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Hardware

Cooling a Digital Camera? 52

Posted by Cliff from the cryogenic-photogenic dept.
thusson asks: "I work at a lab doing intrinsic signal imaging of cat and mouse visual cortex (brains). We are using a Dalsa 1M60P camera, and we want to cool it about 30-50 degrees C to improve picture quality by reducing noise. Does anyone have any suggestions about how to do this? So far, heat sinks have helped but only by a few degrees. I figure the overclocking community is a good place for novel ideas."
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Cooling a Digital Camera? More

Cooling a Digital Camera?

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  • What should you be cooling? How are you measuring your temp? Answers to these questions will drastically change the answer.

  • Huh? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by vasqzr ( 619165 )
    30-50 degrees Celsius?

    #1 - Is your claim valid

    #2 - Will the camera work at that temperature

    #3 - Try some liquid nitrogen. Or, some spray dusters turned upside down.

    • Re:Huh? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Nef ( 46782 )
      FYI, liquid nitrogen is SIGNIFICANTLY below 30-50C.
      Quick run in the head is somewhere from 86F to 122F. Not sure how hot the body temperature of your average mouse is though.

      This guy [slashdot.org] got it right by asking what exactly they need cooled, and for what ends?
    • 1. Well the claim is valid; any image sensor will generate (and measure) noise that is a function of temperature. The cooler you make it the less noise.

      2. Most cameras are unlikely to be specified to work at such low temperatures. I think that has more to do with battery power than anything else... cool the batteries too much and they can't output electrical energy fast enough to drive the camera.

      3. How often do you take pictures? Do you need the camera cool all of the time. Why not just put it in the
      • The freezer sounds like a bad idea. When you take the camera out of the freezer you're going to get heavy condensation on the lens as well as any place inside the camera that moist air can find its way into. This could be very bad for your camera.
    • #3 - Try some liquid nitrogen. Or, some spray dusters turned upside down.

      Actually they do make stuff specifically for freezing stuff. We use it at work, although I forget what it's called, here's an example [tselectronic.com]. About -45C when you spray really close to the nozzle. It's even anti-static!
    • If you want some real cooling potential, you need to get to the CCD (take the camera apart). You should be able to stick something right on the back of it or at least near it on the opposite side of the PCB.

      You could always try taking the plastic cover of the camera off, then make a box or tube to put the remaining of the camera in. Then you can attach an A/C unit's output too it. If you had something like a dehumidifier or an A/C unit, where the air passed over the coils, you'd be much better off since it

  • Peltier junction? (Score:4, Informative)

    by LWATCDR ( 28044 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @04:46PM (#9741118) Homepage Journal
    A lot of people people use these to cool there optical sensors for telescopes.
  • Piezo electric device, if you run juice one way it heats up. Reverse polarity it cools off.

    Or so I'm told.

    • I don't believe you. Where does the energy go? Does it generate voltage _AND_ cool its surroundings? Sign me up for that!

      There are solid state devices that move heat, though -- a Peltier cooler [wikipedia.org] is one. People have been using these for overclocking their computers and they seem quite useful. I've never used one, though.
    • Doesn't a piezoelectric device cause vibration? Wouldn't that be bad for a stable picture?

    • Re:Piezo - NOT (Score:4, Informative)

      by marcus ( 1916 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @06:45PM (#9742435) Journal
      It is a Peltier device. It's real. It works. One side gets hot, the other cold. It's just a solid state heat pump. Do your own googles, try "thermoelectric" if "peltier" doesn'te net enough, for further info.

  • Learn about thermodynamics first? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 19, 2004 @04:49PM (#9741157)
    we want to cool it about 30-50 degrees C

    So far, heat sinks have helped but only by a few degrees

    What makes you think that heat sinks will lower the temperature by 30-50 C? At best, heat sinks will lower the temperature to that of the surrounding room.

    If you want something cooler, you'll need to use Dry Ice or refridgeration or some external input.
    • No no no, it's a heat sink you see. That means it's like a sort of hole in space-time that you can pour heat into. Be careful, if you put a big enough heat sink on something, you can accidentally make it so cold it can give you frostbite!

