Air Cooler/Heater

Step 5 Close It Up!

After some careful maneuvering of the transformer, fan, wires, and circuit board, run the AC cable through the transformer hole and close up the lid. Just thumb tighten the screws to hold it on for now.
Plug it in, and flip the first switch. One of the LED's should light up, and a fan should start spinning. When you flip the third switch, the other fan should start spinning instead. Now flip the second switch. The other LED should light, and the first LED will probably dim. The fan will slow down as well. This lets you know that the Peltier unit is working. Place your hand on the heatsink. Within a minute, you should start to feel it get warm. If the bottom fan is running, you should feel cooler air blowing out the back of the case. Thus, the cooler.
If you place the smaller fan on top of the heatsink so that it's blowing down, and you align the front edge of the fan with the front of the heatsink, hot air will be blown into the room when that fan is on. Thus, the heater.
Oh, the reason I used the smaller fan with more blades here is because I discovered that you get more airflow than using the thicker fan.

I'm sure there are ways that this project could be enhanced or made to work better, so if you have suggestions, please comment! Thanks, and enjoy this useful project!

Comments

[kretzlord]

I don't want to take away from the awesomeness of this at all, but to be really effective, the opposite side of the peltier that you aren't "using" should be exhausted into a room/outdoors where you are not. Just a thought, great Instructable!

[Entropy512]

Yup, without having one side connected to outdoor air (preferably also drawing in outdoor air), all this will do is heat the room it is in. It may cause local cooling within the room, but overall it will heat the room. 1) If being used as a heater, it will be a lot more expensive than just a set of resistors. (Things change a lot if it is pulling heat from the outside air.) 2) If being used as a cooler, it would only be good for keeping PC components cool, or cooling off a drink (or drinks). 3) It might work well as a dehumidifier if you run ducting such that air that passes over the cold heatsink then passes over the warm one. This will condense water out of the air on the cold HS, and then warm the air back up, providing warm dry air. (Good if the room is cold and humid, and the one case where it would be a better solution than a purely resistive heater.)

[dagenius]

The laws of thermodynamics FTW.

[electronicdude]

Instead of going to the trouble of building the 120 volt AC to 13.5 Dc adapter, just use a 12 volt wall wart. Its safer to use than having 120 volts coming into your container. Its simpler, and saves time and money.I realy like the saving money part about it. I can go into RadioShack for a very simple and small project and spend $25. The main thing is use a wall wart.  

[heintze3]

A very nice project. I would recommend a heat sink on both sides of the peltier device. And as Kretzlord mentioned, if, say, you are trying to cool your ambient environment, you will actually end up heating it since the waste heat is not being rejected to an outside environment. The power to drive the TEC also needs to be rejected... Q_rejected = Q_cooling + Q_power.

This project would, however, be a great idea of a soda can cooler/coffee mug heater where the can/mug itself is the cooled/heated "environment" and the room would be the outside environment. I need one of these for my desk!!