Quote:
Originally Posted by Outcast
I'm wondering if just using a heat sink & fan on the ZWO would do something to reduce sensor temp without bringing it down so far as to induce condensation.
Is there any value in this approach?
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Yes to the first question, maybe to the second.
I added a heatsink (no fan, just heatsink) to my zwo 120mc and got a measurable 1C reduction in sensor temp.
Later I took apart a cheap garbage usb drink cooler which never cooled my drinks and stuck its peltier heatsink and fan to the zwo instead and was a reliable 13C reduction of sensor temp, cooler nights the outside of the zwo would be thick with white frost but I never had any sign it occured inside.
So technically YES you will get a temperature reduction with simple external heatsink setups. But if this results in a noticable improvement in images I can only assume maybe. Technically any cooling reduces noise, but noticably? Dont know, I only imaged planets or sun/moon so no long exposures where noise is most obvious. It was worth the exercise for me because I was curious but I can't say it resulted in better imaging but it should have a tiny bit and possibly prolonging the sensor life too.
But I can say I did once do a little longer exposure tests for fun and they were fairly noisy. Later I got the 174mc-cooled and that just blew the 120 away for noise and I think its worth every penny paying for the cooled version which give me a steady 32C below ambient and I dont think its worth trying to reach that delta with your own mods. Not a scientific comparison and very different sensors in those cameras but if you're a tinkerer and have a peltier already on hand then go for it.