Portable Thermoelectric Motor

thingiverse

This is a basic design piece for one of my own DIY ventures. Full details are available here:http://www.instructables.com/id/Portable-Airflow-Companion/ What does it do? It turns heat energy into kinetic energy, looks impressive and sounds amazing! It uses a thermoelectric generator module (TEG) to power a motor with a fan. The heat source (candle) heats up the lower aluminum plate - this creates a temperature difference across the module - electricity is generated for the motor - air flow increases through the heat sink - this raises the temperature difference - more power is produced. Any type of heat source that has enough temperature can be used to run the motor and make this small device simple and fun to experiment with. As shown in the video, it was powered from fire, hot water, food, and even used to cool a computer processor. This latter idea came about when I created my first build in 2013 - people told me that it couldn't be done - but it can be done, and it works stably for everyday use, although further improvements could make it better still. It's not intended to replace regular CPU coolers but using no power from the computer makes it somewhat environmentally friendly. This device needs just a few parts, is easy to build, and requires no electronic knowledge - you do need some basic mechanical tools though for cutting, drilling and polishing aluminum. http://youtu.be/aeeq-gKX01o Instructions To aid in design, you can print this custom part if you have access to a printer that uses transparent filament such as T-glase. I used a wanhao duplicator 4x printer and the simplify3d software for the printing. Here are the printer settings: Layer height: 0.37mm (using the single outline corkscrew method, or vase mode) Shells: 1 Infill: None Top and bottom layers: None Extrusion multiplier: 1.15 Extrusion width: 0.5mm Speed: 600mm/min (or 10mm/s) Temp extruder: 235C Temp bed: 80C