Self Regulating Cooler

Presenter Information

Devin Kohnke, Minnesota State University, Mankato
Matthew Mueller, Minnesota State University, Mankato
Michael Valkos, Minnesota State University, Mankato

Location

CSU Ballroom

Start Date

2-4-2019 10:00 AM

End Date

2-4-2019 11:30 AM

Student's Major

Electrical and Computer Engineering and Technology

Student's College

Science, Engineering and Technology

Mentor's Name

Puteri Megat Hamari

Mentor's Department

Electrical and Computer Engineering and Technology

Mentor's College

Science, Engineering and Technology

Second Mentor's Name

Xuanhui Wu

Second Mentor's Department

Electrical and Computer Engineering and Technology

Second Mentor's College

Science, Engineering and Technology

Description

The motivation behind our project came from the problem of always having to deal with ice when camping, which depending on if you are in a remote area or not, can be quite difficult to obtain. In order to solve this, we are designing a portable cooler that will ideally be able to self regulate without needing a direct power source for a certain amount of time. The more expensive solar panel you get, the longer this time will be. In order to do this, we are using semiconductor devices that use the peltier effect, which creates a cold side and a hot side and then we will expand the cold side to the environment of our cooler. In order for this to work efficiently. You have to draw as much hot air as you can away from the peltier in order for the cold side to get as cold as possible. The main problems we ran into is how to effectively cool the entire cooler environment since the peltier itself is only 40mmx40mm. As of right now, we have the entire cooler built and get a decrease in temperature, with the next step being getting it to turn on and off within a certain temperature bound and then also charging the battery with the solar panel.