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From: ijs@eplunix.UUCP (Ishmael)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: making ice with Peltier TECs
Keywords: thermoelectric coolers
Message-ID: <941@eplunix.UUCP>
Date: 25 Sep 90 17:22:07 GMT
Organization: Eaton-Peabody Lab, Boston, MA
Lines: 20

In Message <266@ssc.UUCP> markz@ssc.UUCP (Mark Zenier) writes
> There's a good writeup of thermoelectric coolers in Don Lancasters 
> Hardware Hacker column in the January 1990 Radio-Electronics
Not quite - he is so sarcastic about them that he loses sight of the
specific places where they are quite useful - in fact, somebody has
recently applied for a patent having to do with using a TEC to cool
off a 680x0 processor so that it can run at 50 MHz.  AMOCO solid state
lasers use a TEC to tune the pump laser diode to the NdYag absorption line.

> "And to further shatter some hacker dreams, no way will they
>  make ice in the real world"
Beg to differ, but that is what we use TECs for - we put a Melcor
module on a copper block with a liquid cooled hot face to freeze
tissue samples - testing is done by `making ice' in a beaker of
room temperature water.

-- 
	|\___/|		Ishmael J. Stefanov-Wagner
	|/. .\|		Eaton-Peabody Laboratory
	 \=^=/		{think,harvard,mit-eddie}!eplunix!ijs