      More seriously, I recommend the book "Hot Air Rises and Heat Sinks" by Tony Kordyban as a good intro to thermal issues with electronics - including a real explanation of heatsinks.
    • He didn't think sinks would make it go 30 - 50 deg cooler. He said they helped make it cooler than without heat sinks. Reread the sentence, you misunderstood it.

  • Peltier elements (Score:4, Informative)

    by amelagar ( 132324 ) <svanimpe@@@antwerpen...be> on Monday July 19, 2004 @04:51PM (#9741176) Homepage
    Peltier elements are the way to go here. They're small, accurate and powerful. Anything you want in a scientific environment.
    • Peltier + heatsink will cool the sensor itself down, but won't move the heat very far, and the hot side of the peltier will be putting off about 150% more heat than is being removed from the cold side. If you need to move the heat far from the sensor, try peltier + water cooling, or chilled water.
      • Only the CCD itself needs to be cooled, and only while it is taking pictures. Extensive cooling on the hot side of the peltier shouldn't be needed.

  • We use water cooling (Score:3, Informative)

    by neuroneck ( 591919 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @04:56PM (#9741230)
    I do research in a neurobiology lab and for one of our setups we water cool our camera. I just looked at it now (it is not my setup), it seems to run water from a nearby pipe into a specially made heatsink mounted to the back of the camera and then outagain towards another pipe.

  • Cooling?? (Score:1, Informative)

    by fiori ( 45848 )
    30-50 degrees Celsius is above room temperature (~22 deg C). I highly doubt that your lab has an ambient temperature above 50 deg C. Fahrenheit temperatures don't any sense either, because you would begin to condense water vapor on the camera in the 30-50 deg F ranges as well.

    Would you like to re-write the question so it actually makes sense?

  • Cooling a digital camera (Score:5, Informative)

    by Mendenhall ( 32321 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @05:14PM (#9741399)
    As a number of people have correctly pointed out briefly, Peltier effect devices, also known as thermoelectric coolers (TE coolers) are the most likely way to accomplish this. There are companies (Products for Research, e.g.) that specialize in pre-packaged TE cooling units for various types of equipment. The basic coolers almost all come from Melcor.

    With very careful design and construction, you can use a multi-stage TE cooler to get more than a 50C offset from room temperature. It requires careful attention to insulation, and to heatsinking of the first (hottest) stage.

    Before you go cooling your camera, though, you should check whether it is designed to run cold. Any device, cooled to -30C (or even to 10 degrees below room temperature, in Tennessee humidity) will start to condense water. To run a camera cold, it must be designed to be water-tight, and must almost certainly have a dry-gas-filled double window (or vacuum double window) on the front, with the outer window heated to prevent fogging.

    Overall, unless the camera was specifically designed to be cooled, you may be better off buying one that is appropriately designed, unless you have a lot of time, money, and expertise to put into the engineering. Certainly talk to the manufacturers of the camera you have before you start cooling it, and see if they sell a kit cor conversion.

  • Thermoelectric (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anti_Climax ( 447121 )
    Peltiers are probably your best best. You'll need to mount heat sinks on the hot sides to radiate off the waste heat, but you can get a good 60-70 C temp difference between the hot and cold sides.

    There's a good example here [yahoo.com]

  • seek out the astronomers (Score:4, Interesting)

    by bandy ( 99800 ) <andrew.beals+slashdot@gmail.com> on Monday July 19, 2004 @05:30PM (#9741548) Homepage Journal
    The astronomy folks are way ahead of you. Google and ye shall find.
  • Numerous companys make scientific-grade cooled CCDs for astronomy and microscopy. One of those is probably what you should be using.

  • Your question is not very specific (Score:5, Informative)

    by Cecil ( 37810 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @05:46PM (#9741735) Homepage
    But I will try:

    There are two solutions to this problem. The first, is to cool your sensor like you asked. A peltier cooler in between the sensor and the heatsink is the only way to do this. A heatsink will reduce you to ambient temperature at best. If you want to go below that, you need a peltier cooler at least, or something much more exotic like a compressor-based refrigeration unit, evaporative cooler, or liquid nitrogen cooling.

