I am very new to circuits, being a sophomore in high school, and don’t fully understand them, so simple explanations would be helpful. I am working with Peltier tiles, however, I need more voltage from them. I heard that Linear Technologies made good components to boost the voltage. So I bought the LTC3588 breakout board from SparkFun. (https://www.sparkfun.com/products/9946) I have it on a breadboard, but it is not working with the tiles. I tried connecting a battery to the component just to make sure it worked. (Input to vin and ground. Output to vcc and ground) Surprisingly, it worked but decrease the voltage to only 6.5 (originally at 17). Is it suppose to act in this way? Can I connect it to a Peltier tile and boost the voltage? If so, is there anything I need to connect besides vin, vcc, and ground? Thanks in advance.
That board is not intended for Peltier tiles as their output voltage is too low under typical conditions. You need this chip, which uses a step up transformer http://www.linear.com/product/LTC3108
Linear Technology offers a breakout board for the LTC3108 chip, but it is very expensive. If you explain your situation to a sales rep, you might be able to get one for free.
Also, it depends on the heat transfer through them (peltier devices). Not just temperature difference. You need heat flowing from one side to the other. If the heat builds up on the warm end, or heat cannot flow quickly out of the cold end then it won’t generate much power. And improper loading might collapse the voltage.
Dave from the EEVblog made a youtube video about them a couple of months ago. Sorry, don’t have the link ready. I’m not on my regular pc.
Ps. Boosting the voltage reduces the current by the same proportion. Taking efficiency losses aside. What’s your load? (Edit: never mind, some kind of unknown battery)
Ps 2: Which should probably have been asked upfront: are you trying too pump heat between a hot and a cold place using external power? Or are you trying to power something using a heatsource?