I tried to Power my Home with Heat Generators! (Worth it?)

[@BESTvsWORST-vx2dg]

At this point, a crude steam powered turbine attached to your fireplace might output more than 6 watts

[@greatscottlab]

Haha true

[@anandasri1330]

i was abut to say same . Peltier's are very inefficient

[@blackbird8982]

Or a stirling engine.(Hyperspace pirate made an excellent video about it)

[@aporiac1960]

True, but that would produce old energy, rather than new energy which would therefore fail to comply with the requirements of the energiewende ['energy transition'] suicide cult (sorry, I mean 'modern enlightened thinking').

[@AKG58Z]

Had same thing in my mind

[@BenScott]

NASA has successfully had these things powering Voyager probes for almost 50 years - maybe instead of using wood to provide the heat, you should have tried plutonium?

[@greatscottlab]

Haha great idea ;-)

[@BenScott]

@@greatscottlab for the record: If anyone from law enforcement asks, technically I only remarked about something you could have done in the past - I'm categorically not recommending any particular course of action in the future, especially not involving criminal possession of radioactive materials. But do let us know of any updates to your findings...

[@rokas69]

​@@greatscottlab Wassup 👋

[@nate_d376]

I believe they use thermocouplers, not Peltier modules. Also: the government does use 'radioactive' (nuclear) batteries for various things, like radio and communications stations in remote areas.

[@GraveFable25]

@@nate_d376 Im pretty sure Peltier modules are thermocouples, just ones made for a different purpose.

[@petleh82]

Fun fact: Peltier stove fans have a bi-metalic strip on the bottom that lift them up when they are getting to hot, that is to stop the element from overheating ..

[@Michalloyd_stop-motion]

Not all have this feature. The one I have doesn't have it but it never damaged the Peltier module even when running for multiple days non stop.

[@1kreature]

Not to mention a tall aluminium spacer not just to space the fan off the stove but to limit the heatflow.

[@vylbird8014]

You can get elements designed for power generation rather than cooling, and so able to survive much higher temperatures. They use a solder alloy with a very high melting point. But these elements are far more expensive than the cooling ones (partly more expensive materials, mostly far lower manufacturing volume) so your typical stove fan won't be using them.

[@1kreature]

@@vylbird8014 Stovetops get hotter than even the best TEG's can handle in most situations. Almost all TEG designs I have seen, OR been part of myself, have needed to implement a thermal throttling method to avoid overtemperature. This can be reducing the thermal conduction to the hot side, or even dumping extra energy in case of overheating to actually increase cooling of hot side via passing more heat to cold side. (Yes you can "modulate" the heat transfer by the load on the element and even increase it past the ideal power output by shorting the element. You get less energy out, but can pass more heat, saving the element from damage.)

[@vencdee]

@@1kreature I my stove fan the max. temperature is 320°C this is far more than this can reach. That is because special TEGs are used not common Peltiers intended for cooling.

[@upnorthandpersonal]

I'm off-grid in Finland. I do the following in winter when there is no sun at all: I make bio-diesel in summer from used cooking oil and use it in a generator in winter. I only have to run it once a week or so to top up my battery.

[@TheHenirik]

do you make actual diesel of do yo filter the oil an run it directly in the engine?

[@upnorthandpersonal]

@@TheHenirik I make actual diesel. KOH (potassium hydroxide) as a catalyst and methanol to separate the glycerin from the vegetable oil. For fun, I also tested getting my own KOH from wood ash and methanol from birch wood with dry distillation, so technically I only have to source used vegetable oil. Of course, for practical reasons I just buy the methanol and KOH, and I estimate the total cost per liter of bio-diesel to be somewhere around 25 cents.

[@TheHenirik]

@@upnorthandpersonal what's the advantages over just running on filtered oil?

[@upnorthandpersonal]

@@TheHenirik Lower viscosity for the biodiesel for one. It also has better/cleaner combustion. Running with straight vegetable oil you have to be more careful to 'flush' the engine with regular diesel after running, and you also need to start on regular diesel before switching over. This adds complexity. Biodiesel behaves just like regular diesel, and I can even just add diesel additives to prevent it from gelling when it gets cold.

[@1jay288]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/eKbdon6giqeZirssi=cKIrlVP3pMwLS_9o

[@roboman2444]

I think making a small steam turbine or sterling engine, driving a small motor, would be far more efficient and effective.

[@greatscottlab]

Hopefully next time ;-)

[@noahwinslow2692]

He should just build a free energy device 😂😂 jk

[@wernerviehhauser94]

there were once stirling engines to add on to old oil furnaces. don't know if they still exist, since modern furnaces have significantly lower exhaust temperature where they would not work. mounting one of those to the exhaust pipe should work fine

[@vinnysworkshop]

Hyperspace Pirate did that in kzbin.info/www/bejne/Z2bKkmeBgriKp7c However, his achieved efficiency is likely an abysmal 0.1% or even less, compared to a proper full scale gas-fired power plant.

