Through a recent secret santa gift giving thing, I recently aquired some 80W Pelts (but the thing is, I got 3 instead of 1, anyway) I was exicted about hooking them up (1 anyway) and see some action!

So This is what I came up with:


I had a couple extra Volcano 12+'s around from Newegg (for scket 939) So I used that. I put on some artic silver, slapped it on the heatsink, and got a smaller heatsink and did the same as well. I tested my connections before actually connecting the pelt. Everything was fine...

So I powered the pelt. Waited about 5-10 minutes and the cold side got cold. I dont have temp monitor, but I estimate it to be around the temperature of Icecream. It was cold enough that I could see my breath on the heatsink.

But Ive looked at other pelt pics, How come ice didnt form? Did I not let it sit for an hour? I alway thought once you plug the pelt in, its instantly cold. The pelt took time to get cold. How come? The humidity isnt that high in the house, but I bet if I went in the bathroom after I hot shower I would see ice right?

Couple things too, I didnt measure voltage to see if V=12v. Vmax on the pelt is 16V. So that could have been a factor. I was using a Antec 350W(300?) PSU.

But I had to clear my desk [again] since I have work to do, I'll probably get to these pelts again after the holidays. I was thinking of stacking 2 of them and seeing what happens...

Note: I have the same heatsink on my athlon, and it puts out an estimated 100W, so the heatsink on the hot side should be able to handle a 160W load with no problem.

You hit it pretty good, you are underpowering the pelt. An 80W doesn't draw a lot of juice, about 6.5 Amps but that needs to be dedicated power. Try hooking it to a higher Amperage PSU and see what you get.

If you want to have fun, you can take pelts and stack them. Hot/cold/hot/cold/hot/cold. The end result won't be 3 times the cooling power, but it will be a lot greater than one alone. Of course, you will still need 3 times the power.

I had a 172W pelt (still out in the junkyard somewhere) and I used a 400W by itself to power it.

The pelts are supposed to consume 8Amps of Power. By using power law (P=IE) I get around 96W of Power Is what the Pelt when running will dissapate. So the pelt is supposed to be colder correct? It says it was made for Video Cards.

When I get time I will reserect my power supply project. I assume I will have the necessary funds to build the thing after the holidays . It will provide 12V at 14amps (well The voltage will be a bit variable, since when ever I hooked the transformer up I got voltages as high as 16V!) I think the only thing that needs to be done is just to be hooked it up.I think I also needed a meter, yea that it!

I COULD dummy hook it up, since the regulators Im using provide 8Amps of power Each (and avoid a big circuit). Or I could avoid putting the regulators on Period and draw it from the filter caps.

Heh I have a whole crap load of AT power supplies, and can probably string em all together to get one huge amount of current

The antec is the highest power PSU I have.

Remember, you are running 12V and not the 16V that the pelts are rated for.