TR Forums

Looks like these guys managed to build a 1KW TEC with relatively cheap thermocouples... https://pangea.stanford.edu/ERE/db/WGC/papers/WGC/2015/26009.pdf

Mr Bill wrote:

Looks like these guys managed to build a 1KW TEC with relatively cheap thermocouples... https://pangea.stanford.edu/ERE/db/WGC/papers/WGC/2015/26009.pdf

Chunky device and required a hefty cooling block maintaining about an 80C differential, though.

ludi wrote:

Mr Bill wrote:

Looks like these guys managed to build a 1KW TEC with relatively cheap thermocouples... https://pangea.stanford.edu/ERE/db/WGC/papers/WGC/2015/26009.pdf

Chunky device and required a hefty cooling block maintaining about an 80C differential, though.

As I noted earlier in the thread, TEGs do require a substantial temperature delta to produce useful amounts of power.

just brew it! wrote:

ludi wrote:

Mr Bill wrote:

Looks like these guys managed to build a 1KW TEC with relatively cheap thermocouples... https://pangea.stanford.edu/ERE/db/WGC/papers/WGC/2015/26009.pdf

Chunky device and required a hefty cooling block maintaining about an 80C differential, though.

As I noted earlier in the thread, TEGs do require a substantial temperature delta to produce useful amounts of power.

Yup...and in this case, the application was low-temp geothermal. The heat source and sink have a great deal of range in which they may operate, compared to the proposed LED application in this thread.

Well guys, you have convinced me. I am still waiting on my Peltier to arrive in the mail, but I guess it's safe to say that its application in the lightsaber is almost definitely a fail.  Here is a TEC designed for generation, and it only produces 1.8V and 368mA given a 40 degree temp change (which is what I guess I will be getting with the LED rather quickly).  Therefore, the most I will be getting on my water pump is about 0.5 watt, which probably isn't enough to do anything. Right?  

On the bright side, I have been putting the saber together using a high power 60mm fan (SVC brand from about 12 years ago! — absurdly loud) placed behind the LED which is mounted to a northbridge heatsink.  The saber is a super rough prototype right now, but I did turn it on for some short bursts, and I am pretty much blown away. It's awesome!  Ludicrously bright...  

I put some clear gift wrap in the tube from the dollar store, and it does wonders for evenly glowing the blade.  I also found a 3 inch round mirror at a craft store which fits perfectly at the end of the tube, which also helps with glowing.  I am still waiting on my side glow fiber optic cable, and water pump to arrive from China.  

For light saber sounds, I bought a 4 dollar lightsaber at walmart (just like this), and took the sound board out.  To make it louder, I wired it into a small cell phone speaker which I had laying around.  The end result is pretty awesome considering it cost me 4 bucks!  

Sounds like you're well on your way, Peltier or not.

TBH I can understand the attraction of a TEC/TEG, from a geeky tech standpoint. I've acquired a couple myself (and some pumps very similar to the one you linked), but have yet to put them to practical use. The plan when I bought them was to make temperature-controlled water cooling jackets, to hold 5 gallon batches of fermenting beer at a constant temperature regardless of ambient. At least I don't have the space constraints of your project... but I have the added complication of needing a submersible temperature sensor and closed-loop control system to maintain a specified temperature setpoint.

ludi wrote:

just brew it! wrote:

ludi wrote:

Chunky device and required a hefty cooling block maintaining about an 80C differential, though.

As I noted earlier in the thread, TEGs do require a substantial temperature delta to produce useful amounts of power.

Yup...and in this case, the application was low-temp geothermal. The heat source and sink have a great deal of range in which they may operate, compared to the proposed LED application in this thread.

I've toured several Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) binary power generation geothermal sites here in the states and in New Zealand. The efficiency of low boiling point organic fluids running turbines with air cooled condensers can get significant power out of temperature differences that would stump any TEG.

Gilligan wrote:

Well guys, you have convinced me. I am still waiting on my Peltier to arrive in the mail, but I guess it's safe to say that its application in the lightsaber is almost definitely a fail.  Here is a TEC designed for generation, and it only produces 1.8V and 368mA given a 40 degree temp change (which is what I guess I will be getting with the LED rather quickly).  Therefore, the most I will be getting on my water pump is about 0.5 watt, which probably isn't enough to do anything. Right?  

On the bright side, I have been putting the saber together using a high power 60mm fan (SVC brand from about 12 years ago! — absurdly loud) placed behind the LED which is mounted to a northbridge heatsink.  The saber is a super rough prototype right now, but I did turn it on for some short bursts, and I am pretty much blown away. It's awesome!  Ludicrously bright...  