[@DaremoKamen]

I have never tried this, but I have heard that two stroke IC engines can be turned into Uniflow steam engines. It is mentioned on the Wikipedia page. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniflow_steam_engine

[@engineer0239]

Tech ingredients has a video from 5 years ago where he had more success with the ominous title "primitive tech vs high tech". By boiling a pot of water the temperature can be limited to 100C. He managed to get 1.2W per cell this way. He made a bigger version that could power a 50W LED Floodlight. Its not impossible, but its not amazing either.

[@Механизм-ж9я]

Thanks

[@DrKannavas]

One thing to note is that if you wire all of the Peltiers in series, while it is good for boosting the output voltage, it makes the system vulnerable to any one weak Peltier. If any one Peltier has poor thermal contact or some defect, it will bottleneck the entire system with this pure series configuration. This is possibly why you saw such low output overall

[@MarioMonte13]

I'm wondering if such a low voltage would be enough for power electronics to boost. If it can't get above the forward voltage of a diode, then there's nothing to boost

[@DrKannavas]

It’s a fair question. Certainly this might be an issue if they were all in parallel, so something in between would be good. Most diodes require between 200 and 700mV to turn on. If you use 2 or 3 peltiers in series per parallel arm, this will be easily achievable with these kind of temp differentials. There will likely be a sweet spot somewhere between all in series and all in parallel which balances the pros and cons of each setup

[@johgude5045]

@@DrKannavas His MPPT does not work well in the conditions he used it. A boost MPPT would have done a better job

[@TheHenirik]

@@MarioMonte13 would it be possible to run the booster circuit of a battery?

[@Reptex_cs]

I think there's something more going on here. You should have more than 6w from just one of them. I'm wondering if they can't be wired in series at all. Wouldn't that make them spend that energy? I don't know how to explain it properly.

[@mitchelldalton7405]

Idea for you to try. Most modern wood fireplaces come with a double walled pipe. Inner one for exhaust, outer one for cool combustable air. If you built an array of those devices around the inner pipe, probably using a metal stand off to still allow air flow around the inner pipe, and to keep the array below its max temp. the outside air coming down will create a potential difference across the device. Doing it this way makes for a neat and tidy install and you need no cooling pump.

[@SonOfMarsAndKings]

Try sterling engines attach to a conventional generator.

[@greatscottlab]

I put it on my to do list ;-)

[@keithbux4180]

Put free energy on it and see if you can get a collab with electroBoom. 😂

[@mykolapliashechnykov8701]

Where do you source your Sterling engines from? All I can find is some toys.

[@kevinroberts781]

​@@mykolapliashechnykov8701 everything available is junk or $1000 of dollars

[@Reach3DPrinters]

My thought too. Gotta create a regenerator for it though, can dramatically improve efficiency. Will dump some heat outside if outside is the opposite side of the sterling engine. Helps to have a really high thermal differential.

[@preferredimage]

Might be worth doing a follow up where you dismantle one of those camping fire USB chargers. See how that produces enough power. BioLite CampStove 2 is one of these type of products.

[@greatscottlab]

Sounds fun. I put it on my to do list ;-)

[@blackturbine]

What you can do is get round to square coupler for chimney and taking a square chimney pipe, you place heatsinks to potrude inside the pipe, generator on that and heatsink on cold side, I got myself TGM336-1.4-1.5 module and managed to create about 29W output with hot side at 195C and cold one at 20C And that's with a single one, I'm making a chimney for a friend that has 20 on them to use up as much energy from the chimney as we can get Edit: I made a mistake the module I used before was TGM336-1.4-1.5 but it actually fails too easily it was while back and I forgot what exactly happened, but it was able to output 29w but at high overload. I'm looking to better modules like HZ-20, if you got some that could be also used let me know

[@greatscottlab]

That sounds really good. Thanks for the feedback

[@mariosmusik4898]

sounds promising. is there a was you keep the peltier element below it's maximum temperature, so it won't get destroyed?. I think if you are able to exceed a power of 100w it could be really worth it.

[@blackturbine]

I had a flap to redirect hot gasses away from the hot side heatsink but it wasn't necessary in the end as generator was absorbing the heat fast enough to keep it under 200C

[@haydenc2742]

Can't heat electronic component over 85C before it breaks down...think overheating CPU...get em too hot..they smoke This is why those small peltier fans for stoves like that have a very long extension/run to allow heat to dissipate and not get too hot on the peltier (calculated thermal conductivity), but still close enough to provide heat, and they use VERY low current draw motors to spin a small fan slowly to circulate the air

[@paulisaicu7430]

Could you put some pictures or a video of this project, i already thought of this concept but never did it, since i wouldn't know if viable, and even though of using convection to cool the cold side, and the cold weather outside. But yeah, great project. And all my admiration to Great Scott of course, keep the awesome videos

[@ChristieNel]

Wow, I had PRECISELY the same idea, down to the water cooling blocks and Victron MPPT. But I did the calculations and decided it probably would be very expensive and not produce much - at least now I can rest knowing someone has confirmed it. On my boat the fire goes continuously throughout the winter and as long as the heat in the coolant is radiated into the boat, the system is 100% efficient, since the energy becomes either heat or electricity. The little Peltier fans we use has a little bimetalic strip underneath that bends and lifts the fan off the hot surface if it gets too hot, which is genius. You definitely need a way to regulate the heat - I had assumed the water cooling would do the job, but apparently not. Another option is to stick them to the chimney, which will be cooler, but chimneys are usually round. I hope you'll revisit this experiment.

