[Noisebridge-discuss] N00b question - changing power supply voltage

[Jonathan Foote]

On Tue, Jul 6, 2010 at 4:17 AM, Corey McGuire <coreyfro at coreyfro.com> wrote:

> Messy, messy stuff.  TEJ's are not efficient.  This is fine by themselves.  When you stage them, their inefficiencies > become readily apparent as they begin to compound.
>
> May I ask what you intend to do with them?

Yeah, also curious. Corey is absolutely right: TEJs have terrible
Carnot efficiency --  way less than 10%. This means to move (not
remove) 5 watts of heat you have to put in 50+ watts of power, which
turns into heat you ALSO need to remove.

So they are only useful in a few applications where the small temp
difference over a tiny scale is worth the waste. If they really were
the magic refrigerators people think they are, they would be in every
PC and laptop. And note that if you are trying to keep things cool,
there may be far better solutions.

"In this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!"

-J