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This afternoon I fitted Peltier on my DSI Pro. First I machined heatsink fins flat, it doesn’t need much machining about 2mm. Then I cut and squared piece of aluminium plate slightly larger then Peltier. Filled the gaps between heatsink fins with compressed aluminium foil. I should have use heatsink compound but I could not find it. I used Superglue to attach aluminium plate to DSI heatsink. Don’t laugh; Superglue is often used in commercial production to attach small heatsinks. Connected Peltier briefly to the battery to find out which side is hot and which cold one. Then I Superglue Peltier to the aluminium plate and Superglue old computer CPU heatsink and fan on hot side of Peltier. I covered rest of the camera heatsink with antistatic foam sheet. And that’s it. I connected this contraption to 10A variable Power Supply and it worked. At 13.8V it draws 3.2A, so battery will not last long. Now I’m waiting for Temperature Control Kit to arrive.
Wanted to try it tonight but it is cloudy. So I’m running it on the bench. Yes there is a big improvement in noise and hot pixels. But it is not getting as cold as I expected. Before cooling the temperature (measured inside nosepiece) was over 6 degrees above ambient. Now after running it for an hour it is 4 degrees bellow ambient.
I think that computer fan is too small and I should have used heatsink compound. Also I will have to unscrew the fan and reverse it as it is now blowing hot air on the camera.
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