Quote:
Originally Posted by jase
Thanks Richard. No apologies needed, in fact since you're in the region if you make it to Singapore over the next couple of days I'll buy you a beer or two, or more.
I would like to clarify that the CCD chamber seal discussion on cycled cooling was not only applicable to Apogee cameras as you indirectly imply, but ALL camera manufacturers. Your response was precisely what I wanted to hear regarding the CCD chamber seals. Thanks. No need for a warm up period either - great. I would be most interested in reading your supporting materials on random radiation damage be it permanent or temporary, along with the likelihood. Feel free to post the link here or private message me offline once you've got access to your library. Appreciate your input.
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Hey I am happy to help if I can but I also have pretty strong positions I take, mainly because I've either been there and done that or I just happen to know the material from my many years as a semiconductor design engineer (35 years in the biz). But I will always give reasons why I say what I do rather than just say "because I say so" or "I heard that blah blah is true". My world is a world of truth and facts and not much grey (except patents, and that is an entirely different topic)...
On chamber seals: the reason I singled out Apogee is because Wayne Brown, the owner, has gone on the record stating that :
1) they take a half hour to cool down to prevent damaging the sensor, claiming that the 5-7 minute slew everyone else does constitutes a military "destructive test" which is just utter nonsense. Mil Standard 883C clearly states the temperature slews for thermal shock (destructive testing) take less than 10 seconds to go from -40C to +125C. Of course most people that read that poppycock from him would have no knowledge of Mil Standard 883C, but I do.
2) backed off on the damaged sensor claim when confronted with the facts that there is not a pile of damaged sensors accumulating from all vendors but Apogee and that certainly creates a mountain of evidence to refute his statement. So the position morphed into a chamber seal issue. Of course there's still no mountain of failed camera chamber seals piling up so that statement seems unsupportable by fact.
So the third possibility is the thermal runaway issue, which is where I'd lay my money were I a betting man. Seeing how the air cooled one has stagnating airflow in the heatsink and with four puny little fans, it looks to me like they can add heat to the sink faster than they can shed it.... that translates to thermal runaway in that situation.
The simple workaround is to limit the power going to the TEC to prevent that situation from arising. The U8300 I tested never showed the power level higher than 37% during the cool down when I tested it and if that percentage is honest, then that sure looks to me that they have intentionally limited the power being applied to the TEC.
The early STL11Ks had a propensity to have that thermal runaway problem under some conditions so it isn't like this is unprecendented. To SBIG's credit they fixed them including the ones that had been sold before they figured out that they had a problem.
In my opinion Apogee if my suspicion is true, is taking both a lazy and sleazy way out by making up a cock and bull story designed to deflect criticsm from the believers and at the same time cast a rock at their competitor by creating FUD that there's a long term reliability problem lurking in the bushes in all cameras that aren't made by Apogee.
Well it ain't so on the reliability problem as evidenced by tens of thousands of user-hours and no failed seals.... so where are they Wayne? Furthermore why is the same damn seal suddenly reliable when you pay $2000 extra for the D09 cooling option? I smell a rat, how about you?
It really chaps my tail end to see people on the supply side exploiting the trust and ignorance of their customers who largely not technical and simply believe what they are told. Unfortunately unless people speak up when they smell the wet, warm and brown being cast about, it will never stop. I do speak up and encourage others to as well. We all win when we are dealing with honest brokers rather than someone ready to pull a fast one on you. When people call them on the carpet when they are lying and it happens again and again, it will stop or they will lose their customers trust and eventually the customers too.
Regarding S'pore: I seldom get down there but there's a technical conference that is held there annually for which I may submit a paper next year. I missed the Call for Papers this year so I am not on the agenda.
However when I head that way I will certainly rattle your cage ahead of time as I would really enjoy meeting you and all the rest of the participants on this forum face to face sometime... I've met Gordon Haynes (UK) and Antonio Rosalino (PT) in my travels and nearly got to meet Kitajima-san (JP) this past spring but the Fukushima Daiichi disaster stopped me from going to Nara to present an accepted paper at the International Conference on Electronic Packaging held in April of this year. I just had to abort the trip out of big concerns for food/water safety.
Just to show you folks that I'm not feeding you a line about what I do I call your attention to this recent news release (this is why I am in Korea)
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Invens....html?x=0&.v=1