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Introduction
So after weeks and weeks of deliberation I've made up my mind. This coming week I can begin drinking legally and I've decided to celebrate by making my first peltier build. But I've set restrictions for myself and I'm approaching this from a way I don't often see. My goal with this is to use peltier(s) in such a way that it is cost effective, pleasing to the eye and works well. The side goal is to make a thread that covers in detail all steps required so that an inspired individual could follow along and build a system around the same concept as mine.
The Proposition
So I mentioned I'm going off a principle that I don't often see used. That is, almost nobody keeps their computer at full load for even several minutes let alone hours. So instead of increasing cooling capacity to account for these spikes, I'm going to lower cooling capacity to basically bare minimum and instead increase the buffer space I have. In otherwords, I'm going to get a bigger reservoir. Let's talk about why this will work. Essentially we're giving ourselves a big enough buffer that we're actually working on the average heat being given off by the processor instead of the spikes.
To understand this, we'll have to understand a few concepts. Watts and BTUs. Watts is a measurement of energy (joules) over a period of time (1 second). BTU/hr's is ALSO a measurement of energy over a period of time. A BTU is the amount of energy required to raise 1lb of water by 1F. We're going to convert these units into units that make sense.
1 BTU = 1Lb of Water raised 1f
= 0.45L of Water raised .56C
= 1L of water raised .25C
In addition, you can convert watts to BTU/hr's by multiplying by 3.41. So 300w would be 1023BTU/hrs. So if we have a computer with a processor that is producing 300w of heat overclocked at full load then it would be producing 1023BTUs per hour. That is, it would:
So let's play with the math. Suppose we had a reservoir that is 4L. Our 300w would raise 4L by 64c over the course of an hour. 8L? 32c. 16L? 16c. For reference, that's about 4 gallons. Now let's suppose we have a peltier cooling the water that's providing 220w of cooling power or about 750BTUs of cooling. You can subtract that from the heat being added by the processor to find that while the peltier is running and the processor is running at full load, we are adding 272BTU/hrs to the water instead of 1023BTU/hrs. So now if we crunch the numbers again: 272BTU/hrs would raise 4L by 17c over the course of an hour. 272BTU/hrs would raise 8L by only 9C over an hour and only 4C for 16L
The Specifics
The system will use the following components:
Computer hardware:
Mainboard: Asus P6T - Received
CPU: Xeon X5670 - Received
GPU: 2 x GTX 690 - Received
Memory: 16GB EVGA SuperSC - Received
Case: ThermalTake The Tower 900 - Received
Cooling Hardware:
Waterblocks:
2 x Reservoir: Phobya LT 50 - Received
2 x D5 Pumps: Received
Fittings: Monsoon Matte Black 3/8" 1/2" - Received
Tubing: - Received
Controller/Peltier Hardware:
Peltier: CTE 400 (http://customthermoelectric.com/tecs/pdf/19911-5M31-28CZ_spec_sht.pdf) - Received
Arduino UNO R3 - Received
DHT22 Temperature/Humidity Sensor - Received]
DS18B20 Waterproof Temperature Probe - Received
Female USB to USB Header Adapter - Received
IRFZ34N NPN 30A 55V Mosfet - Received
100k Ohm Resistor - Received
12V Switching Power Supply - Received
Controller Theory
The controller will be built to be capable of maintaining above dew point temperature while also being capable of being set to any desired temperature. It's operation will be very simple. The Arduino will have the capability of monitoring three things: humidity, coolant temperature and air temperature. Air temperature and humidity will be used to calculate dew point. This combined with coolant temperature will determine if the peltier should be running or not.
The controller will be connected to the computer via USB and use a serial connection to report runtime data in JSON. This includes humidity, coolant temperature, air temperature, peltier status, and dewpoint.The arduino will also be capable of receiving simple commands such as setting a target coolant temperature.
All code will be open source and free to use.
Controller Links, Source, Downloads
Windows x86 Controller Interface: Github
Fritzing Wiring/PCB Source Files: Google Drive
Arduino Program:: *WILL UPLOAD TO GITHUB WHEN I GET A CHANCE - THANKS*
End
That's all for now! I will update this post as I begin purchasing parts and have pictures to show off
Just noticed I forgot to give this thread a name lol. Oh well.
