Peltier cooler box for Canon DSLR

[AlistairW]

Hello,

Still can't make my mind up whether this is a good idea or not in the UK. Night time ambient temps are near 10C at the moment. So would this devise help for reducing sensor noise.

http://www.rothervalleyoptics.co.uk/geoptik-polar-slr-photo-cooling-box.html

My William Optics GT81 focuser I imagine should be able to handle the 1kg extra weight, but I am sure the cabling for power and BYEOS is going to require work.

I know there are a few other threads here (Carole) that have used one of these, but I can;t make my mind up. Are they worth it ?

Thanks

Alistair

[Jokehoba]

Hi Alistair,

Although UK night-time temperatures are relatively low, the sensor can still get quite warm - if the EXIF temperature is to believed - and noisy. So any cooling will  help reduce noise and improve SNR. 

I considered a cooling box (I'd bought the parts to make my own, Gary Honis style) because I didn't really want to hack my camera about (as some have shared on this forum). Certainly a coolbox is a non-invasive cooling method.

However, I've decided to go for a cold-finger cooling system. The reason was two-fold: firstly, people quoted 30mins to 2 hours cool-down time, which I felt was time wasted doing nothing. Some even said they placed the camera in the fridge to give it a head start! Secondly, cooling the whole camera is a very inefficient way to cool the sensor buried inside the camera (hence why some people strip the camera down to improve this).

I've not completed my cold-finger mod yet, but I'll post progress on the mod here soon - want to make sure it all works before making it public.  Hopefully I've not completely destroyed my 1100D...

John

[Davey-T]

Bought one of these second hand and frankly the build quality was rubbish had to take it apart and rebuild it, ditched the thermometer as there appeared no way to switch it off so just ran the battery flat unless you removed it, still in the process of building a 12 volt power supply for the camera and then I'll be ready for a test as the battery generates heat.

Originally it was actually getting warmer lol, now it quickly drops to a steady couple of degrees above zero which I have read is sufficient as lower temps didn't seem to be needed.

The good thing is being able to have a reproduceable temp for calibration subs, need to fit some sort of temp sensing system to control the temp as it just keeps going ATM so have to try and control it manually.

Once finished it will work hopefully, certainly wouldn't buy a new one as all the work I've had to do to get this working reliably I might as well have built one from scratch.

Dave

[Zakalwe]

IIRC, Carole Pope had one and didn't find it that much cop either.

[Davey-T]

IIRC, Carole Pope had one and didn't find it that much cop either.

That'll be the one 

Dave

[AlistairW]

Thanks for the replies - think i will give this a miss then - maybe put the money towards a CCD in time.