[@jakub.medek42]

There are products that actually use Peltier modules on fireplaces - it's connected to a fan that creates some small air movement, which both cools the cold side of the module (there is a cooler) and distributes the hot air a bit around the room. Not powerful at all, but it's really cool to see it spin with nothing but electricity from the heat gradient. Also a good indicator of how the fire is doing. We have one and it's nice.

[@iwh7]

not only not powefull but EXTREMLY inefficient

[@brwetide]

@@iwh7 It still moves the air without needing a powered fan, AND they are great indicators of if the stove needs a bit more wood in it at a glance! The one I have even has a little bi-metallic strip that raises the bottom of the fan unit up at a certain temp so I assume it doesn't get too warm.

[@iwh7]

@@brwetide yeah that for shure, and it makes sense for the fan thingies, but still peltiers are by nature inefficient.

[@ohtaren8052]

Nice experiment. I've thought of doing this on a woodburning stove or boiler for supplemental power; especially in the winter with reduced solar. An idea to reduce burning out the modules is to use a technique I've seen in those fans with the modules. On the bottom of the fan, there is a different metal that expands in a groove and at a faster rate than the housing; so the hotter the stove gets, the further the fan is lifted/tilted off the stove, reducing heat transfer to safer levels.

[@teardowndan5364]

The best implementation of these things that I remember seeing are self-powered stove fans. The good ones had a cast iron base that limited heat flow to the element and a large radiator for the cold side that also doubles as the motor mount. Both the base and radiator were made of cast iron. The modules would likely fare better if you had even clamping pressure between sides to constrain how inconsistent thermal expansion from ripping the dies apart. Thicker plates would help with the consistency too.

[@BotheredNowUKAUDITS]

Great video, Scott! It would have been cool if you had measured the temperature at the point of self-destruction and came up with a design that could have kept the peltier plate below that temperature, maybe something like elevating the Peltier plate on a heat sink from the stove with fans that can blow cooler air across the bottom of the Peltier plate and heat sink to help prevent the "self-destruction tempture range."Just an idea.

[@adamstarr9369]

I'm a chef and an electrical tinkerer, and a commercial kitchen will be running its grills, ovens and deep fryers all day everyday. A lot of heat for a long time. So I've always wondered if it would be worth capturing all that heat for energy?

[@greatscottlab]

For now I can say not by using Peltier Modules ;-) More ideas/test coming up soon hopefully.

[@ricardo_f_t_gomes]

A small steam turbine​? @@greatscottlab

[@adamstarr9369]

@greatscottlab Thank you for closing one of the many background processes of my mind👍 I Appreciate your work and love your ideas.

[@pbe6965]

You need that heat for cooking though, if you try to generate electricity from it you'll probably end up cranking the grills/ovens more to compensate for the loss. It's probably more efficient to add an insulation layer to lower the already existing heat losses, thus lowering your energy bill, rather than trying to re-use those losses.

[@adamstarr9369]

@pbe6965 not if you tap the heat around the edges of grills and above the cookers possibly catching the rising heat and in turn, cooling the extraction system? But it turns out to be pretty inefficient as demonstrated

[@MrRedeyedJedi]

I conducted a simular experiment, but I used a cooling mechanism that drew less energy. I rigged mine up in series, with a final parallel portion to increase current, then used a 0.5amp 12v dc cooling fan which I mounted on the top for cooling. I modified an aluminium frying pan. On the other side, were heat sinks glued to each peltier tile, followed by the fan. It worked well

[@petrjanda7517]

Thank you, I wanted to try the same thing, so thank you that I don't have to anymore.😀👍

[@greatscottlab]

No problem 👍

[@rcx0dus825]

I love seeing videos implementing TEGs. I am currently working on a project implementing TEGs for electrical power generation from "terestrial" heat sources. I have a few tips if you want to dive deeper into this subject another time: -The open circuit voltage of the TEC/TEG is linearly dependent on the thermal gradient, according to the Seebec effect(an effect adjacent the Peltier effect). Voc=DT*S -The power you are theoretically able to generate from this Voc is dependent on the internal resistance of the TEC/TEG. P=Voc^2/Ri. Also meaning your load resistance needs to be tuned to match the TEC/TEG resistance. MPP algorithms aren't always optimized to do this for TECs/TEGs(solar MPP works differently), so the MPPt you were using could have missed the mark on the MPP. -Thermal expansion is the biggest killer of TECs/TEGs. Having the correct heating/cooling rate can make a large difference in preventing damage to the TEC/TEG There are more aspects to TECs/TEGs, but i can't explain all in a youtube comment.

[@BlackCatRedScarf]

Hot take? Use a steam engine or Stirling engine connected to a small generator. The Stirling engine is probably the easier one. I guess you can reach 1-3 Watts on a smaller model with unoptimized cooling.

[@greatscottlab]

Will try it out next time ;-)

[@kevinroberts781]

Doing a project like that and seeing that it doesn't work isn't a failure. You are much more well equipped for future endeavors now. You learned a lot. I'd say you are smarter now than before.

