Thread: Cold Weather Hard Drive

i have a quantum 4.3G in mine. on really cold days (below freezing) the hard drive doesn't wanna boot, but if iw ait a few minutes for the car to warm up a little and then reset the power on the PC, it comes up fine. i guess the motor in it doesn't like the cold.

Originally Posted by greenglo

Thats a cool idea! So did you just flip the peltier, or did you just switch the polarity?

I just flipped it since I didnt wanna bother to re-solder the Peltier

Jeeve5

Originally Posted by Jeeve5

Since it got below freezing around where I live I ran into the problem that the HDD sometimes won't start until it got a little bit warmer inside the car.

That is why I took a old Peltier that I used to use for overclocking the CPU and attacked it to the HDD. It gets warm quite fast and I can start the PC about 30 secs after I turned on the Peltier. It is a bit dangerous though, because if you forget to turn it of there is a chance you fry your HDD. That is why I am currently soldering up a timing device that turns off the Peltier after 90 secs.

Jeeve5

I have been looking into using a Peltier in this way, but I would want some way to regulate the amount of heating it does. Someone suggested using a circuit with a thermistor, but I'm not skilled enough to design my own circuit. I found this product that looks like it would do the job:

http://www.ovenind.com/html/5C7_350.html

But it's $62. Add to that a temperature sensor ($10-$20), and a Peltier (small ones run $15-20), and I'm up to $100 just to avoid the inconvenience of warming my car up for 5-10 minutes before starting the computer.

Do peltiers have to be mounted directly onto something, or could they be mounted just off something and provide radiant heat?

Originally Posted by greenglo

Do peltiers have to be mounted directly onto something, or could they be mounted just off something and provide radiant heat?

From what I understand, all a Peltier does is move heat from one side to the other. This makes one side hot and one side cold. I don't think it would be very good for radiant heat since the net effect would be zero.

Originally Posted by sigma957

From what I understand, all a Peltier does is move heat from one side to the other. This makes one side hot and one side cold. I don't think it would be very good for radiant heat since the net effect would be zero.

that is true, own side gets hot while the other side gets cold, however, radiant heating/cooling is exactly how the 12v coolers work. It's just a matter of enclosing whichever side you want to use radiantly, and blowing a fan across both sides. Plus the blowing fan makes it more efficient.

Originally Posted by Jackso

that is true, own side gets hot while the other side gets cold, however, radiant heating/cooling is exactly how the 12v coolers work. It's just a matter of enclosing whichever side you want to use radiantly, and blowing a fan across both sides. Plus the blowing fan makes it more efficient.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. If I attached the peltier to the inside of the computer case (cold side to the case, hot side open to the air), could I effectively warm up the inside of the computer?

Well not sure it would work very well in a cold car. It does transfer heat, and I'd imagine that without very much heat to transfer it wouldn't do a heck of a lot. I'm sure someone will dazzle us with their physics knowledge. Until then we can all stick those glorified hair dryers / space heater thingies in our computers.

Originally Posted by sigma957

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. If I attached the peltier to the inside of the computer case (cold side to the case, hot side open to the air), could I effectively warm up the inside of the computer?

Actually the other way around. Hot side into the case, cold side to open air, and you'll warm the case. Be careful though the peltiers in 12v coolers will warm to something like 150 degrees F when set to warm and will freeze water when set to cool. This obviously depends upon the size of the peltier and the running time.

Every cooling system known to modern man has a net affect of zero (actually worse, mechanical things create heat), that is why we seperate the hot bits from the cold ones. The coils on a fridge are outside the space you wish to keep cool. Airconditioners vent warm outside and blow cool inside. Thus, if you set a window airconditioner in the center of the room, the room would never cool, it would actually get warmer as more heat is created than cool (due to the mechanical parts creating heat).