I put some clear gift wrap in the tube from the dollar store, and it does wonders for evenly glowing the blade.  I also found a 3 inch round mirror at a craft store which fits perfectly at the end of the tube, which also helps with glowing.  I am still waiting on my side glow fiber optic cable, and water pump to arrive from China.  

For light saber sounds, I bought a 4 dollar lightsaber at walmart (just like this), and took the sound board out.  To make it louder, I wired it into a small cell phone speaker which I had laying around.  The end result is pretty awesome considering it cost me 4 bucks!  

Maybe see if you can wrap a salvaged vapor chamber heat spreader from a video card around the handle to heatsink that LED.

just brew it! wrote:

DPete27 wrote:

(Related) This article reviews a TEC (peltier) CPU cooler.  Interesting to note that efficiency is <15% and that particular cooler needs 20W input to do it's job.

The 20W figure is with the Peltier running at only half power. At full power it uses 40W (and dumps 40W of additional heat into the case). Given the mediocre performance and additional thermal load on the case cooling I really can't see this thing being worth $150; Peltiers for CPU cooling fell out of favor for a reason!

Edit: And the author of the review doesn't seem to understand how thermal resistance works. He keeps saying thermal resistance decreases at higher loads, when it is in fact increasing. Thermal resistance increases, and cooling performance decreases. Or maybe he meant to say thermal efficiency. Or something. Either way, the muddled terminology is annoying.

Peltier cooling on modern CPUs is pretty much limited to exotic cooling for epenis competitions that do suicide runs.

I've got some pictures!  This is the Mark II MAGNUM light saber (the Mark I was just embarrassingly bad).  



Here you can see the battery (in blue at the back) which gives power at the flip of the silver switch (main power switch). This battery is wired into the the fan (super powerful) and DC-DC voltage converter (11 volt lithium battery to 23 volts). The 23 volt DC power then goes to the PWM module which is the in the gray box and has an LED display which shows percent PWM current (you can see it in pictures below). The PWM is controlled by a small knob (which will go to ELEVEN! haha). This PWM current regulated 23 volt DC power is delivered to the 100W LED which is screwed into the gold northbridge chipset heatsink (gigabyte!).  On top of the LED is a metal bracket with holds a focusing lens in front. 

Separate from this power system, is the audio board.  Directly above the blue battery at the back of the hilt, is a small audio board from the $4 wal-mart lightsaber I bought.  I wired it into a 2 watt amplifier which is connected to the 2 watt speaker mounted at the front of the hilt (in black). I also added a momentary switch to turn on the audio effects, which is in green.  The power for the audio is driven by a separate 750 mAh 3.7volt lithium battery. 

To jam all this stuff in a 3 inch tube, I used a saw to slice the PVC in half and then added hinges!  It works great, and would be a total pain to work on without this—I have zero desire to make a ship in a bottle.  

The blade is attached by two bolts and feels extremely secure.  I put a rubber housing from an hold flashlight at the bottom of the hilt to give it cushion, so I can carry the saber around like a walking stick—it's heavy!  I have a couple layers of plastic wrap in the tube for diffusion, but I'm excited to see what the fiber optic cable will do that I ordered from China.  Adding a 3 inch mirror to the end of the saber made a HUGE difference in evenly lighting the blade.  

I'm still waiting on my water pump to arrive from China, which will be fun to play with.  The DC fan I currently have in there works fine, but is insanely loud (similar to a vantec tornado fan, do they still make those?).  Honestly it's so bright, I definitely don't plan on running at full power for more than a few seconds at a time!  I still need to paint the saber, and make it look nicer. It's a work in progress!  What do you guys think?  



This image was taken with the saber at 20% brightness 

oh !

i love it! awesome job man!!

Very cool.

The world would be a better place if everyone made their own lightsabers.  

That turned out beautifully. Very well done.

Hey, that's pretty slick!

If someone already said this my bad since i did not go through every post. But I do not think you need a peltier cooler at all unless you plan on keeping it on for very long periods of time...I imagine once the handle gets too hot to hold you will turn it off anyways:)

Looks great! In the picture with the door your saber looks hilariously large....any pictures with a hand in it for scale?

The guts of the lightsaber before closing it for the last time.  



I added a temperature sensor (celcius, blue LED display at the bottom) and a voltage sensor (small LED display in the middle)

Lightsaber was at 2% power in the this photo 


4% power


26% power



I made Vader's armor out of a black trashcan lid, haha 



I used a DVD case for his chest piece.  I printed off the buttons, and used colored duct tape so that I could place blinking LEDs behind them.  I used and blue LED nightlight, and a red blinking LED bicycle light that I had laying around.  I wired them together to be driven by a small lithium battery.  


Here is the final costume, with my Stormtrooper wife!  Lightsaber at 100%  !