Night Sky Time-Lapse Bortle 7 | ZWO ASI676MC | Raspberry Pi 5 8gig | All sky Camera Test

Published: 30 May 2024
on channel: Growing Answers

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This is using a typical 4" acrylic CCTV dome on a 6" waterproof work box. The pi, USB ssd, and camera are all in the box along with a mini fan blowing on the camera at all times. It uses a 12-24v converter to step down the power to 5.1v 5A for the pi5. 12v is easier to send amperage over longer wire runs vs a long USB extension so the converter is also inside to work box. I have the box wrapped in aluminum tape to reflect sunlight and black felt inside to dome to reduce internal reflections. The pi is hardwired via LAN as I had too many issues with WiFi which may be the result of using a non-PD rpi ps (which I do have). I chose to run the whole system on 12v to utilize a DC to DC ups that supplies 36 watts (more than enough to power the pi5 completely).

I placed an AL heat-sink on the bottom of the housing that the 1.25" flange base attaches to. Then used an old intel CPU heat-sink inside the box that joins to the exterior AL heat-sink via a hole and some thermal paste. It is sealed which keeps the housing airtight. This acts passively by wind blowing through the fins of the exterior heat-sink which is underneath out of the sun. The fan that blows from the pi heat-sink as well as the camera fan, provides enough airflow inside the box for the internal heat-sink.

With 85 degrees F ambient in full sun, the CPU stays in the low 50's C and the camera sensor rarely sees much above 40C. The heat build-up is mitigated well enough that it does not provide enough heat to stave off dew at night. I don't see water droplets form on the dome but a thin haze still forms. Which can be seen happen in this video before I took care of it with some temporary exterior dew heater straps. Although the housing is airtight, I still placed desiccant inside and purged it with dry nitrogen gas before sealing it. In very cold temps, even a small amount of humidity can condense and I did not want that to happen inside the box/dome.

Here are the affiliate links for some of the things I used:
LAN Bulkhead - https://amzn.to/3VmCikA
Pi5 Case - https://amzn.to/4bCdw5r
12v-5.1v/5A USB- C Converter - https://amzn.to/4bXskeT
Exterior Heatsink - https://amzn.to/3UVDHgs
Female 12v mounted plugs - https://amzn.to/4c0sH8A
4" CCTV dome (This brand is good) - https://amzn.to/3yHjzHu
Project Box - https://amzn.to/4e41djU

Choose one or the other:
USB 3.0 to SSD Adapter - https://amzn.to/3yRDjIg
USB 3.0 to SSD Housing - https://amzn.to/4bBOh3l

LifPo4 Battery for SLA replacement of UPS - https://amzn.to/3R6AtWr

You can get the Pi products from here. (non-affiliate)
https://www.pishop.us/

Allsky Software - https://github.com/AllskyTeam/allsky

If you don't know how to use command prompts well, I recommend installing the desktop environment on Pi. I personally use the lite version of bookworm to reduce overhead and RAM. But if you get the Pi5 8gig like I did then it should have no issues. It seems to have no issue creating full res time lapses.

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