Post by scooter on Jan 3, 2015 18:03:06 GMT -5
This is a Peltier chip or thermoelectric chip. It is the same kind of chip you will find in electric Coleman type heater/cooler boxes that you can take with you in your car.
When electricity is applied in one polarity, the chip draws heat from one side of the chip and transfers it to the other. By switching the leads, you can reverse the flow of heat. You can also transfer heat into it, or out of it, and it will produce electricity. I will not go into detail right now unless people want to get into it, but I already know that these chips are not as efficient as an A/C compressor, however they have their advantages. They are small and make no noise and have no moving parts.
I have considered either powering a blower to cool or heat, in a car or on a bike, and also using the chips in a suit. This WILL warm you or cool you if you desire. It can be powered enough to get hotter than you'd like on your skin, and needs a heat sink on the hot side if enough power is applied, so as not to burn out the chip. The cold side can easily get cold enough to collect condensation. You could even get emergency water that way, but this isn't a survival website, unless you consider staying alive on a scooter a matter of survival.
Obviously one chip could take heat, make electricity from it, and send that electricity to another chip to produce hot or cold, but I'm sure efficiency would make that a poor conversion. Still, I wonder if the muffler is hot enough to make a chip power a heated suit or whatever. I don't know how much current it would produce from a muffler, but I have imagined putting these on a mount to thermally connect them to a muffler and see how much electricity they will produce. Someone who is good at math could probably use the temperature of said muffler, the wattage and efficiency of the chip, and get this answer in minutes. Search Google for Peltier Chip Efficiency, Peltier Chip Generator, and other terms to learn more. Wikipedia can be VERY helpful, but can also be very math intensive.
There is a ton of information online but I suggest you get to know more about these chips before you make assumptions good or bad. That is the downfall of many a great idea, and the creator of many bad ones.
It takes work, or finding someone who has done the work for you, to get accurate information. Watch out for people who pull numbers out of their exhaust pipes. They will waste your time and it's doubtful anything they say will lead to positive results.
Here are some sample chips on Ebay:
www.ebay.com/itm/TEC1-12706-12V-60W-Heatsink-Thermoelectric-Cooler-Cooling-Peltier-Plate-Module-/121349774916?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c41029e44
These units are 12 volts and 60 watts. I believe that means they can take up to 5 amps of power.
These are about $4.20 with shipping. There are probably cheaper ones available and also ones that are higher and lower wattages and voltages.
This website has a Carnot efficiency calculator.
www.coolchips.gi/technology/ccalc.shtml
They show a Peltier chip as having an efficiency of 5%, a compressor of 45%, and their own "cool chip" of 55%. I'm not saying that is accurate. For an input of 60 watts, it shows a 6.6 watt compressor. It's over my head. I have to sit down and study such things to understand them correctly, and I have not done so.
Here is a video of someone making a small fan run on a candle. The chip is between two large heat sinks, a good deal larger than the heat sink you will find an electric thermos cooler/heater, with the fan blowing on the cool one. It's interesting because the fan is actually helping the chip work better. On a scooter or car, you can use ambient air flow to cool the chip and your exhaust to heat the other side of it. It's the heat difference that matters. The colder it is outside and the hotter your exhaust, the better it will work.
So there you have it, a chip and some information about where to get more information. They are really fun to play with. I bought several of them for one price, about a year or two ago, and used one as a heater for a reptile rock using only 5 volts instead of 12. There are tons of uses for these chips. The sky is the limit... if you have an airplane.
When electricity is applied in one polarity, the chip draws heat from one side of the chip and transfers it to the other. By switching the leads, you can reverse the flow of heat. You can also transfer heat into it, or out of it, and it will produce electricity. I will not go into detail right now unless people want to get into it, but I already know that these chips are not as efficient as an A/C compressor, however they have their advantages. They are small and make no noise and have no moving parts.
I have considered either powering a blower to cool or heat, in a car or on a bike, and also using the chips in a suit. This WILL warm you or cool you if you desire. It can be powered enough to get hotter than you'd like on your skin, and needs a heat sink on the hot side if enough power is applied, so as not to burn out the chip. The cold side can easily get cold enough to collect condensation. You could even get emergency water that way, but this isn't a survival website, unless you consider staying alive on a scooter a matter of survival.
Obviously one chip could take heat, make electricity from it, and send that electricity to another chip to produce hot or cold, but I'm sure efficiency would make that a poor conversion. Still, I wonder if the muffler is hot enough to make a chip power a heated suit or whatever. I don't know how much current it would produce from a muffler, but I have imagined putting these on a mount to thermally connect them to a muffler and see how much electricity they will produce. Someone who is good at math could probably use the temperature of said muffler, the wattage and efficiency of the chip, and get this answer in minutes. Search Google for Peltier Chip Efficiency, Peltier Chip Generator, and other terms to learn more. Wikipedia can be VERY helpful, but can also be very math intensive.
There is a ton of information online but I suggest you get to know more about these chips before you make assumptions good or bad. That is the downfall of many a great idea, and the creator of many bad ones.
It takes work, or finding someone who has done the work for you, to get accurate information. Watch out for people who pull numbers out of their exhaust pipes. They will waste your time and it's doubtful anything they say will lead to positive results.
Here are some sample chips on Ebay:
www.ebay.com/itm/TEC1-12706-12V-60W-Heatsink-Thermoelectric-Cooler-Cooling-Peltier-Plate-Module-/121349774916?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c41029e44
These units are 12 volts and 60 watts. I believe that means they can take up to 5 amps of power.
These are about $4.20 with shipping. There are probably cheaper ones available and also ones that are higher and lower wattages and voltages.
This website has a Carnot efficiency calculator.
www.coolchips.gi/technology/ccalc.shtml
They show a Peltier chip as having an efficiency of 5%, a compressor of 45%, and their own "cool chip" of 55%. I'm not saying that is accurate. For an input of 60 watts, it shows a 6.6 watt compressor. It's over my head. I have to sit down and study such things to understand them correctly, and I have not done so.
Here is a video of someone making a small fan run on a candle. The chip is between two large heat sinks, a good deal larger than the heat sink you will find an electric thermos cooler/heater, with the fan blowing on the cool one. It's interesting because the fan is actually helping the chip work better. On a scooter or car, you can use ambient air flow to cool the chip and your exhaust to heat the other side of it. It's the heat difference that matters. The colder it is outside and the hotter your exhaust, the better it will work.
So there you have it, a chip and some information about where to get more information. They are really fun to play with. I bought several of them for one price, about a year or two ago, and used one as a heater for a reptile rock using only 5 volts instead of 12. There are tons of uses for these chips. The sky is the limit... if you have an airplane.
