This Guy Watercooled His Canon R5 and Unlocked Unlimited 8K

The Canon R5’s overheating time restrict has been the topic of a lot dialogue and controversy. No matter how or why the overheating occurs, Matthew Perks over at DIY Perks has provide you with an uncommon mod that really works to repair it: he watercooled his digicam.

Utilizing water to take away warmth is frequent in all the things from high-end computer systems to automobile internals, but it surely’s not one thing you hear about on the subject of shopper or skilled cameras.

The Canon R5 can shoot round 20 minutes of 8K video cumulatively earlier than it overheats and desires as much as 2 hours to chill down sufficient to file one other 20 minutes. Whereas this restrict could not have an effect on informal customers, it may be a deal-breaker for extra skilled makes use of.

After utilizing a thermal digicam and noticing a hotspot showing on the again of his digicam throughout video recording, Matt opened up the R5 and examined the rear internals. He discovered that the digicam’s important processor is the perpetrator that generates an excessive amount of warmth throughout recording and that the thermal pads overlaying the processor don’t appear to be positioned very effectively.

For the reason that processor is positioned underneath an influence board and the digicam’s again panel, Matt determined to make use of a skinny strip of copper to tug warmth away from the processor, out of the digicam, and to a watercooling system. It’s not precisely moveable or stunning, but it surely’s purposeful.

When he examined the digicam, although, it nonetheless shut down after 20 minutes with the overheating warning regardless of the processor not being too sizzling in any respect.

This experiment appears to substantiate that the overheating time restrict is predicated on a timer somewhat than a thermal sensor, which is one thing that has been broadly mentioned on the Internet after it was discovered that resetting the timer may lengthen the digicam’s recording time.

Canon responded to the controversy by pushing out a firmware replace that modifications how the R5 displays inside temperatures.

Matt had been operating the outdated firmware in his first check, and after updating his firmware from v1.0.0 to v1.1.1, his R5 instantly seemingly had no recording time restrict — Matt recorded for over 4 hours with none type of warning and with out the temperature getting out of hand.

With out the watercooling, the digicam may solely file for six extra minutes (25 vs 19) utilizing the newer firmware.

Having confirmed that correct cooling could make all of the distinction, Matt got down to discover a extra compact resolution for extending his digicam’s recording instances. By making a customized inside copper warmth plate, a customized rear-mounted warmth sink, and a customized exterior base-mounted fan, Matt was nonetheless in a position to cool the digicam down the identical quantity.

The copper plate alone supplies 39 minutes of recording at room temperature, the addition of a base-mounted fan supplies limitless recording at room temperature, and the addition of the rear-mounted warmth sink supplies limitless recording at increased ambient temperatures.

“We’re left with a digicam that not solely has a lot improved 8K video file instances however one that may be paired with some easy selfmade attachments that permit it to reliably file on this mode for a limiteless size of time, making it a very distinctive video creation software,” Matt says.

Matt additionally believes that Canon may have designed the digicam to dump the warmth towards the underside of the digicam after which offered a separate base attachment for videographers that gives vastly prolonged recording instances.

Watch the video above to see how Matt’s mods have been executed. You will discover extra of Matt’s movies on his ultra-popular YouTube channel, DIY Perks.

Because of Eros Peterson for sending on this tip.