I have seen this thing on instructables.com about using a Ice Chest/ heater core/ fan / sump pump. Now I have been reading about these thermoelectric devices (Pelteir Chips) and thinking of getting one of them nifty electric coolers and and running some hoses from there to my heater core. Using a sump pump to to move the liquid to and fro. So what do you think. I hopefully would start this next week. Ohh yea no a/c in the car just the a/c delete heater box.

It certainly sounds like a cool idea, and would eliminate some of the mess in your engine bay typically associated with A/C. I'm not sure what your motivation is but unlike an electric fan or water pump a thermoelectric heat pump (the peltier cooler you described above) will actually consume more horsepower for a given cold-air temperature.

Unfortunately compared to an idealized refrigeration system (the standard benchmark) thermoelectric heat pumps are only about 10% efficient while your conventional condenser-evap style AC systems are 60-70% efficient.

So unless this is just supposed to be a proof of concept i would save your time and money.

-Z

would have to agree with zander

I think I am better off running hoses to a ice chest full of ice water.

lol.
you could make the trunk a huge ice box.

i agree about the thermo electric thing being less efficient.
however, if you were doing it in the quest for a cleaner looking engine bay, then it would make sense.
also, just to prove you can is a good reason too

I remember looking into this idea about 6-7 years ago. An electrical engineer I worked with gave me a TED that was about 1" square. Running it at 5 volts and using a large heat sink with a fan attached, I could make ice form on the cold side. It gave me the same idea of using it as a replacement A/C unit in the car. I can't remember the numbers, but it was going to take a very large array of TEDs and a LOT of current to make it as effective as the stock system. You gotta think that if the OEMs could figure a way to do , they would have by now. Can you imagine the space and weight savings, the HP gain from no compressor, not to mention getting rid of the refergerant!

But that was 6-7 years ago. Might be fun to run the numbers again...

My thought was to run one of those electric Ice chest for cars. In place of the Ice Chest as shown in the instructables guide. In place of the fan and heater core I would run hoses to the stock heater core and utilize the fans from the AC setup. This away I could use the the dash vents rather then just blowing the cooled air off the top of the chest. I would hope the electric Ice chest would stay cooler longer so I am not buying ice every 2 hours.

if you look at the thermodynamics of it, the TED will always consume more power (in the generic form, not horsepower per se) to run.

true, there is no AC compressor, but there is an alternator, which will be running a lot more when you have the AC on, thus drawing more power.

standard AC refrigeration cycles are remarkably efficient compared to electric cooling and heating.

in a heat pump example, (opposite of AC) it would take approximately 40 times more energy to heat the same house with baseboard heaters vs a standard low efficiency heat pump.
the same principals remain true in refrigeration.


the benifits would be less weight, less accessory devices running off the front of the engine, a cleaner appearing engine bay, and cool factor, but you would seriously have to buff up the wiring, you would likely want a second battery and surely need an upgraded alternator.