Advice on silica/dessicant

[cuivenion]

I'm doing a peltier cooling project for my ASI224 and I'm wondering if it's safe to put silica gel beads into the sensor chamber:

I want to make sure the beads or other dissicant won't damage the pcbs or sensor in any way. If anyone has good budget suggestions for dissicant please let me know. The ZWO dessicant is a bit pricey.

[Gina]

Note that the camera casing is not sealed - it behaves like a sieve with plenty of atmospheric access.  In my all sky camera, I desiccate the whole volume around the camera and have found this dries the air inside the camera adequately in that I can run the camera 20 degrees below zero and get no condensation on the sensor.  Indeed any condensation will occur on the case in preference as that is colder,  I use bags of desiccant that changes colour when exhausted.  It also stops any condensation on the inside of the dome but a dew heater is still needed to stop dew on the outside.

Edited April 28, 2020 by Gina

[cuivenion]

Thanks Gina. How do you desiccate around the whole camera?

[Gina]

I bought 10g bags of colour-change desiccant like these.

[cuivenion]

I was planning on using insulation material around the camera, if I put the sachets inside the material do you think that would work? I'm wondering how you held  the desiccant to the camera body. Did you just tape it?

[Gina]

I see no reason not to put the sachets between the thermal insulation and the camera body.  I did it the other way round - thermal insulation directly round the camera and the sachets just placed in the outer casing with the Raspberry Pi.

[cuivenion]

Cheers Gina.