ASI ZWO insulative jacket

thingiverse

Adding a cooler to an uncooled camera poses some challenges. The case is made of aluminum, but the heat path to the sensor is long and the body is designed to radiate heat away from it to keep it close to ambient temperatures as possible. This means that attempts at cooling lead to several issues: 1. A warm-air fan blows warm air onto the camera body. 2. The camera body captures heat from the surrounding air. 3. The camera body absorbs heat radiation from the surrounding environment. This print attempts to solve this problem by placing a 5mm low-density jacket around the camera, which is essentially a 3D print at 20% infill that leads to thin walls and lots of isolated air pockets, severely limiting heat flow. Using a 12V 5A 40mm peltier cooler at 2A, it's possible to cool the sensor to around 4 degrees C from its normal temperature of approximately 30 C. 3A will likely get it even colder, but dew becomes a problem at that point. Update: By using a blackbuck I'm able to drive this at 4A and placing the fan across the peltier forward voltage ensures the fan only runs as much as necessary. As the bulk temperature goes up, the fan will also turn on more, limiting it. This is important due to vibration concerns from the fan. The result is a cooler camera that can take great pictures!