[@echelonrank3927]

practically every youtube techbro so far has done this project wrong, looks like they have learned everything from each other LOL

[@kevinroberts781]

@@echelonrank3927 sometimes you have do it for yourself before you learn. It's the best way to learn.

[@TimoNoko]

Heavy duty 250°C 15W Thermo Electric Generator was about 100€ when I bought it. It produced 10 watts on camping stove. Cooling was just one liter pot of water.

[@20xx-mm-dd]

exactly the issue here is the modules themselves. You have to find ones that are designed for the specific conditions and requirements. They still don't output much power vs something like a steam engine but they are a lot more powerful than what we saw in the video.

[@echelonrank3927]

yes they use a real TEG module, but its not what the guy in the video is doing. he is using the TEC versions intended for cooling instead

[@vylbird8014]

@@echelonrank3927 That is because TEG ones are much more expensive, and surprisingly hard to get.

[@echelonrank3927]

​@@vylbird8014 if by much more expensive and hard to get u mean 12 dollars on aliexpress then yes theyre not 3.50.

[@gonzo_the_great1675]

My own experiments with 4x of these modules. I had air cooling of the cold side with a fanned heatsink and the hot side heat sink on a paraffin burner. I could generate just about enough power to run the cooling fan !

[@curtisjmurphy]

Just as you used water to cool the cold side of the Peltier you could use water to both evenly distribute and limit heat to 100°C on the hot side. Basically heat water with the wood stove and use it to power the Peltier.

[@Black_Engineer]

I mean, than u could use normal steam generator, that will be way more effective

[@Gabonro]

Agreed. Underfloor heating would spread the heat over a wide enough area that small peltier modules could be used in their safe temperature range without destruction. If it gets too hot, the water could be diverted away from the underfloor units or fire air intake could be reduced (since its solid fuel).

[@curtisjmurphy]

@@Black_Engineer A steam turbine might be more efficient but it would also be noisy. Having a pressurized steam system inside your house is also not ideal from a safety perspective.

[@curtisjmurphy]

@@Gabonro the datasheet for the Peltier units stated a max temp of 100°C. Without pressurising the water loop it would be impossible for it to exceed 100°C. It would basically regulate itself. As a bonus it would humidify the air which is needed in the winter months.

[@michal.gebauer]

@@curtisjmurphy Is ironic he chose the expensive unit because cheap one TEC1s have max temp 138C

[@striesDIY]

11:06 The wood, of which we “wood” need plenty. Nice pun! And as always good video about explanation of Peltiers!

[@Paratyphi]

Next test, a steam based generator. 😀

[@bororobo3805]

Might as well create a nuclear reactor

[@Paratyphi]

@@bororobo3805 Baby steps, wood stove first, nuclear will come later.

[@hamzaterzi8801]

You can produce more power with a steam turbine generator. You need a boiler, steam turbine, condenser, etc. Waste steam can be used to heat the house with the help of a condenser. Condensed water is used to generate electricity with boiler. It would be a nice project.

[@MattyEngland]

He would be arrested by Greta Thunburg and friends

[@hamzaterzi8801]

@@MattyEngland It was funny. Anyway, most of the heat produced in the stove goes to waste with flue gas. The flue gas rises to approximately 380 degrees centigrade. However, we can cool the flue gas to 180 degrees without any problems. There we can use the 200 degree heat to turn the water into steam. In a way, it's like using everything from the deer you hunt.

[@MattyEngland]

@hamzaterzi8801 lol, and yh I agree with you. Might as well make use of the wasted heat.

[@GordLamb]

I've got a project in the pipeline to use a Chinese diesel heater to run a steam turbine to generate electricity from diesel very quietly (relatively speaking). It won't be nearly as efficient as a piston-driven generator, but I don't need much power and quiet is the name of the game for this application.

[@hamzaterzi8801]

@@GordLamb Scott could even use a stirling engine. Stirling engines don't need water to operate (Of course it has less power). However, Scott's intention was to make a video for advertising. He had previously made a video about peltier. The result was the same as this video :D

[@paulalmquist5683]

I have 2 EcoFans that use Pelier devices to power the fan motors. These are on my wood stove to help circulate warm air. They work good. Very quite, too. Valuable during a power outage last winter.

[@dk6578]

I think you're confused. No electronics use a peltier device to provide power to motors. The peltier device would be used to cool the motor, or to provide cool air as the fan blows, depending on the application. You say they're on your wood stove, so what they are doing is cooling the motors so they don't get overheated.

[@jcugnoni]

The issue is that you will output a lot of thermal energy to the "cold side", much more than the electricity that you recover. But if you can inject this heat from the cold side into a water radiator in your house, it would be less of a waste. It could be used at least to power its own pump. It would be better to recover the heat from your stove pipes and use it in an water accumulator to distribute this heat later (wood stoves are usually too powerfull and thus really benefit from a heat distributin / recovery system or accumulator)

[@montazvideo]

I'm so glad you did it for me. I planned to do this for a long time. Luckily I also had more important things to push it down the priority list for you to do it.

