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Old 03-12-2012, 09:31 PM   #5 (permalink)
mort
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mans View Post
guys?

if this video wasn't from a seller who wants to sell them I'd go ahead and try a few. it may be genuine, but i'd love to hear some feedback before I try a few.

can anyone say if this video looks genuine? if each cell can put out 3.6v and 1 amp, then 4 cells in series would be 14.4V and 4A.

now ten such sets (total 40 cells) would be 14.4V and 40A. perfect to keep a small car's battery charged.

anyone have some electrical knowledge on such a topic?
Hi mans,
The seller does say replace or refund for any reason, so I'll trust the video. This thermocouple, at full power, uses 127 watts to move about 80 watts. Also, the performance graph shows that at 70 C across the device, the cooling power is equal to the heat leaking from hot to cold. So assuming you could keep the "cold" side at boiling, 100 C, and the hot side at 25 C There would be 80 Watts of heat leaking through and 80 Watts being converted. The best thermocouples can convert under 10% of the heat flow to electricity, so that would be 8 watts. I'd say 3.5 watts is possible considering these are commercial devices. And the demonstration is a heat gun and the back apparently clamped to a copper plate.

If the efficiency of these is 5%, then to deliver 40 A at 14 V you need to convert 11 KW, including leakage gets to 22 KW. Which is about all the heat in the exhaust at cruise. Also this is about the amount of heat dumped by the radiator. So you'd need a big heat sink and lots of air flow.
-mort
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