Thermoelectric
Cooler Assemblies &
Temperature Controllers
About Laird Thermal Systems
Laird Thermal Systems develops thermal management solutions
for demanding applications across global medical, industrial,
transportation and telecommunications markets. We manufacture
one of the most diverse product portfolios in the industry ranging
from active thermoelectric coolers and assemblies to temperature
controllers and liquid cooling systems. Our engineers use
advanced thermal modeling and management techniques to solve
complex heat and temperature control problems. By offering a
broad range of design, prototyping and in-house testing
capabilities, we partner closely with our customers across the
entire product development lifecycle to reduce risk and
accelerate their time-to-market. Our global manufacturing and
support resources help customers maximize productivity, uptime,
performance and product quality. Laird Thermal Systems is the
optimum choice for standard or custom thermal solutions.
Laird Thermal Systems partners with its customers to design
custom thermal solutions for applications in many industries
including:
• Medical Diagnostics
• Battery Cooling
• Industrial Laser Systems
• Optoelectronics
• Analytical Instrumentation
Introduction
Thermoelectric cooler assemblies are compact units that control
the temperature of a wide variety of applications, such as laser
diode packages in active optics, lasers in medical and industrial
instrumentation, electronic enclosures, sample storage chambers
in medical diagnostics and analytical instruments and batteries in
various automotive and telecom applications. Thermoelectric
cooler Assemblies serve a cooling capacity spectrum from
approximately 10 to 400 Watts, and can cool by removing heat
from control sources through convection, conduction, or liquid
means.
Advantages
Thermoelectric cooler assemblies offer several advantages over
other cooling technologies. For example, conventional fan trays
do not cool to below ambient and require an air exchange with
the outside environment. On the other hand, thermoelectric
cooler assemblies can cool to well below ambient and protect
electronics inside enclosures from outside contaminants, and also
limit moisture exposure from the outside environment.
Thermoelectric cooler assemblies also offer precise temperature
control and accuracies to within 0.01˚C are achievable under
steady-state conditions.
Thermoelectric cooler assemblies have several advantages over
conventional compressor-based systems:
• Compact size and lower weight than conventional compressor-
based systems
• Mountable in any orientation and have lower noise and
vibration
• Environmentally friendly, as thermoelectric cooler assemblies
do not use CFCs and are RoHS compliant
• Low to no field maintenance requirement, which lowers the
total cost of ownership.
Engineers must now consider thermal management early in the
product design process. Simple thermal management solutions,
such as adding a fan or heat sink, are no longer typically viable to
meet required performance and reliability specifications.
A standard thermoelectric cooler assembly allows the designer to
start with a basic set of building blocks that mate fans and
thermoelectric coolers to heat exchangers. Laird Thermal Systems
has conducted two decades worth of design and validation
testing on various combinations of thermal components to
optimize cooling power and efficiency at various heat loads. This
results in engineers saving time with redesign and validation
testing a thermoelectric cooler assembly that has already been
perfected by Laird Thermal Systems.
Below is a summary of inherent benefits of initiating a thermal
design with a standard thermoelectric cooler assembly versus a
custom solution:
1. Reduce product development time by initiated product at
thermoelectric cooler assembly level vs thermoelectric cooler
level.
2. Reduce costs by utilizing components that are already
established in the supply chain.
3. Long term history of products in field provide reliable field
data of robustness of products in operation.
4. Product enhancements are captured through market evolution.
• Semiconductor Fabrication
• Aerospace Defense
• Food & Beverage
• Automotive
www.lairdthermal.com
Product Portfolio
Laird Thermal Systems offers the widest selection of
thermoelectric cooler assemblies on the market. Products are
designed and manufactured to strict process control standards
and pass/fail criteria, assuring that our customers receive the
best possible thermoelectric cooler assemblies. Our standard
product portfolio includes an extensive array of thermal
management solutions that cover a wide range of cooling
capacities with compact form factors and high coefficient of
performance. Standard operating voltages are 12 and 24 VDC,
and on some models 48 VDC. The standard product offering
includes heat transfer mechanisms designed to absorb and
dissipate heat by convection, conduction, or through liquid heat
exchangers. All products are manufactured in an ISO 9001:2015
certified facility and are designed to meet the cooling needs of
many thermal management applications in the medical,
analytical, industrial and telecom markets.
There are seven distinct thermoelectric cooler product families
that were designed for a specific cooling capacity range,
temperature differential range or tight space constraint. The
diagram below is a perceptual map of a cooling spectrum that
can be used to guide designers to a particular product family
that will have the desired attributes that the application requires.
Thermoelectric Applications
Thermoelectric cooler assemblies are used in a wide range of
applications to stabilize the temperature of sensitive electronic
components or to cool devices and compartments below
ambient.
Analytical
Temperature control is vital in analytical instrumentation
equipment to enhance reliability and improve test results.
• Sample Storage Compartments
• Liquid Chromatography
• Incubators
Medical
Temperature stabilization is required to obtain a high image
resolution. Cooling reagent chambers below ambient is critical to
extend life of reagents and keep replacement costs down. Rapid
thermal cycling is crucial to speed up DNA amplification.
• Medical Diagnostics
• Medical Lasers
• Centrifuges
Industrial
Temperature stabilization is critical to maintain industrial lasers at
peak performance and allows high end printing systems to
produce high quality prints at high run rates.
• High Powered Projectors
• Kiosks
• Metrology Instrumentation
• Digital Color Printing Systems
• Industrial Laser Systems
Telecom
Cooling below ambient is necessary to extend life of batteries
in wireless base stations. Temperature stabilization is required
to maintain peak performance of laser diodes.
• Telecom Enclosures
• Battery Backup Systems
• High Powered Laser Diodes
Outdoor Cooler Series
102 - 480 Watts
Nextreme™ NRC400 Chiller
400 Watts
0 480Cooling Capacity (W)
Temperature
Dierential (ΔT)
SuperCool Series
110 - 407 Watts
Cascade Series
31 - 58 Watts
PowerCool Series
12 - 283 Watts
Tunnel Series
11 - 106 Watts
Liquid Series
24- 265 Watts
Operating Temperature
< 80°C