[@muchtall]

1:16 The look will you make when you know that the investment is not going to be worth it.

[@N1ghtR1der666]

yeah I think we all knew where this one was going, but still glad to see you try it anyway and it was a fun and funny journey to watch. I would love to see you do a hydro gravity battery next, put a big tank with at least a couple of meters of fall to a generator, then use extra solar during the day to pump water from a tank on the ground to the upper one, then gravity feed the water through a generator at the bottom during the night when there is no solar. trust me when you start looking into how to make an efficient hydro generator you will have a lot of fun research to do (and film)

[@snowthunder2355]

Might want to check into a cool company using FIRE to power devices. BioLite does this with their line of camping stoves. I am not sure what kind of peatier device they are using but they survive the heat of fire on the regular and make enough power to charge an internal battery as well as power a blower fan to aid combustion. What ever they use, it must be something more tolerant

[@SiviVolk2]

I've been waiting for a proper test of this concept for years. Thank you for finally testing it out! :)

[@uwepelz]

Hi Scot! Thermoelectrician here :-). I'm affraid your test was doomed from the start. Peltier-Modules are optimized for cooling applications (TECs thermoelectric cooler) - they have a low number of legs with a larger crossection. Modules optimized for energy harvesting (not generation 😊) have a much larger number of legs with a smaler footprint. These TEG generator modules are much better for harvesting. BUT in the end, the conclusion would have likely be the same 😅. BTW there are sophisticated MPPTs for TEGs. Greetings from Freiburg

[@nicod974]

How sophisticated ?

[@watwat7097]

Was hoping to see this comment!

[@scotttod6954]

I often thought about this. My idea was to run 2 loops. One ethylene glycol looped outside for cooling below freezing and a hot loop going to a heat source with a heat exchanger. They produce more power the greater the difference in temperature plus can control how hot the hot side gets to protect the peltiers and even store the excess hot water produced. Could even run in reverse in the summer time and dump excess solar into cooling the stored water and running a water to air heat exchanger for air conditioning.

[@kelvintai5748]

Better drive a dynamo with a bike! You’ll get very warm, if not sweating 😂

[@greatscottlab]

Haha not a bad idea.

[@kefsound]

Plus, it's healthy and cheap.

[@Eratas1]

@@greatscottlab kzbin.info/www/bejne/maa5m6Brh7ynrc0

[@woodrowcollins1975]

So , have another system for you to tinker with if you really want to test. Take your water collection system, add a second teir to it so that there is an upper barrel and lower barrel. let gravity drop water between the upper and lower barrel and turn a water wheel in it and from the bottom barrel make a small drop to a ram pump that then will pump the water from the lower barrel to the upper barrel. Have fun figuring out the head pressures :)

[@dirgh_0026]

You always provide an tonne full of information with amazing contents , thank you for that ❤

[@greatscottlab]

You're welcome :-)

[@daveseddon5227]

I've often thought of doing something like this but there's always been a nagging doubt in my mind about the claimed efficiencies. Your very interesting experiments have convinced me that it's not a viable proposition. Thanks for another worthwhile and entertaining video.

[@MrZiemwit]

so basicly it is better to buy 50kwp panels for like 50e each one, and even in germany winter got some energy :)

[@greatscottlab]

Basically yes ;-)

[@atari7001]

I worked on a project that developed an organic rankine cycle for energy production. The working fluid was Freon. This would likely be your best bet for a low temperature application such as this. Especially with a turbo-expander.

[@mrblc882]

That irony when your government turns off nuclear power plants and pushes for green energy, so you have to build criminally inefficient wood powered thermal power plant in your house 🤣

[@NigelMarston]

I'm so pleased you're doing these experiments because you've stopped me from wasting my own time doing the same. I have a couple of hover board motors I had intended to turn into a VAWT but having seen how poor the output is from your own turbine, I've given up on that idea. I also have a log burner with a Peltier fan and wondered if i could convert more of the heat energy to electrical but again, the conversion seems remarkably poor. I already have 21 solar PV panels on my roof which, whenever the sun shines in the UK (insert your own joke here) gives me up to 8KW. I had hoped to supplement that with a VAWT for the other 360 days of the year when the sun doesn't shine. Perhaps i should move house to one with a fast moving stream nearby.

[@NvTwist]

Seebeck generators would have been a better choice instead of the Peltier units. Peltier are to be used to generate a heat gradient via providing current to the Peltier. Seebeck generators are the opposite of Peltier, Seebeck generate current output via the use of waste heat energy.

[@doejohn8674]

Thanks, just wanted to comment this when I heard Peltier in the video ;)

[@echelonrank3927]

😎 buying a seebeck or a peltier module guarantees nothing, these names are entirely interchangeable in the market.

[@NvTwist]

@@echelonrank3927I see you deleted the part where ya said “it’s the exact same effect in reverse LOL” (EXCATLY!) but after realizing it agreed with what i posted. Poof delete…. Sad Nothing is ever guaranteed, but my TEG set up generates power every time I light a fire.

