Cooled Greyscale Quickcam

Peltier/Fan Cooling Test Results

Testing was done indoors at an ambient temperature of 73.4 degrees Farhanheit. Anti-blooming was disabled. The peltier used in my quickcam is from Marlin P. Jones and operates at 12V DC and 2.5 Amps. A digital thermometer probe was placed on the cold plate just below the CCD chip. The lid of the cooled chamber was held on loosely using a thin foamy insulator. The peltier and fan were turned on and temperature readings were taken every 30 seconds. Readings for every minute in fahranheit are listed below:

Start -  73.4
1 min -  65.1
2 min -  57.0
3 min -  53.4
4 min -  52.3
5 min -  52.2
6 min -  52.2
7 min -  52.3
8 min -  52.5
9 min -  52.5
10 min - 52.7
11 min - 52.7
12 min - 52.7

At this point (12 min) I turned the peltier off and left the fan running and continued taking readings as follows:

13 min - 60.6
14 min - 68.4
15 min - 71.8
16 min - 73.0
17 min - 73.2
18 min - 73.2
19 min - 73.0
20 min - 72.7

Conclusion:

The peltier and fan cooled the CCD chip very quickly. Lowest temperature was reached in three to four minutes. This corresponds with test images of dark frame noise, see below. A temperature reduction of 20 degrees farhanheit was achieved. I was hoping to do better. I will do a test to check the current draw. I will also add insulation to the inside and outside of the cooled chamber (plastic cosmetic case) that houses the CCD/cold plate. After the peltier was turned off, temperature of the CCD chip went back to ambient in four minutes. Here are raw screen dumps using QCV2 of dark current noise with the peltier and fan running at an ambient temperature of 70 degrees fahranheit:

Uncooled

Cooled 2 Minutes

Cooled 12 Minutes

Cooled 1 Hour 37 Minutes

continued.....First light on scope with pics

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