Can the cooling be handled separately?

I am looking for a way to handle the cooling separately from SGP.
The issue is with having to shut SGP down when it freezes on download (once or twice a night). When shutting SGP down, the cooler shuts off and the camera starts warming up rapidly. By the time I get back into SGP the sensor is sometimes 10 degrees warmer than when I closed SGP. I doubt this is very good for the sensor…

I have the same issue when switching sequences through the night. Closing a sequence shuts the cooling module down.
If there a way (within or outside SGP) to keep the camera temperature steady?

thank you

1 Like

Hi Stephan

If you could explain which camera you are using and post a log file, we may well be able to help diagnose why it is freezing on download. Problematic USB cables and hubs, as well as power cables are a common cause of freezing.

With regard to “switching sequences”: if you are not changing equipment, simply have more than one target in your sequence. When the sequence for target 1 completes, SGP will then begin target 2 without any disconnection from equipment. You can set SGP to slew and centre with plate solving; refocusing, pausing & restarting PHD2 (use ascom pulse guiding), even pause between targets if you need to delay capture of the first frames (eg to with until the target clears an obstruction, attains a specific altitude, approaches its zenith etc).

HTH.

Barry

Thanks for the reply Barry.
I use the 1600MM cooled. I certainly cannot rule out the laptop as the main culprit of the download freezes I experience as it does not have a USB 3 port. I was looking for a stop gap measure until I upgrade laptop.

I know I can have multiple objects in the same sequence but I find it not always feasible to do the imaging that you planned.
For example, last night was beautiful night and I decide to stay up and take a shot at Orion that showed up much later in the night. That is something I had not planned and Orion was in a different sequence saved on the laptop. So I had to switch sequence in the middle of the night which affected the cooler.
My thought was to maybe have some sort of mechanism to override the cooling/warm up that is associated with a sequence or have the possibility to merge sequences on the 'fly" while you are out at a dark site with no internet.

I would only add that there is not general agreement on whether just shutting off the cooler is likely to do any harm. Some say that with the moderate deltas most amateur cameras use, it is not likely that the camera will be damaged.

I generally warm mine but if it has just shut down for some reason, I do not get too excited and have never seen any damage in many years of using many different cameras.

I asked this very question some time back but there were never any replies.

regards

Lawrence Harris

The short answer is “No, cooling can’t be handled by another application or separately as the camera driver will only allow a single connection at a time”

Longer answer:

Switching sequences should minimally prompt you to turn off cooling if the camera disconnects. Also at the sequence end it will run the “End of Sequence” events which may warm up the camera if you have that option set in the Camera Tab of the Control Panel.

When SGP freezes we don’t really have an opportunity to do anything with the camera so the “stopping cooling” must be getting handled by the driver or camera when it disconnects.

If you purposefully disconnect the camera in SGP you should be prompted to leave the cooler on. Unfortunately this is still up to the driver on how to interpret this. I know some drivers will actually turn off the TEC on disconnect.

Thanks,
Jared

Not an answer to your problem but unlike many CCD cameras (the 1600) is not. The rapid warming by “pulling the plug” is not a problem. I was having a similar problem and I emailed SAM (ZWO) and he told me rapid cooling would not harm the camera so there is no need to worry about that aspect of your freezing issue.