Keco Eco Cooler.

[bbhflts]

Has anyone other than the dude in Haiti tried one of these. Info on the web seems to be rather sparse. KECO - ATEN S.r.l.

[Franziska]

Interesting but not available on Amazon.it...
Anyone has news in this?

[Corvidae]

It's some kind of peltier cooler, and the site hides the full power draw of the unit. Most likely because it's less efficient than a typical compressor unit. Peltiers are nice for being silent, but they take a lot of power to do any serious work.

[Franziska]

Thanks Cor !

[Liesto]

These guys have a build and really good review on it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twW36wFmm9U&t=538s

[mark0978]

The cost is 450 euros including shipping but they require a wire transfer (won't consider paypal or credit card). For me that means about $80USD more to send them money.

Their power consumption seems better than most. I've found several Peltier units to build one from, but the power draw on them is 60W vs 36W. That's actually better than my fridge (which no longer works). I'm considering trying to build my own with a cheap chinese peltier device using the old frigonautica case.

It's a shame you can use this to blow a nice cool breeze over your body while you are trying to go to sleep but I don't think it would be able to handle the volume of the bedroom and it would be just a waste of power.

It might be built on top of this unit:

NA176
TEC1-12703 30*30 12V3A
Model:TEC1-12703
Rated voltage:12V
Rated current:3A
Cooling capacity:21.6W
Maximum temperature difference:65 °
Dimensions:30 * 30 * 3.2

They do offer a slightly larger (and more power expensive) chip as well, now I just need to buy some small microcontroller gear and see what I can come up with....
NA177
TEC1-12704 40*40 12V4A
Chip type: TEC1-12704
Overall dimensions: 40*40*4.0mm element 127
Wire specification: lead length 300 + 5mm RV standard wire single head 5mm tin plating
Internal resistance: 3.0~3.3 ohm (ambient temperature 23 - 1 DEG C, 1kHZ Ac)
Maximum temperature: Tmax (Qc=0) 63 DEG C.
Working current: Imax=4A (rated voltage)
Rated voltage: DC12V (Vmax:15.5V)
Cooling power: Qcmax 36W

[nwdiver]

Originally Posted by Liesto

These guys have a build and really good review on it.

They are not dissing it, but they replaced it with separate freezer and icebox and said the two use less power than that unit as an icebox.......they are an only electric boat so they watch power out very carefully......

[john61ct]

Peltier tech is inherently inefficient, no way around that.

And those (trying to) use electric propulsion (at sea! should / need to) have 100x more energy available compared to those just using House banks.

[a64pilot]

Unfortunately no one has come out with anything more efficient than the old vapor cycle system for cooling.
You want a Peliter to try out? Go buy one of those Coleman coolers you plug into your cigarette lighter, I had one when I was racing motorcycles, I found that if I only put cold drinks in it, it would hold the temp at about 50F on a 90F day, if I kept it in the shade.
A plain old ice box blew it out of the water, much, much better.
I threw it away in Talledega.

[toddster8]

If you want to try it, you can get all the parts needed from Chinese vendors on Ebay and Amazon for about $50-100. I did order the parts, just for fun. I figured that it would draw about 5 amps - more or less the same as my AB Cold Machine. But before I got around to it, I used some of the parts on other projects... One of these days... There are more efficient (and more expensive) controllers that can be had, but I was going for the mad science starter kit.

[a64pilot]

The best Peltier plates only use twice what a common compressor system does, the less expensive ones, three times as much.
Then add in the likelihood that the average Marine fridge system is more efficient than average, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the cheap Peltier plates used four times as much energy.
Then they can’t or don’t Cool as well either

[Jiriki]

Thanks so much for the discussion about this technology. I've been binge watching Sailing Uma and hadn't gotten to the point where they've replaced this yet. It piqued my interest, and thankful that there are others who have a lot more knowledge about it than I do.

[bbhflts]

I've read up on Peltier and tried to understand the science compared to traditional compressors re efficiency. If you take the analogy of electric cars, 4 moving parts is more efficient than a few thousand due to friction, inertia, tolerance etc.. So how is it possible that a compressor draws more than a solid state. Where is the ineffcency?

Cheers.

Ben.

[Corvidae]

Originally Posted by bbhflts

So how is it possible that a compressor draws more than a solid state. Where is the ineffcency?

Size, the most efficient Peltier effect is across a single molecule contact, and produces almost undetectable amounts of power across an almost impossible to manufacture point. To make (or consume) a useful amount of power, the contact points are larger, and there's as many of them as they can pack into the plate as possible. Making two plates with a billion single molecule points of contact isn't really possible. So we make plates with thousands of contact points that are large enough to manufacture reliably. Which also means most of the power sent into the plate, does the opposite of what you want, it just heats the entire plate. The overall effect wins out, creating a temperature gradient, despite the massive losses along the way.