ST8-XME cooler and blank frames problem

An updated and more complete version of this post appears following Doug's reply. It might save you some time to start there. It starts with "Yesterday..."

I upgraded to MaxIm version 6.11 last night. I did this because occasionally my version 6.09 would not report the camera temperature (which the release note for 6.11 said it would fix). The upgrade to 6.11 seems to have caused a bigger problem with the cooler. Here's what it is doing now:
- First, I'm doing my testing in a remote observatory, during the day, on a cool day (temp increasing from 44F to 55F now).
- Cooler set to -10C, sensor reporting 12.5C, power at 100%. the ambient temp is about the same temp.
- This state persists for a long time, an hour or so, with a slow increase in the average sensor temp (presumably due to the increase in ambient temp).
- During this time the sensor temp varies by +/- 0.5C on short time scale of a few seconds.

After upgrading to MaxIm Version 6.11 and the problem described above, I upgraded the SBIG drivers and just to be safe, I also upgraded to ASCOM 6.1SP1. No change.

Software/Equipment:
HP computer, 64-bit ADM A6-3620, 6GB RAM, running Microsoft Window 7 Home Premium SP1
SBIG ST-8
TheSkyX Version 10.3.0 (Build 8458)
MaxIm DL Version 6.11 (updated from 6.09)
Icron UBS Extenders

Installed software which is not loaded during my testing: FocusMax Version 4, Pinpoint, CCD Commander.

Note: before updating to MaxIm V6.11, the cooler was working fine, except that MaxIm would occasionally not display the sensor temperature.

Is anyone else experiencing this problem?

Whit

 

After making the above post it occurred to me that I could test the cooler using TheSkyX. The cooler doesn't work with it either. So, it looks like the new version of MaxIm isn't the source of the problem. Just one of those coincidences that the software was installed just when the camera's cooler failed. I guess coolers can fail, but I've never heard it before. Any advice at this point would be welcome.

Whit

 

Yesterday, I made the following post (slightly edited and updated for this forum) on the MaxIm DL forum. Doug replied that I should contact "Bill @ service" for suggestions.

I upgraded to MaxIm version 6.11 Saturday night. I did this because occasionally my version 6.09 would not report the camera temperature (which the release note for 6.11 said it would fix). Here's what it was doing Saturday/Sunday:
- First, I'm doing my testing in a remote observatory, during the day, on a cool day (temp increasing from 44F to 55F now).
- Cooler set to -10C, sensor reporting 12.5C, power at 100%. the ambient temp is about the same temp.
- This state persists for a long time, an hour or so, with a slow increase in the average sensor temp (presumably due to the increase in ambient temp).
- During this time the sensor temp varies by +/- 0.5C on short time scale of a few seconds.

After upgrading to MaxIm Version 6.11 and having the problem described above, I upgraded the SBIG drivers and just to be safe, I also upgraded to ASCOM 6.1SP1. No change.

I then tried to connect to the camera using TheSkyX instead of MaxIM. Same problem.

Then I also noticed another problem. When doing images, regardless of exposure time, the result would be blank images. By this I mean that the pixels were all zero (with only a few exceptions).

Summary: cooler isn't work and images are blank.

Software/Equipment:
HP computer, 64-bit ADM A6-3620, 6GB RAM, running Microsoft Window 7 Home Premium SP1
SBIG ST8-XME
TheSkyX Version 10.3.0 (Build 8458)
MaxIm DL Version 6.11 (updated from 6.09)
Icron UBS Extenders

Installed software which has not been loaded during my testing: FocusMax Version 4, Pinpoint, CCD Commander.

Is the camera broken completely?

Whit