Cooldowns of IRCamera

Current Cooldown

Previous Cooldowns


Below is a plot of the temperature monitored at the chip and at the cold head, during cooldown after the most recent
re-mounting of IRCAM to the Thirty inch telescope (August, 2004). 

Cooldown image




Original Cooldown curves, before first mounting

The chip has not been mounted but preliminary cooldowns have been made. The cooldowns were fit by a VERY primitive program that attempts to model the thermal properties of what is inside.

Cool10

Below is the cooldown of the chip holder only.

The model fit has the following:

The ultimate temperature is a pathetic 130 K!

I don't understand why the parasitic resistance is so high.

Cool12

I then wrapped the chip holder in MLI as well as the cooling strap. The screws connecting the strap to the cold head were tightened.

The model fit has the following:

The emissivities seem to have decrease, but the parasitic resistance went up? Also the true temperature deviates suddenly from the model. The ultimate temperature is 104K which is better.


IRCam Index

Last updated Sep 20, 2000