Handbook for the SX-56 Full Frame camera Issue 1, 25
th
October 2017
RBI image residues and a unique coated synthetic sapphire front window to eliminate dewing by virtue
of its very high thermal conductivity.
The SX-56 uses a high speed USB 2 interface with a fast 16 bit A/D converter to achieve a full frame
download time of less than 7 seconds in bin 1 x 1 mode. Power requirement is only 2 amps at 12v DC.
The SX-56 is housed in a 136 x 136 x 63 mm machined aluminium casing, with a 72 mm x 1 mm fe-
male input thread. The CCD chamber is sealed by O rings and is filled with dry argon. Dual fans draw
air through a grid of cooling fins to provide efficient heat extraction from the camera body.
‘Quick Starting’ your SX-56 system
In the shipping container you will find the following items:
1) The SX-56 camera head.
2) A power supply module and cable.
3) A 3 metre USB2 camera cable.
4) An adaptor / spacer for 72mm x 1mm thread ‘Takahashi’ focuser assemblies.
5) A guider cable for ‘ST4’ style mount guiding inputs.
6) Three short USB leads for connecting to the hub ports.
7) A CD with the SX-56 software and manual.
You will also need a PC computer with Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8 or Windows 10. This
machine must have at least one USB2.0 port and at least 4Gb of memory. If you intend to view the fin-
ished images on its screen, then you will also need a graphics card capable of displaying an image in a
minimum of 1920 x 1080 pixels and 32 bit colour. A medium specification i5 with between 1GHz and
3GHz processor speed is ideal. Please note that the SX-56 is not designed for USB1.1 operation and
will give inferior results if used on USB1.1. Most USB3 ports can be used without problems.
Installing the USB system:
First, find a free USB2.0 socket on your PC and plug in the USB cable (do not connect the camera at
this time).
The next operation is to run the software installer from the CD ROM provided. Insert the CD into the
computer and wait for Windows Explorer to open with the list of folders on the ROM. Now find the ap-
propriate Setup folder and run the SETUP.EXE file that it contains – this will initiate the self-install
software which will guide you through the process of installing the SX camera software and drivers
onto your computer. If the CD ROM is unavailable, or damaged, the drivers and software can be down-
loaded from www.sxccd.com/downloads .
Now connect the USB cable to the standard ‘B’ socket on the camera rear panel. The computer should
sound the usual ‘USB device found’ bell and the display should show a ‘New USB device found’ mes-
sage. You can open ‘Device Manager’ to check that the camera has appeared in the USB devices list, if
you need to be sure that it has installed.
