Cooled Cameras can HURT our images?! 😱 HOW?? EASY fixes!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 เม.ย. 2023
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Note that I am not singling out ZWO - they just happen to be the most popular camera brand out there, I'm sure others have the exact same issue, and I have yet to truly put my Risingcam/Touptek to the test!
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This is exactly what happened to me with my 2600MM Pro. It took me a long time to figure out it was the fan vibration. It only happened after I had to replace the original fan. I used the silicon anti vibration mounts as well but I had to make sure the fan was sufficiently away from any part of the main body of the camera.
I'm so happy you could get it fixed! This 2600MC/MM cameras are excellent, and it's a good thing that at least the fix is cheap and easy - but without knowing, finding the root cause is far from obvious!
@@CuivTheLazyGeek unfortunately I messed up my collimation in the process because I thought that was the issue. Eventually I fixed the collimation too. Another interesting note is that it didn’t seem to have the issue the closer to Zenith I got. That should have been a red flag that it probably wasn’t collimation, but something else. It was a VERY annoying issue.
100% CORRECT! I have always wonder about this because the fan is causing a force and or vibration due to the fan rotating blades. As well there are 2 kinds of fans a brush or brushless designs as well.
As well as maglev fans which are designed for minimum vibration.
I noticed the same while doing planetary with the ASI294mc-pro. At FL of ca. 4000mm all details on the planet surface were getting washed due to camera vibration. As for planetary there is not a big need to have the cooler on, I ,since then, always close the cooler. After your great video I will check whether also in Deep sky Astrophotography with the same camera i have the problems you described. I will be testing at FL = 1450 mm. Thanks for all your great content!
Answer to the last question is: Yes, stars look better without the cooler on ( ASI2600MM ). I contacted ZWO for this reason 2 years ago, camera was under warranty, and they just suggested to play with the screws to release or tie the fan. But nothing of that worked. Then I bought a new fan from them and it seemed to reduce the vibration just a little. But then I had the oil leak problem and had to return the camera for an exchange. The problem remains with the new camera. I think they don't want to accept they have a problem, because they are building products for the most simple setups ( just like with the ASIAir ) but not for advanced users. It's a shame because ultimately people will abandon their products early or late if they don't change their approach and correct these kind of issues.
That's a bummer to hear... This is such a rabbit hole of a hobby. Maybe those anti vibration feet will help
You always knock it out of the park mate! Excellent presentation and explanation :-) Really interesting to see inside the Touptek by the way, that looks to be a very well designed camera!
Hi Lukomatico! Can you please describe, if you have ever faced similar issues with your Poseidon pro camera? It looks like the fan is also attached on the case.. Are you feeling any vibrations on max. fan speed?
Thanks Luke! Seems that some have seen issues of vibrations with the Touptek design (at least gen1 in the comments)... So the fan lottery can be strong...
Luke - whatabout the PlayerOne cams? Maybe you can do the same test on their cameras?
@@Groeko No issues whatsoever here luckily!
@@SydneyDunk I could but there wouldn't be much to show haha! either by luck or design my P1 cams are vibration free :-D
this is real, it is addressable however! I image at native on edge hd 8 with, C-OAG, 174mm mini and Risingcam 571 Gen 1, I had eggs, what i did was replace fan with noctua fan and used the supplied resistor in noctua kit to bring the RPM down further. I used velcro, to seat the fan instead of the springs. it works! I am glad risingcam addressed this, as it is technically more difficult to modify compared to ZWO housing. IF you have ZWO housing silicone fan standoffs can work in addition to buying a " premium fan" ALL IS NOT LOST!
Wow what a silly oversight on camera design to have a problem like that! And yet I never even considered it as a possibility for my own funky star problems I've been trying to ignore 😂 Thanks for making a video on it!
I have a 2600MM Pro and took the rear cover off after watching your video to see how the fan was mounted. ZWO used metal fasteners with a washer/o-ring sandwich on each one between the fan guard and the fan. Problem is, the whole thing is basically hard-mounted after how tight they've cranked down the fasteners, o-rings or not.
With it apart I also figured I'd try tinkering with the fan voltage to see if it even needed to run at full rpm(more vibration) to keep the sensor at my usual -10c. Turns out it doesn't, at least in my testing last night. In the original configuration with the fan running on 12v(5300rpm), room temp of 23c~, I was able to maintain -10c at 82% cooler power for around an hour straight.
Then I added a step-down regulator and gradually turned it all the way down to just 5 volts(2400rpm) before I noticed the temp curve drifting over 20min~, where the camera started trying to compensate by giving more power to the TEC. I bumped it back up to 7v(3350rpm) to give myself some extra headroom and ran it overnight where it settled at the same 82% cooler power without issues, so I'll test it there for a few nights and see what happens. Worst case, I'll increase voltage as needed, but I haven't seen more than 70-80% cooler power during most summer nights in the past, so if it holds -10c at 7v then I'll leave it there 😆
I also swapped the fasteners for some EPDM o-ring cord pulled through the mounting holes, and added silicone spacers between the fan guard/fan body similar to the noctua silicone plugs. If I was to upgrade the fan later on, it's also worthy to note that the original fan is only 10mm thick, uses 20mm fasteners, and extends about ~16mm deep using the stock mounting hardware(just the fan depth, not including total hardware length). With the fan removed, I measured 30mm between the inside of the cover down to the heatsink fins, so I might look for thicker ~20mm fans as potential upgrades to make use of that extra space inside.
