Project Mini Electric Portable Cooler
 

I want to make a small fridge to carry in my vehicle, and possibly locker at school.:lol:

I can get a cooler or styrofoam container, a TEC, a battery, and a fan,, and I should be good to go. A TEC is a thermo-electric cooler that uses the Peltier effect to cool things.

Here are a couple cool vids I found on TECS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HNwCHNIIy0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3x-wxLEfLEQ

I can find them for around $10 on ebay, some even closer to $5. This might be a cheap project. I'll also need a heatsink for at least the warm side and a fan for the warm side.

Recommendations are welcome on TECs and heatsinks. Don't know exactly what I need.

The hard part is next. I want to make a circut the senses the temperature then turns the Cooling unit on to cool down to a certain temperature, then turns off to save battery life. Can anyone tell me how to do that? Maybe a modded thermostat?

http://www.imperiumusaforkids.com/ge...e063bec4bb94b4

Just run a drop cord from a class room to you locker.

But that's not ghetto enough:lol:

What if I could fit a cooler in my backpack!?! :rofl:

That would be sweet! I could have a heated back, a cool bottle of water, and a heavy battery in there!

Oh man if I can get that in my backpack..

"Hey... Are you charging your backpack??"

"Do you want some cold deli meat from my backpack?!?!" LOL!

"Where did you get the ice cold chocolate milk!?!" "My backpack! lol"

You got a kitchen sink in there? Or a Grill? LOL.

I can't stop laughing. :lol:

The reminds me of when my friend (big Jeff, built not fat) tried cooking spaghetti-os in the middle of biology class. :rofl: He used one of the heat plates that were out for some reason! It smelled up the whole room and the teacher didn't even notice! It was hidden under a lab table.. LOL that was funny but it didn't turn out. They just burned a little! :rofl:

Found some info.

Idea for a thermostat - http://hackaday.com/2009/03/22/brew-fridge-thermostat/

A problem that could arise is fan noise if I use one. Just a thought... I think a metal plate for a heatsink spread across the back would maybe heat the back of the backpack! lol

Do you think the thermostat will work? Or do you think the whole project will work?

Man I have a ton of info in this. I did a lot of testing and prototyping a while back. I had a water cooled setup that I ran that I could bring a 2 lb chunk of aluminum down to 5F in about 20 minutes. I used 6 70W modules and it drew 36 amps but it showed what it would do.

I also built one that was made into a full sized cooler but it drew 30 amps as well. Used it camping hooked up to my Wifes car with a battery charger. It did pretty well but they take a while to cool down fully. You need a really large heatsink on the "hot" side and one about 1/3 the size on the cold side. Use fans on both. The biggest thing is the Delta temp (the temp between both sides). Most will pull around a Delta T of about 70 deg temp differential, so the cooler you keep the hot side the cooler the cold side gets. The reason most of the off the shelf ones suck so bad is that the fan on the hot side isn't moving enough air.

If you go to http://www.mpja.com/products.asp?dept=60

These guys have a pretty good selection and you can even get a setup with both heatsinke already attached. If you go it alone use the largest heatsink you can get away with on the hot side and a fan over 100 cfm for a small project. Keep in mind a setup like like this will draw 6 -7 amps all day long. In order to use a thermostat you will need some serious insulation on the cold side, or it will never turn off. Another thing is that when it turns off the heat on the hot side will travel back to the cold side (heat moves from hot to cold, always and forever). I'll dig up a few other pics when I get a chance.

Jeff

Edit: There is a cheap controller kit I'll have to look that up as well