[@echelonrank3927]

​@@NvTwist no, it didnt agree with what u typed. ur text says seeback generators are the opposite of peltier which gives the wrong impression to the uninitiated that they might be different modules. and they are, but only in terms of generation efficiency and nothing more. then i erased some insults and u think its sad LOL maybe whats sad is how ur ambiguous text along with thousands of others offer nothing of practical value to the sorry looking guy in the video instead of actually helping him.

[@NvTwist]

Alright, I’m wrong & your Right… where is the value you’ve provided to assist the guy in the video succeed with his project?

[@shmulykrayno5897]

This is awesome. I always wanted to try something like this but on small motorcycles and use the heat from the exhaust to generate electricity.

[@luongmaihunggia]

You could always just add more solar panels, man 😅

[@greatscottlab]

I will ;-) Eventually though I will run out of space.

[@5885ronny]

Danke gutes Video 👍 habe auch eine Victron Anlage 👍🤗

[@AdmosSvg]

Fun fact - Germany buys electricity from Norway - A contry that is very expensive and does actually not have as big electricity production as Germany... With further increases the price both in Norway and Germany...

[@iwh7]

it SOMETIMES Buys there, a lot of times during the year we sell power to for example the superreliable french nuclear reactors ;)

[@talideon]

That's an interconnect, isn't it? That means that both countries buy and sell energy from each other when one has a deficit and the other has capacity to trade.

[@roberts1938]

@@talideon This is only possible in an ideologized Europe. Of course, the French have no need to buy German "green energy" but European regulations require priority for buying such energy. Therefore, the French, in order not to pay fines, have to buy this energy from the Germans, although in fact they do not need it. Please calculate how many wind turbines would provide the same power of just one nuclear power plant.

[@_specialneeds]

The generating modules are usually labeled at TEG and the cooling modules are labeled TEC. I played around with these for a long time. With the TEC modules you can actually make a little refrigerator.

[@diy_for_all]

Why don't you try heating the water instead of placing it directly on the stove?

[@johnfitzpatrick2469]

Australia is perfect for PV. Great teaching. 🌏☀️

[@buildmodrepeat2875]

Here in Soviet state of California they've outlawed wood burning fireplaces and rainwater collection.

[@daveseddon5227]

Ah, yes - the land of the free! 🙂

[@jesset2550]

Wait why no rain water collection

[@rickbarrette6219]

Why do you guys let that happen?

[@TabooRevolution13]

The best way to make these as a generator is my Thermal window invention. You take two panes of glass with 60w Peltier TECs in series. taking advantage of the cold outside and the warmer house temperature. This puts out some voltage... not as much as candles but also doesn't roast the peltiers making them go bad. It fills in under the window sill as a new window.

[@blackbored-p3m]

I made a 1kw model for a CNG bus, converting exhaust gas high heat directly to electricity. I extracted 500 watts (Non-matched load and sub-optimal dynamic temperature difference deviation from best performance range) But mine was made through systematic engineering so it functioned properly.

[@bunnatang2081]

why not motor driven by steam from fire place?

[@greatscottlab]

Maybe next year during the cold season ;-)

[@Kalvinjj]

That could work indeed, but then you'll also need more firewood to heat up the water (let's not forget that we're burning wood for household heating here, so if we get less heat = need more fire), in the end it's never free unless you can capture what you're literally throwing away out the exhaust stack.

[@frodev728]

I’m so glad you did this, as I live off grid and it’s something I wanted to try but I had a hunch it might not be wortwhile 🙃

[@johnslugger]

*Move to France where power is half price or have your government build same more Nuclear reactors. Canada has a nuclear reactor design that makes very safe power. Now that Germans will not by any more gas from Russia you Germans better do something fast!*

[@kefsound]

Enough nuclear BS.

[@drunk_astronomy]

My astronomy camera uses these things in reverse as coolers for cooling my camera sensor. We astronomers like to cool down our cameras to improve the signal to noise radio by reducing noise. Great video as usual…

[@ohanneskamerkoseyan3157]

I like what you did at 6:27. Not too many people does that 🙂

[@wfrancis25]

Thank you for the video...actually always wanted to test this experiment...but those peltiers can become pricy here in ZA....another thought I had is to make a copper coil in the exhaust of the fire place, run that to a water collector of sort, then bringing in cold water from out side "ice winter water", that should give the ±100deg delta...but allot of insulation between the hot and cold side needs to be done to ensure the hot side does not heat up the cold side. All in all it is fun to play with these ideas....Here in ZA our summers are pretty hot and winters and cold and wet (western cape), instead of trying to generate electricity. I would rather go for the extract every last drop of heat escaping through the chimney/exhaust with copper pipes into a old geyser and push the heat out through some radiator to maximize the heat in the house...Think that's a better and easier conversion of energy...... for now keep up the great work

[@realdystopia9229]

Thanks for the Video! Please make more Home Generation Projects, thats where German Engineering is needed the most i think

[@TRBORADIO]

Russian have a radio receiver called kerosene radio, basically it's several thermocouple connected in series. You have some similar thermocouples in your water heater or stove that use them as security devices to maintain open the gas valve locking it with an electromagnet. They need a lot of heat to work, fire directly I think. I don't know the current or voltage that it generated but they only use one to activate the magnet valve. Set several of them in your stove and test the power but looks very powerful to operate with only one a magnet. Best regards!