That increased thickness you mention could allow more "CFM" at considerably lower RPM as well.
I also replaced the fan of my Omegon 571C (same as your Risingcam/Touptek) with a Noctua fan. Silent, no vibration.
Great video, thank you for making more people aware of this issue! I also used to worry about shutter slap in the old (CCD) days, particularly for short exposure times. So glad I don't have to deal with mechanical shutters any more, the ones we had in our cameras were very unreliable.
The other problem I had (also in the CCD days) with fans was pickup (noise) from the fan motor drive signals visible on bias and even science frames with low background such as short exposure or narrowband. We used to get this with Apogee cameras when the fans failed, they had 3 fans and when 1 or 2 of the fans failed with a locked up rotor (which happened frequently) the drive signals from the failed fans produced visible pickup in the bias. Working fans seemed to produce a lot less pickup, but I expect there still was some. I even sometimes used the presence of this pickup in the bias frames as a means to discover that a fan had failed remotely.
CMOS should be a lot less prone to this given that the analogue signals are confined to the chip itself, so it probably won't show up there based on what I've got away with on my uncooled CMOS camera in terms of running it next to electrical noise sources, but I don't have a cooled CMOS camera so not able to test for it there.
Oh wow .. noise pickup from the fan motor drive! Why are we doing this accursed hobby?? 😂
OMG!!! I can't believe it! I have to check this out. I have been having non-round stars for years now and could figure out why I've been having so much trouble! I thought it was focus, collimation, tilt, bad focuser, bad optics, OTA, just getting more and more annoyed. I hope you have just saved my sanity! I will try no cooling next time out for sure - although my fl is only 560mm. The thing is I always doubted the fan design in the first place - I'm an engineer. When I was considering buying a cooled camera, I thought they wouldn't have a fan for this very reason (vibration). Seeing that they all had fans, I figured they must know what they are doing, and no-one ever complained as far as I knew. My hopes are high now but I'm also once again disappointed with products that don't actually work! I will reply to this again with my tests. Wish me luck :)
Luck!
Timely! April 27-28 I turned my EdgeHD + reducer for a second night of shooting on a target. As the images came in I could see spikes on some of the brighter stars but guiding was excellent and seeing better than the first night's imaging where I did not have these spikes. Remembering the CN discussion of issues with the Celestron dew heater ring I tried disabling the heater but to no effect. Now this video and I am remembering that I had turned the fan up (warmer night than the first) on my RisingCAM IMX571 OSC. Moon is getting more obnoxious so perhaps I'll experiment (should we ever, ever get another clear night here in the Northeast).
Interesting and useful video! When I saw the title, I suspected power issues. Many people underestimate power requirements. I was a bit surprised that some of the fan implementations aren't vibration friendly, but it makes perfect sense. Good catch!
And apparently from the comments not just fan implementation but really a big fan lottery in and of itself!
Thank you so much for making this video! I have been struggling with my C9.25 reduced .63x. I have been struggling with backspacing, but now I see the EXACT same results as you have documented. Can't wait to get home and check for camera vibration.
Let us know how it went!
I love your enthusiasm and presentation style and of course your very helpful content!!
As always, thank you for posting useful information. Ordering the feet for both ZWO cameras. Thank you Cuiv.
I've installed the Noctua NA-SAV4 anti-vibration mounts on all of my ZWO cams for exactly this reason and have had good results with it. The SAV4 install looks cleaner, it doesn't have the big prong sticking out of the back, it has a flat head. I pull the SAV4 through the grille (the SAV4 has a little ring under the head that keeps the grill separated from the metal case), then through the back plate and fan as shown in the image at 11:15. I trimmed off the excess length on the inside as well.
Thanks for the tip!
OMG thank you Cuiv!! You solved my issue with my C-14 at prime focus! I'll buy you a beer next time I'm in Japan!
Woohoo, excellent to hear!!
Many years ago, there was a camera maker (Yankee Robotics?) that really went after cooling solutions, including both Electric and Liquid cooling as standard. Their driver also permitted control over the fan speed as well as the target temp. You could also prioritize the fan speed over the cooler power output. They were ahead of their time ;-)
Your timing couldn't have been better. I had been noticing elongated stars for the past few months. I had tried re-balancing the scope, collimation (several times), re-focusing often over the night, assuming wind, started shooting targets in different areas of the sky to see if any of this could help, I was starting to think I needed a new scope. After watching this video, it hit me - I replaced the fan on my ZWO ASI1600mm earlier this year, the washers were fragile and had broken so I didn't put them back on. Luckily my hubby had some the right size so I put them on and last night - no elongation. You're a star!! thank you
May I ask which fan you choose? Seems that there are also issues with different brands.
LOL! Cuiv, I think us crazy Astro-nuts happily endure the suffering because we love the thrill of the chase!? Chasing those perfect nebula subs or getting "just a little more total integration on a favourite target" etc!? LOL! I know from my own personal experiences, even during THE WORST nights, I seem to keep letting myself suffer because I am desperate to get that damn data!? Always chasing more data! LOL! Joking aside, thank you again for another highly educational, highly enjoyable vid Cuiv! I love your content! And I'm very grateful for all the effort and hard work you put into your content! I am planning to join your Patreon, I haven't ever done that before, so I'll have to read up on how to do it. I will be happy to pay for it, I love your content Cuiv! Clear Skies!
Wes, Liverpool UK.
