Temperature And Heat Dissipation - Smartek UCC User Manual

1.7 Temperature and Heat Dissipation

The temperature specification given for storing and operation of all devices are measured at any location of
the camera's housing. If the camera is delivered without a housing, the specified range refers to the direct
ambient temperature of the board-set, at any location. In operation it must be ensured that the internal
heat generation of the camera is dissipated sufficiently to make the device or its environment not exceed
the specified borders. The camera will steadily heat up in the first hour of operation and should be monitored.
Beside the risk of damage, a too high camera temperature also decreases the image quality of the
sensor significantly. The thermal noise generated in silicon based sensors raises exponentially with the
temperature, hereby the useful signal falls rapidly.
As every application and environment has its own characteristics, SMARTEK Vision can only suggest
general strategies to keep the camera's temperature low:
Mount housed cameras with at least one complete side of the housing to a massive heat conductive
material (e.g. aluminum); make sure that the whole surface is constantly in touch
Active cooling of the camera by a fan will significantly decrease the temperature
Keep the ambience temperature as low as possible
Board level cameras:
If mounted into another closed device, make sure to offer a constant heat exchange by e.g. an air flow
Additional active / passive heat sinking of the critical components (Sensor Head, Flash, FPGA, DDR,
Ethernet Physical, PoE driver etc.) allows for higher ambient temperatures (at own risk)
Example
Figure 4 gives an example of the thermal behavior of a twentynine camera mounted to different heat
conductors, described in Table 3. The used camera is a GCC1932M with IMX249 CMOS Imaging sensor,
which was chosen as one with typical power consumption (3.2 Watts) in the twentynine lineup.
Color
—- Not mounted
—-
Aluminum (loose)
—-
Aluminum (well mounted)
Label
Camera is placed loose on a construction profile (150x70x30
Camera is well mounted on a construction profile (150x70x30
Table 3: Description of the curves in Figure 4
Camera is placed on a material with a very low heat
conductivity (plastic); the main heat dissipation occurs over
the surrounding air
mm) of a material with a very good heat conductivity
mm) of a material with a very good heat conductivity
11
User Manual - twentynine
Description
(aluminum)
(aluminum)
SMARTEK Vision | User Manual - twentynine | Doc. v1.0.2