Brendan, I was just looking at the circuit diagrams and the Gerber files for Cam86 and, unless I am mistaken, 12V and Peltier+ are joined by a track in the copper top layer. Can you please check this.
Also, (I know we are not using it but...) the element14 USB connector is not sealed unless you put a cap on. They are the same as the RS ones. This is not obvious from the datasheet but the seal is only achieved by the outside o-ring. There is a sentence there saying "dust and waterproof sealing when mated". We use them at work. The connector itself can be popped out from the housing with a bit of pressure from the back. It makes it easy to replace when they get full of dirt.
I did lots of searching for a sealed USB connector that is smaller than the Altronics one over the past few years and didn't manage to find anything. If you do please let me know.
By the way, Altronics has lots of sealed D-sub connectors. Just search for "waterproof".
Back to Faddy's design, did he just poke the wires through a hole in a camera housing into a breakout box? I suppose that could be a way to go