Thanks so much Wesley, I do think you are absolutely correct :D
interesting point. I noticed this on my asi1600mm. Couldn't figure it our for a long time, until I finally pulled the back off the camera. I found bug guts stuck to the fan blades which created and unbalance. Once I cleaned the fan off, the problem went away. So, I'm now very vigilant about cleaning the fan blades. Great topic
Fan cleaning :-) at least easier than cleaning optics!
Great video! Literally just had to replace my fan in my 294mm in the middle of the night. Had a normal imaging run last night, but when I started tonight I had really bad star trailing. I had already remounted this particular fan on the elastomers two years ago when I fixed its brother the 294mc. Took it apart and didn't see anything wrong with it, but was certainly out of balance based on images where I had the cooler on / off. Luckily I had an extra fan laying around so was able to salvage a rare clear evening.
The problem is as old as our hobby, although at the dawn of specialized astro cameras there were no problems with vibrations from the fan, but these cameras cost as much as my two kidneys. On my RisingCam camera, right before the first light, I changed the native fan to the Noctua fan, the flight is normal. And when modifying my Canon 550 D to a cooled one, I went through 7 pieces of fans until I found a copy with practically no vibration. This is not an easy or cheap task.
7 fans on your cooling mod before finding a good one?!?! Damn, that's quite bad odds....
@@CuivTheLazyGeek Only 7 fans - what little things in life)) But the chances are great if you set the parameters in the design of the bearings, only of the floating type, or as they are called hydro bearings.
Hello justvolkov
I s I saw your video tutorial on on modifying the fan the fan for the astro camera I am very interested if you can share future video is the future video in English😊
@@sdoseri Unfortunately, I understand 80 percent of English, but I need to speak English, which I have not had over the past 30 years. However, subtitles and translation work on TH-cam
@@JVRost 😃
Thanks for your response
Wow what a nuance! I would never expect that, although I've never tried shooting at anything longer than 1040mm EFL. Of course the first thing I did after watching this was to grab my camera and see if I can feel any vibrations as you did. Happy to report that at least with my hands as the seismic sensor QHY268m felt absolutely still 😀 Thank you for this exciting story!
Seems all the QHY users are escaping unscathed!
Very interesting video! Always something to learn... fortunately! Keep up the good and unbiased work.
I’ve commented on that thread. In my experience the stock Sunon fans ZWO uses aren’t well suited for cooled cameras. Replaced with alternate brands and was able to fix it.
Thank you, very timely. Opportunities in Washington have been scarce to say the least. I was out last night, partial moon and seeing sucked but I've been working with my Celestron 8SE OTA and SVBONY 70ED guide scope ( they are set up to point at the same target ) for galaxy season. I had collimated the OTA and pointed at Arcturus to get focus. What did I get was an oblong star. I rechecked collimation which was spot on. Two weeks ago I had a session between clouds on M101 and every sub had stretched stars, I thought it might have been guiding, guess not. The camera is the ASI183MC Pro and I had the cooling on at -10C. I think I'll be visiting Amazon, today. :)
Of course there can be many other issues (with a separate guidescope, flexure would be a worry!), but hopefully this can help!
Wow! I never thought of that. Thank you for pointing this out I use a C14Edge+ZWO ASI2600MC pro and at 4000mm fl I had oblong stars. I had no issues with the Hyperstar. I tried removing my guidescope and using an off-axis guider with same result, oblong stars. This happend with good seeing and near perfect guiding. I was using a CGE Pro mount. I tried my Skywatcher EQ8RH-Pro with crazy accurate encoders and still same result. Well I just ordered a set of these anti-vibration pads. This makes a lot of sense as it wasn't happening with my ZWO 224 (non-cooled camera). I just hadn't clued into it. I'm most certain this is the issue. Thank you.
Thanks for the video. I love watching your videos because you always look at things very analytically and show great attention to details. You think like me! One aspect you didn’t mention and that I don’t see mentioned in the comments after a quick scan is that if you are using a ZWO camera, there is a good chance you are using an ASIAir as well. Guess what. These have fans in them too and are often attached to the telescope or mount. So that’s another thing to consider. Another is the power source. If you use a portable power box like I do, it also has a fan in it. Even if it’s sitting on the ground under the mount it can cause vibrations.
Some solutions I’ve seen suggested by others are having a separate tripod with the ASIAir attached. I personally haven’t tried this because I can’t imagine the cable management difficulties being worth it. I noticed a little improvement when I put a thin piece of rubber between the ASIAir and the mount. The power box vibrations, which I first discovered while going through a focusing routine and noticing the guiding get jolted when the fan kicks in, can be cured quite easily. I folded up a soft blanket and put the power box on top of it. Strangely enough, now I notice that when the fan kicks in I actually get better guiding! I believe it’s some sort of frequency resonance where vibrations sort of cancel each other out. And one last thing is to purposely balance the setup East heavy. As you know, this is good practice anyway for smoother worm gear movements but it has the side effect of absorbing vibrations through tension. A perfectly balanced setup will be more susceptible to vibrations because it can move either direction quite easily while the East heavy balance won’t allow for small vibrations to have enough force to cause these little vibratory movements.
Hope that helps both you and anyone else reading this!
I didn’t know cooled cams had problems ( I uncooled right now) first I’ve heard. What an interesting video. I’ll stick to uncooled. I have the asi585mc is it’s a great middle ground.
Only with some scopes and some cameras! It's an interesting type of corner case!
