Weird offset/bias frame with Atik 16HR

[apricot]

Hi everybody,

I'm new to this forum, but have been happy using a good old Atik 16hr for a while.

Recently I noticed that the camera rendered strange offset/bias frames, resulting in clearly visible artifacts in the calibrated image.

Here is an exemple of a raw (non-composited) offset/bias:



Stats from Iris software:
Mean : 1412.4 Median : 1432 Sigma : 638.4 Max : 2888.0 Min: 237.0

To be compared with a typical offset/bias from another 16hr camera kindly provided by another user:



Mean : 419.9 Median : 411 Sigma : 83.3 Max : 1918.0 Min : 212.0

Even worse, when I take series of offsets/bias, sometimes I get this :



I tried swapping the 12v cable, USB cable, tried using two different portable batteries, two different computers (win XP, artemis capture and drivers freshly installed from Atik website), at room temperature or cold outside, with the same results.

Looks like the camera is failing ... ?  Any advice ?

Thanks in advance, clear skies !

[ruitripa]

Hi

It seems that the sensor may have lost contact with the peltier module. Was the camera dropped or did it suffer any impact?

[apricot]

It seems that the sensor may have lost contact with the peltier module. Was the camera dropped or did it suffer any impact?

Hello, thanks for your response.
No, I did not drop or shock the camera, but maybe the previous owner ? If it is the peltier module, could it be fixed or replaced ?