Peltier Pucks - Cheap alternative to a/c?

[cbf]

I've seen some international indoor grow (different crops) in hot areas where people where experimenting with this technology. I've never heard of it, but supposedly people use it to cool air conditioners, etc, and can be rigged to cool grows....

anyone hear anything about this or how well it works?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peltier-Seebeck_effect

http://www.pcmech.com/article/peltier-cpu-cooling/

Backpack a/c -

http://hackaday.com/2008/09/27/peltier-based-coolingheating-backbapr/

 

[badugi]

Not useful for growing unless you're doing b1narybud's 1oz shot glass grow in a DWC.

 

[G.O. Joe]

If you can figure out how many BTU's/hour of cooling you'd need, look up prices for that amount of cooling with a complete Peltier cooling system, which would include power controls, fans, and heat sinks. I bet that it isn't going to be cheap, even for just a 400W HPS. It seems easiest to me using a fridge concept, air cooling the light fixture with an external air source, with any carbon filter recirculating internally.

 

[sleepyrz]

freezing salt water at night and using that as a cooling "battery" to cool the house through out the day is way more efficient then all of these

 

[thc43]

i can show you how to make a cheep evap cooler if interested.
what you need

~2x 50cm x 30cm x 40mm thick evap pannels, same as in roof top evap coolers.

~a 100litre home depo tub with lid

~1x small fish pump + 13mm hose, a 13mm T joiner and a few drippers to run water from top of the pannels

~1x a bathroom fan

first pic the unit itself holds 30 litres of water and works very well with water + frozen bottles or a bag of ice daily. I ran mine on a termo switch turning on at 30c. because its evap humidity will rise a touch but in summer thats a blessing. from memory she pumps out a steady 23c without ice but an inline or centrifugal fan with bigger panels and container would probally be cooler again bigger res smallest pump = cooler temps. I cant take credit a mate in the a/c radiator buisness gave me the idea and btw pannels come in cheep and expensive thisker the better basicly.







2nd pic work out where to cut the hole for your fan should be a big bath fan with barings not bushing as unit is running vertically(pulling from inside box) with a flat bottom to increase res size as much as possiable.





3rd pic youll need to imagine this because my unit was packed away and the pump is MIA. the pump needs to pump water to the top of the panels running down and back to res, while the fan pulls warm air through wet cooling panels through fan and into either the room grow room is in or directly into grow.






this sort of unit wont work with all grow rooms but if you want a cheep unit and humidity is well within desired level these work well.

 

[kelimmo]

Peltier elements have a really worthless COP-efficiency and need big power sources for getting the amperage they require. A compressor to prefer but neither cheap nor too easy to set up (compared to a fan+carbon setup).

Here's one:

 

[cbf]

Thanks for the replies guys!