    Alternately, you could use a CCD with a cooler already built in, such as those from Santa Barbara Instrument Group [sbig.com].

    Finally, you could simply use a sensor that isn't so noisy. All the digital SLR cameras nowadays use CMOS sensor technology, because it's bigger than CCD primarily, but it also has a lot less noise since it isn't crammed into such a small space.

    Another approach often used by astronomers is to take the noisy CCD, do an exposure of a given length, then cover it so no light can reach it, and take another exposure of the same length to create a "dark frame" that contains nothing but noise. The noise in both images will be approximately equal, and can be subtracted out using photoshop or similar software, resulting in a very clean image.

  • Ice (Score:2)

    by keesh ( 202812 )
    Stick it in a biiiiiig block of ice. It's a perfect solution!
  • Unlike most applications in which they are misapplied, Peltier Coolers are ideal for the purposes of cooling CCDs and thermal imaging devices. To achieve a 30-50 degree C cooling you may have to use a 2 or 3 stage configuration. In multistage configurations you employ more coolers for each stage to compensate for the waste heat generated by the previous stage. Thus in a two stage design one junction is employed in the first stage and thermally coupled (use plenty of thermal goo) to four junctions in the sec

  • Freezer? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by raider_red ( 156642 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @06:21PM (#9742162) Journal
    Why not just throw it in the freezer for a few hours before the experiment. As long as the experiment isn't too long, you should be able to take it out, use it, and return it to the freezer for the next round.

    • I'm no expert on cooling, but I've gotten the impression in the past that one of the large problems with freezers is that when something is taken out of them, water tends to condense on them. They would have to make sure the freezer temperature didn't drop below the dew point [wikipedia.org], I suppose, to be safe.

    • As long as the experiment isn't too long, you should be able to take it out, use it, and return it to the freezer for the next round

      Then the problem becomes controlling condensation and humidity in the lab as you move it from the freezer to the experiment...

    • Good for the CCD, bad for the accu battery and the LCD. I don't know any accu or primary cell that likes to be frozen. Lead acid batteries can handle it (see any car), but it shortens their live. (And no, I don't now a digital camera with a lead acid battery.) IIRC, alkaline, NiCD and NiMH should not be cooled below 0C. The same applies for LCDs.

      Like others already posted, google for amateur astronomers, they know how to cool CCDs.

      Tux2000

  • More specifically, I'd consider installing a ductless split air conditioning system. Mitsubishi [mitsubishielectric.com] makes many different types of them. As the name would imply, they don't need ducts and can simply hang on the wall or from the ceiling.

    If the ceiling is too high, you could install a duct in front of it to force the air downwards. Only downfall is that this is an actual air conditioning system, which means you will need to have the condenser fan installed outside, as well as the reefer lines to said condenser
  • Many people have mentioned that you can use peltiers to cool the sensor below room temperture, This is probably the most cost effective way to do it, but since this is /., there's another really cool way to do spot cooling. If your lab has a clean source of compressed air, check out exair.com. These things are called vortex tubes, and can create incredible temperature deltas, that are ideal for spot cooling, provided that you can supply the amount of air it requires. I've been told that it's actually rel
  • Chop the cooling system out of a cheap old dorm fridge, install the cold part in an biggish old tupperware tub (that has room for the camera too), cut a hole in the tub's side & install a little 2-layer window of optical quality glass for the camera to see out through, and either dry & seal the space 'tween the panes or rig a couple tubes to blow heated air through there (preventing condensation either way). Then cut holes in the tupperware top, run your camera controls through the holes, and insul

  • Astronomy Cameras (Score:2, Informative)

    by RungeKutta ( 793692 )
    My father is an amature astronomer and bought a CCD camera kit this Richard Berry guy put together. The CCD chip is mounted on an aluminum block that fits inside an aluminum "eyepiece". There is a peltier device mounted (cold side) to the bottom of that. Then the hot side of the peltier has another aluminum block mounted to it where water flows through.

    Just go lookup "Richard Berry CCD camera kit" in google and you could probably find something.
  • I'll ask a second time, and I suppose I'll get modded down again, as apparently, Slashdot just doesn't want to know.

    WHY DO YOU NEED TO COOL THE CAMERA?

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