So after weeks and weeks of deliberation I've made up my mind. This coming week I can begin drinking legally and I've decided to celebrate by making my first peltier build. But I've set restrictions for myself and I'm approaching this from a way I don't often see. My goal with this is to use peltier(s) in such a way that it is cost effective, pleasing to the eye and works well. The side goal is to make a thread that covers in detail all steps required so that an inspired individual could follow along and build a system around the same concept as mine.
The Proposition
So I mentioned I'm going off a principle that I don't often see used. That is, almost nobody keeps their computer at full load for even several minutes let alone hours. So instead of increasing cooling capacity to account for these spikes, I'm going to lower cooling capacity to basically bare minimum and instead increase the buffer space I have. In otherwords, I'm going to get a bigger reservoir. Let's talk about why this will work. Essentially we're giving ourselves a big enough buffer that we're actually working on the average heat being given off by the processor instead of the spikes.
To understand this, we'll have to understand a few concepts. Watts and BTUs. Watts is a measurement of energy (joules) over a period of time (1 second). BTU/hr's is ALSO a measurement of energy over a period of time. A BTU is the amount of energy required to raise 1lb of water by 1F. We're going to convert these units into units that make sense.
1 BTU = 1Lb of Water raised 1f
= 0.45L of Water raised .56C
= 1L of water raised .25C
In addition, you can convert watts to BTU/hr's by multiplying by 3.41. So 300w would be 1023BTU/hrs. So if we have a computer with a processor that is producing 300w of heat overclocked at full load then it would be producing 1023BTUs per hour. That is, it would:
- raise 1L of water by 255C in an hour
- raise 1023L of water by .25C in an hour
So let's play with the math. Suppose we had a reservoir that is 4L. Our 300w would raise 4L by 64c over the course of an hour. 8L? 32c. 16L? 16c. For reference, that's about 4 gallons. Now let's suppose we have a peltier cooling the water that's providing 220w of cooling power or about 750BTUs of cooling. You can subtract that from the heat being added by the processor to find that while the peltier is running and the processor is running at full load, we are adding 272BTU/hrs to the water instead of 1023BTU/hrs. So now if we crunch the numbers again: 272BTU/hrs would raise 4L by 17c over the course of an hour. 272BTU/hrs would raise 8L by only 9C over an hour and only 4C for 16L
The Specifics
The system will use the following components:
Computer hardware:
Mainboard: Asus P6T - Received
CPU: Xeon X5670 - Received
GPU: 2 x GTX 690 - Received
Memory: 16GB EVGA SuperSC - Received
Case: ThermalTake The Tower 900 - Received
Cooling Hardware:
Waterblocks:
- Peltier block - Ultrasonic2 Chiller Blocks Received
- Raystorm CPU block - Received
2 x Reservoir: Phobya LT 50 - Received
2 x D5 Pumps: Received
Fittings: Monsoon Matte Black 3/8" 1/2" - Received
Tubing: - Received
Controller/Peltier Hardware:
Peltier: CTE 400 (http://customthermoelectric.com/tecs/pdf/19911-5M31-28CZ_spec_sht.pdf) - Received
Arduino UNO R3 - Received
DHT22 Temperature/Humidity Sensor - Received]
DS18B20 Waterproof Temperature Probe - Received
Female USB to USB Header Adapter - Received
IRFZ34N NPN 30A 55V Mosfet - Received
100k Ohm Resistor - Received
12V Switching Power Supply - Received
Controller Theory
The controller will be built to be capable of maintaining above dew point temperature while also being capable of being set to any desired temperature. It's operation will be very simple. The Arduino will have the capability of monitoring three things: humidity, coolant temperature and air temperature. Air temperature and humidity will be used to calculate dew point. This combined with coolant temperature will determine if the peltier should be running or not.
The controller will be connected to the computer via USB and use a serial connection to report runtime data in JSON. This includes humidity, coolant temperature, air temperature, peltier status, and dewpoint.The arduino will also be capable of receiving simple commands such as setting a target coolant temperature.
All code will be open source and free to use.
Controller Links, Source, Downloads
Windows x86 Controller Interface: Github
Fritzing Wiring/PCB Source Files: Google Drive
Arduino Program:: *WILL UPLOAD TO GITHUB WHEN I GET A CHANCE - THANKS*
End
That's all for now! I will update this post as I begin purchasing parts and have pictures to show off

Just noticed I forgot to give this thread a name lol. Oh well.