Peltiers

I've used them quite a bit, cooling optics, built a small environmental chamber etc. Without qualifying it with numbers I'd say you would be wasting your time trying to use peltiers to cool air for your pcs. Would using a very small thru wall compressor aircon unit be possible? They are quite inexpensive.

My shop is 3000 square feet. About the only thing I can think of might be to use an equipment cabinet and a small AC unit on it. Seems pretty inefficient.

I second that -- Peltier devices are really inefficient coolers (they make good warmers, though). Their biggest advantage is their simplicity, but your application is a bit big to really make use of that.

Maybe put the cold side in a plenum, with a cold air duct running to each machine? Or just make damn sure that you've got lots of airflow past all your controllers, to get the most cooling out of the air you have.

Like Tim said - airflow is cheap, alternatively what about one of those compressed air powered air coolers - hot air out one port / cold out the other?

Not sure what their air consumption is like or what air supply you have available..........

A practical approach might involve placing the PCs in a closed cabinet (insulated if it's metal) with the PC PSUs and the peltier power supply on the outside of the cabinet.

The peltier(s) mounted to thermally-isolated heatsink(s) (isolated from the cabinet walls, if metal) on/thru an external surface of the cabinet would need to be able to exceed/extract the heating capacity of the CPUs and memory sticks, mainly, without the added heat load of the PSUs.

The PC case fans would likely provide adequate internal air circulation if the cabinet's internal dimensions are reasonable (not excessively oversized).

Got a small/medium sized refrigerator?

Liquid cooled CPU heatsinks have been around for quite a few years. One problem might be condensation of humidity if the heatsink is cool.

An old watercooler to make chilled water, plus a small radiator (eg transmission cooler) can be fairly compact. See eg picture at

and google search with: water cooled computer

how hot is "hot"?

I don't know that separating the PSU from the computer is going to help all that much -- even a crappy switching supply (which is what PC PSUs are) is better than 80% efficient -- which means that for every watt you're burning up in the power supply, you're burning up more than four watts in the computer.

Yes, it'll help -- but those CPUs and graphics cards have tons-o-heatsink on them for a _reason_, and it ain't just to look good.

Inefficient how? If you can arrange all the confusers in there, it may be just what you need. At least until the AC dies and you don't notice...

To beat the 'airflow' drum again -- how about an equipment cabinet and just pipe in outside air?

I'd go water cooled. There are plans on the net if you don't want to buy new.

I have a small window unit (good for, say, a master bedroom) that you can have if you want to traipse on down to Whittier, CA and pick it up.

Cheers! Rich

I mentioned one I have, but if I recall accurately, it was less than $100.00. And now would be a good time to pick one up, before the cooling season hits.

Cheers! Rich

If it was me, Id go to the recycling center and get a s/hand fridge, and put the pc's in that set to low or veryow. Should work fine. Ted

Peltiers are maybe 25% efficient, so you'd be adding perhaps half a kilowatt into the shop air. Could you swap in a fancy gamer CPU heatsink? A Peltier on the cold side of one would do more good than trying to cool the intake air.

I've used a Peltier to cool a diode laser, 8 Amps at 12V of input power to remove ~15W of heat.

The little Summit dorm room refrigerator behind me is 15-3/4" wide inside, (barely) enough to hold the old Dell Optiplex on my desk. It draws 150-160W.

jsw

I seem to recall 50 degrees (F) is the max temperature difference achievable.

Bill K7NOM

The answer is to look up the dissipation of your CPUs on Intel's or AMD's site, then look at the module. A middlin' fair CPU these days will dissipate around 65 watts or so, some of the hot ones will go twice that. Depending on the hot-side temp, a module goes 10-25% efficient, which means you're going to be dumping a whole lot more heat than you're going to be pulling out of the CPU. In my one live trial with a Peltier fan sink, I managed to cook a set of memory DIMMs during a hot spell. A larger fansink was the ultimate answer and kept the CPU 10 degrees cooler than the module did.

They make portable AC units for spot cooling of computer gear, one of those, or a window unit genned up to work like one, would probably be the way to go.

Stan

Darn. I had an apartment size fridge from my old office that would have been perfect for 3-4 mini tower computers. Unfortunately when I built my big shop and moved into it I put a big fridge in the shop and gave the little one to my dad for his shop. Now how to talk him out of it. LOL. I guess I'll just have to go drink all his beer and then explain that since he doesn't have anything in it he really doesn't need it anymore.

Darn. I had an apartment size fridge from my old office that would have been perfect for 3-4 mini tower computers. Unfortunately when I built my big shop and moved into it I put a big fridge in the shop and gave the little one to my dad for his shop. Now how to talk him out of it. LOL. I guess I'll just have to go drink all his beer and then explain that since he doesn't have anything in it he really doesn't need it anymore.

They sell cheap near colleges in June.

jsw