TEC Cooling For ASI120MC-S

tvatari

I purchased a TEC Cooler for my ASI120mc. It attached perfectly to the back of the camera with heat sink. I achieved cooling from 80 degrees F. to 38 degrees F. The Problem is the lens starts to fog over and the camera starts to condensate. Does anyone have any suggestions. I'm looking for somekind of small heat element for the front lens cover. Has anyone done something like this. The cooling part of the experiment works great. Any Ideas.

Thanks

Terry

riklaunim

Housing cooling will cause dewing of the cover glass as the whole housing is cold (and not just the sensor). You would probably have to use a plastic nosepiece with a IR/UV cut filter as the cover glass so that it will be far away from the cold. Inside you will need some desiccant to prevent condensation on the sensor and within the nosepiece.

rshotbolt

I'm thinking of mounting a small TEC (5W maybe) on the back of the PCB, then using the case as the hot side of the TEC. So the case will get warm as the chip gets cold. I know I will need to stop moisture condensing on the chip itself, so maybe a fully-sealed case with a small hole to squirt in dry air-duster gas. The small TEC should work just fine in theory as the chip only dissipates 200mW maximum. Anyone else adopted this mod?