Hi, great video thanks! I had this issue with an Altair 294C Pro Tec which has the old fan connection setup you show for the RisingCam. This was the issue I posted as ArEnJee on Cloudy nights. I also had the same issue on the EdgeHD8 with the Altair 26C Tec, which again is the same (old) design. I've been trying to work around the problem for some time (using lower voltages so therefore fan speeds sometimes helped). 'Fortunately' the fan burnt out on the 26C and I had an excuse to replace it with a low vibration alternative (Noctua NF-A4x10 FLX, Premium Quiet Fan, 3-Pin (40x10mm, Brown). That worked. It's relatively straightforward to do as a straight swap, still using the springs - you just need to recycle the original 3 pin connector, shorten and join the wires together (I used telecomm dots)
Very informative. I couldn't test, I don't have enough focal length.
I love your videos and the flow.
Hello from France
Merci!
Really interesting video. I have a dual side by side setup consisting of a Mead10" and a Skywatcher 120 on a CEM120 mount. Both scopes are using ASI2600mmPros. The stars with the Skywatcher are pinpoint but the stars on the Meade are slightly elongated and I've been wondering why as I use an OAG with both scopes and the guiding with the Meade will often be between 0.4 and 0.6. So next imaging session I will definitely be testing out this theory to see what happens. Thanks for posting this.
Excellent video and thanks for pointing that out. Glad I have the RisingCam
Although apparently the Gen1 at least had vibration issues according to the comments!!
I have noticed the ZWO fan isn't quite centered in the housing either, I have aquired a new camera from Player One Astronomy called the Artemis-C Pro and have noticed the fan is dead center, and when powered on with fan running I cannot feel a thing. The fan being slightly off center would also cause slight osclation
As soon as you said oblong stars at high focal length I immediately thought "fan vibration!".
Yep...
Thanks Quiv, again a great video. I want add that i had issues on my stars on the edge hd 8. It was caused by the dew heater ring of celestron running on full power. I was able to solve it to get the controller so the power is regulated. Next thing I will work on is this vibration issue on my asi2600mm. Long focal length is a pain 😪
Cuiv -- You pronounced my last name perfectly fine; thanks for the shout-out. I still think that observing satellite trails is the easiest way to see if the problem is fixed or not. I point at M101 or M51, which always seems to have trails going through them early in the evening. The vibrations problem will produce a satellite trail with regular and obvious wiggles. I have ordered and installed the silicone studs to the fan of my 2400, but haven't had a chance to check it out yet on my Edge11. Will report back when I do.
Hopefully this will fix the issue, let us know, and thanks for making me aware of the issue!
I have dealt with this same issue on my ASI2600MM Pro on my C8. It was a dead giveaway for me when looking at a satellite tail on a single exposure and instead of a straight line it was basically a sine wave. I was also able to see the difference in exposures as short as 2-5 seconds with the fan on vs off. With an OAG on my c8 I could even see the vibrations in my guiding camera. I tried several different fixes including changing the fan, using vibration mounts, adding mass to the camera and even mounting the fan with springs. Adding mass to the camera produced the best results but was not easy to manage. In the end I used the anti-vibration silicone mounts with a different fan and it eliminated 80-90 percent of the issue.
I think a possible fix that I have yet to try would be to slow down the fan speed and let the cooler run at higher power instead of the other way around.
Oh wow Don you really have been trying things out. Glad you seem to have gotten to the bottom of it. Would you be soldering some resistors between PCB and fan to lower its speed?
@@CuivTheLazyGeek that was one idea. I did also purchase some small adjustable voltage regulators with the hope I can make it fit inside the camera and just step down the fan voltage without affecting the cooler voltage.
@@CuivTheLazyGeek cuiv, the noctua fan kit comes with resistors that go in-line on the power cables for dropping RPM
There was a CN thread (April 2021) on the issue - fan vibration. Fractal Designs' "Silent Series" fan along with the silicone stand off mounts looked like a winner.
Late last summer, my ASI294MC Pro fan was noisy and vibrating badly. I thought bearing failure? No, I took it apart and removed the moth parts, then it ran like a champ!
Thank again Cuiv for helping us solve a problem. I have been going crazy with oblong stars with my 2600MC ( but but the MM )at 1960 mm on a great mount! Will do the cooled v no cooled test soon!! Thank you!
Andrea, I’ve just checked out subs on my 2 x 2600MC’s and 2 x 2600MM’s and found exactly the same. The issue is clearer on the (earlier purchased) MC’s and hardly noticeable at all on the MM’s. All using subs at same FL of ~1464mm
Absolutely!!! I have noticed this too, recently. Satellite trails have a strange "wiggle" on them, very easy to spot, the amplitude of which is in exactly the same direction of "sausage shaped" stars at high focal lengths only (C11). It has been suggested on CN that this wiggle is a fault with the worm gear errors of my mount, but this made no sense to me. The mount exhibits no vibration. It is clearly a vibration within the 2600MC Pro itself - I came to the conclusion that this was absolutely to do with the camera fan.
Hope you can fix it!
I have the ASI2600mm Pro, but fortunately my highest FL is 550mm. I'm saving $$ for a Celestron Edge HD and this will be an issue. Of course, if ZWO would only balance their fans like an automobile wheel this would not be an issue :) but then, we're talking about cheap plastic in our expensive astro gear. Glad you brought this to our attention your Laziness, TY
Thanks for the video. It really reminds me that I should do the work to replace the fans of my cameras. Last year a group of friends who share this hobby purchased a bunch of fans when we heard about this possible issue. The fans we bought to replace the originals are maglev fans so the fan blades and hub are not in contact of anything when spinning. I haven't tried it so cannot speak for the result, but it's something to consider if you are using ZWO cameras.
