Renewable Energy Questions/Discussion > Renewable Energy Q&A

Peltier units and Wood heaters

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Pete:
Hi Folks well it is winter here where I live. Lots of clouds so the solar is struggling a bit.
I was wondering if any of the members have had any experience with using Peltier units on their wood stoves as backup battery chargers?
It seems that it would be fairly easy to make one, but there are problems with keeping one side cool etc.
Any advice from those who have used them would be great
Pete

DJ:

I have looked at peltiers as generators and my conclusion was waste of time unless you want to spend $100 on a setup to charge a phone ( slowly) from a camp-fire. 

They produce decent heat or cool  from electrical input but the power they generate from heat is useless.  You'd need a wood stove the size of a small shipping container to stick enough of the things on to put any worthwhile charge in a battery bank.

If you want a backup battery charger, what I was looking at this morning might do you well.  Chinese Vertical Cylinder Diesel engine coupled to a decent output 24V alternator with a controller to take it to 48V if you need.
You could run the thing off Veg or engine oil as I have so fuel would be no cost other than the collection.

There are other things you could do like run an induction motor as a generator driving a small welder as a charger and other ideas.

Unless you want to charge a phone or some AA batteries, peltiers will be no help to you at all and you'd get far more out of a used panel even in winter than what peltiers could practically give you.

Yeah, I was bummed too. Seemed like a great idea till I looked into it a little bit.   :-[

hiker1:
https://www.tegmart.com/thermoelectric-generators/wood-stove-air-cooled-45w-teg

Pete:
Thanks Hiker, I do have a generator and my inverter is also an 80 amp charger, I was just looking for ways to get around using fuel. I don't like to have noisy engines running unless it is absolutely necessary. Like to run the welder etc.
I did see those units, they seem pretty pricey to me, and the video said that if you put too much load on them the fan will fail and they will die.
Not much use really
Thanks again
Pete

hiker1:
The fans don't fail...to big of a load ...robs the power from them...that's why they have the load sensor for the power output...if you don't use that .then yes you could harm the unit with to big of a load causing the fans to stop...overheating the unit...45 watts isn't bad at all .for something that compact.....pricy yes...over time perhaps the price will go down...

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