Use peltier to drive blower when power goes out?

[derwood]

Has anyone tried using peltier heat sinks to generate enough current to run a blower when the power goes out? The ecofan uses a peltier socket to generate the electricity to run the motor.

Any creative woodburing electrical engineers out there?

 

[Heat Miser]

Has anyone tried using peltier heat sinks to generate enough current to run a blower when the power goes out? The ecofan uses a peltier socket to generate the electricity to run the motor.

Any creative woodburing electrical engineers out there?

Thought about it at one time for a similar application. The problem is that blowers draw a large amount of current (at least a couple amps for anything meaningful). One company called HI-Z makes something that could come close to generating enough power:

http://www.hi-z.com/websit04.htm

Problem is that you need to be able to dissipate the heat effectively and also the efficiency of these devices are still quite low so it may still not work that well. Finally, they're really expensive. The largest module is almost $200 alone and you may need a couple of these modules to get enough current to reliably run a good sized blower.

But I think one day we'll see them become more practical for this application. A wood stove blower is a perfect application for something like this. Once the fire gets hot enough the blower will simply turn on and start working.