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Subject: Re: Anyone been playing with Peltiers lately?
Name:
 ludicrous
Date: 7/12/2002 12:18:36 PM (GMT-7)
IP Address: 138.67.74.229
In Reply to: Anyone been playing with Peltiers lately? posted by
Celstk855
Message:
Tube? That doesn't seem too likely. A Peltier is essentially a large P-N silicon junction -- a big diode.
The hot/cold thing works because the electron flow from one side of the silicon junction to the other causes a heat-transfer effect, yielding a temperature delta between the two sides. The primary drawback is that you have to dump a lot of power to make this happen -- which means that that you must remove a lot MORE heat from the device, than what you gain in net cooling. And for this reason a Peltier is expensive to run, as you noted.
The largest Peltier device I have ever seen was a roughly 4x4cm chip pilfered from an old camping refrigerator.
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