DSI Pro arrived

[Karls48]

Meade DSI Pro arrived from Bintel Sydney this morning. I did not expect the camera to be so large and so heavy. It means that on ETX- 105 I will be limited to about 45 degrees altitude imagining before the camera hits bottom of the scope. To my surprise (after reading about Ken’s trouble with software installation) software installed on Toshiba satellite notebook with Windows XP home edition without any great problems. Only difference from the installation sheet included with the camera was that software did not ask me to plug the camera in USB port any time during the installation and I had to reboot the computer and let Windows to search for camera drivers. I connected then to Internet and search for latest upgrades. Installation of upgrade went on without hitch.
Camera itself, filter slider is ill fitting and it lets stray light to CCD chip and it will eventually let dust in. I will have to make something to block the slots for it, as I’m not going to use it with the filters. At 20 degrees C camera got awful lot of hot pixels in comparison to my Gstar.
I will try to get some images with it, but if it will work as auto guider I think I will be happy with it

[JohnG]

Hi

Scopestuff have a nosepiece that replaces the Meade slot;

http://scopestuff.com/ss_dsif.htm

Might save you a dust problem.

Cheers

[ballaratdragons]

Thats good news Karl.

My problem turned out to be that the DSI needs a powered USB Hub. I have one on its way.

If you cool the camera, the hot pixels will reduce. There are quite a few sites showing simple ways to cool the DSI's with Peltier cooling or just a fan.

Fortunately with DSI's you don't have to open them up to fit Peltier Cooling, because the chip is mounted against the back of the body using the back as a heatsink. Therefore, you only have to grind down a section of the cooling fins and mount the peltier to that flat area.

[ballaratdragons]

Here's one of the sites that has peltier cooling for the DSI's: http://www.backyardastronomy.net/peltier_cooling.html

[Karls48]

Thanks for links John and Ken. For now I masked filter slot with black insulation tape. I want to see first how much of focus travel I will get before I change distance of nosepiece from the CCD chip. I have run camera for 5 hours and measured heatsink temperature. It is 6.2 degrees above ambient. So heatsink cooling is quite good, but adding the cooling fan as Ken suggested should brink it down closer to ambient temperature. Of course Peltier will work like charm. Pity about need to grind heatsink fins. Even after that, heatsink surface needs to be machined flat as there is a curve on it.

[mill]

hi Karl you can also fill up the gaps on the heatsink with liquid metal or alu foil as i did, Then the peltier will sit flat and even.
I used an computer fan/heatsink on top of that, parallel connected to the peltier, works a treat.
And you wont void your warranty this way.

[Ric]

Hi Karl, I've found a good way to keep any light out is by hanging a piece of black cloth over the camera, it blocks out any ambient light and does not affect the temperature.

Cheers