Cooling the server area - Peltier way - the idea

Time ago I did buy a Peltier unit cooling contraption.

There are many different types on the market, I think mine is a 50W unit already assembled with 3 fans, two for cooling down the
hot" side, and one to push the cold air.

The unit is pre-assembled and mounted over two heat-sink and it has also a kind of closure/support in plastic to be attached ... somewhere, we'll see.

So the idea is to somehow, somewhere, install this unit in order to help to cool down the server area.

Some questions are :

1. how and where to dissipate the heat produced by the unit ?
2. how to power supply the unit ?
3. how to control it ?
4. how to monitor/feedback the cooling process ?

Of course only the "cold" part should be in the server room or at least pushing air into there.
Testing the unit I noticed how the "cold" side can really become "cold", often below the zero !
This means ice might be forming inside the server are due to the humidity present. 

This also means that will be necessary to control somehow the unit, can't be left to run constantly, both to preserve the Peltier cell and don't use too much energy, this thing uses lot of current !!

The power supply must be dimensioned for the load and some form of thermostat must be added.

Build or not build ?

Well, lately time is never enough, too many things I have to do, even more I would love to do .. so for this project I decided to buy ready-made stuff.

I do have the Peltier unit, a power supply and a thermostat, all bought off the shelf.

It would be nice to design and build a power supply with integrated thermostat, maybe linked to the server in order to have feedback from the machine rather than the environment.

Who knows, maybe in future, for now I want to set up a basic system to experiment with and see if actually it can reduce the heat in the server area.

If it is not working no need to invest more time.

This summer we had so much heat that I had to shut down the server, it had the internal fan almost always at the max speed. Not good.

Shopping list

Ok, the project uses these components :

• a 50W Peltier unit
• a power supply (Ok, little bit over specifications)
• a thermostat

The power supply is little bit over the requirements.
The Peltier unit requires 5A, the power supply arrives at 30.  Eventually I'll look for something more close to the requirements.

Installation

I can't imagine many places where to put the contraptions.
The first one to try will be the room server door, with the "hot" side in the garage and the "cold" side in the server area.
I'm not sure how good it will be able to dissipate the heat in the very hot days and I don't know how good the cool will be in the server area.
That the main reason to experiment.

So as soon as the thermostat arrives and I have some time I'll start the experiment, installing the Peltier and all the other stuff, on the server area door and start to play with it.