Hi ysl109812, What make of camera and what make of fan are you going to use. I have a ZWO ASI294 colour pro camera and I regularly image at 2000mm FL on my Meade LX200 Classic SCT. I have several other issues that I am currently ironing out but my CEM60 mount is guiding well through an OAG. So now I've seen this video I want to get ready to make this upgrade to a maglev fan using the anti-vibration mounts shown by Guiv.
Many thanks to Guiv for highlighting this problem.
@@ianhargraves5871 I have ZWO asi294 and 2600 cameras (mc/mm). For the fans, try google "sunon maglev 12v fan". The model for ASI294 cameras is: SUNON KDE1204PFV1. But please verify the specs before making a purchase. I haven't put mine in so isn't 100% sure.
Try setting up the telescope just slightly off balance to offset resonant frequencies from building up.
Thanks 🙏 finally I might get round stars. Will test with cooler off next clear night. Got the silicone fasteners on order to do further testing with cooler on.
I had a QHY268C and currently have a QHY268M camera. Both cameras don't seem to have this problem.
You've got me curious now and I'll watch it closely with my cameras.
Had experienced the same issue with my 1000mm newt. Thought it was kind of focus or something. But this makes sense to me and I will probably test this weekend.
Hopefully you'll get to the bottom of it!
I have always been suspect of a cooling fan causing interference with the images. Now that I have some worthy equipment I will be trying this with/without to see how good my setup is. Thanks Cuiv! I've learned a LOT from your videos. (ZWO ASI1600MM Pro)
Happy to help!
Another great video Cuiv. When you say high focal lengths at what focal length do you think the effects become an issue.
Just downloaded a vibration meter app for my android phone - extremely sensitive and tested against devices like air purifiers and other stuff with fans - THEN against my QHY cameras and the fans register 0 or 0.1 intermittently vs a vibration of 2.3 when my focuser powers up...this think picks up the lightest of taps by fingernail on the mount so I would say it can be used to see how much real vibration you have. (fyi blowing at the phone like blowing out a candle produced 0.7 ...typing this message produced 1.9->0.8 through the desk) - the app I downloaded was called Vibrometer from Smart Tools...give it a shot, would love to see what your ASI is actually registering
Vibrometer! Got it - so you put your phone on top of the camera?
Thanks for the heads up on this issue Cuiv. I'm considering purchasing a cooled camera. Hopefully zwo is aware of this and have a fix in the works. I'm sure opening a brand new camera to modify it would void the warranty.
Seems a lot of it is down to fan lottery...
Excellent video and information update . Thanks !
I actually had this issue with the first patch of ASI2600MM, fan vibration was causing elongated stars at 1645mm, contacted ZWO to send me a new fan and instead they wanted to change something in the firmware through remote session which it didn't help and got me very frustrated with the quality of their service, later I contacted OPT and explained the problem that I don't have to go through all this as this is a brand new camera, so they agreed to send me another one which it didn't have this issue. But thanks to your video, it does make sense why my stars have a bad shape sometimes, I will do the test of switching the fan off and check my stars.
Good luck! And glad you could get a replacement via OPT!
Great video. Makes you wonder. Ive been having oblong star problems but as you are well aware, could be 100 different things. Wouldve never thought of the fan. Come to think of it, ive been using my fan at 100% lately since we had some warmer nights lately. Next time ill def try. Would be nice if we can test indoors with some daystar under super controlled conditions.
Yep, I'm looking into checking with a smartphone accelerometer, but right now it seems the best way is wiggly satellite trails!
Thank you for addressing this topic!
For me, it brings up a component of something that I've been considering.
I'm hoping you might address it.
In one of the last videos that I've watched of yours you talked about the priority of purchasing a cooled camera over an uncooled camera even if you have to sacrifice resolution, due to noise.
I've been considering purchasing a lower resolution ZWO camera that's uncooled, but not because of noise but due to personal finances (I'm considering the ASI585MC).
I want to use the 2inch broadband and a Duo Narrowband filter with my Rokinon 135 f/2 and also several Nikon Lenses. To do so I'm considering trying to add 5 volt Peltier module (with a small heat sink, fan and thermal switch) to the ASI camera back plate to cool the camera.
However I'm also worried about vibrations and controlling condensation as well as controlling the temperature.
Your video today helped me with the vibration problem, so one down, two to go.
So any thoughts, ideas, video would be appreciated!
Thanks.
Condensation is another difficult problem... To be honest I don't have good solutions to that. Why do we do this silly hobby? :)
Osore! Osore! Thank you so much for this video. I am experiencing the same problem when I image with my 1300mm focal length Dobsonian. Whereas, not when using my 400mm Refractor. You may have just solved my puzzle. Honto Ni Kansha Shite Imas!
Hopefully that's the cause!
Very interesting video Cuiv - and who knows, perhaps this was a reason for my eggy stars on my CPC-800, besides the backfocus and tilt issues and the bad guiding..... ;-) But that aside, your video is really the perfect illustration of the quality of ZWO equipment and should be mandatory for anyone who wants to buy an ASIAir.....
Very interesting! Thank you for this info!!
I would hazard a guess that it could be a QC issue? Many people do long exposures with long focal lengths without issue. Thanks for putting this out, it's certainly something to think about and keep in mind. I use a ASI533MC with an EdgeHD8 at 14830mm FL and can do 10 minutes subs without issue when seeing and conditions are good and I always use cooling.
