Since implementation of Phase 2 of Post Circuit Breaker and availability of many slots for lab, the entire team decided to make our way down to the M&T lab. Buuuut before we went to lab, we met up at Plaza Singapura at 10.30am (when the shop opens) to buy cheap Styrofoam boards form ArtFriend for our project.

We brought a few tin/stainless steel boxes to continue with our experimentation. We set up the Peltier modules on each side of the box, except for the opening, with water cooling blocks. After which we made our way down to NTU to begin a long day of testing.

We name each of our trials ‘Baby’ because… well, it was our baby after all.

BABY 1
– TEC: 5 (connected in parallel)
– Water Cooling Block: 5 (connected in series due to lack of pipe connector)
– Water Pumps: 3 (2/2/1 TECs were connected to 1 water cooler each)
– Initial temp: 24.3 degrees
– Final temp: 15.1 degrees
– Water bath temp: 26.3 degree
– Duration of trial: 10mins
– Water added: 100ml
– Outcome: Since lowest temperature was not lower than water’s freezing point (zero degrees Celsius), no ice could be formed. There were a few possibilities we had in mind: the power source was not sufficient to lower the temperature further & the paint on the box could have provided some insulation.

BABY 2
Same set up as Baby 1 except that TECs were connected to 2 power sources instead [3 TECs to one power source, 2 TECs to one power source] – this was to troubleshoot drop of temperature to below freezing point
– Voltage applied: 12V (TEC), 5V (water pump)
– Current: 4.9A (2 TEC), 6.6A (3 TEC)
– Temperature: 25 degrees. Temperature of water in box was increasing instead of decreasing.
Now, this was a problem.

BABY 3
This time Tony suggested a different setup, he suggested that we try to form ice on a plate instead of a box. This meant that lower volume of ice was frozen with a greater surface area.
Aluminium tray was used with 4 TECs, arranged to form a square, in the middle of the aluminium tray (2 each power source)
– Initial temp in plate: 23.7 degrees
– Final temp in plate: dropped below freezing point as ice formed!
– Initial temp in water bath: 26.7 degrees
– Final temp in water bath: 36 degrees.
– Voltage: 12V/10V
– Current: 5A (fixed)

It was long and tiring day at lab but it was still semi-successful! Going ahead, Tony gave us a few suggestions.
Copper cup manual shape to Copper Cube (Teck Leong supplier: ask them cut for you)
Use thicker copper to withstand the clamping.
Try vacuuming air away from a bag of water to produce clear ice.
Ask Dr Ho for thermal camera.