Hi,
I am not sure what I should be setting camera colling parameters to. In the Camera tab there is a field for Camera Cooler and a field for Warm up Cool Down. Many time, when ambient temperatures are not too low, it looks like the cooling goes to where specified (-20 in my case), goes past beyond it and then comes back, resting at -20. But then it begins going down even though there is still power in the cooling system, and it is running at 54%, for example.
How can I keep the cooling steady?
Thanks in advance.
Farzad
Hi, Does it stay at -19.8, or does it eventually reach -20? It is normal for temperatures to swing (oscillate) around the setpoint temperature but it should eventually settle down. As you get closer to the setpoint, the power has to be reduced, or it will overshoot the setpoint by a large amount. So the power has to be gradually reduced to a point where the rate of cooling from the Peltier cooler matches the rate of heating from the environment. I think for my Atik 383, its about 47-50% at equilibrium. I don’t know much about SGP code or the driver for your camera, but that’s my understanding of the physics.
Have you tried setting the temperature, say 0.2 degrees higher to see if it settles in at 20?
Cheers.
Ajay
We don’t have control on cooling power setting, and we are so spoiled by SGP that we think if we set the target temperature to a certain temperature then the it should make it happen within the power of the cooling system. It does show how hard the cooling system is working to achieve that target temperature, and my question is: why does it stop cooling to the target temperature even though the cooling system is not working that hard.
Do you know?
No, I don’t know how the SGP internals work. My setpoint works perfectly.
For my Atik, there are two places to enter the camera temperature set point. If you click on the camera settings button (I think that’s the tiny gear icon) it will pop up the Atik (manufacutrer’s) settings panel. This also has a setpoint box. I have -10.0 degrees set here. I also have the same value in the equipment profile in SGP. Does your camera manufacturer have a place for the temp setting and do both your values match?
From what I have seen so far the power setting is not in my direct control for the Atik. I can specify the set point and the time interval. Indirectly that controls the power setting. I suspect that the driver manages the power in a reasonable way given my settings for temp and time.
Ajay
