Issue with cooler on Touptek 2600

[Opmc73]

Hi Robin,

It seems to me that there is an issue with the activation of the cooler in last revision. 4. 1.1 .3534

It has occured 2 times that the cooler was on in sharpcap but not activated in reality. I had to do off then on to activate it. Before it was not necessary.

please advise
Olivier

[admin]

Hi Olivier,

do you remember which version you were on before you updated to 4.1.13534? Knowing that helps narrow down potential causes based on the changes between the two versions.

The most likely change recently that could impact on this would be the update to a new version of the ToupTek SDK that happened in 4.1.13484, so you might want to try going back to 4.1.13447 to see if that resolves the issue as that older version used the previous SDK version.

Another thing to consider is how the cooler is being turned on in your setup - by default when you open the camera it will be off, so it needs to be turned on either by

* Manually turning it on
* Loading a capture profile (either manually or by making one default for the camera)
* SharpCap restoring the previously used camera settings.

I have just tried the first two cases here and seen cooling as expected (but only tested once each, so might not pick up an issue if it is intermittent). If you are using a profile, please share it with me so I can try loading it here.

thanks,

Robin

[Opmc73]

Hello Robin, sorry did not check here since a while.
I think I had the just prevous version before I reported because I am always updating SC each time you do a new revision.

Today I have uploaded now the last one and when I stated shooting I forgot to check the temperature and I was surprise with the noise in the image. Then I saw t° was 14°c because once again the cooler was not started dispite the on button checked.
It does not occurs each time, maybe it occurs when I install a new version , possible some flag status set off by the installation when it is on from last setup in the display ?

[admin]

Hi,

OK, that's odd. If you were doing each new weekly update then there were no changes relevant to the ToupTek cameras between the previous week's 4.1.13502 and the 4.1.13534 version where you first noticed the problem, so it seems that it is unlikely to be a recent change in SharpCap causing the issue...

When you see the cooler turned on but the sensor not cooling down, what settings do the other controls in the thermal section have? Is the cooler target temperature set properly to a cold temperature? If the target temperature is above the current camera temperature then the cooling will not run. It's also worth checking that the 'Fan' is also on - in my testing, I can't turn the fan off while the cooler is on, but maybe there is some odd way to achieve fan off but cooler showing as on. Finally, does the cooler power show as being zero percent or non-zero when you hit this problem?

thanks,

Robin

[Opmc73]

Hello Robin,

I have the temperature target set to -10 the camera temperature , it works most of the time. Just it occurs 2 or 3 times as I reported the cooler did not start. I did not noticed if the fan was working or not. It is also set to on inmy default setup. Once I have off and on the cooler, the other time I start SC it is working fine.

Kind regards
Olivier

[Opmc73]

Hi Robin,

I still have issue with the cooler of the Touptek 2600 C . Just now I lost 25 min because for any reason the cooler stop to cool when the flag was still cooler activated = on in sharpcap panel. What I did before was I did a live session in Ha , I changed the camera setup from high full wll to ultra low noise then high full well again and it seems it deactivated the cooler withtout warning me and letting the indicator to on. Then I started a new session and was advised something wrong because lot of hot pxels. Then I saw the temperature was 10°c instead of -10°c because cooler was off...

So it seems you have something that is deactivating the cooler , let the cooler indicator on but don't verify the device is still on.

kind regards
Olivier

[admin]

Hi Olivier,

thanks for the additional info on what might have caused the problem. I will re-test here and try the mode changes and see what happens.

I presume you are using the most recent version of SharpCap already - in the recent code, SharpCap does check to see if the cooler seems to be off when it should be on - if the cooler power is low and the temperature difference between the target and the actual is high and SharpCap thinks the cooler should be on then the code will check to see if the SDK thinks the cooler is on or not and correct the situation if the SDK thinks it is off.

Since the problem is still happening, it seems likely that the SDK is still reporting the cooler is 'on', but the camera has turned it off behind the scenes

I have a new ToupTek SDK to download and add to SharpCap, which will be worth testing to see if it helps. Beyond that, I might have to take more aggressive measures to re-turn on the cooling (ie turn it off and on again in code, even if the SDK reports it is on).

cheers,

Robin

[Opmc73]

Hi Robin,

Yes I am allways using the most upto date version.
For the moment I have not observed the issue with temperature.

kind regards

Olivier

[admin]

Hi,

glad to hear it is working at the moment - it might be worth checking the SharpCap log for any lines containing either

'Found cooler disabled when we expected it enabled'

or

'Unexpected cooling state when cooler has been on for at least 30s'

Those get recorded if SharpCap finds an anomaly with the ToupTek cooling and tries to take corrective action. If you are seeing either of those in the log and your cooling looks fine then it means that the workarounds I have added are fixing the issue.

cheers,

Robin