Hey Everyone,
I purchased one of these Thermotek chillers (broken) on ebay for running my large Coherent laser diodes.
After testing The unit, I came to the conclusion that it won't heat or cool but the pump and other control circuitry are working properly.
Time to take it apart!
As it turns out their was an open circuit to the power going to the TEC's so that calls for complete dis-assembly of the solid state heat exchanger. Fun!
Polyurethane foam is really fun and easy to remove! Not!
It turns out that their are 5 40mm TEC's on each side of the heat exchanger block all wired in series. Too bad you can't just run them in parallel. Obviously the PS would see a dead short and wouldn't work too well.
5 TEC's on one side read good continuity however the other side was completely open. Time to find the instigator.
You are the weakest link!
So, My question is.... How would I determine what the wattage of this TEC is? I do want to match them, right? Also, I was thinking of maybe just replacing them all. I see 40mm TEC's on ebay between 40-140W. Which way should I go? Also, can I get better prices on TEC's or is ebay the best I'm going to get?
Thanks!
Adam