Heat management for LUCID products

Camera mounting and operating temperature

This knowledge base article outlines some heat management tips for all LUCID cameras, and dispels some common misunderstandings about camera heat, operating temperature, and power consumption.

The lower and upper operating temperatures are derived from LUCID’s extensive design and manufacturing tests. In these tests, LUCID cameras repeatedly undergo extreme temperature cycles to ensure they operate as expected under extreme ambient operating temperature environments with temperature swings.

The images below show the camera with an internal temperature sensor reading of 50°C and an actual case temperature of around 50°C (maximum temperature point at 54°C).

// Get device temperature node
// In order to get the current device temperature value, get the
// device temperature node.

GenApi::CFloatPtr deviceTemperature = pDevice->GetNodeMap()->GetNode("DeviceTemperature");

// Get device temperature value

double deviceTemperatureValue = deviceTemperature->GetValue();

std::cout << TAB1 << "Device Temperature is " << deviceTemperatureValue <<; "\n";

You can also obtain this information in ArenaView as shown below.

Internal temperature reading for PHX050S sitting on a desk at 25°C ambient after streaming for some time. The internal temperature is 67°C, but the camera is not operating out of spec; there is still room to increase the room temperature by another 30°C.

For safety reasons, consider using a heat dissipation method to ensure the camera is not too hot to touch. Refer to the Heat Dissipation section below for recommendations.

Mounting options

The camera operates without any attachment such as lenses or mounting; however, in any application an optics component will be required, and a mounting component is likely needed as well. Below is an example of the camera running without anything attached at room temperature. The camera runs hot because the heat has no path to escape. As you can see below, there are some discrepancies between the camera temperature sensor reading, the measured average temperature, and the maximum temperature of the camera. These discrepancies decrease over time because the heat spreads more evenly across the device since there is no escape path for the heat.

Lenses

Lenses can act as a heat sink if the barrel of the lens base is made of a material with good thermal conductivity. Some cheap lenses with a plastic base will not work well as a heat sink.

Shown below is the temperature profile of a Phoenix camera with LUCID’s NF-mount lens streaming at room temperature mounted on a tripod stand. The camera/lens system has an average surface temperature of about 52°C while the hottest point on the camera surface goes up to 58°C. The heat is evenly distributed across the camera body and the small NF lens. The internal temperature reading (from device temperature node) is slightly higher than the surface temperature as heat is distributed across the entire camera and lens assembly.

The same camera with a C mount lens runs measurably cooler due to the extra material on the lens which can transfer heat from camera body all the way to the tip of the lens. Aa nice heat gradient along the optical axis of the lens can be seen below. In this case the camera’s maximum and average temperature is about 10°C less than the equivalent NF version. Compared to the previous example, there is a more pronounced difference between internal temperature reading (from the Device Temperature Node) and surface temperature as the gradient of temperature across the entire camera/lens assembly is more drastic.

A similar heat-sinking effect can be applied to LUCID’s Triton camera, which is thermally more efficient than the Phoenix due to its slightly larger size and heat-dissipating mass. Below we examine the difference between operating Tritons with and without a lens attached.

When the Triton camera is operated without a lens installed in the ambient environment of 22°C, the camera reaches an average surface temperature of 47°C with the maximum temperature also at 47°C, which indicates uniformly distributed heat across the camera surface. The internal temperature reading is 50°C, which is close to these measurements.

When the Triton camera is operated with a lens installed, the heat has more material to dissipate heat, resulting in a uniform temperature distribution of around 37°C across the camera body. Similarly, the internal temperature reading is lower, with a measurement of 40°C below.

Network interface cards (NICs)

Regardless of if you provide your own NIC or purchase one from our website, keep in mind the following guidelines:

• Ensure that there is adequate airflow around the host computers and NICs.
• Ensure that the inside of host computers are cleaned regularly to be free of dust.
• Install hardware monitoring tools to track and warn of excessive NIC temperatures.
• (Unrelated to heat management) Ensure that you power down and disconnect the power to your host computer before installing NICs.