Very likely some fan lottery going on. My guess is that it isn't even an QC issue, I'd be surprised if they even had a step that checked vibrations from the fan. It seems to be related to camera and to the gear that it's attached to!
Wow, almost 15 metres focal length, that is almost 35 times more than my 70mm refractor at 420mm!!
typo, it's meant to read 1480mm @@Bills_APCh
I seem to remember there were some threads on the Cloudy Nights forum concerning fan induced vibrations before cooled cameras became popular. The circulating air cooled the fan.
Seems it's an old issue, but somehow I had never thought of/seen it before!
I’m running a RC with fl 2800mm, QHY268MM, and OAG/ASI174: no vibration issues. But terrible tracking issues because either no trackable stars or sooo mushy stars that PHD2 was having problems locking to part of the star. So I attached a 1300mm Maksutov and now my tracking is the best it’s ever been. Last two sessions sub-pixel tracking typically 0.5 or less. I’m ecstatic!
Everyone seems to be saying QHY is vibration free, excellent!
This is one of these situations where being heavy isn’t such a bad thing. The more mass the less vibration can propagate, or at least that’s what would seem to be the case in my head. iOptron mounts are neat and all with there low weight to payload capacity but I’d imagine problems like this would be worse in those cases, the EQ6-r being heavy could be seen as an advantage.
Hey Cuiv, once more you have unlocked Pandora’s Box for us! This is fan-tasic (sorry for the pun!) information. As you rightly point out, the very progressive folks at ZWO are most likely to be grateful for this exchange and will do something about their camera design to prevent the problem in the future. We all owe you!
Slightly off-topic, when you reported back your comments about ASIAir Plus, how did ZWO respond? Did they indicate to you that they were considering implementing some/all of your suggestions?
Hi Cuiv, Great video again. -- This was concern of mine particularly since my ASI6200MM camera is pretty loud. But testing shows it doesn't present a vibration problem on my rig. Or if it does, it's below that of the tracking. For reference, my setup's focal length is 2880 mm (pretty long focal length). -- All that said, since the vibration of the camera isn't zero, it's a variable that needs to be considered when sizing up future setups. It wasn't a problem for me, but you're right, that doesn't mean it wouldn't be a problem for anybody.
Excellent to see you're not experiencing the issue! Loud is fine :-)
Hello Cuiv, I always follow your videos with great interest and in relation to this video I wanted to remember my direct experience with these small fans in other sectors which are usually extremely well balanced. It may happen that someone is born badly but it is easier than working for many hours in the end a little dust accumulates on the fan blades which, increasing over time, unbalances it and creates harmful vibrations. Often paste clean the fan with a few cotton swabs and some alcohol to solve the problem.
Thanks Massimo! That would be an easy fix indeed!
Great video as usual. I’m surprised you can't see the issue in the guiding. Or is the frequency too high?
Extremely interesting Cuiv!!
Thank you!
This is probably the issue with my ASI2600MC C11 setup. The Stars were also elongated in that direction. I thought it was back focus. I will say that in the summer time when my C11 is out more the cooler is working a lot harder (-10) and it seemed no matter what I did the elongated stars wouldn't get better. Thanks for this.
Glad to help! Hopefully you can get to the bottom of it!
I didnt jave this problem with my 2600mm on my Edge 11, but I did have the oil issue twice. My Risingcam imx571 on the edge with the reducer is perfect!
I wonder if it would be a good idea to separate the TEC and fan power so you can control them independently. Then you could keep the TEC on all the time and only turn the fan on between exposures. For instance, you could take a 3 minute exposure with the TEC on, but the fan off. Then, when the exposure is done, you could turn on the fan for 1 minute to evacuate the heat while the sensor is not taking data. Of course, this would reduce your imaging time by 25%, but it might be a good technique for minimizing vibration at high FL. You could experiment to determine the best ratio of on/off.
The oblong stars mean that the imaging train stiffness is not uniform in all directions and the response to the fan unbalance (thru resonance or simply forced response) is stronger in one direction. I cannot test this but I presume that systems with a large filter wheel will be more prone to this as the stiffness to bend the camera towards the center of the filter wheel will be much less than in the orthogonal direction (along the rim of the filter wheel). I would think that systems without a filter wheel are much less sensitive to this or at least, the degradation would be uniform, like a general blurring.
Makes me want to detach my imaging train (QHY268M) and cool the camera while holding it to see if I can detect any vibration! Thanks for the video, Cuiv!
For now in the comments, other QHY users are fine!
Wow, this could really be my problem that I am having. I already contacted a few other people on YT and they all advised me to bin with my camera. But wait Quiv, let me begin at the start, I have a asi2600mc camera that sits on a new galaxy setup, Edge HD 8" with 0.7 reducer and I couldn't get sharp images.
I always used the camera on my Esprit 80 and Esprit 120 native and reduced. Never had an issue with my frames, always pinpoint sharp till the edges. Now with the new galaxy setup, the reduced Edge 8, I can't get any pinpoint sharp images. First I thought, ok that must be the difference between a refractor and a reflector, so I contacted some people here on YT and they advised me to bin my asi2600 to 2x2.
But now seeing this video that you made, this could be my exact problem Quiv. I will try next time ,when I have some clear skies, to image and turning of the fan.
