Dend.Cuthbertsonii peltier cooling case.

[mozzzlove]

Share a little,

My Dend.Cuthbertsonii peltier cooling case, 60 watts peltier with 2 computer cooling fans and 2 heatsink. 4 super bright 1.2watt LED lamp (12 hours/day).
Temperatures 26-28ºC day, 25-26ºC night (cooled by peltier cooler 16-18ºC lamp off)

Inside:
○2 Dend.Cuthbertsonii, 1 mounted, 1 potted. (still don't know what flower color are they.)
○1 masdevallia ?







Is this her flower bud? Can't wait to see her bloom.





Cheers.

[SOS]

That is a flower bud.

Can you take some pictures of your cooling system?

[WhiteRabbit]

Very cool

[gnathaniel]

Nice setup! Your plants and mosses look really happy in there.

[mozzzlove]

Originally Posted by SOS

That is a flower bud.

Can you take some pictures of your cooling system?

These are 2 photos of my DIY pertier cooling system.





Cheers

[Paul Mc]

Wow!! Wish I had the technical mind to figure out what you did and not electrocute myself in the process, lol!

[samarak]

Very nice. Looks like the plants like it. Is that a pre-assembled unit (fan, peltier module, and heat sink together), or did you put it together from the components yourself? What is your power supply? And what temperature differential do you get in your case?

I'm asking so many questions because I had the same thought myself, but all I've done is buy the peltier modules. I have lots of computer power supplies and heat sinks around so I'm hoping to use those.

One question in particular was whether I needed a fan on the inside of the case, given that I planned to mount the units on top as you did, or if I could rely on natural convection to circulate the air in the case. Can you give me any guidance on that? (I was planning to put a fan on top to help push air through the heat sinks.)

Thanks,

Steve

[mozzzlove]

Originally Posted by samarak

Very nice. Looks like the plants like it. Is that a pre-assembled unit (fan, peltier module, and heat sink together), or did you put it together from the components yourself? What is your power supply? And what temperature differential do you get in your case?

One question in particular was whether I needed a fan on the inside of the case, given that I planned to mount the units on top as you did, or if I could rely on natural convection to circulate the air in the case. Can you give me any guidance on that? (I was planning to put a fan on top to help push air through the heat sinks.)

Thanks,

Steve

Hi Steve,

I got them from many places and put them all together.
Power supply that I use is one like this
but mine is 12V 10A.
It supplies TEC peltier (12V 92watts max) and both of my fans (inside and outside)
For LED lamp I use another dc power supply with timer.
Temp. diff inside and outside is about 8-10ºC.

I use fan inside the case is to blow air to the cooled heatsink of the cool side of the TEC peltier and circulate them. Natural convection air not enough to circulate the cool air to entire case IMHO.

[Discus]

Having a fan in there is a good idea anyway samarak (for air circulation and avoiding problems with condensation and fungi).

If you'd like it to get colder in there, you could try "stacking" peltiers (mount several together in a "sandwich" with bigger units cooling smaller ones, with the last one cooling your tank; if you do enough of this, you can approach cryogenic temperatures).

---------- Post added at 09:57 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:54 AM ----------

Originally Posted by Paul Mc

Wow!! Wish I had the technical mind to figure out what you did and not electrocute myself in the process, lol!

The joy of this stuff is it's low voltage (12V) - the "dangerous" parts are all in the transformer that takes your wall power (in the US 110V AC) and turns it into 12V DC. You can make it safer still with a RCD (GFCI), but in environments like this, "nuisance trips" are common.

This (safety) is one reason why it's a bad idea to mount a mains powered fan inside an enclosure - you're much better off mounting a computer (12V) muffin fan inside.

---------- Post added at 10:01 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:57 AM ----------

Incidentally, Ron Hanko grows these kinds of cooler growing plants incredibly well; I asked him about his temperatures etc. in this post on his blog Orchids in Bloom: Rebuilt Orchidarium

The temperature varies from 60 nighttime to 70 daytime (occasionally 75) in the summer months and from 55 nighttime to 65 daytime in the winter. The humidity stays around 80% even with the doors open and I keep the doors partly open to provide some outside ventilation. The first case I built had two exhaust fans and I'd like to add a couple to this case, too, but just haven't gotten around to it.

[naoki]

Have you been growing them in this setup for a long? I'm surprised to see that you can flower them with 4.8W of white LEDs (or is it a typo?).