recommended to keep the desiccant container cap off for a couple of
hours when the camera is in the room with low humidity. This helps
drying the CCD chamber interior and prolongs the silica-gel exchange
interval.
●
G3 revision 2 cameras cameras supplied in 2016 and later are
equipped with a redesigned desiccant containers. New containers are
no longer a fixed part of the camera body with only a removable cap,
but the whole container can be unscrewed. The main advantage of this
design is the ability to exchange silica-gel without the necessity to
remove the camera from the telescope, which was necessary to be able
to pour-out the silica-gel and then to pour it in.
Silica-gel is held inside the container with a perforated cap. This cap is
also screwed into the container body, so it is easy to exchange the
silica-gel inside the container after it is worn out or damaged e.g. by
too high temperature etc.
The container itself does not contain any sealing (the sealing remains
attached to the CCD cold chamber inside the camera head), it consists
of aluminum parts only. So it is possible to heat the whole container to
desired temperature without risking of the temperature-induced sealing
damage.
This design also allows usage of some optional parts. First it is a
threaded hermetic cap, which allows sealing of the dried container
when it is not immediately attached to the camera head. And the
second one is an alternate (somewhat longer) desiccant container,
modified to be able to be screw in and tightened (as well as released
and screwed out) without any tool.
The sealed cap as well as the tool-less container are not supplied with
the camera, the are supplied only as optional accessory.
●
The G3 cameras with Enhanced Cooling are equipped with a bigger
heat sink and thus also thicker back shell. This requires usage of the
longer desiccant containers. Both container variants (the standard one
and also the tool-less variant) are supplied in two lengths. Shortened
containers for standard cameras and longer ones for Enhanced Cooling
cameras.
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