Dan’s Workshop has an example of a Grease Powered Toy Jeep. This project uses some interesting modules that take heat and output electricity.
“I used two of the Marlow SP2348 modules in series for the heat to electricity converter. I used white heatsink grease to make a good thermally conductive bond between the two heatsinks. Actually, the bottom heatsink (the hot side) was just a flat plate of aluminum, about 1/16″ thick. Originally intended to provide refrigeration in 12 volt portable coolers, these modules will also generate electricity when heated on one side and cooled on the other. And a handsome quantity, too–not just microvolts. Together, they will produce about 3.2 volts open circuit with the grease burner under them. Powering the jeep with drive wheels raised, that drops to about 2.4 volts–the same as two NiCD AA’s.”
Grease Powered Toy Jeep
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is the marlow unit similar to a peltier module?
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@hoonflap
yeah i was going to say these sound like peltier elements to me. i’ve seen them used in portable coolers/heaters before. people interested should check ebay; it usually has a pretty good selection of cheap peltiers available for CPU cooling purposes. when using the elements to generate a voltage, the trick is to use heatsinks (like this project) since the hot side will quickly warm the cool side (and reduce output, which is based on the differential).
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Really old but still really cool.