Thanks Quiv, I will keep you informed
It's an easy test! The issue is particularly obvious on satellite trails, which would appear wiggly
Non cooled versions of ZWO camera (what they list as their planetary cameras) actually have threads arranged in a square on the back of the cameras, making it possible to add your own cooling systems to the camera. I had seen designs that use silicon and rubber washers to remove the vibration of the fan (though springs, or even the silicon rods you showed seem like possible options too), and I had assumed that ZWO would have already mitigated the problem. It somewhat makes me reconsider just buying a non-cooled version of the cameras, just so I can make my own cooling solution.
Interesting! Although I assume in that case regulated cooling wouldn't be possible - I'd probably still go for a cooled camera and then replace the fan...
@@CuivTheLazyGeek It’s possible to control the cooling with a small thermometer that reduces the power to the peltier whenever the target temp is reached. It’s on the user to manually set it, though it’s not out of the question that someone could drive all of it all on a microcontroller/arduino to add ascom control. The big issue I’ve seen is that it doesn’t cool as well. So it’s definitely more advantageous to go with the manufactured cooled camera over a DIY one in that sense.
The advantage with this alternative is that for someone on an extremely tight budget, a sub 500 dollar cooled camera is possible, and without having to make any permanent changes to the camera’s body.
While I believe that reducing the transmission of vibrations from the fan to the camera is effective and important, I don't think it properly addresses the root of the problem. The fan shouldn't be vibrating to a detectable level in the first place. I suspect that an unbalanced fan blade (either from manufacturing defect or uneven dust/wear), or a bad shaft bearing would likely be where the vibrations are originating from. I would recommend inspecting the fan for uneven dust, debris, and wear would be the place to start. If that doesn't solve the problem, replace the fan with a quality vibration free motor and fan assembly and upgrade the mounts to those vibration dampening supports at the same time. If your fan is vibrating, it's probably only going to get worse over time anyway, so upgrading the cooling fan is where I would start. When I turn my cooling on for my ASI 294 MM Pro, I don't feel any vibration with the original fan. Knowing that just walking across the ground can show up in my guiding graph, I've been aware of how sensitive to vibrations astrophotography can be. I was impressed as to how smooth that fan runs, considering the fans on my computer can make things on my desk rattle.
Very interesting. Next time thee are no clouds I will check this out.
My rising cam is also totally free from vibrations. I did notice how they have had reports on vibrations though, and that they recommended the Nocturne fans as replacement fans.
In the comments I've seen several Gen1 vibration comments (Gen2 still seems unscathed). Such a difficult problem!
That's definitely something that any camera manufacturer should strive to resolve at the drawing board. A feature (cooling) that aims to improve image quality must not have the opposite effect.
OMG, I have a CPC1100HD and a cooled ZWO camera, I shoot at primarily F7(1960mm) and sometime F10 (native 2800mm), I have been struggling with oblong stars for over a year. I blamed the mount backlash, i blamed PHD2, I blamed my collimation, I suspected my focal reducer. I have tried everything but have only made minor improvements. Next clear night I will test this with cooler off. In the mean time i ordered the new pins, it won't hurt and I am due to disassemble the camera to recharge the desiccant before the summer months anyway, perfect time to upgrade the fan mounts.
This is certainly worth a test!
Yep! My assumption is that there is some kind of fan lottery going on (from the fan provider), so most units are probably fine!
My problem may still be collimation. This week I used the ocal on my 8SE and last night still weird stars. Next time will try turning off the cooler and taking some subs. Thanks for bringing this issue to attention. ❤ the channel you have taught me so much since I started this hobby last September.
Very interesting investigation. One difference I notice between read and the blue camera is that the fan is mounted off-center in the red camera. Could that be one of the contributing factors? Another factor could be type of the bearing systems used in the motor - ball bearing (good) versus sleeve bearings (bad). The blades of the plastic fan gets warped due to heat (I have seen this in CPU cooling) eventually leading uneven load distribution around the motor axis leading to noise, vibrations, etc.
Super interesting Cuiv. I was very conscious about high frequency fan vibration when I chose my mini pc, but didn't expect to have possible issues with the camera fans. I personally haven't seen this on my ASI cameras but I generally image at very short focal lengths. My first reaction is that I would have thought you would see generally larger stars as a result of the fan imbalance rather them them being stretched in a particular direction, but after thinking about it I guess it makes sense as the stretched stars will be in the same direction as the mount is guiding in RA. Thank you for bringing this to our attention👍
One more lottery to be aware of: fan lottery!
Thank you so much for your video! That was perfect timing. Last week I observed very reproducible "wiggling satellite traces" in my subframes which I had no explanation for. I own a Touptek ATR3CMOS26000KMA (IMX571) which I bought new half a year ago. So I can confirm: fan vibration issues can (at times) also happen with the Touptek design.
Nooooo, so it truly is a fan lottery :-( are your heat spreader fins flush with the camera body, or recessed from the camera body?
@@CuivTheLazyGeek I have the older model (where the fins are flush). When I touch the camera body I feel an obvious vibration.
I completely disassembled it today. As you showed in your video the fan is held by four springs which press the fan hard against the heat spreader. This way it becomes a great vibration spreader. :)
I removed the springs and attached the fan to the heat spreader by four small vertical strips of very soft adhesive tape. Unfortunately the fan vibration is still tangible.
I guess I will replace it with a higher quality model. By the way, the original fan is an ADDA AD0412HB-G70 (40x40, 12V DC, 6000rpm, ball bearing).
Cheers,
Frank
@@frankfeustel3772 yep it seems from the comments that gen1 at least was indeed prone to the issue... A fan lottery is going on...
