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Aftermarket enhanced cooling for ZWO??

Equipment Cooling
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Bill McLaughlin avatar
Bill McLaughlin avatar
Given how global warming has been wreaking havoc on our temps, I have to wonder if anyone has an aftermarket enhanced cooling kit or conversion service available for ZWO cameras.

Note I am not talking about for uncooled ZWO cameras and not talking about alternative manufacturers (I know about those). 

I am talking about better cooling for cooled ZWO cameras…..
Matthew Proulx avatar
Matthew Proulx avatar
2° F since 1850 probably isn't going to affect your camera cooling anytime soon.
Well Written
Bill McLaughlin avatar
Bill McLaughlin avatar
Matthew Proulx:
2° F since 1850 probably isn't going to affect your camera cooling anytime soon.


True if it was always only the average global temp increase at a given place and date.

But that is not the case , it also makes for  more large extremes.

Example: The California site I am at had temps in the low 100s this week....
Matthew Proulx avatar
Matthew Proulx avatar
Bill McLaughlin:
Matthew Proulx:
2° F since 1850 probably isn't going to affect your camera cooling anytime soon.


True if it was always only the average global temp increase at a given place and date.

But that is not the case , it also makes for  more large extremes.

Example: The California site I am at had temps in the low 100s this week....



I did have a good stretch of 35c (95f) this summer. I will say that my Mallincam IMX571 has much faster cooling and lower delta than the ZWO though I only cool 10-15c below ambient. I dont think there's much benefit going sub zero unless your temperature is sub zero and it uses more power. That alone is contributing to climate change if we're gonna be honest.
Bill McLaughlin avatar
Bill McLaughlin avatar
Matthew Proulx:
That alone is contributing to climate change if we're gonna be honest.


To be honest, it is not exactly a major source of CO2.....

And..... to be honest, I was not asking for an opinion whether extra cooling was needed or whether others thought is was a good idea. I wanted to know if anything like that was available - that is all.
andrea tasselli avatar
andrea tasselli avatar
Bill McLaughlin:
And..... to be honest, I was not asking for an opinion whether extra cooling was needed or whether others thought is was a good idea. I wanted to know if anything like that was available - that is all.


AFAIK, the answer is no, e.g. no commercial products to replace air-cooling with liquid cooling as for some CCD cameras of the olden days.
Bill McLaughlin avatar
Bill McLaughlin avatar
andrea tasselli:
AFAIK, the answer is no, e.g. no commercial products to replace air-cooling with liquid cooling as for some CCD cameras of the olden days.


I have also not been able to find such a product (at least commercially) but it could be obscure enough to be hard to locate.

Of course it would not have to be water cooling, that is only one route. There is at least one camera using the same chip that has much better cooling available. That is the Moravian.  I have one on the other scope at the site and it is much, much more effective at cooling under the same conditions.  It is simply a better TEC system with no liquid involved.

Liquid is pretty cumbersome in any case, I did that with one of my SBIG cameras years ago and it involved an aquarium chiller, a heat transfer radiator, RV coolant and a lot of tubing. Worked great but not exactly user friendly and definitely not portable.

 I suspect that someone has hacked something  for this and, if so, it would be interesting to know what they came up with. There was another thread here recently from someone in Fla asking about temps so it is clearly something people want (leaving aside how important or unimportant the issue is).

I have found that even a floor fan pointed at the camera can help some - I have that available and it likely just speeds the cooling of the camera body from daytime ambient to nighttime ambient.

Cooling tech and hacking is not something that is all that rare - pretty common in the PC overclocking community, although with different hardware and methods...

If I were going to build something I would tend to think along the lines of a device that attached to the back of the camera and provided slightly pre-cooled air to the existing system. The advantage would be not having to modify the ZWO itself at all.
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andrea tasselli avatar
andrea tasselli avatar
Bill McLaughlin:
I have also not been able to find such a product (at least commercially) but it could be obscure enough to be hard to locate.

Of course it would not have to be water cooling, that is only one route. There is at least one camera using the same chip that has much better cooling available. That is the Moravian.  I have one on the other scope at the site and it is much, much more effective at cooling under the same conditions.  It is simply a better TEC system with no liquid involved.

Liquid is pretty cumbersome in any case, I did that with one of my SBIG cameras years ago and it involved an aquarium chiller, a heat transfer radiator, RV coolant and a lot of tubing. Worked great but not exactly user friendly and definitely not portable.

 I suspect that someone has hacked something  for this and, if so, it would be interesting to know what they came up with. There was another thread here recently from someone in Fla asking about temps so it is clearly something people want (leaving aside how important or unimportant the issue is).

I have found that even a floor fan pointed at the camera can help some - I have that available and it likely just speeds the cooling of the camera body from daytime ambient to nighttime ambient.

Cooling tech and hacking is not something that is all that rare - pretty common in the PC overclocking community, although with different hardware and methods...

If I were going to build something I would tend to think along the lines of a device that attached to the back of the camera and provided slightly pre-cooled air to the existing system. The advantage would be not having to modify the ZWO itself at all.


*My own way of thinking about this issue is that ZWO's cameras are pretty basic (and this being kind) about sealing against external atmosphere so cooling beyond a certain point (e.g. < 0 degC at certain threshold of relative humidity) is counterproductive as dew starts to form on the sensor and the session is gone. So unless the hacking involves a fail-proof method of sealing (and better still purge) the inner chamber I can see little point in extra-cooling. Which, incidentally, can be done by borrowing from various technique adopted to cool off a standard DSLR, that is an having/making a jacket over the body of the camera and feed pre-cooled air into the radiator within using a Peltier unit (with its own fan-driven cooling radiator pointing away from the camera). 


That is, if you really are worried about the amount of thermal noise because the dark current build up with modern CMOS is rather negligible even at above 0 degC (32 F) temperatures.
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