lauboi

i am trying to up the voltage a little for my freezones, the heatsink is barely warm to the touch, so i think it can handle some more power.

they are on a CM 550w real power pro psu and molex plugs
http://www.coolermaster-usa.com/prod...roduct_id=2726

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DuckieHo

It's complicated.... we need to know how you are powering the unit now. Is it an actual dedicated PSU or a standard ATX PSU?

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lauboi

standard psu http://www.coolermaster-usa.com/prod...roduct_id=2726


thanks for the quick response

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zipdogso

It is not the volts....its the amps.....molex are only rated at 8amps for safety I wouldn't run more than 7amps.

I think you will find your freezone is on 12v anyway.

Freezone units have generally been designed to run under the 8amp limit for the entire combined unit i.e. the TEC's and the controller unit especially so pep's (even total noobs) can run them from the molex on their usual PSU in the rig. It is possible to up everything but you would be well advised to use a separate PSU, thicker wires and NO molex connectors.

urgrandpasdog

Umm... yes it is volts. The amount of voltage you put through the TEC determines the "power" of the TEC.

What you can do is connect the 12volt line on the molex to the Positive leads on the TECs and the Negative lead to the 5volt line of the Molex connectors, for a voltage across the TEC's of 7volts, however this puts a good bit of strain on the PSU's voltage regs so don't do it unless you have a good-quality unit and quite a bit of headroom left over as far as the wattage you are using.

zipdogso

Firstly it is the amps that determine the power of a TEC

Then....I thought he was referring to the limit of the molex plugs...which as it happens is the important bit...

and Lastly...... as I said if he looks I think he will find it is already on 12v.....

The freezone has 6 TEC's which run at 5v but the input power of the unit is 12v.
Getting the TEC's to run at more than 5v is easier said than done and you need to know what your doing and understand powering basic electric circuits. Plus everything I said in my previous post.

flak-spammer

Well the problem really is that the freezone was designed to be run on a 12v connector so as such the TECs are wired so they don't run over the max current allowable on a molex connector. The second problem relates to thermals the way the freezone dissipates heat allows for a certain maximum so they calculate that in when they pick the running voltage of the TEC's if you choose a higher voltage or manually rewire to allow a higher voltage would will increase the heat the heatsink has to dissipate and probably will have to replace the fan and/or fans so as to keep the heatsink within tolerance levels.

lauboi

so there's 6 tecs on each unit all six is wired to molex if i separate 3 and 3 to separate molex would that do anything? or am i just getting the wrong i deal as in i need to run them all separately to get the higher voltages each


thanks for all the help

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zipdogso

You really need to understand how they are wired to alter the voltage /connections. I havent got one but I hunch they are wired in pairs then each pair in parallel. Removing 3 to another molex wont get the desired result.
I am not sure if you can increase the voltage and still use the controller.
Have you spoken to TIGA about this, in your unofficial coolit club ?

I think really the only way forward would be to move the TEC's to an independant PSU and increase the wire sizes and use different connectors i.e. NOT molex....but as I already said not sure if you could still use the controller.

The bottom line is that these units are designed to work at the limits of performance whilst using molex plugs, and to alter them effectively you really need to understand what your doing. You will definitely need to improve your understanding of powering basic electric circuits before you proceed.

TiGa

The controller uses 2x12V lines from the PCI-e connector to feed each group of 3 TECs on each side of it in parallel. It only outputs 12V so you could not use it anymore.

To power them at 5V instead of 4V, you would need to undo the 2 metal splices on one side of the blocks and wire each of them in parallel instead of series.
BUT be careful since PSUs often have only one 5V line and each power strand shouldn't deliver more than 8A in total. 3x3A could be too much for a single strand.

A Meanwell 350W auxiliary PSU would be more suited to the task. It's only 60$USD brand-new on eBay from China and shuts down safely if you overload it. Even a spare regular PSU could do but there's always a chance that it could blow up in a catastrophic fiery failure. At least, make sure you're not using your main one as it is surely more expensive than 60$.

If you try to power them individually at 12V in parallel, the heatsink is not enough to cool the hot side so the cold side would get overwhelmed and start heating up.
A small "China Syndrome" could happen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Syndrome

Also if you don't use the controller and power the TECs directly from a Molex, they will always be running at 100% so you could end up with condensation really fast, especially if you increase the current.

There's a thread here about this where a guy rewired his Eliminator from series to parallel and a big bulge formed in the softened heated tubing that comes out of the COLD side. Scary stuff.

TiGa

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