Post Rad Chiller Concept

[Uncle Jimbo]

If you are not happy with the bigger TECs, here's another option - http://ferrotec.com/products/thermal...ail.php?id=114 which is a 33710 unit which is 55mm square. It has a nominal voltage of 46.4, so your 12V MeanWell will put it well down on the curve.

At 12V, it draws 2.6A, so heat in is 31.2W. You are at the 2.3 CoP point with a 10C differential, so it will move 72 watts. You have room for 4, so you could move 288W at a cost of 125W. If you want to start out with 3 units, you would move 216W at a cost of only 94W. If I were you, I would just put in 4 and use some hot side control - that way any power excursions up to 288W are handled, and at lower power transferred, your power in goes down. You are at a much more stable point than with the '437' TEC also, which makes the performance a lot more predictable. You should be able to maintain a few degrees below ambient easily.

If you keep the differential around 5C, you will get even better efficiency - that puts the CoP over 3.

That would be a truly awesome setup, and would revise the thinking of a lot of people about TEC efficiency (me included!)

<EDIT> I discovered that you can plug heatsink performance into the ferrotec calculator so i plugged in the PA160 with 130CFM. At 12V, with .02 C/W cooling, that TEC moves 120W! so 4 of them would pump 480W with 125W in. That is serious cooling.