How about a water cooled version of the classic 150? Watch my friends video where he registers 115-120 degrees F with a laser temperature sensor on his Classic 150. In the spirit of hardware geeks who overclock their computers and cool the processor with water, why not build a Classic that is water cooled, no fans and that 120 degrees would be even higher without air cooling, why not heat water much like a tankless or small tanked water heater in reserve for heating water. All that heat coming from that charge controller is wasted energy, why not put it to good use. See video below, he has three videos in the series, he modifies the classic with an external fan. It drops the temperature greatly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTmiYje5DxM
kd5inm
Quote from: kd5inm on July 09, 2014, 04:09:06 AM
why not heat water much like a tankless or small tanked water heater in reserve for heating water. All that heat coming from that charge controller is wasted energy, why not put it to good use.
Not cost effective. The amount of heat generated is not enough watts to be worth all the plumbing that would be necessary to capture the heat.
--vtMaps
120F = 48C (degrees) and isn't high enough to worry about. That's pretty low actually compared to
how hot it ~could~ be.
Nice idea though !
boB
What about mounting it to a aluminum plate with water channels in the plate, and the "fan" would be a pump impeller ?
I have spent many years fixing Fisher Paykel Smart Drive washing machines. (yes the ones that people use to make generators) The earlier models of them had water cooled electronics, as the heat sink warmed up the machine added a little cold water to the wash. The water flowed through the heat sink and cooled the Mosfets. Worked fine when they where new but as they got older the Aluminium heat sink corroded. The time that this took to happen varied depending on the water supply. End result was the magic smoke was released and a dead washing machine. You definitely don't want water in your CC.
Too little heat from the controller.
Just installed a 50 gallon GE heat-pump water heater (on sale at big box home improvement store for 1K). It reportedly uses one third the energy of a resistance water heater. It's also installed on a timer to run 3 hours a day.
It would not take many solar resources to run this. Maybe one day I'll have enough juice......
I have a 12 power generating ceramics chips (TEG/peltier comes to mind) that work on heat and cool.
I might fit most of them behind a classic. Same principle that they use for the "bio-stoves" which cost $100's,
and have a low power production as you boil your water!
May work if you are that concerned with making power from the thermal waste!
You may need to make a heat sink to mount behind them a well to increase the efficiency!
One side of the chip touches the classic and the other side the heat sink.
They do work as I have tested them using the top of my wood heater in winter.
Just a thought. :o ;D
Russ
http://www.customthermoelectric.com/powergen.html?gclid=CKu8y8_modECFQt8vQodde4DHg
russ, a peltier element is so inefficient (ca 5%), it will warm the midnite more than cool it , because it uses a large amount of current. tried it, made no difference to the midnite at all.
Well scrap that idea then! :(