^^^<<__ New Peltier Junction

This cooler was given to me by my friend John as a non working gift. I had asked him to look for one as he is in the appliance repair business.

This Unit, An Igloo Thermal cooler had some real issues when it arrived in my friend John's hands. It was chock full of dust in the cooling fins of the heat sink, and the fear was that the Peltier Junction had overheated and burned out.

Upon testing, John found that the unit would only drop the temperature 15degrees F below ambient room temp. Most of these units are able to do a 40 degree drop.

On the other hand if you reverse the current these coolers will become a warm storage container as well. It would be my assumption that it should raise 40 degrees F above ambient air temp as well.

 While disassembling this rascal I found out how good it was made. This puppy was well built. The glue used to secure the cooling unit to the cabinet took two screw drivers and the jaws of my wrench pictured above to pry it loose. the junction is held together with two screws that thread right into the heat sink from the cold sink side. this sandwiches the junction in between so it can't move.

The culprit Seems to have been a faulty thermocouple "sensor" that is buried along side the  cold transfer solid aluminum block.

 I believe it was mean't to turn the junction off if the temperature went too cold, conversely TOO HOT on top!

 I put the new junction in and it seems to be working fine.

 below is more of a SIDE VIEW of the Peltier Junction, where you can see the "honey comb like" structure these junctions have.