[@Hnkka]

i have "masonry oven" midle of my home. There is copper pipes inside the oven and when i heat it up it heats glycol inside the pipes and stores the heat very well. i could also setup radiators to it and small circulation pump and warm every room with it or make water go trough the system to waterheater and save some electricity during expensive days

[@willjackson6407]

I love that you’re putting this through an MPPT - I had the same idea and plan to make something for my van. It’s really helpful that you shared all these tests. One of my questions is will the modules work in series, it seems to do ❤️

[@MCsCreations]

Fantastic work and experiment, dude! Really well done! 😃 Looking forward to see more like this! Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊

[@greatscottlab]

Thank you very much!

[@dragosnicolaepuscasiu5954]

Nice, love your experiments. May I suggest using a Tesla turbine with warm water vapor heated by your fireplace (HP side) and a copper serpentine pipe (LP side) in the rain water barrel. Can't find the youtube link but someone else done it with exceptional perfomance. Basically extract most of the energy from heat differential, way more efficient than peltier modules.

[@roi354]

It's an interesting project. I always wondered whether it would be worth adding peltier devices to the back of solar panels so they don't overheat in the summer and provide additional power output as well. They could also be powered in the winter to heat up and melt snow. It would be an expensive project for sure. In the end I decided that a water loop into an indirect hot water cylinder would be more efficient with a standard heating pump, but the extra weight would be too much for my roof.

[@CJWarlock]

Good episode. Shows the Peltier module generator hype for what it is: very low efficiency. PV, wood gas powered generator, steam turbine, micro hydro, VWT (vertical wind turbine) - these are the projects I've came to think about as viable and practical over several years of keen observation. Cheers. :)

[@themaneman2938]

I had this idea to do something similar some time ago, the difference was to run a cooling system into the snow in winter, have a anti freeze liquid instead of water to cold down. That way during average -10..-15C temp during winter I could reach this 100 deg diff easier with less heat from the fireplace....

[@jeremygeorgia4943]

I am glad you used a water block. That's what I would have done. I was also thinking, that maybe you could use a block for the hot side & use heated water from the stove, instead of putting the elements directly on the stove. Maybe, you could also find a place in the house that is naturally cooler, so that the bucket remains cooler, too. Finally, if you use enough junctions, maybe there WILL be a point, where it makes sense. That sheet is far from the maximum area available in the house. Peltiers generate more energy, based on the temperature differential. If there was a way to get things even colder, it could work even better. Maybe, you could mount a block to a window, if you'd rather not run the tubing outside.

[@eslmatt811]

Peltier is a real interesting tech, just really difficult to implement effectively. Using them for cooling is also pretty in effective. A friend has a Peltier powered wood stove fan. As it heats up, the fan spins and the fan cools the cold side heatsink.

[@silvano2821]

Thank you for the video, it was interesting and gave me many answers. After this and many other video, I think that the green energies are, at least, not mature to be our first source. Others, as nuclear plants must be developed to ensure a continue supply of energy. Also, when we consider all the waste produced for the solar panels, wind turbine etc, we see that they are not so green. Same for extra high isolation for the houses, after a certain thickness it does not make sense to increase the isolation. I could yet continue but I don't want to be repetitive or appear against all the green tech since it's not true, I like them, I think we need a better approach to energy and remember that the best is reduce the use

[@danzimandanziman]

Heres a fun idea that might actually net you some usable electrical energy: in a shed outdoors, a wood burning boiler and steam engine with generator. exhaust steam goes inside your house to a radiator. finally condensate is returned back outside and pumped back into the boiler

[@jamesevans225]

Good thing plutonium is just below the price of beef per pound at my local Walmart. Thanks! I will try that!

[@mickgatz214]

Interestingly, a few years back, I was making ice with those Pelter? modules. It was fun experimenting......👍

[@alexoja2918]

I suggest placing the bottom heatsink layer in water so they never go past 100c. Or make a condenser column and drive the whole thing with steam, dripping the water back down as it cools.

[@DogsaladSalad]

Raising the peltiers up a few inches will help the overheating, but something to consider as well is trying Sterling engines powered by the fireplace. They are very simple and efficient.

[@simoncameron4355]

Not sure if you will read this but I was thinking of doing the same thing with a cooler riding down a river in the summer, I should be able to apply voltage to the peltiers and keep the cooler cold for longer while transfering the heat to the river.

[@CNGboyevil]

Builder and 28yr mechanic. I have thought about this sooooooo long. When I saw You were doing it, yay! You need a welding mechanic to help you take this to the next level to create more voltage and better heat the surrounding area!

[@CNGboyevil]

Not me

[@Tore_Lund]

Make a Bayton engine. Like a jet engine but with pistons. Was originally coal fired but works with firewood too. a smaller compressor piston and a roughly twice the diameter expansion piston. Runs at moderate pressure and RPM and is more efficient than a steam engine. As it is open loop, there is not dead volume limitation as with Stirling engines, so power scales good with size.

