Pyxis with really big chips: KAF-6303E!

Piotr Kucharski implemented a camera using a KAF-6303E chip (3088 x 2056 pixels, 27.65 x 18.48 mm) with slight modification of the Pyxis main CCD board (May 2006). This feat required much rerouting of the CCD signals via patch wires - but he has proven that it is possible without designing a new board! Initial noise levels obtained by Kucharski appear to be in the same range as those found by myself for the KAF401E and KAF-1602ME CCDs.

The gate capacitance for the vertical gates V1 and V2 on the KAF-6303 is a whopping 820 nF. The CMOS clock drivers on the Pyxis board are capable of driving even these large capacitive loads at the required speed. Piotr claims to have had a total budget of $500 for his camera... you probably won't be as lucky as he was in obtaining parts freely and cheap! I don't even want to think or say how much I spent developing the Pyxis camera!

The pictures below are courtesy of Piotr from May 2006. Many thanks to Piotr for making all work of documenting and posting the information for this project purposeful - I really thought for a while I was going to be the last person to build this camera! Thanks too for troubleshooting the original posting of my board and software.

Look forward to seeing some pictures from him soon!

Not quite plug-in compatible with the KAF401/1602 Pyxis CCD board... Just a little rerouting! Very neat and tidy actually.

A close-up of the gorgeous KAF-6303 CCD. Note the temperature sensor attached directly to the CCD.

View of Kucharski's controller board and CCD housing. Note the use of SMB jacks for the CCD signal (this is preferable to BNC jacks because of the smaller footprint and cable). A CCD temperature of -15 Celcius is obtained using forced air cooling and a 2-stage peltier element.

...Oh and the clocks look nice too. Can't wait to see some images out of this camera!