Water Cooling

[Gina]

I might do that later, I'll see how my present system works before I spend more money.

[Gina]

Put in a bid on eBay for a used 120mm radiator and won it - £13. Seems alright to me as long as it doesn't leak

[Mr TamiyaCowboy]

good going gina

will find the system will cool better with a rad inline, and 120cm thats going to be some serious cooling.

[Gina]

The microbore copper tube came today which will be fine for the dew heater but I don't think I'll be able to make a water block out of it - it wont bend tightly enough to make a spiral. Another thought was to enclose a small air cooler inside a copper box with inlet and outlet pipes so water flows over the fins but on working out all that would need doing and what else I could be doing with the time, I've concluded it's not such a good idea. So I've ordered a North Bridge cooler which is just a little bit smaller than my TEC but I think it will cover the area of the cooling elements. This is all copper yet quite light. :- eBay - The UK's Online Marketplace

[Earl]

Gina, Im not a fan of that style heatsink, if you look at "Serious" HTPC coolers they have much thinner but far more blades the greater the surface area the greater the cooling.

I have used one of these bad boys... Silent and "COOL"

http://www.ebuyer.com/195165-noctua-nh-d14-dual-radiator-and-fan-socket-lga1366-lga1156-lga775-am3-am2-nh-d14

[Gina]

Gina, Im not a fan of that style heatsink, if you look at "Serious" HTPC coolers they have much thinner but far more blades the greater the surface area the greater the cooling.

I have used one of these bad boys... Silent and "COOL"

Noctua NH-D14 Dual Radiator and Fan Socket LGA1366.. | Ebuyer.com

Now thats what Id call a COOLER!!!

[Gina]

good going gina

will find the system will cool better with a rad inline, and 120cm thats going to be some serious cooling.

Oh I have little doubt that a proper radiator will work a whole lot better

[Mr TamiyaCowboy]

it sure will gina

that little northy block looks cool and should work a treat.

my ms webcam kicks out some heat when running. have just salvaged a southbridge heatsink and some ram heatsinks from an old GFX card i had smoked . just waiting on some thermal sticky pads to mount them into my new cambox.

as for making a coil/spiral, i used to make electric motor water jackets by winding copper brake piping. maybe worth looking into if you need something more easy to work with.

[Gina]

Yes the MS webcams do produce a lot of heat. The Studio has it's own heatsink that conducts heat out to the casing. I replaced the casing with 1.25" tube to fit 1.25" adapters and made sure the spring tabs on the heatsink contact the tube to conduct heat away to the metalwork. I also have a very small Peltier TEC that will fit onto the heatsink which I can try in the unlikely event that the present arrangement isn't good enough.

Brake pipe is a good idea - I'll get some of that.

[Gina]

The North Bridge block has arrived - that was very quick - only ordered it yesterday Looks ideal - even the inlet and outlet pipes fit my very flexible tubing nicely

[Zakalwe]

[Devils Advocate mode]

Between buying the 2 cameras, water blocks, heatsinks, radiators etc, are you not close to spending a significant proportion of a cooled CCD?

[/Devils Advocate mode]

[Gina]

I guess so but it's been in dribs and drabs so less strain on the old bank balance

My thinking was that a DSLR size image sensor would be very expensive in a cooled CCD camera. So for the larger DSOs a DSLR is much cheaper. I have to admit now that there are many smaller DSOs that I'm interested in that a smaller and cheaper CCD would cover.

The other motive was the challenge of cooling a DSLR and seeing how much I could improve it for faint objects. And I like this sort of of DIY

[yesyes]

I agree, it's mostly about the challenge of "having done it myself" ;-)

[Gina]

Yes, it is Chris

[Gina]

Set the cooling system up on the dining room table and ran the 12v Peltier TEC on it's rated voltage. EXIF T went down to 2C with an ambient temperature of 23C. Water block was just warm to the touch as was the Zalman block on the 80mm CPU cooler. The North Bridge water block seems ideal I'll take and post a photo later.

[Gina]

I think I now have equilibrium with an EXIF T of 3C. Here's a list of temperatures :-

1. Ambient = 22C
   
2. Heatsink = 24C
   
3. Back of Zalman water block = 28C
   
4. Back of ThermalTake North Bridge water block = 28C
   
5. Cold finger just outside camera is covered in frost
   
6. EXIF T = 3C
   

I conclude that the fan/heatsink combo is working well with just 2C temperature differential but the Zalman water block is not as efficient with 4C differential. Tt water block seems fine though I can't get at the TEC hot side to read the temperature. Cold finger is loosing a few degrees C but that's expected as it isn't very thick (22swg).

Overall, I'm happy that water cooling adds a mere 100g to the camera weight while cooling the sensor around 20C below ambient.

[Gina]

Turned off cooling and EXIF T is now 29-30C with ambient of 21C.

[yesyes]

any chance you could post some comparison dark frames, please? say, 5 minutes at ISO1600?

[Gina]

any chance you could post some comparison dark frames, please? say, 5 minutes at ISO1600?

I should think so

[Gina]

OK - 300s at ISO 1600 and no cooling started. EXIF T = 27C.

[Mr TamiyaCowboy]

sounds like a winner and keeper gina.

26+ without cooling down to 2 is a very good drop

once the radiator is in the line should find a more stable temp range.

also once outside in the cool air the temp range should be even lower, winter i would say below 0 could be possible

[Gina]

sounds like a winner and keeper gina.

26+ without cooling down to 2 is a very good drop

once the radiator is in the line should find a more stable temp range

Yes, I think the radiator should be significantly more efficient - only one heat exchanger rather than two and the water will have considerably greater surface area I should think,

[Gina]

Here is a photo of the North Bridge water block. Behind it is the Peltier TEC and behind that the cold finger. The white strip behind the cold finger is plastic with screws to hold CF, TEC and WB together. The screws and knurled knobs were supplied with the North Bridge WB. The grey "muck" is Arctic Cooling MX2 thermal paste which oozed out from the assembly (I think I put too much on ).

[Zakalwe]

Less is more when it comes to thermal paste. You only need a very thin smear to fill in the tiny imperfections between the mating surfaces (think microscopic imperfections). Too much and you are probably insulating the surfaces!

[Gina]

Here are some darks :-

1. 5m at ISO 1600 - 27C
   
2. 5m at ISO 3200 - 28C
   
3. 5m at ISO 3200 - 1C
   
4. 20m at ISO 3200 - 2C