[@MaxImagination]

What about adding a thermostat to regulate the heat of the stove in some way so your peltier modules dont overheat? Maybe this can be done with a different type of stove. P.S. Really enjoyed the video and great meeting you at Electronica this year👍🏻 😊

[@DominoSixO]

If you have a cold weather in Germany and you want to build a infinite loop without loss or close to minimum attach an steam evaporator to your fire place with a small tube to create pressure and spin a motor turbine, after that the steam will go via a tube outside and cool down by passing via a radiator and via a valve after condensation will drop again in the main water container inside the house to start the cycle again. The only loss here will be the wood as you need to waste material to transform it into another type of energy

[@hamzaterzi8801]

Scott, I wonder if the stirling engine might be an easier solution? I've put forward the idea of ​​a steam turbine before. However it's quite difficult to do. You don't need steam in a stirling engine. It works with hot air.

[@autodoctor6512]

I didn't use an intermediate plate. I used the water coolers directly on them and insulated the areas not touching. Gave me a gross out put of 73 watts with only 12 of them. My pump used 0.4 amps and 12 volts. I would reconsider your design. But water cooled is the best I discovered that passive cooling eliminates the need for a pump on a larger scale. But sure why but I was getting topped out (before breaking) at 5.01 volts and 1.233 amps.

[@Mole-Skin]

As a fellow 'Tinkerer' I wondered if using my property Water main pressure as some sort of Electricity maker is worth a shot..?? We get the 'pressure' free from the Water company and if the 'used' water could be fed into another container (IBC) and even 'staircase' a few of them adding more generators before selling the exhausted water to your neighbours.. Any logic in this..? You have very nice handwriting.. I'm jealous.

[@YourAliasIsNotAvailable]

I would say connecting the modules in series is a flaw of the design. The ones that are producing less voltage might act as load for the ones with more output. Which is very much the case, because of manufacturing variations and uneven heat distribution of fireplaces. They also then will act as cooler and cool the aluminium plate while heating the water. You could try it with the modules connected in parallel and might reach around 20W for the 21 modules.

[@XyQrTw]

I have already thought about using these Peltier modules behind solar panels (with heat sinks on the other side) in order to add to the yield and reduce their temperature.

[@ET_AYY_LMAO]

You need some clever way to moderate the heat to below the peltier breakdown point. I know some peltier driven stove fans use a bimetallic strip as actuator that lifts the heat transfer surface up a little to prevent overheating.

[@Reach3DPrinters]

need some kind of sterling engine between the stove and outside... but you'll dump heat out of the building that way. Sterling engines can get pretty efficient with regenerators, which store heat for next cycle.

[@Gary-uy9mr]

I love the fact you use the old, or germany popular, stick measuring stick.

[@termiterasin]

Very good build. I agree with drkannavas that if one cooler is low it can draw the other ones down with it. A lot like solar panels. Half cut solar panels have diodes to prevent backfeeding. I'd also add something to clamp everything together.

[@twiddler71]

I purchased a Biolite camp stove last year. It uses the heat from the fire to charge a small lithium battery for charging your phone or a light. Seems like this principal should work on a larger scale.

[@raloed.363]

If you get snow you should make a pipe heat transfer system that flows water outside and gets cold by the snow for the cold side. For the hot side you run water through the heater to get it up. That way you could theoretical have a temperature difference over 100 degrees Celsius while still keeping both sides of the device withing the operating temperature range. So they wont over heat and het destroyed

[@treesareafewofmyfavoritethings]

You should look into thermophotovoltaic panels! I don't know if there are many available commercially yet (there don't seem to be) but they could be used to generate from the IR of the fire maybe. Would be cool to see your take on them :)

[@BertNielson]

Removing those at the end of the video with the thermal paste without gloves! Braver man than me. That stuff seems to get everywhere if I don't wear gloves.

[@g.4279]

There are special high-temp peltiers that are WAY more temperature resistant and can often deal with 300C or more. However, last time I checked they were very expensive compared to the cheapo models.

[@billwhoever2830]

I am from Greece and we have a fireplace for the winter too. The whole contraption is much bigger and it is water-cooled, there is water all around the walls and in pipes above the fire, after it is heated to a selectable temperature it is circulated in a heat exchanger which is used to heat up the tap water and the radiators on each part of the house. Electricity is provided by a hybrid system from both the Grid and Solar-Batteries. During the winter there is not enough sun so we use more grid power. I have thought about utilizing the heat from the fireplace to produce electricity. My fireplace cannot reach boiling temperatures because steam will ruin the circulation and it is not designed to be pressurised. So my idea is using a heat pump to boost the temperature from 60-70C up to 100+C inside a pressurized boiler. Then using the steam from the boiler to run a turbine and electric motor (ideally a 3 phase one scavenged from an old diesel generator), rectify the generator output and use an MPPT to charge my batteries directly. Only problem with this setup is that I already have 2 circulator motors, I will need the heat pump and I will also need a normal pump to put new water in the boiler (ideally pre-heated from the fireplace). The challenge is making the system efficient enough to produce more than it consumes.

[@LiveType]

That's a hell of an experiment. Matches a fun project I did where the goal was to cool down a can of soda using a pedal bike. Short answer, a solar panel attached to a small AC unit works better. Peltier modules are hilariously inefficient.