@@CuivTheLazyGeek I solved my vibration issue. I tossed out the original fan and replaced it with a Noctua NF-A4x10 FLX. In addition, the new fan is not held by springs anymore but by strips of soft adhesive tape. As a result, all vibrations are eliminated.🙂
@@frankfeustel3772 well done! Excellent to hear!
omg this might explain some of the not too good results I've been getting this galaxy season with my EdgeHD800 + ASI071mc! I'm gonna check this real soon.
Fingers crossed!
Yeah, i have this exact problem with a new 2600mc even at 750mm focal length. Installed the noctua silicon dampers now. Waiting for clear skies to test but i can already say that the fan in my model is a bad one, causung lots if vibration. I will look for a replacment fan as well now…
Fingers crossed the dampers help at least...
Wow Cuiv! Thanks to you, Richard and Buckeyestargazer for bringing this alarming news to us. I use a 2600MC Pro and i have certainly noticed elongated stars when using my 2350mm FL SCT (which I don’t see with my Esprit). I assumed this must be poor collimation, but maybe not! I am a bit cross with ZWO if you are right (I bet they love this video! 😂).
It's not just ZWO!! There's selection bias since they're the most popular brand out there! Apparently the Touptek/Risingcam gen 1 also had the issue!
@@CuivTheLazyGeek ok. Thanks for clarifying. I’ll try the fix on my camera
😮 i was trying to find out what issues are with my stars and my zwoAsi183 pro
For more than one month now I was wondering whrer issue
Thanks you
I will try this
I've experienced the same issue with the ASI 2600 MM Pro. When used at short focal lengths, no problem. However, on my Celestron Edge HD 8 , with a focal length over 2000 mm, stars are elongated when the fan is on. It took me a long time to figure this out. I am, also, not sure it is due to the connection to the case, as I have used vibration damping connectors and even installed a gasket to keep the back plate separate from the main camera body, with little improvement. I worry that the airflow through the camera is what is causing the vibration. When the camera started leaking oil from the thermal pad, I returned it for a replacement. The new camera arrives this week, so we will see.
I’ll be trying out my new Edge HD 8 in the next few weeks from an area with typically good seeing. As I’m in Canada at 45 degrees N near the North Atlantic, I’ll likely be having temperatures around 0C at night. I’ll have the perfect opportunity therefore to test my ZWO camera with the cooler on and off. I’ll report back as an edit to this comment. This of course assumes that I get a clear night or two.
I have to turn off fans in my house with my giant telescopes because the vibrations are really obvious on those scopes. So I've always wondered how a fan right next to the sensor didn't add at least some kind of vibration.
I mean, trains miles away make my telescope image noticeably vibrate.
I didn't figure out what it was until I tried out during the day with high framerate video. With fans in my house off I can read the tiny manufacturer stickers on a neighbors chimney clearly a few houses down the street. Turn the fans on, and they immediately get fuzzy and if you analyze frame by frame the whole image shifts back and forth a few pixels.
Vibrations from traffic on nearby streets also become a real issue at long focal lengths.
It's really easy to test during the day at fast exposures. Far away text will go from crisp and clear to fuzzy or wavy immediately...at least on my setups it does.
Good idea for a test!
My first sign of trouble related to oblong stars were with my Newtonian, when the fan was running. Ever since then I do not image with the fan on on the Newtonian telescope. I advise everyone to turn it off, most Newtonians and RC scopes (or any scope with fans on it) in the mass production price range has poorly designed fan attachments and they transmit the vibration to mirrors. This can be such a high frequency, that you may not be able to detect it by touching it, but your images will show it. I also did this modification to my ZWO camera (rubber pegs instead of the screws) since I usually do that to my custom built desktop cooling fans too since the 90s. And that's for to make a quiet PC, but pc-builders know all about this.
Your excellent video got me worried as I have both the ZWO ASI6200MM pro and 6200MC pro. The max I image at is 925mm and looking at the my subs from multiple nights, I have to say I can't see any evidence of oblong stars at that focal length. I'm sure I'd be OK at 1500mm as well so I don't think I'm going to tinker with my cameras.
Dont think they are of high quality to start with but If the fan blade itself is unbalanced then vibrations will be high. The mounting pads from an old cd/dvd player are really soft and should be easy to get. Great video on this Cuiv.
Great and informative video! You mention that vibration becomes an issue at ‘longer’ focal lengths. Could you describe at which focal lengths you would expect this problem to begin to manifest itself? Thanks, hank.
Would depend a lot of the scope, how the camera is attached, and amplitude of the vibrations...
Cuiv, excellent video as always! Do you think there is a "limit" on the focal length where shorter than the limit is ok, but longer is NG? Could it be calculated mathematically?
No it will depend on the fan lottery (amplitude of vibrations) AND the type of scope used, how the camera is attached, etc.! So a lot of factors...
Happened with my 294mm pro. I did put it on a silicone mount, it resumed the vibration after one night. Maybe the fan moved? Anyway, trying it again. Great video!
Cuiv, you make references to long and short focal lengths. What is the cut off line between the two? Thanks for the great videos.
It seems to depend! On the intensities of the vibrations, and of course camera pixel size!
Hmm, that might be my problem, I only get them when I am using my newt.. even though my guiding is great.. will test it out next time..
That almost sounds like the sensor is becoming underpowered when the cooler is turned on. May just need more power to give adequate amperage to both the sensor and the cooler at the same time.