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119 points mcswell | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.285s | source
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fnordpiglet ◴[] No.44451185[source]
Thermoelectric cooling needs as much research as possible. Mechanical cooling is extraordinarily space consuming. CHESS has the potential over the next 10 years to largely replace vapor compression in most systems other than the most extreme gradients or scales. They are small enough to incorporate into most devices and would allow smaller devices more thermal load. In some ways I think efficient TEC like CHESS could be more useful than room temperature super conductors.
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vlovich123 ◴[] No.44451982[source]
Nah. Heat pumps are ~10-100x more efficient than thermoelectric. Thermoelectric is just inefficient mechanism and is inherently difficult to scale up as the more electricity gets generated so does more heat which inhibits the temperature gradient you’re trying to utilize. There’s a reason water cooling is preferred instead of peltier to ferry heat away from electronic.

Magnetocaloric is super interesting though as an alternative to heat pumps. Likely the next big revolution in this space.

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1. nandomrumber ◴[] No.44452740[source]
Further to that, have a look at the refrigeration units on chest type portable fridges. They’re really not very big, compressor smaller than a roast chicken, small low speed fan similar to an auxiliary cooling fan in a PC, a controller board, and a few meters of metal tubing.

They typically consume around the 50 to 80 watts while the compressor and fan are running, and generate two to four times that in cooling capacity.

Surely people have adapted these in to PC cooling units?