The Challenge: To chill a beverage from room temperature to 5 degrees Celsius as quickly as possible, using electricity as the sole consumable supply.
Technical Approach: Eight thermoelectric cooling modules pump heat from the beverage into custom copper cooling blocks. These blocks exchange both the extracted heat and the dissipated electrical power (over 4000W peak) into circulating coolant, which dumps the heat to the atmosphere via four radiators and eight fans. The entire process is computer-controlled.
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| As usual, everything was solid modeled first... | The control panel features eight 30-amp relays and a missile switch. |
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| A view from above with the side and top panel removed, showing the overall layout of the machine's components. | Ten relays control the eight thermoelectric cooling modules, four fans, and four pumps. |
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| All of the custom components. | AbsolutZero's mechanical frame. |
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| The cooling chamber was constructed of five 1-inch-thick aluminum plates, waterjet cut and then remachined as a unit. | A custom-machined copper liquid cooling block for the thermoelectric cooling modules. |
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| Components of the cooling block assembly. | An assembled cooling block. Four of these are used to extract heat from the eight thermoelectric cooling modules. |
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| The heart of AbsolutZero. Eight thermoelectric cooling modules are sandwiched between four cooling blocks and the cooling chamber. | The power connector was designed to handle the machine's peak current draw of 240 amps. |
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| Radiators and fans mounted to a side panel. | This aluminum handle was waterjet cut from 1-inch-thick plate, and then remachined. |
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| Power distribution blocks. | The onboard microcontroller and power distribution circuitry. |