Thread: DIY cooling
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Old 23-10-2019, 12:31 AM
Jasp05 (Aaron)
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Join Date: Nov 2016
Location: Rockhampton
Posts: 226
I was just about to start a thread about my foray into this exact topic.

Just tonight I put a 12706 TEC Module onto the back of my ASI120mm.

I am testing cooling capacity of heatsinks etc before I go and attach it all to my dslr.

I was running 12v on the peltier with a low profile heatsink from an old computer graphics card. (the last photo)

Ambient temp was 25 deg C. Heatsink temp rose to 28 deg C and the Sensor temp as reported through APT was down to 6.5 deg C.

I did use an old stubby cooler to insulate the body of the camera. Wrapped with electrical tape to hold it in place for now until I can fabricate a proper one. But no moisture was on the body of the camera, and the imaging sensor never fogged over either. Nor was their any evidence of that beginning to happen.


So that was 18 degrees below ambient cooling. I do need to still work out a way to mount the heatsink to the peltier and camera and that might help cooling slightly if there is more contact pressure to help transfer the heat.


Here are some images from 30sec darks showing the difference from ambient to cooled. Will have to try longer exposures and see the difference on them also. Tried to convert from Fits to Tiff and then exported to Jpeg. Will have to find a better way to convert, but you can still see the huge difference in shots.


I did some initial test using only a small 40x40x11mm heatsink with a 40mm fan. Was trying to see if it was viable to make it as small as possible.

12v would overload the heatsink so settled on 7v. This reduced the sensor temps to around 8-10 deg below ambient. 25deg ambient to 16 deg on the sensor.
I've attached some photos of the 3d printed holder bracket I designed.

Given the simplicity of this smaller heatsink combo and a 10deg drop in temps would still be worthwhile mod.
Attached Thumbnails
Click for full-size image (Peltier cooler 1.jpg)
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Click for full-size image (peltier cooler 2.jpg)
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Click for full-size image (Peltier Cooler.jpg)
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Click for full-size image (Single__2019-10-22_23-05-31_Bin1x1_30s__24C@3x.jpg)
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Click for full-size image (Single__2019-10-22_22-27-12_Bin1x1_30s__7C@3x.jpg)
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