Thermoelectric Cooling

[aqwut]

Originally Posted by BrianG

Yesp, not worth what you get IMO. There are ultimately three ways to deal with heat:

1: More efficient components.

2: Less current.

3: Heatsink with thermal mass and surface area.

Everything else is just adding complexity.

I have two Quark 125's that use the top plate (connecting the three diffs) as a heatsink and it works wonderfully without the need for any additional active cooling. The chassis is another good heatsink and gets lots of airflow. I just wish more ESCs were built similar to the Quarks in how the FETs are mounted...

You're absolutely correct.. I've tried cooling with the TEC from ebay... it was just a waste... although it's good for cooling the motor after running, but during running... it's just a waste... Although it could be good for a closed system water cooling for the bigger scale stuff.. if you could have the hot side exposed on the outside..

[J57ltr]

Not even for the big scale stuff the more transfers you have the more losses you have a well designed heatsink system will outperform even a watercooled system if you have real long run times (an hour), thermoelectrics add complexity and you are going to loose 30% right off the bat. Run off of a power supply they are great, but batteries even Li-po you are going to run out of power in a hurry. When I charged my 4S1P pack last night I put about 1.4Ah back into it and only ran it for about 25 minutes give or take 5. I was going to graph it but I didn't bother I may later today with the temps and everything so you can see how they can perform.

JEff