Staying cool without refrigerants: Next-generation Peltier cooling • Hacker News Board

Re: Staying cool without refrigerants: Next-generation Peltier cooling

#201

Post by Cthulhu_ » Mon, Jul 21, 2025, 8:19 AM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #17

anticensor wrote: post #4

Did they solve the inefficiency problem of peltiers?

They claim 75% better. I doubt this is better than compressors in general but they seem to be going for a niche where a high power compressor does the high load part but when only a litte cooling is needed the compressor is now very inefficient and so the peltier is better. Normal fridges just let the temperature have a wider swing which is good enough for most needs.

Would a peltier element allow for a more constant temperature? Or can you turn a peltier up and down easily? With a compressor based system it's always been "on or off", something that can ease up and down would be nice.

Re: Staying cool without refrigerants: Next-generation Peltier cooling

#202

Post by AngryData » Mon, Jul 21, 2025, 8:26 AM UTC

toast0 wrote: post #24

dartharva wrote: post #12

But why? Cooling has been a solved problem for literally over a century. No Peltier cooler will ever even come close to normal refrigerant-based coolers in efficiency, both in cost and power consumed.

Peltier coolers can do precision better than a compressor. The also work at small sizes/small loads, where a compressor generally needs to be a certain minimum size to be feasible. Do you need those things in a home refrigerator? I suspect not. But it might be handy for lab refrigerators.

You can actually get surprisingly small compressors now the last few year. There are a few compressor driven ice coolers available now that are likely worth the effort and price if you need a boost in cooling capacity or battery life over the cheaper peltier equivalents. And they are also used by some people for large bulky cosplay and costume outfits that are otherwise just a super insulated hotbox. Obviously they still have a minimum size limit, but I think many people would be surprised at how small you can get them now.

Re: Staying cool without refrigerants: Next-generation Peltier cooling

#203

Post by pvdebbe » Mon, Jul 21, 2025, 8:27 AM UTC

ehnto wrote: post #194

I remember back in 2006ish, my PC modding days, buying some peltier modules from eBay and (attempting) to get subzero temps out of my CPU cooling. If I recall correctly I got the setup powered but stopped short of actually putting it on my CPU when I couldn't mount it all in a way that would let me contain the condensation with what I had. Maybe it was pccooling or pccasemods dot com? There was a really strong commun…

Given that almost all CPUs these days are thermo-throttled, maybe a controllable Peltier element will be the next Turbo button? I remember that Peltier based cooling setups were electricity hungry.

Re: Staying cool without refrigerants: Next-generation Peltier cooling

#204

Post by atwrk » Mon, Jul 21, 2025, 8:28 AM UTC

creshal wrote: post #187

bluGill wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They claim 75% better. I doubt this is better than compressors in general but they seem to be going for a niche where a high power compressor does the high load part but when only a litte cooling is needed the compressor is now very inefficient and so the peltier is better. Normal fridges just let the temperature have a wider swing which is good enough for most needs.

75% better than "utterly awful" is an improvement, but you're still going to be searching for applicable niches with a microscope.

There are many applications for peltier cooling in industrial settings, i.e. sensor devices (or, actually, microscopes with CMOS sensors). Those have to be temperature stabilized to minimize noise while also be IP rated, i.e. no air cooling. 75% efficiency gains would be awesome here.

Re: Staying cool without refrigerants: Next-generation Peltier cooling

#205

Post by keysdev » Mon, Jul 21, 2025, 8:33 AM UTC

veunes wrote: post #186

SchemaLoad wrote: post #144

This article uses the term AI 5 times to talk about basic microcontroller sensor readings.

"AI" has become the seasoning you sprinkle on anything to make it sound futuristic

It is the cheese abd soy sauce of computer science now days

Re: Staying cool without refrigerants: Next-generation Peltier cooling

#206

Post by jansan » Mon, Jul 21, 2025, 8:35 AM UTC

BearOso wrote: post #8

AI has literally nothing to do with this. Why do they feel the need to sprinkle the phrase everywhere? AI inverter/compressor? Come on, have some sense of shame, please.

The head of the board of a company I work with, who uses ChatGPT to get information on how to prune his plants and barely knows how to use Windows Explorer, decided that the whole company needs to go full AI. Everything has to be AI, and everyone has to learn AI. I thought that HN has been overdoing it with AI articles recently, but parts of the outside world seem to be much, much worse.

Re: Staying cool without refrigerants: Next-generation Peltier cooling

#207

Post by blitzar » Mon, Jul 21, 2025, 8:36 AM UTC

meindnoch wrote: post #196

avhception wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My parent's new fridge has the word AI printed on at least 5 of the stickers that were plastered all over the thing.

And I bet those stickers ripped when trying to remove them, and left a sticky residue on the surface.

The fridge has Ai not the stickers.

If someone has a few exa-flops of compute handy, the sticker thing could do with some attention.

Re: Staying cool without refrigerants: Next-generation Peltier cooling

#208

Post by moffkalast » Mon, Jul 21, 2025, 8:37 AM UTC

romantomjak wrote: post #193

Hackbraten wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we need both AI and Kubernetes.

Independently scale and deploy fridges at edge. Fridge@Edge ™

Suck it, Jian Yang

Re: Staying cool without refrigerants: Next-generation Peltier cooling

#209

Post by sebstefan » Mon, Jul 21, 2025, 8:38 AM UTC

teamonkey wrote: post #86

The Johns Hopkins press release is much better https://www.jhuapl.edu/news/news-releases/250521-apl-thermoe...

Definitely worse article

I don't understand how they could quote him saying: “This thin-film technology has the potential to grow from powering small-scale refrigeration systems to supporting large building HVAC applications, similar to the way lithium-ion batteries have been scaled to power devices as small as mobile phones and as large as electric vehicles,”

Then the entire article foregoes comparing their peltier device to traditional compressor based heat pumps.

Re: Staying cool without refrigerants: Next-generation Peltier cooling

#210

Post by mrspuratic » Mon, Jul 21, 2025, 8:41 AM UTC

pvdebbe wrote: post #203

ehnto wrote: post #194

I remember back in 2006ish, my PC modding days, buying some peltier modules from eBay and (attempting) to get subzero temps out of my CPU cooling. If I recall correctly I got the setup powered but stopped short of actually putting it on my CPU when I couldn't mount it all in a way that would let me contain the condensation with what I had. Maybe it was pccooling or pccasemods dot com? There was a really strong commun…

Given that almost all CPUs these days are thermo-throttled, maybe a controllable Peltier element will be the next Turbo button? I remember that Peltier based cooling setups were electricity hungry.

And electrically noisy, at least in my experience. Not a property of the Peltier junction, just crappy PWM control afaict.