Enhancement request: Adding a camera cooler power control / limit

[Sebastien Dore]

Hi,

It would be nice to have a control over the power issued to the camera cooler in the Camera Temperature Control tab. Like a possibility to set a custom power limit instead of only a setting for temperature for instance. That would help keep the cooler from wearing prematurely due to bad driver implementation that always pushes it to the max (100%) every time the camera is powered up and automatically starts cooling down (like my QHY268C does.,, Bad QHY, bad…!)

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Thanks for considering.

[Marc Blank]

Its not NINA’s job to fix problems with manufacturer’s drivers; you need to push QHY to deal with this.

[Marc Blank]

And even if we wanted to handle this, I’m pretty certain we have no control over the cooler’s power level.

[Stefan B]

The driver interfaces don't allow to set cooler power. It is only possible to set a target temperature and the rest is done by the driver itself.

[Sebastien Dore]

@Marc: I wasn’t asking to fix an issue with my camera I was just asking you consider adding a enhancedment if possible. In fact, there is no real issue with that, just a bad implementation from QHY IMO.

@Stefan: Ok, thanks for confirming this.

Then it could it be useful to have a mean in NINA to stop the auto-cooldown at power-up. I know this is possible in other imaging apps.

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[Marc Blank]

If you’re using the advanced sequencer, you’d include an instruction to cool the camera at a specified place in the sequence. We don’t turn in cooling automatically.

[Marc Blank]

And you really were asking us to fix QHYs bug. It’s not reasonable for us to try to micromanage a device in that manner. And, as Stefan said, it’s not even possible for ASCOM cameras.

[Stefan B]

That the camera cools is also a quirk in the firmware of the camera. It doesn't happen on connecting the camera in Nina but already when it is plugged into usb and has power

[Sebastien Dore]

Well, it looks like my camera is very full of quirks and bugs. Which brand/model would you suggest I buy so I can use NINA as-is and have a a joyful user experience with no need to ask for enhancements in this regard ?

[Marc Blank]

Why can’t you joyfully enjoy what you’ve got and let the cooler do it’s thing. You can’t be sure this will damage the camera - I guess I don’t understand

[Sebastien Dore]

Simple matter of getting the most out of my expensive equipment for as long as possible and as efficiently as possible.

If that were available to you at the expense of a few posts on a forum to explain your idea and a few lines of open code from the developer who understood your need, wouldn’t you be incline to ask?

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As far as the wear to the camera, I can garantee you it’s life expectancy is going to be impaired compared to a case where cooler would not turn to max power as often. It’s simply physics. The more you ask out of electronics, the quicker it dies.

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Out of curiosity, which camera do you use?

[Ethan Chappel]

@Sebastien Dore are the camera drivers on your PC up to date? I recall cooler power on connect being an issue several months ago and I think QHY changed the behavior. While you’re at it, make sure the drivers are actually being updated by checking in the Device Manager: https://daleghent.com/2021/02/1q2021-qhy-native-driver.

[Dale Ghent]

There are some misconceptions in this thread.

First. A QHY camera’s default firmware will turn the TEC on with a setpoint of 0C, IF:

• 12V power is applied to the camera
• The USB driver on the PC has not yet attached to the camera and loaded the operational firmware

Since it’s typical that 12V power is applied to the camera before its USB port is plugged in and the USB driver is attached to it, which then loads the camera’s operational firmware, you will often see this case with the cooler running at 100% of its rated power as it has already begun the process to bring the sensor to a 0C setpoint. This is normal for QHY cameras and, if you do not prefer this, then you should contact QHY support and let them know that the automatic cooling is what you want changed. NINA or any other software cannot change this default startup behavior. It is part of the flash memory on the camera itself and there is no known or publicly-documented way to influence this.

Second. There has been no warning from QHY about this TEC behavior. It’s often that some armchair cooling expert or retired EE with experience that is 20 years too moldy will post blanket assertions on CN concerning equipment they’ve never touched, and readers will latch onto this “advice” as is it were gospel and then parrot it. The last word about any product operational features is the vendor of the product itself. I’m pretty certain that QHY would have not coded this behavior into the camer if it were deleterious to the longevity of the camera. At worst, it’s an operational oddity. When a TEC is running at “100%”, this is just the top of the range that the vendor has chosen to juice the TEC at. This does not necessarily mean that the TEC itself is being driven at 100% or more of its design limits.

Third. If you have an issue with the design of a commercial product, it is always better that you engage the support services of the product’s vendor - services that were paid for when purchasing the product. We are volunteers and hobbyists and have little interest in being surrogates for that support. The vendor is always the best source of advice and alterations such as what you seek.

So far in this thread, there has been no mention of any authoritative word on the subject from QHY themselves; only suppositions. If you can converse with QHY support and get the technical opinion on this topic straight from the horse’s mouth, then there would be more substance to this issue.

[Sebastien Dore]

@Ethan: Thanks for the suggestion and link. Indeed my drivers are fresh and updated regularly (and I made sure they were indeed up-to-date). There has been no new drivers from QHY since last Fall. That said, Dale’s first above surely cleared up a few things…

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@Dale: Thanks for taking the time on this. I always feel I get good support when you're around (whether here or some mount manufacturer forums). It is true I might have shedded some confusion with my irony in some last post, my bad. Just so we’re clear on this, I never really implied my camera had a problem (Marc and Stefan did).

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I was only poking around to see if a NINA enhancement that would help my situation was possible. Now, thanks to you, knowing the auto-cooldown is by-design from QHY surely mean I will take it with them but I had no idea of this to begin with (haven’t seen that documented anywhere) so please keep in mind one has the start asking questions somewhere…

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About the part that NINA nor any other software can change the behavior coded in QHY firmware, you’re fundamentaly right but APT, for one, has implemented a workaround to at least stop the auto-cooldown as soon as it gets a grasp of the camera. This is the type of feature I was trying to see if you NINA devs were open to implement as well in a previous post. I never asked anyone here to “fix” my camera or solve my issue, so please stop about this. I was merely sharing ideas to see if it could get somewhere. If it’s really not possible from your standpoint (how would I know without asking ?), then that’s it, end of discussion. I’ll look elsewhere.

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I’m pretty certain that QHY would have not coded this behavior into the camer if it were deleterious to the longevity of the camera. At worst, it’s an operational oddity. When a TEC is running at “100%”, this is just the top of the range that the vendor has chosen to juice the TEC at. This does not necessarily mean that the TEC itself is being driven at 100% or more of its design limits.

To that, I disagree, generally speaking. That is an assumption you’re making. Let me just say this: I’m sure you ever heard about planned obsolescence… Now, please don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying QHY does this, but if they do, they surely won’t tell me. No matter how I ask them. And they won’t help me with it either. In the last 13 years of my profesionnal EE career, I’ve seen it all too often unfortunately, so my prerogative about this is to always doubt unless proven otherwise. Feel free to see things otherwise.

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[Stefan B]

Removing version: 2.0 Beta (automated comment)