, but instead of water, freon or some suitable chemical is ran through it. It is compressed and held at some pressure at a liquid, it is then pumped onto the hot chip, and evaporates taking heat with it, then it is compressed with a compressor and cycled back through. These can get below ambient too.
A phase change system for a computer with one head (http://www.ldcooling.com/shop/ld-pc-v2/52-ld-pc-v2-phase-change.html)

The coolest thing you could do if you have a lot of all of that stuff we all want a lot of. Then you could build or buy a thermo-acoustic cooler. This thing is bad-ass, it can get within a few degrees of 0 kelvin, but I don't think it moves much heat at that point. But you could find one suitable for the chips heat output, and not have to feed it dry ice, or freon, or air, or water. It uses sound pressure waves to cool a "stack" of straw like cylinders, it works super well and its super cool. Ben and Jerry's actually started using them in all of their freezers for ice cream and to make it because they are so easy, cheap, environmentally friends, and super cool.
Thermo-acoustic cooler article/link (http://www.acs.psu.edu/thermoacoustics/refrigeration/benandjerrys.htm)

But way before any of those become useful, i think you'd reach the chips physical limits. I have no idea about your specific hardware, but first run the chips and measure their temperature at increasing clock speeds and voltages, see if cooling is necessary.

Ooooo!  That thermo-acoustic cooler, I believe the technical term is "Cooler 'n' Shit!"  TEC's are basically heat-pumps and harvest too.  I'd like them to get cheap enough so I can run my comp off of my wood-stove.  As for trying them out for cooling, I've got the perfect setup for testing it out and am in the middle of wiring it up.  The problems I've had with it in the past related to how fast the chip can pull the heat off.  Check that heat-sink on the unit, my 8350 wouldn't be comfortable with it.  I'll let the masters give you the numbers though, excellent source for all extreme cooing.

http://www.overclock.net/f/60/specialized-cooling

If your looking at hacking some cheap and very effective cooling though, lemme show you what I'll be trying that chip on.  I got a wicked deal ($22) each on two Thermaltake 2.0 units last fall (wrong firmware, whatever), and I had a couple of smaller ones as well so I just had to put together one nice big grill.  Now if only I can package it in a nice 50's sports-car model.

http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/uu53/acatphoto/Tech/BadGirl02.jpg

http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/uu53/acatphoto/Tech/BG_Detail01.jpg

The numbers.  I'm completely unable to get the 7950 on top there over 65C.  Here's a bench shot of it at 1240/1740.

http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/uu53/acatphoto/Tech/7950-1240-1740-Firestrike.jpg

Easy enough to try a peltier out there.  Here's the thing though, normally these chips are used to cool down what's doing the cooling down.  Like when they're put on the side of a V8 unit, or used to cool the water in a liquid rig.  They just don't pull the heat off fast enough.  However, I will be trying that chip out not on the GPU but on the VRM's.  I had quite the time getting those temps down in this mod.  VRM temps were consistently 15C higher than the gpu until I got that little 2x2 fan array in place.  Now I've just got to figure out how to sandwich a peltier in there.  Hasn't been high priority because it's working really well as is but I'm sure it's a curiosity that I'll scratch eventually.

Not worth the extra cost, fan cooling is the cheapest :)

It's only 25 bucks worth of parts. Not gonna break the bank  ;)

What is it that you're trying to cool though?  What's on it right now?

If you can hack something up that resembles a peltier(s) attached to a water cooling solution as well as a fan to more easily transfer the heat of the air across the water tubing/pipes, that could be a possible solution. If this becomes too cold and reacts to the humidity level, you may face condensation. An easy solution to this is a de-humidifer. Will this work? Maybe if properly built and tested.  :-X

save all the trouble, use a high pressure fan.