I have an STX16803 that has been sitting on my desk for about 2 years while I was otherwise occupied. I recently starting testing it out for possible frost issues and found that the imaging sensor doesn't appear to be properly sensitive to light. The shutter works fine, as does the cooling, the filter wheel and the tracking detector. I also have an STXL and attaching it to the same power supply and USB cable works fine (but I need to bake its desiccant). I've tried CCDSoft, Maxim, and CCDOps, all with the same result. I uploaded two files, one a "light" frame and the other a "dark" frame, both 2 sec exposures, uncooled. The signal level for the light frame is about 2700, but should be tens of thousands judging from the STXL camera's behavior. The dark frame level is about half of that (~1300) shows curious streaks of what I assume are hot pixels. Firmware and drivers are the same as before this behavior and are also up to date Any help on how to proceed next would be greatly appreciated. Peter
There's definitely something wrong in the camera. My guess would be a failed internal power supply. That could be a problem on the analog card or the power supply card. We do still have spare parts for these cameras, if you want to get it repaired. Let us know and @Tim will send you RMA instructions.
Can you suggest some further diagnostics that I can perform to narrow this down? I have considerable electronics experience. Peter
That is not practical, unfortunately. It would take an engineer a couple of hours to put together a subset of the test procedure documents that you could understand, and you wouldn't want to pay the hourly rate. Plus a nondisclosure agreement would be required.
We definitely can service it. The only way to determine the cost is to get it back and diagnose the problem. If you want to return it, @Tim can provide RMA instructions.
To send it in, please submit the following RMA contact form. Once I receive it, I can provide you with an RMA number and return instructions. http://diffractionlimited.com/request-rma
