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Old 29-10-2015, 11:42 PM
elken2004 (Australia)
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Elkens ZWO asi174mc TEC modification

I bought this CCD for planet imaging and also some deep sky.
I have hardly used it but thought it would be worthwhile trying to drop its chip temp down from the roughly 30 degrees they run at especially during high frame rates on USB3.

The pics pretty well show the construction
I used a northbridge heatsink from an old system Mobo I had
The fan is older style (bearing type) cpu fan 12volt type.
I had a TEC from years ago, in fact three of them.
I am driving the TEC with about 10 volts at 2 amps.
The temp drop is very good, ambient of about 25 degrees, chip temp of about 34 degrees, I manged to drop it down to 16 degrees.

I did three tests one at 34 degrees, one at about 20 degrees, the third shot was Dark subtraction and hot pixels removed.
All the shots were using the Fire software as supplied with the asi174.

The last pic is adjusted to show detail
The second last is the cooled version of the third last pic. hope that makes sense.

Oh PS: the reason for 10 volts @ 2 amps, was to prevent chip getting damp from condensation. ( would luv to put TEC direct on CCD chip. but maybe later! bit expensive to do that yet...
Attached Thumbnails
Click for full-size image (zwo temp test nocool.jpg)
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Click for full-size image (wzo cooled 19-9 deg.jpg)
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Click for full-size image (IMG_5325 (Large).jpg)
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Click for full-size image (IMG_5326 (Large).jpg)
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Click for full-size image (34 degDeepSky_212131_0004 (Small).jpg)
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Click for full-size image (19 degDarkHotDeepSky_220251_0004 (Small).jpg)
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Click for full-size image (19 degDarkHotDeepSky_220251_0004a (Small).jpg)
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  #2  
Old 30-10-2015, 12:28 PM
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ZeroID (Brent)
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I've done this with the ZWO ASI 120mc and had it down to about -15C, 12v @ 3 amps or so.
I built a sealed extended nose piece forward of the chip with a plain glass window and surrounded the extended nose with packeted silica gel absorbent cavity with holes into the cavity.
A little warm air was channeled from the TEC fan to the front of the window to stop ice formation.
Was quite impressive how well it worked.
Only reason I didn't continue is the poor long exposure capability of the software and dealing with bmp exposure files. I may explore again later but I'm using the 120 as a guider at present.
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Old 02-11-2015, 08:00 AM
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MelD (Melvyn)
Mel Davis

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Hi Elken, my gear list looks very similar to yours!
I too have purchased the ZWO 174 MM, but have not yet set it up on my RC8. I would like some more details if poss. Unlike you I do not have a TEC from former days, let alone 3 of 'em!
Can you please give more info? Where they commercial units or did you self- build? I once tried to build a TEC from JAYCAR bits but found that it cycled back and forth between cool and room temperature.
Any advice will be appreciated. Your results certainly look encouraging!
Clear skies ( soon, I hope!).
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Old 02-11-2015, 11:16 AM
elken2004 (Australia)
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tec

Hi mel

I will post later all the component details


The TEC is a Melcor one, specs and model number I will get later


here is a link I found.
http://tetech.com/peltier-thermoelec...h-performance/
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Old 09-11-2015, 12:44 PM
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MelD (Melvyn)
Mel Davis

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TEC modification for ZWO174M

Thanks for the link, Elkens.

Very informative!
Cheers,
Mel
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