Im not sure if this is the right place for this so mods feel free to move if incorrectly posted.
Anyway, today I received a little "toy" from ebay, a peltier or thermoeletric cooler. Im sure lots of people already know about them but its a fairly simple device but a lot of fun to play with, basically when you apply voltage to the leads of the device one side heats up and the other cools down. This means means if you can keep the hot side at roughly room temperature the cold side will freeze water droplets, ofcourse this is a lot of fun to play around with but it got me thinking about applications in engines. This seems like a perfect match for some sort of sterling engine, you already have both the hot and cold side and by varying the voltage you could change the temperature difference and change the rpm of the engine. Not really practical for anything but I think it would certainly make a neat project.
Another interesting thing about peltier units is that the basically work in reverse, meaning that if you can create a temperature difference on the two sides you get a voltage out. Not sure if this could be applied to engines in anyway but its already used in a pretty neat campsite cooking pot that generates electricity to charge usb devices.
Just thought Id share this interesting device for people that haven't seen them and hopefully get some feedback/information from people who do know about them, or can think of other neat applications.
Anyway, today I received a little "toy" from ebay, a peltier or thermoeletric cooler. Im sure lots of people already know about them but its a fairly simple device but a lot of fun to play with, basically when you apply voltage to the leads of the device one side heats up and the other cools down. This means means if you can keep the hot side at roughly room temperature the cold side will freeze water droplets, ofcourse this is a lot of fun to play around with but it got me thinking about applications in engines. This seems like a perfect match for some sort of sterling engine, you already have both the hot and cold side and by varying the voltage you could change the temperature difference and change the rpm of the engine. Not really practical for anything but I think it would certainly make a neat project.
Another interesting thing about peltier units is that the basically work in reverse, meaning that if you can create a temperature difference on the two sides you get a voltage out. Not sure if this could be applied to engines in anyway but its already used in a pretty neat campsite cooking pot that generates electricity to charge usb devices.
Just thought Id share this interesting device for people that haven't seen them and hopefully get some feedback/information from people who do know about them, or can think of other neat applications.
