Question:
who knows how to create power from thermocouples with hot junctions in high temperature flame, such as wood stove, and cold junctions hung out the window in cold northern winters? (0 to 30 below F)? apparently the russians did this decades ago, according to DejaNews search I did, which turned up ref. to it in Pop. Mechanics or Pop. Science, by guys in rec.amateur.radio (?). supposedly put out 40 watts Anyone know design info for low-tech iron wire/copper wire, such as fence wire (steel) and copper (discarded telephone wire, etc) ? doug lenertz ka0pfc
Response:
Doug. I did have in the past looked at generating electricity with thermocouple I found the Russian did have a working generator running in the flame of a kerosene lamp (enough power to run a radio). They used bismuth and copper as the two dissimilar metals strips in an alternating zig-zag arrangement making them in series like a battery, one end is in the flame and the other cooled by convection. I belive there was a company in the US making a remote 12v battery charger that ran on bottle gas burnt in a catalytic burner. I played around a bit with a similar thing to the Russian arrangement using copper and brass sheet as the dissimilar materials and was able to make small amounts of power from about 20 connections. Just a bit of fun. I did consider using the waste heat from a kitchen wood stove as it runs up the flue but it would be very difficult to fabricate. The amount of energy recovered is controlled by the temprature differential and the metals used multiplied by the number of connections. Check out a book called I think (Be your own power company) Or check out (Thompson effect)(Peltier effect)(Seeback effect) in a good encylopedia. I think many sourses off waste heat could be captured though not very efficiently but if your remote and have plenty of spare time maybe you can get some usable power. All the best Terry – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – >who knows how to create power from thermocouples with hot junctions in high >temperature flame, such as wood stove, and cold junctions hung out the >window in cold northern winters? (0 to 30 below F)? >apparently the russians did this decades ago, according to DejaNews search >I did, which turned up ref. to it in Pop. Mechanics or Pop. Science, by >guys in rec.amateur.radio (?). supposedly put out 40 watts >Anyone know design info for low-tech iron wire/copper wire, such as fence >wire (steel) and copper (discarded telephone wire, etc) ? >doug lenertz >ka0pfc
Response:
>who knows how to create power from thermocouples with hot junctions in high >temperature flame, such as wood stove, and cold junctions hung out the >window in cold northern winters? (0 to 30 below F)? >apparently the russians did this decades ago,
Doug, They’re called TEG (Thermo-Electric Generators). They are commercially available in North America. Do a search for TEG on the internet and see what turns up. Home Power Magazine printed the results of using a TEG module on a wood stove. Check out the index & archives at www. homepower.com. Graig — Graig Pearen Remove the "nospam." from my e-mail address when replying.
Response:
Any one know how Peltier cells compare performance-wise against ordinary metallic thermocouples We use Peltier cells for a very fast freezer inside one of our instruments. They aren’t very efficient, but 200W of cells can really cool a little bitty copper block (1.5x.5×1.5) FAST +25 to -35 C in 90 seconds. Can I just reverse the performance figures I get for the cooling cells ? Steve
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